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CHAPTER 45

The Money

      FRIDAY WAS the funeral, and on Saturday Swan went in alone to open up. But she'd hardly had time to get there before she was on the phone calling Lucy. "Listen, you all got to come down here right now. Something bad's happened."

      "Swan, what is it?"

      "I can't bear to say it — but — oh Lucy, I have to tell you. Somebody broke in, and — " Swan began crying.

      "We're coming now."

      Without changing her jeans and sweatshirt, just dragging her hair back with a rubber band, Lucy went to find Bobby. He was in front of the house with Tagg, where Tagg was getting ready to change the oil in the pickup. Bobby was leaning against the fender, watching listlessly.

      "Don't do that now," Lucy said. "We got to go."

      "Go where?" Tagg asked.

      "To work. Swan just called."

      That made Bobby look up. "She okay?"

      Lucy shook her head. "She says somebody broke in. And I don't know any more than that — so let's go!"

      Tagg gave a nod, slammed the hood down on the pickup, and the three of them piled in and took off for Cowboy Bob's.

      When they got there, Swan was standing in the doorway waiting for them. She led them indoors, to where the cashbox lay open on the bar.

      There was nothing in it but change.

      For a minute, the three of them simply stared, looking from Swan to the empty tin box and back again.

      All that money — gone, Lucy thought. Maybe hundreds of dollars. Maybe more than a thousand. The money that was going to save them from the beer man. And they had never even had a chance to count it!

      "On my way over, I kept thinking about the money," Swan whimpered, "Wondering how much we'd made. And I thought I'd count it, so I could call and cheer you up, only — " Bobby put his arms around her as she began crying in real earnest.

      Tagg had been examining the front door. "How'd they get in? This wasn't busted."

      He went into the kitchen and returned at once. "Listen, the back door's tight — and the lunchroom door is okay too. And I can't find any broken windows," he said soberly. "Are you sure the front was locked up?"

      "Well of course I'm sure. I had Bobby's keys to close up with — and I unlocked it when I came in just now."

      Lucy sat down on one of the bar stools and put her head down on her arms. She didn't cry, though. If she started crying now, she'd have to take it up as a steady vocation.

      Tagg surveyed the three of them. Finally he said impatiently, "Well call the Sheriff for Pete's sake. The robbers are getting away."

      Still hugging a sobbing Swan, Bobby nodded. "Oh, I'll call them. But you know, they can't do anything. When Schneider's was busted into a couple of years ago, they never even found out who did it."

      "Maybe this time they will."

      It took only forty-five minutes for Deputy Sheriff Grosbeck to get there from Albuquerque. Like his kindred Grosbecks in Los Nietos he was a bulky man, and serious. He listened without comment as Bobby told him about the party, how Lucy and he had been called home by Uncle Bob's death, and how Swan had closed up.

      "How much money was taken?" Deputy Grosbeck asked.

      "It must have been well over a thousand dollars," Bobby answered. "We never had a chance to really count it that night — and then, what with the funeral and everything, nobody got back in here until this morning. And when Swan opened up, it was gone."

      "And you're sure the doors were secure when you closed," Grosbeck asked, eying Swan appraisingly. She had stopped crying by now, but her eyes and nose were still pink.

      "Yes, I'd locked up good — Melida and Gene were still here, and I remember Melida even latched the bathroom windows."

      "All right then, since there were no windows broken, and the locks are all intact, it seems likely that the money was stolen before the bar closed." Grosbeck was making notes in a small notebook. "When was the last time you remember seeing it in the cashbox?"

      Swan frowned, thinking back. "I guess it would have been when I put in the money for the last ticket."

      Then she corrected herself. "No — it was when I paid off the band." She looked over at Lucy. "I gave them just what you told me, Lucy. And I told them goodbye for you, like you asked me to."

      Grosbeck looked interested. "What band is that? Could one of them have seen the money and taken it?"

      "No, they never came near the bar; I took their pay over to them as they were packing up their instruments. They just accepted the cash and thanked me and went on with what they were doing. They were all excited, because their singer had just had an offer to go to Austin and make a record. He and his brother were standing there talking to Charles White when I paid them all off, and I remember Shark saying they were going to leave that same night."

      "But you're certain none of them had access to the box where you kept the money? You know, itinerant people are often —"

      "No sir, I'd swear to it. Once they had their pay, they all went right out, and it was only five or ten minutes later that we closed up. There were people still hanging around, but none of them were from the band."

      "And who was behind the bar while you were over paying off the band members?"

      "Nobody."

      "Not your cook? Not the other woman who was serving?"

      "No, Melida was out in the room bussing the empty tables, and Gene . . . I think he was sweeping up and moving the tables back to where they belonged. But neither of them would have taken the money anyway."

      Grosbeck continued making notes. "Who else was in the room at that time?"

      "I . . . don't know exactly." She closed her eyes, trying to visualize it. "One or two couples. Some youngish men who'd just paid up were standing around the door — and I think a pair of cowboys was sitting at table three."

      "Anybody you know by name? Anybody who might remember having seen something?"

      She shook her head. "Not that I recall."

      "And you never opened the box after that?"

      "No, I just cleaned up behind the bar. There was a lot to do there, what with Bobby and Lucy both being gone. And I was worried about them, with their Uncle dying, you know."

      "Then that's probably what happened," Grosbeck said, shutting the notebook and slipping it into his pocket. "Some time during the evening, somebody had noticed where you kept the money, and while you were off talking to the band, he just slipped behind the bar, cleaned you out, and took off."

      Swan turned very white. "You mean it was my fault! It happened because I wasn't watching?"

      "Of course not." Bobby said angrily, "Don't even think that, Swan! You were doing things you had to do — paying people who had done good work, and seeing to stuff that had to be done. You didn't do anything wrong."

      "He's right." Tagg added emphatically. "You might as well say it was Bob's fault for not being here."

      And Lucy agreed, "You had no way of guessing what would happen, Swan. And it could have been me just as well."

      "No," Swan wailed. "It is my fault — because I was careless!"

      "Don't blame yourself, Miss Wagonwright," the deputy said. "Most of these roughnecks that work on the rigs are good, decent men, but once in a while a bad apple comes along. And when one of them sees a chance . . . he takes it. And then he's gone before you know it. My guess is that whoever stole your money had intended to come back after hours, to do it. You stepping away from the bar just made it a little easier for him, that's all. And maybe saved your friends here from having to buy a new door, or a new window, on top of everything else."

      "But I feel so terrible . . ." she murmured.

      "And I feel bad for you — for all of you," Grosbeck nodded. "Most of all because I can't hold out much hope of your getting anything back. We'll check around to see if anybody in the locality here seems to have more spending money than usual — and I'll try to find out if somebody quit real suddenly. But cowboys and roughnecks are all pretty much here today and gone tomorrow. And my guess is that whoever did it hopped a bus to Dallas or El Paso that same night, and your money's gone for good."

      After that, he dusted the box for fingerprints and looked it over carefully. Then he shook his head. "I'll take it with me, if I may, and bring it back in a couple of days. But I don't see anything that looks very helpful." Then, after several apologies, he took fingerprint samples from Swan, Bobby, and Lucy. "Just for comparison — so if we do get a clear print we can tell if it belongs to somebody else besides you."

      After the sheriff left, Bobby looked at Tagg and shrugged. "See? I told you — they'll never find anybody." And at that, Swan began to cry again.

      "Maybe not," Tagg agreed. "But it was worth a try." Then he said to Swan, a little brusquely, "For Pete's sake, quit crying. I mean — it's a shame, but nobody holds you responsible. And it's just money, you know. You worked hard for it, and you're upset to lose it, but the way you're taking on . . . gee. Take it easy."

      Swan shook her head. "You don't understand, Tagg. That was the money we were going to pay the beer man with! And now it's gone."

      "Well, seeing as how the place has just been robbed, he'll wait a while."

      "But he won't — he won't wait any more." Swan returned angrily. Then she went back to crying again. "And I did it! I was the one that let it happen. Because I went off and turned my back on that money."

      Lucy got up suddenly and walked away from the bar. Behind her was an island of light; the rest of the room was in darkness. This was too much talk — too much loss, too much of everything. She stopped to peer at one of Uncle Bob's pictures on the wall. He had loved those pictures. And he had loved that long bar, set with the silver pesos. She thought about how he used to brag over having ordered it all the way from Matamoros. But Uncle Bob was gone now. And soon the bar would be gone too. What would become of Uncle Bob's things when the lawyers took them all away?

      On the lighted side of the room, Tagg was saying, "Well all right, so you owe money to the beer distributors. But it can't be all that much. How much is it, anyway?"

      "Shoot — I don't know exactly," Bobby answered. "But there were some papers, I think." Then he called over to the dim side of the room, "Hey, Sis. You want to come find that letter for me?"

      No, Lucy didn't want to. She stayed where she was, leaning against the juke box. Out of the darkness she answered him, "Look where you left it. It used to be in an envelope under the cash box."

      Then she turned her back on them. Very deliberately, she reached into her pocket and found a quarter and plugged it into the money-slot. She stared through the curved glass to watch it go.

      The juke box always worked beautifully; the red lights lit up first, and then the yellow ones came on, and then the blue neon tubes began glowing. Then, deep inside, a motor began to whirr, and miraculously the exact record she had chosen slid forward. The gripper arms came out and caught it, flipped it sideways, and then dropped it down onto the turntable.

      As the record began to spin, the little mechanical arm began jerking toward the record. Then, when it was directly above the record, the whole front end of it turned over very suddenly and the needle came down.

      At first, there was a scratchy sound. Then Elvis' voice filled up the room, sweet as honey. "Are . . . you . . . lonesome, tonight," Elvis sang. Lucy hummed along with him.

      Over at the bar, they'd found the papers Charles White had brought. They were reading them. Tagg said something that sounded like, "Oh . . . shit!" But Lucy thought she must have misheard him; Tagg never cursed.

      Lucy leaned against the juke box and watched the record turn around and around as she listened to Elvis. He was pretty smooth-sounding, all right, but she'd heard somebody sing that better.

      When Elvis finished singing, the little arm with the diamond needle lifted up and turned itself upside down again. Then it sidled back to its resting place. The turntable stopped revolving. The grippers came down and clamped the two edges of the record and lifted it up and turned it on its side and slid it back in place.

      The motor sighed into silence. The red light turned off. The yellow light turned off. The blue neon tubes glowed a while longer and then faded away.

      Lucy would have played it again, but she didn't have another quarter.

      "Lucy!" Bobby was calling her.

      Lucy leaned against the dark juke box. She ran her hands along the chrome trim. It was still warm in the spots that were closest to the lights.

      "C'mere Luce." He sounded angry.

      She laid her cheek against the bulging glass front of the juke box. What was the use of going over there just to let Bobby yell at her.

      The three talked in low voices. Finally Swan left Bobby's arms and came over to where Lucy stood in the dimness, leaning on the dark juke box.

      Swan still looked white and sick, but she put her arm around Lucy's shoulders. "Lucy, honey, that's real bad stuff there, a lot worse than I thought. You should have told me. It was too much worry for you to carry all by yourself."

      Lucy sighed. "You all had plenty of worries of your own, Swan. I did tell it to Bobby, but he was too . . . preoccupied, I guess, to really take it in. And how could you have fixed things, even if you did know? You did such a lot as it was, and it's all come to nothing in the end."

      "Well I don't know right off — but there's always something, if people put their heads together. Always, honey. Now come on back to us and let's try to figure. Come on."

      Lucy shook her head. "I don't want to, Swan. It won't do any good. And Bobby just wants to chew me out . . ."

      "No he doesn't. And if he tries, I won't let him. Please, Lucy," Swan coaxed. "I need you."

      So Lucy let Swan take her hand and lead her back and sit her down at the spot where the papers were spread out across the bar.

      Bobby was reading them all, every word. Finally he said, "I guess I knew all this, Sis. I just never noticed it was that much."

      "I didn't know it myself, until he laid it all out that day," Lucy sighed. "He was pretty nasty, Bobby. He was already mad at us for not getting those pinball machines. Maybe he'd been going to get a commission or something, and I think he bad-mouthed us to the company, so they think we're real dead-beats. I just don't see them giving us any more time."

      "Well, we got to do something," he said. "If we don't want to lose the bar."

      He looked up at her, troubled, but not at all angry. "What about that land Uncle Bob was talking about all the time? You know anything about that? Could we sell it and make something there, you think?"

      "Well . . ." Lucy sighed. She hated to tattle on Uncle Bob, but Bobby was entitled to the truth. "You know, every time Uncle Bob talked about that land, it got to be more land than the time before. So one time when I was in Albuquerque, I looked it up the country records, and — it was only a couple of acres he gave a hundred dollars for."

      "Even so, it could be worth something now," Swan said thoughtfully. "Land does get more valuable over time."

      Lucy shook her head. "You know how in the last few years he's talked about how government's always stealing people's property because of taxes? Well, he used to always tear up the tax papers that came in the mail, and," she hesitated. "I don't believe he ever paid his property taxes on it, so it's reverted to the county long ago." As an afterthought she added, "Sales taxes got paid, though; I always did that myself, on the sly, after Mama died. Income tax, too."

      "Well then" Bobby sighed. "We'll have think of something else."

      Tagg came back from the kitchen. He'd made coffee and brought cup on a tray. Lucy drank hers down, and it was not too bad.

      He sat down beside Lucy. "I know that even a dollar seems like a lot if you haven't got a dollar, but — for a business, this is just not all that much money. I bet if you pay 'em a good sock of it, WesterTex'll be glad to carry the rest a while longer, no matter what they said. I know years ago, when my Dad was still working, he got behind on things one time — I forget why — and our suppliers got real tough with him. But once he began paying it back, they started being friendly again.

      "And when you think about it," he grinned, his big teeth gleaming, "What would they want to close you down for, if you're in the midst of paying them? Just make a start, and then — you'll see."

      Swan said drearily, "Only — we can't start. Because the money's all gone."

      Tagg had finished his coffee now, and he reached for the pot where he'd put it on the bar. "Oh, I got some money. I'm not much of a saver, you know, but I got more than a thousand dollars in the safe at the store. That'll help us get started."

      Lucy stared at him. "Are you crazy, Tagg? We can't take money from you — that's dumb."

      "Sure you can. I'd probably just spend it on something foolish anyway." He lifted the pot and shook it. "You want some more coffee? There's plenty."

      "Well I'm not going to take your money." Lucy said angrily. "And that's it!"

      "Well Miss Snooty, I won't give it to you; I'll give it to my friend Bob, instead. He'll take it."

      "Wait — I've got money, too," Swan said excitedly. "I think it's almost three hundred dollars — in a savings account in the bank in Albuquerque. With Tagg's money, that's a good start."

      She began to look almost cheerful. "And then — all right — we'll have a another dance. What's coming up, Saint Patrick's Day? That'll do — maybe we can even get the same band to come back from Albuquerque. That would be nice, even if there was nobody to sing."

      Tagg nodded. "I think people would come just for the fun and dancing. I think you could get them to come back once a month and make it a regular thing."

      Bobby looked from one to the other. "You know," he said slowly, "I'm beginning to feel a lot better about things. And I tell you, I think I got the best friend, and the most wonderful . . ." He gave Swan a look as if he could have eaten her up. "I want to tell them — okay?"

      "I still feel funny about it," she said softly.

      "You know I made up my mind, Swan. And you know you're willing." It was as if they were alone, talking about something they'd already decided, and just stepping over the ground one more time.

      Lucy's attention had begun to wander. Something was moving around at the back of her mind like a child tugging at her skirts, and it distracted her.

      Swan said, "People are going to talk ugly about us."

      Bobby said firmly. "Let them."

      He put his arm around her and turned to face Tagg and Lucy. "We weren't going to mention it for a while, out of respect for Uncle Bob, but — I guess you both know it was all over with me and Normalade since long before the baby came. Almost from the first day, really. Because I could never get over loving Swan."

      "That doesn't seem right to say," Swan murmured.

      "Well, it's right to tell the truth," Bobby answered. "And since Normalade's gone off and left me — I'm going to get that divorce as fast as I can. And then I'm going to do what I should have done long ago. I'm going to get married to Swan as soon as the law allows. And then I'm going to love her and be true to her till the day I die!" He looked down at Swan, and she looked up at him — as if she was both embarrassed and proud of him.

      "Well, gee," Tagg said, ". . . Congratulations." He over glanced at Lucy, as if expecting her to say something. But when she remained silent, he continued, sounding slightly strained, "So you two are going to get married. How about that. I guess I ought to — gee, what do you say to somebody at an announcement like this?"

      But then, warming as he finished, he reached over the bar and shook Bobby's hand. "I guess — just — real congratulations to both of you!"

      Bobby beamed. "Thank you kindly for your good wishes, Tom. You're the first to know since Swan agreed to do it."

      But then Swan spoke up in a small voice, "Lucy . . . you haven't said anything. Do you think we're too bad for wanting to do this?"

      "Think you're bad, Swan?" Lucy answered, "No, I could never think hard of either one of you. But . . . I'm can't help thinking about little Bobby. What's going to become of him, poor little thing?"

      "He'll be our child, of course — since Bobby's his dad, I guess we have a right to him. Especially since Normalade just went off and left him. And she hasn't even called about him or anything. And you know, Lucy, I couldn't help but love Bobby's child."

      "All right then." Perhaps that was the best way it could have worked out, Lucy thought. The baby would have a good home and a proper upbringing. Swan would be a good mother — certainly a better one than Normalade. "I'm glad — because I know you love each other dearly, and now I'm free to wish you all the joy I in the world — all the joy you could wish for yourselves, and more. And God bless you." And now when she had voiced her approval, everybody was satisfied. Bobby began telling Tagg how long he'd love Swan, and Swan put in an appropriate word or two

      And Lucy was able to return to her own thoughts.

      They were not nice thoughts. Because she'd remembered something really nasty. Shark knew how to pick locks.

      She kept thinking of how Gallatin had said he was willing to do anything, or take anything he needed, just to succeed.

      She was wondering how much it cost to make a record. And how much it cost to get two people to Austin and keep them there a while. She thought it might cost about a thousand dollars, give or take a few.

      And she knew that Gallatin hadn't had a thousand dollars. Or at least he hadn't had that kind of money before Valentine's Day.

      At that point, she began to wonder how she could locate Gallatin now. Because she'd begun to think she had a real bone to pick with him.

      She thought she'd call Charles White to find out the name of that radio station in Austin.

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