The Box

Chapter 13

Quinn got some of his humor back when he stood on the pier and heard the noise come from the distance. It was a clattering metal noise which nobody could place.

“How come you’re still here?” said Quinn. “Isn’t it siesta time for you?”

Whitfield looked up from his clipboard and said, “I never saw you smoke before. When did you pick up that habit? I’ll be damned, Quinn, if that doesn’t sound like a tank.”

“It does sound like a tank. A sort of tinny tank.”

“Odd,” and Whitfield did checks and crosses on the forms he held.

“How come you’re still here, Whitfield, and not home in bed?”

“I take a bath, for siesta.”

“How could I forget! Yes.”

“Some damn transport is late. Wait till I talk to that man.”

Quinn thought about this and grinned. Then he said “I think the tank is coming this way, by the sound of it.”

“He’s on the cobbles. All along the piers we have cobbles, you know.”

“I’m going around the building,” said Quinn, “to see what the cobbles are doing to the tank.”

“To the driver. Can you imagine that driver?” said Whitfield.

Quinn said no, he could hardly imagine such a thing, and the two men walked from the pier through the warehouse and out on the cobbles.

“Oh, sainted heart!” said Whitfield.

The wheels of the pick-up were still round, but this had no visible effect upon the truck as a whole. Each spring-there were four-worked like a pogo stick, and no pogo stick would have anything to do with any of the other pogo sticks. Inside the cab a man was fighting to keep from flying into the roof. What kept the canisters in back from rocketing away was the thick tarp that had been tied across the bed of the pick-up, and this tarp was ripping through at one end. When the pick-up stopped by the warehouse there was a silence of exhaustion.

“Quinn,” Whitfield said quietly. “We are both seeing the same thing, aren’t we? Say yes.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Quinn, have you ever seen anything like it before? Don’t lie to me, Quinn.”

“I won’t lie. I’ve only seen this once before.”

“Thank you, Quinn. I now need my siesta, but first,” Whitfield cleared his throat, “first I must speak to the sainted driver.”

The sainted driver had not yet come out of the cab. He was sitting behind the wheel, gripping the wheel, as if uncertain that the ride was over.

“You can come out now,” said Whitfield. “You’ve made it.”

The driver did not move.

“You can let go of the wheel,” said Whitfield, “and nothing will happen, really.”

The driver moaned, and then got out of the cab. He moved with care and disbelief. Then he closed the cab door carefully and sat down on the running board. Seen from the top, there was a visible lump on his head.

“Will you look at that,” said Whitfield. “Must have struck his head against the roof for some reason or other. Now then, Ali. I say, Ali?”

The man looked up carefully. This showed a bruise under his chin.

“Must have struck his chin on the wheel, repeatedly,” said Whitfield. “Ali, can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have no tires on these wheels, Ali.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you tell me where they are?”

“They took them.”

“Who?”

“The two who took them.”

Whitfield breathed deeply. Quinn said, “Must have struck his head against the roof repeatedly.”

“Don’t confuse matters, Quinn. Ali?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did anything happen that you can explain to me?”

“The camel wouldn’t get out of the way and then he hit me.”

Whitfield nodded. Then he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. “Naturally,” he said. “It would be a he. A female camel would never beat a man over the head. Now then. Ali.”

“That’s all I know, sir. Everything.”

“Well,” said Whitfield, and slapped the clipboard against his thigh, “it is now clear to me that somebody stole the sainted tires.”

And then he thought of something else and went quickly to the back of the pick-up. He unlashed the tarp, pulled it back, and sighed when he saw the canisters. He reached over and lifted two of them at random and sighed again.

“Thank you, sainted heart,” he said.

“Didn’t touch the cargo, is that it?” said Quinn.

“Thank God.”

“What is it, liquid gold?”

“No, but it’s convertible. Ali, drive that stuff into the warehouse. Do you realize you’re two hours late?”

“Please sir, please-” said the man on the running board.

“I think he doesn’t want to drive any more,” said Quinn.

Quinn drove the truck into the warehouse. It is, he thought to himself, only poetic justice that I should do this. What with the jumping and the rattling, all of which was transmitted directly into his skull, it took him all of the fifteen yards which he had to cover before he had formulated the whole thought.

When he got out of the cab he could see the driver walking slowly away from the warehouse, slow like a farewell walk, but straight and steady, as if he would never come back. Then Whitfield came around a stack of bales and brought two Arabs. They immediately began to unload the canisters and wheeled them out to the pier on little wagons.

“Tell me,” said Quinn. “Where’s Bea this time of day?”

“Hotel most likely. It’s just before her siesta.”

Quinn smiled and left the warehouse. Two days, he thought, with hardly anything to do.