The Box (13 page)

“The jeep is here,” said Turk, and they walked to an oval passage which had no gate.

The jeep still showed army markings. It showed no signs of care and at first glance looked like four over-sized tires with two seats and machinery hung up in between. There was no windshield and the fenders were gone.

But the motor worked. Turk drove and Quinn sat with his eyes squinted tight. Turk was whistling.

The trip, Quinn knew, would not take very long. A short trip across the desert to catch the West highway away from town. Turk whistled and drove like a lunatic. Quinn appreciated the breeze but not much else.

“Look. You got all this land here. All this open space, like air to fly in. Stop going back and forth in zigzags like this was fun or like we had all the time in the world.”

“I am going the shortest way,” said Turk.

He spun the wheel and made Quinn fly sideways and almost out of the jeep. “I will explain to you,” said Turk, and drove straight for the moment. “Open your eyes more and look at the colors.”

Quinn opened his eyes and in a while he saw the colors. The sand was not yellow. It was brown, grey, whitish, and—a trick of light—sometimes blue.

“The colors show the way.” said Turk. “Some are too hard and some too soft and that big patch there, you can drive in it without sinking in but you can drive only in a very slow creep. All right?” and Turk laughed. Then he said, “I drove oil trucks for the French, from the Sahara fields to the coast, in Algiers. Then came the fighting, so I left,” and he laughed again.

Quinn grunted something. He held onto his seat and tried to squint the sun out of his eyes. A lieutenant I got, a real right-hand man. Then the fighting came and I left, haha.

But he did not worry the thought and just kept squinting, which drew his face into a constant grin. In a while he grinned for real. He was starting to look forward to the thing he had set up.

Turk swung the jeep around a large boulder and after that they could see the road. The heat on the road turned the air to silver which shimmered, waterlike.

Turk bounced the jeep on the road and drove North a short while until they came to a ruined house. It was four broken walls by the side of the road and the roof was gone. Turk left the road again and drove into the walled space by ramming the jeep through the door frame which had no top and one incomplete side. Turk let the motor die.

Now the air was very still, like water in a pond. They could not look out and from the road they could not be seen. It was important that the jeep should not be seen.

A dirty burnoose lay in one corner and a large pile of skin bags which were full of water. On the rubble floor of the house was old camel dung.

“You brought the tool?” Quinn asked.

“The tool? Ah, the tool, yes,” and Turk reached under his seat and came up with a wrench.

“And the rag,” said Turk.

Turk did not have a rag. He had seen no reason for a rag and so had forgotten it. But then he went to the corner where the dirty burnoose was lying and tore a piece out of that for a rag.

They had time and Quinn smoked a cigarette. Then Turk got on top of the jeep and from there to the top of the wall. He sat there and looked. Quinn wrapped the rag around the wrench.

“Anything?”

“I can see the camels.”

He could see three camels walking, one behind the other. They were crossing where the jeep had been driving and then they disappeared behind the boulder. Only one camel came out on the other side, head up in an angle of disdain, knock-kneed lurch of a walk. It went slowly, as if thinking about other things, but the Arab who was leading the animal had to trot to keep up.

Turk stayed on the wall and Quinn went out to see. The camel and the man had stopped on the other side of the road. Those two figures stood there and Quinn stood opposite. Nothing else happened—only grit itch prickled Quinn’s back.

“Tell him to put that beast down, the way we said,” Quinn called to Turk.

Turk yelled Arabic and the man with the camel walked into the road. He left his animal and walked alone to the middle of the road where he put his hand on the pavement a few times and then walked back to the camel.

“He says it’s too hot. Ah! I saw the truck for a moment!”

“Tell that goddamn animal…”

“He won’t listen. He says it’s too hot.”

Quinn started to sweat a new sweat, which was thin and rapid. He did not argue or curse now but ran back into the broken house, then came out again with a water skin. He ran with it, so that there was a gurgle sound from the skin. The skin was black and moist and made inside water movements under his arm so that it felt alive. On the pavement Quinn pulled the wooden plug out of the bag and let the water run out. He trained the stream all over the road and pressed pressure into the stream with his arm.

“You see him?” he called to the wall.

“No. It means now that he will come out of the dip when I see him the next time.”

Quinn licked sweat from the side of his mouth. The moist pavement was starting to steam.

“Get off the wall,” he said.

The skin was limp on his arm now and the water sputtered. Turk got off the wall.

“All right,” said Quinn and stepped back. “Tell him to put that animal down now. It isn’t hot any more.”

The Arab brought his camel over and made it stop in the middle of the road while Quinn ran into the broken house. He came back with the dirty burnoose on his arm, and with the wrench.

“He says you are very clever,” said Turk. “Very clever about the water.”

“Tell him to put that goddamn animal down. And you come over here and help me with this sheet.”

Turk showed Quinn how to wrap the burnoose and the Arab with the camel was hitting the animal’s front legs with a stick. This made a wood on wood sound and in a while, like a building collapsing, the camel folded down and sat in the road. It showed its teeth and made a groan like an agonized human.

There was nothing else to do now except wait. The Arab talked to the camel, or cursed the camel, Quinn stood inside his sheet, and Turk was gone, inside the house.

The truck, Quinn saw, was a Ford pick-up. Because there was a camel in the road, the truck stopped. The driver came very close, made the brakes and the tires scream, but he stopped. The talk, which came next, was all in Arabic and Quinn did not understand a word. But he knew what was supposed to go on and he could see how the screaming got more and more violent. The point was, get that camel off the road and, I can’t get the beast to get back on its feet. And then the driver, in an excess of violence, was supposed to jump out of his cab to give the camel a kick or to give the man with the camel a kick.

But the two men just kept screaming. Quinn stood by and sweated under the big burnoose. What else could go wrong now? The driver backs up, leaves the road, and bumps across the desert. Or he just keeps sitting there and screams for another hour. If that idiot with the camel would stop tugging that halter rope, would stop putting on such a convincing show—At that moment he did. Quinn was sure the man had worked himself into a genuine rage and only at that point did he think of the next thing. He dropped the halter rope, threw up his arms, screamed something which was probably very obscene, and then he too sat in the road, legs folded. It took another second before the driver decided to get out of the cab.

Quinn stood still by the truck and watched the door fly open. He stood still while the driver jumped out, turned toward the camel, and then Quinn hit him.

He let go of the burnoose flap with which he had covered his face, got his right arm free, and tapped the wrapped wrench on the back of the driver’s head.

It is hard to judge the right force of a blow like that, unless the purpose is murder. Quinn wanted the man out cold for perhaps half an hour. This was important, because the man should later drive his truck for the rest of the trip.

When Quinn caught the man he turned the head up and saw that the eyelids were fluttering.

From here on in, a number of things were supposed to happen like clockwork.

Quinn put the man down on the ground, slowly, leaned the man back and felt the tension. This was the natural tensing of trying to balance oneself while leaning back. Quinn hit the man again because he had not been entirely unconscious. He used his fist this time, a sharp uppercut, feeling much more certain about what he was doing now. When the man sagged in the right way Quinn was done.

Turk, by the house, was whistling.

The man with the camel got up, yelled at his beast, and tapped his stick under the animal’s chin.

Quinn dumped the driver on top of the canisters in back of the pickup, got into the cab, and maneuvered the car off the road and behind the ruined house. When he got there Turk was ready with the tools.

So far, nice and smooth. Quinn felt nervous and happy.

While Turk pushed the jack under the front axle Quinn started to undo the nuts on one wheel. By then the first camel came around the corner of the house, and then the other two, each led by a man. Quinn did not know any of them but they’re working out, he thought, maybe they’ll work out. He hardly looked at them, no time now for this, and told Turk what he wanted each of the others to do. Then he took the first wheel off. He let the air out of the tire while he took off the second wheel. He let the air out of that one too. Turk was coming back out of the house.

“Check the driver,” said Quinn.

Turk went to the back of the truck and said, “Do you want me to hit him again?”

“I said check him! I want to know if he’s still out.”

“He sleeps.”

“Make sure.”

“I did.”

Quinn did not ask how Turk had made sure. He only told him to put the driver into his cab and they should get busy with the cans on the truck. The three Arabs came out of the house, carrying the skins. One camel was lying down by itself, one stood, and one was grinding its teeth.

Then Quinn pounded the tires off the front wheels, and then he bolted the bare wheels back on the wheel-drums. After that he got the jack out and put it under the rear of the truck. There he did the same thing he had done to the front. He took the tubes and tires off the wheels and then put the bare wheels back in place. Make them think there’s a gentleman thief around. Puts the wheels back on, after the deed.

Turk and the three others were pouring alcohol into empty skins and water into empty canisters. Quinn smoked a cigarette, standing back a little. It smells like a hospital, he thought, or a brewery. I can’t decide which.

The men put the canisters full of water back on the pickup and they tied the skins full of alcohol to the packsaddles of the three camels. They were all scratching themselves and they were grinning while they stood around because none of them knew what this was all about. Quinn checked the driver again and then walked to the Arabs.

“Tell them what I say, Turk.”

He gave all of them a cigarette and they all smoked. Turk smoked and so did two of the others. The third split the paper open and ate the tobacco.

“Tell them they can sell the tires as soon as they wish. And I don’t care to whom they sell them or where.”

“The best place…”

“Shut up and listen. Make it clear that it will go badly with them, if Remal finds out who stole his tires. Tell them.”

Turk told them and they all talked at once. Then they listened again.

“Tell them that I will do nothing to them, if the tires get traced, because Remal will take care of them good and proper if they aren’t careful.”

“That will be difficult,” said Turk, “to sell the tires and Remal knows nothing about it.”

“It can be done.”

“But how?”

Quinn picked up sand from the ground and rubbed it in his hands. It took some of the grime off and then he wiped his hands on the dirty burnoose.

“I want them to figure that out by themselves. Because I can’t use them if they can’t sell stuff without getting traced. Tell them.”

Turk told them and there was much discussion while Quinn got into the truck. He leaned out and told them to move the camels out of the way, he wanted to back up. Then he said, “Do they know about the alcohol?”

“Oh yes. They are to hide it, not sell. They know.”

Quinn nodded, kicked the starter, geared into reverse. It was a clanking, hard maneuver without tires on the wheels, and gave a weird motion to the truck. Once the truck hit the highway, it sounded like a tank clattering over the pavement. Quinn stopped with the truck pointed towards town. It had been twenty minutes since the driver had gone under and Quinn was a little bit worried. He propped the man up and then got out of the cab. Behind the house the Arabs and Turk were still arguing.

“Since it might take them a while to figure a way of selling the tires,” said Quinn, “give them this as an extra.”

He handed bills over to Turk which amounted to about one dollar apiece. Then he said that the three men and the camels should go.

Quinn did not watch them leave but sat in the jeep, inside the ruined house, smoking. He said nothing when Turk came and thought, I hope I did that with a sufficient, imperial touch, stalking off that way.

“Quinn,” said Turk and started the motor, “did you like the men I picked?”

“I don’t know yet. We’ll see how they’ll work out with the tires.”

“That was very clever of you, Quinn, and they too thought you are very clever. And generous.” Turk drove out of the building and crossed the highway.

“They’ll make more, if they stick.”

“Yes, but they thought you very generous. They know how much you got for the cans which you sold to Whitfield and that you have no other money.”

Quinn did not care to show that this irritated him and said nothing. When the jeep was on the other side of the road Quinn looked back, worrying about the driver in the pick-up truck. The man sat in the cab as if he were asleep.

“And they want to stick with you,” Turk was saying, “because they believe you will do great things.”

“That’s very devoted of them, I’m sure.”

“They know how little money you have and they are sure your greed will make all of us rich.”