The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

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СКАЧАТЬ That part of it is beyond me, Spurling. All I can do is tell you what’s wrong with the boy, and recommend the treatment. He’s positively got to have a change of climate, or—well—”

      And the case had stood right there. T.B. No cash to be had, no job, nothing to borrow on. And Bill, hardly sixteen, and their only child.

      “Judas!” Spurling had cried. “What a hell of a rough toss!”

      His fist, hard clenched, had seemed knotted against whatever gods there be.

      And now, this job! Incredible, yet true. Things, after all, sometimes happened like that. Tim Spurling and his wife, silent a moment in the untidy dreariness of their little kitchen, eyed each other and felt hope reborn. This new job; did it not mean a chance for Bill?

      “There, there, Blanche old kid! Don’t cry!”

      Spurling went round the table and clumsily patted her shoulder.

      “What’s there to cry for now, baby? Things is beginnin’ to come right for us, now, ain’t they? We’re beginnin’ to get the breaks at last, ain’t we?”

      “Yes,” she admitted. “But say, Timmy, how’d you happen to get this here job, anyhow, I wonder?”

      The diver scratched his unshaven chin; a square chin and a hard one.

      “Search me! Reckon maybe it’s ’cause I’m the nearest diver to Crystal Lake they could get hold of.”

      “Yes, that’s prob’ly the reason.”

      “Here, what you cryin’ for, now?”

      “I’m not crying, Tim! That’s just something that got in my eye.”

      Blanche dried her eyes on her apron, then reached for Tim’s hand a moment, and held it clasped in both her own hands, roughened by dishwater and the washtub. Her caress was awkward. Lack of practice, in the matter of caresses, had made it so.

      Silence fell. Through that silence a muffled cough echoed from the next room—an ominous, deadly sound.

      “But we’ll soon fix all that now, kid,” Spurling growled. “Job like this will bring a hell of a lot o’ dough.”

      “How much, Timmy?”

      “Hundred a day, at the very least. Maybe more. Depends on how much the stiff’s family’s got. Even though I got to pay my helper ten or twelve bucks per, there’ll be a swell clean-up.”

      “Who you going to take along for a helper?”

      “Jim McTaggart. He’s ’bout the only guy I’ll trust to handle the pump and hose for me. When you’re down on the bottom and your life depends on another guy bein’ steady and reliable, the best ain’t none too good!”

      “That’s right, too,” Blanche agreed. “Oh, if anything was to happen to you— But tell me, how many days’ll you need, to find—it?”

      “How do I know? Depends on a lot o’ things. Size o’ the lake, how deep, and the like o’ that. This here job—if I have any kind o’ luck—might run into thick kale.”

      Silence again. Blanche broke in.

      “That there telegraph boy, out at the front door. He’s waiting.”

      “Yeah, that’s right. Gotta send an answer, ain’t I?”

      Tim fished out a pencil from his pocket. Bending over the disordered table, he scrawled on the yellow blank: Leaving at once. T.H. Spurling.

      * * * *

      Three hours later Tim Spurling and Jim McTaggart stepped onto the platform of the little station at Crystal Lake. He and Jim helped unload the diving gear from the baggage car, also the air pump. Two huge boxes contained this equipment, at which a duly impressed little knot of people gazed with silent wonder.

      “Take you out to the lake, four miles,” said a loose-lipped man with a small truck. “Mr. Eccles—him that had his son drownded—told me to git you out there.”

      “Oh, all right,” Spurling agreed. “Gimme a hand and we’ll load the stuff.”

      When he and McTaggart and the truckman had loaded the equipment they got aboard, McTaggart sitting on the boxes in the truck body. Out of the village they jolted and away into the hills.

      “Terrible thing to happen, ain’t it?” asked Spurling.

      “Sure is,” the truckman agreed. “Havin’ millions, like old man Eccles, don’t pervent trouble. Only kid he’s got, too.”

      “Yeah, I heard about it on the train. Only sixteen years old, they was tellin’ me. Yest’day p.m. They say he was a good swimmer. Quite a champ. He dove off a raft and never come up. Must of got a cramp or somethin’.”

      “I reckon so,” assented the truckman. “Say, buddy.” His voice lowered. “I got a few words fer you before we git out to the lake. Can I talk to you confidential-like?”

      “Why, sure. What’s on your chest?” Spurling’s blue eye showed surprise. “What’s the idea?”

      “This here is just fer you, see? Not him!” The driver’s tone was below the hearing of McTaggart, on those boxes in the rear of the jolting, rattling truck. “How’d you like to clean up a nice little bundle o’ jack?”

      “Jack? What you mean, jack?”

      “A real bundle, that’s what I mean.”

      “Sure I’d like it,” Spurling asserted. “That’s what I’m here for—big wages.”

      “Ah, I don’t mean wages!” scornfully said the truckman, as they struck into a pine-arched road through forested hills. “How much they goin’ to slip you fer this here job?”

      “Well, four, five hundred bucks, maybe, dependin’ on how long it takes me to bring up the stiff. They ain’t easy to locate.”

      “Hell, that ain’t a bundle! That’s jest chicken feed. S’posin’ you seen a way to grab off ten times that—five G’s. How ’bout that?”

      “Five G’s! Holy cripes, man! What’re you talkin’ about?”

      “Pipe down!” the truckman warned. “If he gets wise,” and the truckman nodded backward, “it’s all off. This has got to be a man-to-man deal, ’tween me and you. Say, buddy, can I talk cold turkey and be sure you won’t blow it?”

      “Sure you can—though I ain’t agreein’ to nothin’ till I know what’s what.”

      “And not to blame, neither. Well, anyhow, it’s like this. If you go down and make all the motions of tryin’ to find the body, but don’t find it, don’t let it never be found at—”

      “You mean,” cut in Spurling, his heart beginning to pound, “you mean you’ll slide me five grand?”

      “Yeah. СКАЧАТЬ