Just a small piece of insurance.
Proof of where he stood if and when Kelcey was ever arrested for assaulting Tamara. Not that Anders Senior would let the matter go that far. To save “My Boy” embarrassment and a possible prison term, he would be happy to settle out of court.
“Any hard feelings?” he asked.
“No,” Kelcey said. “No hard feelings.”
Renner realized he’d spilled their drinks when he’d pulled Kelcey over the table. He started to tell Tony to bring them two more when old man Manners hustled into the lounge and came up to the table.
“The sheriff wants to see you right away,” the old man said.
Renner stood up. “About what?”
The old man ran his hand under his nose. “The way I get it some drunk drove off a cliff. Some drunk and a girl, Bill said. And she’s half nekid and bleeding and both of them still in the car.”
“Who is she?” Kelcey asked.
The old man shook his head. “The sheriff didn’t say.” He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I suppose when they do open the highway we’ll get a lot of that sort of business.” He added dubiouly, “If we’re still here.”
“We’ll be here,” Renner assured him.
Two
AS RENNER WALKED out on the concrete apron of the station, Bill Prichard was using the gauge on one of the two air hoses to check the pressure in the right rear tire of the three-month-old black and white police car the Murietta County Commissioners had purchased to enable the sheriff’s department to handle the heavy traffic everyone had assumed would be crowding the new highway by now.
Renner squatted down beside him. “What’s up?”
Sheriff Prichard added more air to the tire. “A tow job, I think. If you want it.”
By custom if not by law the sheriff’s department was supposed to turn all tow jobs over to the Anders-owned garage in Mission Bay. Renner appreciated the tip.
“Thanks. Who cracked up, Bill?”
Prichard shook his head. “I haven’t any idea. But according to the paisano who phoned in, it’s a mess. You know where the south-bound lanes curve in toward the cliff, just this side of the county road leading down to old 101?”
“I do.”
“Well, that’s where they went over. The paisano said the car is down the slope about thirty feet, with some gray-haired old Joe and a blonde girl still pinned in the wreckage. And her with her clothes halfway up to her neck and blood all over everything.”
The arch of Renner’s mouth hurt him. It felt like invisible fingers were tying knots in his groin. Then he forced himself to be calm, to breath normally. True, Tamara was blonde, naturally blonde, but she couldn’t be the girl in the car. Tamara was coming on the local bus that made connections with the through bus from Los Angeles at the Greyhound bus stop in Cove Springs.
“Are they alive?” he asked.
Prichard hung up the air hose. “I can tell that better after I get there. You want the job or not? It could be a nice tow fee. Or the car can be a total wreck and you’ll have the trip for nothing.”
Before Renner could answer him, Kelcey came out of the lounge and staggered up to the police car. “What’s this about some drunk driving a girl over a cliff?”
“A blonde girl,” Manners said. “Just this side of the old beach road.”
“Good,” Kelcey said. “I’ll go see.”
He staggered back to his sports car, flopped down in the bucket seat and blasted across the cut-over strip in front of the station.
“Me and my big mouth,” Manners said.
Prichard dusted the knee of his uniform trousers. “I could have stopped him, but I didn’t. I guess I’m always kind of hopeful that some night he’ll go over a cliff.”
“There’s always that chance,” Renner said.
Prichard got into his car and turned on the ignition. “You want the job or not?”
Renner made an instant decision. With Kelcey gone there was no longer any need for him to wait for Angel’s bus. He would have to stage the meeting between Kelcey and Tamara a little differently than he’d planned. “You go on ahead,” he told Prichard. “I’ll back out the truck and be there almost as soon as you are. And thanks for thinking of me, Bill.”
The little things again. Being appreciative. Standing in well with the law.
It was the first time he’d used the tow truck. It was a big white job with a revolving red light and a siren and gold lettering on both of the doors.
As he backed it out of the wash shed where it had been parked to keep the salt in the air from pitting the chrome, two of the couples in the lounge came out and one of the girls asked, “What’s all the excitement, Mr. Renner?”
Renner told her.
“I know the spot,” the youth with the girl said. “They ought to put guard rails there.” He added, earnestly, “They’ll have to when they open the highway.”
When they open the highway. The five words haunted Renner.
The news of the accident spread. As he tried the winch on the truck to make certain it was working, the remaining customers in the lounge came out and clustered around him. One of them was the little brunette in the too-tight blue jeans.
“That’s a pretty truck, Mr. Renner,” she smiled.
She had a cute little figure. Renner started to ask her her name but before he could the youth with her took her arm and walked her over to his car. Renner didn’t blame him. The punk wasn’t dumb. He knew something good when he had it.
Satisfied with the performance of the winch he climbed into the cab of the truck. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told Manners. “If anyone should ask for me tell them to wait.”
“I’ll do that,” the old man said.
The drivers of four other cars parked in front of the lounge followed the truck across the cut-over to the northbound lanes but gradually fell behind as Renner increased his speed. The whip of the wind felt good. He turned on the revolving red light and then the siren for kicks, warning no one out of his way, doing seventy then seventy-five miles an hour.
As he drove he, totaled what tangible assets he had left, cash in the bank and negotiable bonds. If he played his cards close to his belt, with what little money the lounge and the station brought in from local trade, he could meet his payroll and bank payments for two months. After that, unless he could put over the fast one he was planning, put a quick bite on the Anders money, the bank and suppliers and jobbers would have to split up the court between them.
Leaving him with nothing.
Back in the same old squirrel cage.
He mentally checked his original calculations. Few people realized just how profitable a combination tourist court and lounge and filling station could be. Figuring full capacity in the eighteen units, at fifteen dollars a night, totaled two hundred and seventy dollars a day. There were three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, for annual total of ninety-eight thousand five hundred and fifty dollars. So that was gross. Even figuring in interest and insurance and taxes and upkeep, half of the take on the units was clear profit. Say roughly fifty thousand dollars. Doing minimum normal business, using accepted small business surveys as a premise, the lounge and the restaurant and the station should net twenty thousand more. Fifty and twenty were seventy. Seventy thousand dollars net to him. A fortune. He could cut the rate on his units in half and only do half of capacity business and still pay off the court in ten years.