Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

Grampaw Lends a Hand by Robert J. Cloud

© 1981 by Robert J. Cloud

Robert J. Cloud’s first story, “Creative Writing Course 205,” appeared in our issue of September 1978. Once again we are amazed at the versatility of newcomers to the mystery field. Mr. Cloud’s second story is completely different from his first — in theme, in tone, in touch. Read how Grampaw helped out at the gas station in the desert — the last chance to fill up on the road from Carson to Sybil...

It’s a normal day out at the gas station. Traffic is not slow enough for bankruptcy, not heavy enough for hope. I’m beginning to realize why the last owner set the price so low. But what do I know? Young, green, I cashed my discharge check and government bonds and became an instant businessman. Also pump jockey, lube and oil man, purchasing agent, accountant and tax collector for Uncle Sam. Good thing it’s a one-man show. Any more business, I’d have to hire an office manager.

And today I’ve got Grampaw. Usually I’m out here in the desert all alone, seven to seven, watching the occasional dust patches grow into cars that may or may not stop. Waiting and hoping, like a November spider waiting for those last flies. Working my crossword-puzzle magazine through the long waiting spells.

But today Grampaw is with me. Helping, he thinks, and why not let him think it? At his age you’ve got to feel that somebody needs you.

I did need him this morning. My car wasn’t acting right. You know, I change spark plugs and fan belts, but I’m not a real mechanic. Anything that looks serious, I send folks up to Fred in Holofer. That’s forty-five miles west, the nearest town. Certainly not a city, maybe not even a town, but what can you call a place that has four hundred people and is a hundred miles from the nearest place big enough for two banks? Anyway, this weekend I’ll nurse my car up to Fred’s and talk him into fixing it while I wait. For now Grampaw is with me.

He didn’t mind at all winding up his old ’39 pickup and hauling me all the way down here to work. Only thing, it took us an hour from the cabin he and I share, twenty-one miles up the draw. So we didn’t figure it was worth it for him to go home and then come back for me in the evening.

I think he looks on it as a real adventure. He rushes out and “helps” me when cars come in, not that it’s so often he’s really needed. In the early morning a few folks going in to Holofer want to gas up, or a few others heading out the long road to the Pass. Mostly these, the east-bound ones. It’s another forty miles up that way to Burney, and about the same southeast to Hot Rock, and neither of those is anywhere the size of Holofer. That’s supposed to be the big advantage of my place — Last Gas on the road from Carson to Sybil, over the Pass at the state boundary.

Like I say, a normal crummy day. Besides the guy who leans out his window and cusses if I spill a spoonful of gas alongside his tank and wants a free wash job to clean it up, besides the high school girl who needs just enough gas to get to Terrell and makes it 1.44 gallons, besides the lady who’s sure the hose is putting terrible dents in her tailgate when I have to get clear around the car to gas up, besides them there are the jokers who notice Grampaw’s old pickup setting there in the sun where my car usually is and make sarcastic cracks about “trading up” or “adding a sideline of antiques.”

But Grampaw seems to enjoy it. So I let him help. It’s been so long since he could feel useful, he wants to overdo it. Looks under everybody’s hood, checks the oil and transmission fluid, washes the windows, levels up the tire pressures. I tell you, “You start doing that, everybody’s going to expect it,” and he says, “What’s the harm?”

“Well, for one thing, all that water you’re washing windows with, that costs money to haul up here. And the labor — you could gas up three cars and get them out in the time you’re fiddling around one car.”

Then he says, “What three cars? All I ever see is one at a time. And what labor? You’re sitting here all day anyway.”

He never does see my point.

So I humor him. What the heck, he’s giving me a ride to work until I can get my car fixed. Let him play at helping me.

Mostly we sit inside, out of the sun, for it gets hot soon down here and stays hot a long time. You don’t want to put in much time outside during the day. A man walking could die. Even a man stuck in a broken-down car could get pretty parboiled waiting for one of the occasional drivers to come by and help. So we sit inside, with both doors open, working the puzzle magazine or leafing through the old Handy Mechanix magazines, or listening to the radio.

Not really listening. Sitting out here alone, day after day, month after month, I just let it run all day. Five minutes of news, fifty-five of cowboy songs, just for the company. It’s a friendly noise to let you know there’s somebody else alive somewhere in the world besides you. I keep it tuned way down. First thing Grampaw does, when we’re settled in with the displays out front and the pop machine plugged in and the pumps unlocked, is turn up the radio. I argue with him a bit, but it’s already too hot for that, so we compromise. Too loud for me, too soft for him. After a while I don’t hear it anyway. It’s just there.

We get through the day about as well as I ever get through it. Have a little run of business between seven and eight, then a long slow spell till about noon. Then a few cars straggle by, mostly ranch wives heading into Holofer. I’m working my puzzles and Grampaw is propped up in the corner with his head against the radio. Then slow again.

Along about three, just heading into the hottest part of the day, this sedan pulls in. Four-five years old, dusty, two men in the front. I lay down the puzzle book and start for the pumps, because I’m the guy in the uniform and cap, but Grampaw comes to life and trots out ahead of me.

“Fill ’er up?” he chirps. “Regular or premium?” We’re supposed to say it that way, because the driver has to answer regular or premium, and unless he remembers to say otherwise, you go ahead and fill her up. Where if he stopped to think on it, about the price and his distance and all, he’d probably want only half as much. So Grampaw has the hose out quick as the man says, “Premium.”

Grampaw sets the pump on slow-automatic, and hauls the water hose and chamois around to the front. There he goes to work on the windshield.

“Lotta bugs on the glass,” he says, “makes it pretty hard to see.” The guys inside just look at him without moving or speaking. Might as well be dead, for all the action they show.

Grampaw is around the side with the water. “Roll up your windows and I’ll clean the glass all around,” he says. “Man can never have it too clean for safe driving.” The driver looks at him, hesitates a second, then rolls up the window. His partner does the same.

Grampaw works his way slowly all around that car with the hose, peering and polishing. I never see anybody do such a thorough job. He even scours the brake-lights and license plates. Finally he’s at the front again, where he shuts off the water and opens the hood. He pulls out the oil dipstick and shows it to the driver. “You’re down a quart and a half. Long hot drive ahead, up there to the Pass, and there’s no other station till the other side. You better take two quarts. What’s she burn?”

The driver moves his mouth enough to say, “Ten-W.” Grampaw gets the oil and runs it into the motor. While he’s running in the second quart, the gas hose clangs off. Grampaw looks up at the dial and says to the driver, “That’s fourteen eighty for the gas and two ninety-five for the oil.”

The driver never looks at him, but paws in his pocket and comes up with a twenty. “Keep it,” he mutters.

“Thank’ee kindly, sir,” Grampaw says. “I’ll just get your water while we’ve still got the hood up. This car’s been running hot, and you’ll be needing water.”

He removes the radiator cap, and I see the water level is down a bit, but not dangerous. Grampaw sticks the running hose* in the neck, then feels around under the bottom of the radiator.

“What’re you doing?” I asked him.

“Just checking the connections,” he answers.

“Remember that water isn’t free,” I tell him, and would like to say more, but a little yellow hatchback pulls in and I go over to service it. The driver is a college-age girl, better looking than I usually see around these parts, with a breezy air and not much on in the way of clothes. Grampaw’s watching the sedan fading away down the road, and I’m glad for once he isn’t right there helping. This one I can take my time on.

When I get back inside, Grampaw’s hanging up the phone. I’m surprised, because he doesn’t know anybody but me around here, and I never hear him getting calls while we’re at home evenings.

“Just had a little business,” he says, sort of smug, at my stare.

“Business?” I repeat.

“Business. Could have been yours. You know, Dick, you’d have more business yourself if you’d be a little more observant.” He settles back in the corner, and I pick up the puzzle book again. Then I lay it down.

“You know, Grampaw, I could also make out better if people weren’t wasting my hard-bought water all over half of Creation. If that guy’d wanted his car washed, he could’ve asked, and we could’ve charged him for it. I saw streaks of water clear from our station up onto the highway after he’d left.”

“Yep, and beyond that, most likely. It’s all in a good cause,” Grampaw says. Then he adds, “You could take it out of my tip. Two dollars ought to cover it.” He looks at me and chuckles, like he’s put over a good one.

Well, business runs its usual pace, slow to stopped, till five, when we start looking for the cars coming home from Holofer. And even they aren’t much to hold a parade over. Grampaw looks up the east road to the Pass quite a bit, like he’s expecting more. But I know there won’t be much from that way.

Along about seven, while we’re rolling in the tires and locking up the pumps, Grampaw looks up the road one more time and says, “Here they come.”

By the time I can turn around and say, “Who comes?” they’re here — a State Patrol car with two husky young officers about my size and age but looking a lot better fed.

“Mr. Connelly?” one asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“That’s me,” says Grampaw.

The two patrolmen look us over and turn to Grampaw. “Turns out you were right,” the driver says. “We got ’em. The state thanks you, and the bank’ll thank you after the conviction.”

Grampaw beams. “Yessiree, I thought it might be them. And I figured couldn’t be no harm in trying, at least. Glad you got ’em.”

The other patrolman says, “We did just as you said. Came a-barreling along with the flasher on until we were close enough to be sure it was the same car. Then we turned off the flasher and just sat in behind at a steady fifty-four until they broke down. They were too smart to run for it, just held fifty-four until she boiled over and died in a big cloud of steam. We walked up while they were getting out, and checked the car. Briefcase under the seat just like you said.”

Grampaw says, “I thought it could be them. Our radio had said the bank over at Carson was robbed and everybody was searching west towards the big Coast cities. But nothing had turned up. I figured a smart bandit would go the other way. And the radio said all they knew of the license was a G and a 3 somewhere, medium-old nondescript car.”

“You pegged it,” the trooper says. “But that’s not much to go on, you know. You could have gotten into trouble.”

“Oh,” Grampaw says, “I had other evidence. Both these fellows sat still as stone — never moved, hardly spoke. Trying too hard to be inconspicuous, like a jackrabbit when he knows there’s coyotes around. And they let me talk them into rolling up the windows — in all this heat — and giving them a really long window-wash job. And never kicked when I overcharged forty cents on the gas.

“And,” he turned to me, “you saw him give me a twenty-dollar bill. Now how many people hand out cash money, and how many show a credit card and sign a slip, on an average day?” He smiled at the trooper. “I felt pretty sure. And if I was wrong, you’d be right there to help them, and nobody hurt, so that would be all right too.”

The troopers headed for their car, but one turned.

“Oh, say,” he says to Grampaw, “you know what was the funniest? While we were waiting for the county wagon to take them off our hands, one of them asked, ‘What put you onto us, anyway?’ and I said, ‘Mister, you’ve got the cleanest license plates in nine counties,’ and his partner said, ‘That old goat! I knew he was too good to be true.’ ”

“Old goat,” Grampaw repeats thoughtfully. “Old goat. Well, I thank’ee for coming back with the information. It sets my mind at ease.” He gives them a snappy little World War One salute, and they drive away grinning.

“Grampaw,” I ask while we’re jouncing home in his ’39 pickup, “you told them how you figured it might be the robbers, but how’d you know they’d be able to catch them in time? Unless there were troopers waiting right around the bend, which has never been true in my lifetime, those guys could have easily made the Pass.”

“Oh, that,” Grampaw chuckles. “I figured they’d have a breakdown somewhere up the road, and would be glad to see anybody coming, even cops. When I was fooling around under the radiator, I opened the drain-cock just a little mite.”