Romance Classics (36 page)

“Why, you young hoodlum!” Wayde said savagely, and took a step toward the boy, who retreated and put up a defensive hand.

“You got no business leaving the car in the drive with the key in the switch if you don’t want folks to drive it,” the boy snarled. “I didn’t hurt it none. I drive
good.
”

Sheriff Tait said quietly, “The car wasn’t damaged, I’m glad to say. No telling what might have happened, though, if somebody hadn’t recognized the car and reported to us. Of course, Larry Holland’s own car is a beat-up jalopy. I suppose finding your convertible with the keys in the switch was more temptation than he could resist.”

“But the car was here in my drive,” Wayde protested hotly. He turned to the boy. “How did you get it?”

Larry’s sullen young mouth twisted in a faint grin.

“Just took the brakes off and let it roll down the drive’s all,” he answered sulkily. “It was your own fault.”

“Shut up, Larry, or I’ll belt you one.” The sheriff tossed the threat over his shoulder, then addressed himself to Wayde. “Kid’s been in trouble before, Mr. McCullers. He’s on probation. Judge Carter takes an interest in the kids and tries to give ‘em a break. Larry’d be in reform school now if it hadn’t been for the Judge; and if you want to prefer charges against him for taking your car, that’s where he’ll go. And maybe be a good thing, too.”

Wayde studied the sullen face, the murky, hate-filled eyes; and somehow it seemed to him that far back in those eyes there was a plea the boy’s angry pride would not let him articulate.

“Who is he?” Wayde asked the sheriff.

“Larry Holland,” Sheriff Tait answered. “His father runs a tavern just outside the limits of Rivertown. The kid’s mother died when he was a little shaver; his father just about worships the kid and can’t be as tough on him as he should be. It was his father that managed to persuade Judge Carter to get the kid put on probation instead of sending him to reform school.”

Wayde studied the boy again, and after a moment he said, “Well, if Judge Carter feels there’s a chance for the boy, I won’t prefer charges. Not this time, anyway. But you watch your step after this, boy. If ever you lay a finger on anything that belongs to me again, you’ll find yourself in a reformatory so fast it won’t even be funny. Is that clear?”

Larry’s face was pale with fury beneath its dark sun-tan and his eyes were bitter. But he mumbled a word that could have been mistaken for thanks as he turned and lounged toward the door.

Sheriff Tait watched him as he walked through the door, and then he turned back to Wayde.

“Tell you the truth, Mr. McCullers,” he admitted slowly. “I don’t know whether we’re doing the right thing or not, letting the kid go. Maybe a stretch in reform school might straighten him out; on the other hand, it could turn him into a hardened criminal. But it was your car, so if you want to let him go, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Wayde nodded thoughtfully.

“You said there was no damage to the car, and after all, a kid like that could easily be tempted by a fine car, if he’s accustomed to driving a beat-up jalopy, as you described it,” he said. “I suppose he felt pretty important, loading the car up with his friends.”

Sheriff Tait grinned in relief.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand that, Mr. McCullers,” he admitted. “You see, Larry’s on probation; he has to be home and off the streets by eleven, and some of the others razz him about that. So driving a fine car and telling the other kids that you’d loaned it to him set him up in their eyes. And to a kid like Larry, that’s very important.”

“I can see that,” Wayde admitted, smiling at the picture. “And when you stopped him and arrested him, I suppose that deflated him again.”

“Oh, no, he kept insisting you’d loaned him the car, and I suppose the others thought so, too. Or at least they’d pretend they did,” Sheriff Tait grinned. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time, Mr. McCullers. Thanks for seeing us. I hope your dinner isn’t spoiled.”

“Thank you for looking after my property, sheriff,” Wayde told him. “I suppose I couldn’t offer you a drink?”

“Well, no, not with Larry in my custody!” Sheriff Tait grinned.

“Some other time, then.” Wayde shook hands with him and said good night.

A moment later, Sheriff Tait was marshaling Larry into his car, and they were driving off.

“You owe Mr. McCullers a heap of thanks, Larry,” Sheriff Tait began sternly.

“Him?” Larry jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the house they were leaving. “I don’t owe him anything.”

“You owe him the fact that you’re not on the way to reform school right this minute,” snapped the sheriff, “where you’d have been a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Judge Carter.”

“It sure burns you up that you can’t clap me into a chain gang and turn the guards loose on me with a leather strap, don’t it?” sneered Larry.

Sheriff Tait turned on him fiercely. His hands gripped the steering wheel and his foot trod hard on the accelerator, lest he forget himself and give this smart-aleck kid the trouncing he was obviously spoiling for.

“You keep on the way you’re going, you little punk, and the chain gang will get you soon as you’re old enough,” he ground out through his clenched teeth.

The car whipped through Rivertown, and as they approached the limits, where the county line marked the boundary, Larry leaned forward swiftly and touched the button that released the car’s siren. It screamed furiously through the night, and Sheriff Tait swore under his breath as he stopped it.

“Giving your old man a warning so hell be sure to be obeying the law by the time we get to the tavern?” he barked.

“Why not?” sneered Larry. “You got nothing on him.”

“If I catch him breaking the Sunday laws about the sale of alcoholic beverages …”

“You won’t! My old man’s one smart cookie,” Larry drawled infuriatingly.

The tavern was set back from the road, with ample parking space in front, and a neon sign above it glared in reds and blues and greens: “Home of Good Eats. Beer. Cabins.”

Sheriff Tait drove in to the parking space, got out and barked, “Well, come on, you little punk.”

As they stepped through the swinging doors, a blast from the jukebox struck their ears, and Larry, a few steps behind the sheriff, grinned wickedly as the big man in a not too clean apron stopped wiping the bar and came forward.

“Well, now, if it isn’t Sheriff Tait. What can I do for you, sheriff?” Jim Holland’s voice was unctuously polite, yet his eyes, as they met his son’s across Sheriff Tait’s broad back, held an anxious look. “How about a hamburger? Best in the county.”

“Jim, your son was caught driving one of Wayde McCullers’ cars,” Sheriff Tait began ominously, “without McCullers’ permission.”

“That so, son?” asked Jim genially.

“McCullers told me I could,” Larry insisted self-righteously. “And then he changed his mind and notified the sheriff here to pick me up and swore he didn’t know me.”

“Why, that—” Jim’s epithet was unprintable.

“Hold it, Jim,” Sheriff Tait ordered. “You know, of course, what could happen, what
would
happen, if McCullers wanted to press charges? Stealing a car can be a pretty serious offense for a kid who’s been in trouble as often as Larry.”

“A kid that’s been rode ragged by every two-cent cop and deputy in the whole danged county, just because he’s my kid,” Jim burst in heatedly. “You know as well as I do, Tait, that Larry’s a good boy. You’re making trouble for him, all of you, just because he’s my kid. Why don’t you go after me, if you’re so bothered by me and my tavern? I pay my taxes and renew my license every year and do a nice business of handing out presents come Christmas. How ‘bout that ham I sent you and your family? How about the Christmas baskets I give the poor? How about the nice fat checks some of the Rivertown police find in their socks Christmas morning? How about the donations I make to the policemen’s fund for widows and orphans? No, you got to ride my kid because you can’t get nothing on me.”

Larry was beside his father now, smiling, triumphantly malicious.

Sheriff Tait glanced about the room. The cacophony of the jukebox was deafening, but he dared not hope that it had been loud enough to keep most of the people from hearing Jim’s loud, angry voice.

Without a word, because he couldn’t trust himself to speak, and without another glance at Larry, he turned and strode out of the tavern and back to his car.

“Gee, Dad, you sure told him off,” Larry boasted, an arm about his father’s ample shoulders.

“Did McCullers tell you you could drive his car, son?” Jim demanded.

Larry’s eyes were limpid with innocence.

“Why, sure he did, Dad. You don’t think I’d lie to
you,
do you?”

“Well,
why’d
he do it then?” Jim insisted.

“You mean have the sheriff pick me up?”

“Why would he want to let you drive his car? How come he’s all of a sudden so fond of you he’d let you?” Jim insisted, and Larry saw the flicker of doubt in his father’s stern eyes.

“Oh, I dunno,” Larry hesitated. “Guess maybe it was because when I saw him over in Rivertown this afternoon, I was looking at the car and I guess he seen how I liked it. He sort of grinned and said, ‘How’d you like to drive her, son?’ And I said, ‘Oh, boy, do you mean it?’ And he said, ‘Why not? I’ll leave it in the drive for you when I get home and you can pick it up when you’re ready.’ ”

“How come he didn’t drive you home with him and then let you take the car? How come he made you walk all that way just so’s you could drive the car?”

Larry’s eyes dropped and he looked oddly confused. For the first time his words were not flowing smoothly.

“Oh, when he said that I told him it was a long way from Rivertown to Spook Hill, and he sort of laughed and said, ‘Hop in, kid, and I’ll drive to the Hill, and then you can take the car and pick up some of your pals. But mind you, only for an hour or so, and you must be very careful.’ And I was, Dad, I sure was.”

Jim scowled at him, unwilling not to believe him.

“So then after you’d started off, he called Sheriff Tait and had you picked up?” he demanded. “Claimed you’d stole his ear?”

“Oh, no,” Larry insisted. “Sheriff Tait saw me when we crossed the county line, and I s’pose he wanted to make some time with Mr. McCullers, so he made the kids get out and took me to Spook Hill. And Mr. McCullers swore he’d never seen me before and that he hadn’t given me permission to drive. And he told me what terrible things he’d do to me if I ever set foot on his property again.”

Jim’s face darkened with rage, and he turned to the interested listeners.

“How do ya like that McCullers guy?” he demanded. “Telling my kid to drive his car. Taking him home with him and handing the car over and then telling Tait he didn’t do it? I ask you! How do ya
like
that guy?”

“A dirty trick, Jim,” someone said.

There were angry murmurs of assent, and Larry breathed freely and expanded almost visibly in the friendly atmosphere of their approval. It wasn’t often that the people of Rivertown approved of him; and Larry always yearned to be the center of attention. It was a heady draught and one that boded little good for the future. Jim was so thoroughly incensed at the treatment of his son, so convinced that every word Larry had spoken had been the truth, that he was easily convinced most of the troubles and the scrapes that had given Larry a bad name both in Rivertown and in Oakville had been just such lies. Larry was a good kid, Jim told himself, and it was because of his father’s business that people gave his such a raw deal. And Jim began mentally going over his assets to see if by some means he could manage a Cadillac convertible for the boy. Oh, not right away, of course, because Larry couldn’t get a driver’s license until he was sixteen, and that was more than a year away. By that time, Jim promised himself, he’d have the money put aside to buy him a car as nearly like Wayde McCullers’ as he could manage.

Ruth came out of her room, looking cool and fresh and attractive in a thin gray dress, a white hat crowning her brown hair.

Lynn, across the hall, cool and dainty in a yellow linen sheath, eyed her mother with approval.

“You look like a picture of the perfect clubwoman just escaped from any fashion magazine,” she announced.

“Why, thank you, dear,” Ruth smiled at her. “You don’t look bad yourself. Where are you off to?”

“Oh, I thought I’d chauffeur you up to the Hill,” Lynn answered blithely.

“Well, that’s sweet of you, dear,” Ruth smiled. “You can take the car then, and I’m sure Mamie will find someone to bring me home.”

“Oh, I’ll wait for you and bring you home,” Lynn said airily. “I’ll have a chat with Wayde while I’m waiting.”

Ruth looked startled and faintly apprehensive.

“Now, Lynn, you’re not going to pick another fight with him?” she protested.

“I resent that!” Lynn said haughtily. “I didn’t pick our last fight. It was all his fault, evey single bit of it.”

“Well, if you’re going visiting, I
do
hope you’ll behave yourself,” Ruth answered worriedly. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to see him again after the way you treated him yesterday.”

Lynn hesitated thoughtfully.

“It was something Steve said while we were doing dishes yesterday,” she confessed, and added hurriedly, “I can’t tell you about it now. It’s too silly. But — well, I have to find out for myself if there was any truth in it.”

“Well, I haven’t the faintest idea what it was, but I feel sure if Steve said it, it must be true,” Ruth told her. “I have the utmost confidence in Steve. I don’t think he’d know how to lie. Not convincingly, anyway.”

“You kind of like the guy, don’t you?”

“I am very fond of Steve,” Ruth said firmly. “You would be, too, if you knew him as well as I do. Well, if we’re going, shall we get started? I have a suspicion that Mamie takes a nap in the afternoons, and I want to get there before she settles down for it.”

“Yessum,” said Lynn meekly, and arm in arm they went out to the car and got into it.

Lynn lifted her head and sniffed delightedly as the car wound its way up the steep hill that was crowned by the big, grim old gray house.