There was literally nothing on his mind at the moment but the luxurious,
satisfied feeling of being off somewhere with grass and a lake and
Sally, and a good part of the afternoon to throw away. It felt good. So
he lifted the lid of the lunch basket.
There was a revolver there. It was the other one from the glove
compartment of the car. Sally hadn't left it behind. Joe regarded it and
said ironically: "Happy, carefree youth--that's us! Which are the ham
sandwiches, Sally?"
8
Nevertheless, the afternoon began splendidly. Joe dunked the bottled
soft drinks in the lake to cool. Then he and Sally ate and talked and
laughed. Joe, in particular, had more than the usual capacity for
enjoyment today. He'd been through twenty-four hours of turmoil but now
things began to look better. And there was the arrangement with Sally,
which had a solid satisfactoriness about it. Sally was swell! If she'd
been homely, Joe would have liked her just the same--to talk to and to
be with. But she was pretty--and she was wearing his ring. She'd wrapped
some string around the inside of the band to make it fit.
The only trouble was that Joe was occasionally conscious of the heavy
weight in his right-hand coat pocket.
But they spent at least an hour in contented, satisfying, meaningless
loafing that nobody can describe but that everybody likes to remember
afterward. From time to time Joe looked ashore, when the weight in his
pocket reminded him of danger.
But he didn't look often enough. He was pulling the chilled soft-drink
bottles out of the lake when he saw a movement out of the corner of his
eye. He whirled, his hand in his pocket....
It was the Chief, with Haney and Mike the midget. They were striding
across the rocky small peninsula.
Haney called sharply: "Everything okay?"
"Sure!" said Joe. "Everything's fine! What's the matter?"
"Mike had a hunch," said the Chief. "And--uh--I remembered I worked on
the job when this dam was built twelve-fifteen years ago." He looked
about him. "It looked different then."
Then he caught Joe's eye and jerked his head almost imperceptibly to one
side. Joe caught the signal.
"I'll see about some more soft drinks," he said. "Come help me fish up
the bottles."
Sally smiled at the other two. She was already inspecting the lunch
basket.
"We still have some sandwiches," she said hospitably, "and some cake."
Haney came forward awkwardly. Mike advanced toward her with something of
truculence. Joe knew what was in his mind. If Sally treated him like a
freak.... But Joe knew with deep satisfaction that she wouldn't. He went
down to the water's edge.
"What's up, Chief?" he asked in a low tone.
"Mike hadda hunch," rumbled the Chief. "Somebody tried to smash the
stuff you brought. They did. But we started gettin' set to mend it. So
what would they do? Polish us off. If they were set to atom-dust the
whole Shed an' everybody in it, they wouldn't stop at four more
murders."
Joe fished for a pop bottle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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