Read 1974 - So What Happens to Me for Free Online Page A

She began to get out of her car, but I stopped her.
    “No.” I stared at her. “You’re Bernie’s girl. . . remember?”
    She looked as if she were going to hit me. I just continued to stare at her until she looked away, then I slid out of the car and walked over to my cabin.
    I was up and sipping coffee on the porch when Tim O’Brien came out of his cabin. The time was 06.45 and he looked at me, surprised.
    “You’re early.”
    “I thought I’d come down to the site,” I said and finished my coffee. “If there’s some job you can give me that I can do. I’ll be glad.”
    “Know anything about blasting?”
    “Not a thing.”
    He grinned.
    “Know anything about bulldozers?”
    “Sure.”
    “Fine. . . then you look after the bulldozers and I’ll look after the blasting.” We got in the jeep. “So you’ve decided you want to work?”
    “When I get paid I give value. But get this straight, Tim you’re the boss. Tell me what you want done end I’ll try to do it.”
    So I spent the day in the heat, the dust and the noise. Four times I was called on to repair a bulldozer and I did it. Engines were simple to me. I got along fine with the negro crew who worked well but hadn’t any idea how to cope with a stalled engine. I didn’t see anything of O’Brien until lunchtime. From the bangs, he was doing plenty of blasting. We had lunch together under a tree: hamburgers and coffee. He asked me how I liked the job and I said it was fine. He gave me a curious stare, but didn’t take it further.
    Before going to sleep that night, I thought over what had happened. It looked to me that Olson was planning some kind of steal and he wanted me in on it, but wasn’t sure of me. This idea, and I told myself I could be quite wrong, startled me. I would never have thought that Olson could be bent. I decided that I had better work or someone might begin to wonder what I was doing here.
    It was sound thinking because around 16.00 the following day while I was clearing a gas feed and was cursing, I saw the three negroes, who were standing around watching me, suddenly stiffen as if they had been goosed. Their big black eyes rolled, showing the whites and I looked over my shoulder.
    There was a woman standing a few yards from me, surveying me. What a woman! I knew at once she couldn’t be anyone else but Mrs. Lane Essex. Starting from the top of her head and reading downwards, she had Venetian red hair that hung to her shoulders in long, natural waves: a broad forehead, big violet-coloured eyes, a thin nose, a firm mouth. Quite an inadequate description. She was the most gorgeous looking woman I had ever seen and she made Pam Osborn look like a cheap hooker. Her body was something a saint would have thoughts about: long, long legged, full breasted. She was wearing a white linen shirt tucked into white jodhpurs and knee high, glittering black boots. Some yards behind her, a negro in white held the bridles of two horses.
    She flicked one of her boots with a riding whip and her violet eyes continued to survey me the way a cattle dealer will survey a prize bull he might or might not be going to buy.
    I began to wipe the dirt and grease of my hands with a jump of oily waste, aware of the tensions of the three negroes who very carefully, very slowly, as if backing away from a puff adder, moved out of the scene. They kept on moving until they were lost in the dust.
    “Who are you?” There was an arrogant snap in her voice that made me remember that Pam had described this woman as the blueprint for the biggest bitch in the world.
    I decided to play this one humble.
    “Jack Crane, ma’am,” I said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
    This fazed her a little. I could see that by her frown and the way she shifted her elegant feet.
    “I don’t remember seeing you before.”
    “That’s right, ma’am.” I kept my expression wooden. “I’ve just arrived. I’m working for Mr. O’Brien.”
    “Oh.” She paused but