Authors: Edward Abbey
“Right,” the operator said. He shuffled through the papers on his table. “Here we are: two Navajos, cousins, names Reed and Joe Watahomagie, address given as Tuba City, Arizona, occupation stockmen, convicted of drunk and disorderly conduct and improper approaches to white woman on a bus, Mrs. Florabel Minnebaugh, aged fifty-two. Sentenced—”
“Menopause?”
“Minnebaugh. Sentenced to ninety days flat, six days served before escape. Physical description: Reed W., aged thirty, five foot ten, one hundred forty-five pounds, black hair, brown eyes—”
“Yeah, I know,” Johnson said; “Navajos. Now how about the white fella.”
“Right. John W. Burns, no address, occupation cattle herder, convicted of drunk and disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, also being held for investigation on suspicion of draft delinquency, sentenced to ten days pending result of investigation, one day served before escape. Physical description: Age twenty-nine, six feet
two, one hundred seventy pounds, black hair, gray eyes, dark complexion, nose slightly misshapen as probable result of old injury.”
“That kind of a guy,” the sheriff said. He readjusted his bulk in the creaking swivel chair, pulled out a lower drawer in the desk and put one booted foot in it. He chewed on his ball of gum. “Draft delinquency…?” He chewed on that for a minute. “Put in a call to the FBI office. See if they’ve got a dossier cm this character.” The operator turned toward his radio panel. Johnson said: “Any of those boys have a previous record?”
The operator checked his clipboard. “Not in this state,” he said.
“Okay.” Johnson swung around in his chair and hoisted himself to his feet. “Go ahead with that call,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He opened a door marked PRIVATE, stepped inside, closed and locked the door behind him. He belched comfortably, rubbed his nose, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and lowered his trousers and sat down cm the toilet. He waited, chewing his gum, breathing through his relaxed mouth. He raised his eyes to the calendar on the wall.
When he returned to the office he found the operator dunking a pecan roll in a cup of coffee; beside him sat Deputy Floyd Glynn in a khaki uniform, gun and badge. There was black coffee and a roll on his desk, waiting for him, and the receiver of his private, unlisted telephone lying off the hook.
“Barker wants to talk to you,” the operator said.
Johnson sat down, spat his wad into the wastebasket, took a sip of coffee and picked up the phone. “This is Johnson,” he said.
The machine buzzed and clicked in his ear. “Took, Morey,” it said, “we’re all set. I’ve been down to the Federal Building this morning: the FHA is gonna back up the loan. We can go ahead right away; I’ve got three subdivisions lined up on the north side of Minolas
Boulevard.” The machine paused, silent except for a dim metallic static, “Morey?” it said.
“Yes?”
“You’re still interested, aren’t you?”
“Sure—I guess so. Only I don’t understand about the FHA.”
“Listen, you dumb Swede, the FHA guarantees the loan. It’s simple: we get the money from the bank—we hire a contractor and we build—we pay off the contractor—we keep the difference between the cost and the full amount of the loan and take a trip to the Riviera.”
“We still have to pay it all back, don’t we?”
“Sure—we get twenty years to pay it back.”
“Well… Where’s it come from?”
“The rent, you dumb farmer. The tenants pay it back. The FHA fixes the rent, depending on the type of apartment, and allows so much extra a year for installments on the loan, plus a seven percent net.” Johnson made no reply; the machine said: “Look, Morey, meet me for lunch and I’ll explain it all to you. With pictures.”
“I’m kind of busy today…”
“That’s all right, this is important. You got to eat anyway, don’t you?”
Johnson hesitated. “Okay. Okay—m see you then.”
“Same place, same time?” said the machine.
“Yeah… So long, Bob.” Johnson hung up. He drank some coffee and took a big bite from his pecan roll; the radio operator and Deputy Glynn watched him. “What’d you find out?” Johnson said, staring at the blotter on his desk, his cheeks bulging, holding the coffee mug under his chin. He set down the roll and scratched the inside of his left thigh.
“The FBI is interested in this guy Burns,” the operator said. He picked up a notepad and read: “John W. Burns, Socorro, New Mexico.”
“Socorro?”
“That’s what it says here.”
“I thought he didn’t have an address?”
“They said Socorro.”
“Okay, go on.”
The operator read: “John W. Burns, Socorro, New Mex. Born 1920, Joplin, Missouri. Moved 1932 to residence of Henry Vogelin, stockman, R.D. #3, Socorro, New Mex. Drafted at Socorro, March 15, 1942. Served five months in U.S. Army Disciplinary Training Center, Pisa, Italy, for striking superior officer, April 22, 1944.”
“What happened between March 1942 and April 1944?”
“They didn’t say.” The operator continued: “Wounded in action, November 4, 1944, discharged February 10, 1945 at Fort Dix, New Jersey.”
“What’s all that to the FBI?” Johnson said; he put his foot up on the desk drawer again.
“How should I know?” the operator said. “They didn’t say.”
“All right.” Johnson unwrapped a stick of chewing gum. “What else? Is that all?”
“There’s more.” The operator read: “Admitted to State University, Duke City, New Mex., September 15, 1945. Known to have attended secret meetings of so-called Anarchist group.”
“So-called what?”
“So-called Anarchist group.” The operator paused.
“What’s that?” Deputy Glynn said.
The operator looked at Sheriff Johnson; Johnson said nothing. The operator said: “I don’t know. They’re against all government, that’s all I know.”
“They’re worse than Communists?”
“I guess so.”
“They have red eyes and they throw bombs,” Sheriff Johnson said. He yawned and scratched his ribs. “Read on,” he said.
The operator read: “In March 1946 was one of five signers of documents posted on University bulletin boards advocating so-called Civil Disobedience to Selec
tive Service and other Federal activities. Left University in mid-term, fall of 1946. Subsequent activities and whereabouts unknown. Failed to register for Selective Service as required in September, 1948, by renewed Selective Service Act. This man is wanted for questioning by FBI,” The operator stopped, drank down the last of his coffee. “That’s all,” he said. “They weren’t too happy to hear about him getting away last night.”
“I reckon not,” Johnson said softly. He chewed his gum, his eyes half closed, unfocused. “Who else signed that so-called document?” he said.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell me.”
“Well find out.” Johnson slumped back in his chair, scratching his umbilicus, while the operator lowered his earphones and busied himself at the board. The inter-com telephone on his desk rang; slowly he picked it up. “Yes?”
His secretary answered: “Mrs. Johnson, sir.”
He scowled. “All right. Put her on.”
The receiver crackled a little, then a feminine voice sharp as a parakeet’s shot through it: “Morlin? Are you there, Morlin?”
“I’m here.” He compressed his lips and ejected the chewing gum violently into the wastebasket; the pellet rattled against the metal and dropped down among the discarded letters, cigarette butts, ashes, old gum wads, crushed paper cups. “What do you want?”
“You don’t sound right,” his wife said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. What do you want?”
“I want you to pick Elinor up after school. She’s staying late.”
“Why?”
“She’s got a part in a play. They’re having a rehearsal after school. Pick up her at five-thirty.”
“Why can’t she take a bus?”
“Why should she? It’s not very far out of your way.
Besides, with these Anarchists and Indian sex-maniacs running around loose—”
“Sex maniacs?”
“Yes. And another thing: I need an extension cord.”
“A what?”
“Extension cord. You know. Pick one up on your way home.”
“All right.”
“Now Morlin, you won’t forget, will you? Remember: Elinor, five-thirty, school, extension cord. Repeat after—”
“Yes! Elinor, five-thirty, school, extension cord. Goodby!” Johnson hung up, muttering heavily. The phone rang again. “Jesus!”—he picked it up, “Yes?”
“Mrs. Johnson is still on the line, sir. She—”
“I’m not here.” He slammed the receiver down, swearing. After this interruption—he unwrapped a stick of gum, threw the paper at the wastebasket and missed—several minutes passed before he could recover his standard placidity. He scowled and grumbled, simmered down finally to a state of glum torpor, scratching listlessly at his belly.
“Morey…?” The radio operator was speaking to him. “Hey, Morey…”
He raised his head and looked at the operator.
The operator stared at him. “Here’s the poop on that document business,” he said, the notepad in his hand. Johnson made no answer. “You wanta hear it?”
Johnson nodded and turned his head back to his desk, his jaws moving ponderously over the gum.
While Deputy Glynn leafed through an old comic book and the sheriff, huge and relaxed in his swivel chair, gave no sign of attention, the operator read his report: “Document in question carried five signatures, to wit: Paul M. Bondi, Jack Burns, H. D. Thoreau, P. B. Shelley, Emiliano Zapata. Last three signatories suspected of being fictitious, as no students bearing such names were then registered at the University.”
Johnson smiled faintly; he reached forward and made
a slight adjustment in the position of the ivory donkey.
“Now they’ve got all kinds of stuff on this Paul M. Bondi,” the operator went on. “Paul M Bondi, Box 424, R.D. 4, Duke City, New Mex. Born 1924, Montclair, New Jersey, son of Lewis P.—”
“Get him,” Johnson said.
“Get him?” the operator said. “Get who?”
“This Paul M. Bondi.”
The operator smiled. “Well hell Morey, we already got him. He’s in the county jail right now. He was one of the guys Gutierrez worked over this morning. He was in the same cell as Burns and the two Navajos when they broke out.”
“Gutierrez what—?”
The operator hesitated. “I said he was one of the guys Gutierrez questioned this morning.”
“What was Gutierrez doing there this morning?—his shift’s supposed to be from four in the afternoon to twelve. Where was Kirk?” Johnson scratched the side of his neck—not so indolently now.
“I don’t know, Morey.”
“I’m gonna have to have a talk with that fella,” Johnson said. He puttered around for a while with the donkey. “What did he find out?”
“I told you—nothin.” The operator waited in his chair. “Want me to tell em to bring this Bondi down?” he asked.
Johnson leaned far back in his squeaking chair; he hooked his thumbs in his belt, let his head hang loosely and closed his eyes. For two or three silent minutes he remained in this contrived but satisfying position. Then he said: “Is that address up to date?”
“What address?”
“This fella’s; Paul M.—whatever it is.”
“I’ll check.” The operator went to the filing cabinet, slid out a drawer and rummaged through an index of manila folders. Johnson waited, sleepily scratching his ear. “Yeah,” the operator said; “Paul M. Bondi, Box
424, R.D. 4, Duke City. That’s the address he had when he had when he was arraigned.”
Johnson sat forward, grunting, and eased himself up and out of his chair. He twiddled with the ivory donkey, then walked slowly to a window and looked out. A grimy newspaper, staggering, rising, collapsing like a dying man, went flopping and sliding by on the sidewalk, chased by a whirling twister of wind and sand and dust. The mountains were still visible beyond the city, but vague and remote, detached from the earth and floating on a yellow haze.
Another dirty day, thought Johnson. He watched a dog—small, tarnished, unlicensed—come trotting up to the courthouse steps, saw it cock one leg and piss on the municipal shrubbery; he watched it sniff eagerly at its own urine glistening on the leaves, then turn and make a second pass.
Good boy, said Johnson to himself, good boy. Now the dog trotted by on the sidewalk under his window with an earnest and purposive air, its ragged coat bristling before the wind. Not a care in the world, thought Johnson, just doesn’t give a good goddamn—He watched it disappear around the corner, headed south toward Mexico.
He faced about and spoke to Deputy Glynn. “Put that comic book away, Floyd, and button your fly. I want you to cruise out to 424, R.D. 4, and see what you can find.”
Glynn complained. “It’ll soon be lunchtime, Morey.”
“That’s all right, You’ve been fattening up all morning. Go on out there and when you get there radio me on the spot. You know how to find it?”
“Sure, Morey, I know. Who’s goin with me?”
“God’s love’ll go with you. Now run along.”
Glynn went out; the private telephone rang and Johnson picked it up. “Johnson speaking.”
“Hi, Morey, this is Ed.”
“Ed?”
“Ed Kimball.”
“Oh—how are you, Ed?”
“Fine, Morey. Say, we’re wondering if you can go out to Lead Hill next Saturday afternoon. The Democratic Club is holding a public picnic and benefit dance for the Miners’ Welfare Association. We want somebody out there to represent the County Committee. Will you go, make a little speech?”
“I don’t wanta make any more speeches.”
“We got to have somebody out there, Morey: you’re the only one on the Committee that’s not booked up for that day.”
“Why don’t you go?”
“Because I have to go to Santa Fe—I can’t be two places at once.”
“You can’t get anybody else?”
“Look, Morey, I told you—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll go. What do you want me to talk about?”
“I don’t care. Anything but Truman.” There was a long pause; then the voice in the telephone said, quietly: “Morey?”
“Yes…?”
“We’re having a little poker game Friday night.”
“Is Cox gonna come?”
“No.”
“I’ll be there.” Johnson hung up. Time again for meditations: he unfoiled more chewing gum and provided his mouth and jaw with meaningful activity; he rubbed his knee; slumping forward against the desk he lifted the October page of his illustrated calendar and took a peek at November—exaggerated breasts without visible means of support, the commercial smirk, long thighs leading nowhere. He dropped the leaf. Hell… There was another calendar on his desk, the memorandum type: he leafed through it until he came to Saturday, unclipped an automatic pencil—semi-automatic—from his jacket pocket and made a note: Lead Hill.