The Fumbling Phantom

IV

The horn of the maroon convertible gave out with an OH! oh! The girl behind the wheel gave out with a “Hi, butch...” and a very slow grin.

Lou Ann Walch might not have been as photogenic as some of the film lovelies. Her nose might have been a fraction too short and her mouth a shade too wide for screen closeups. But in technicolor, Bill told himself for the hundredth time, she’d be fabulous.

Her hair was the palest, shiny, straw blonde, in startling contrast to the copper-bronze tan which glowed in the rays of the low-hanging sun as if there was some inner radiance beneath it which she could turn on or off at will. And her eyes — Bill had spent some earnest moments trying to find the word to describe her eyes. Gray, with just a touch of lilac in them; but that didn’t do them justice. Nothing did them justice...

Bill slid in beside her, Zomby crowded in, shook hands.

“I’m tickled silly to see you,” she included them both in her welcome, “but don’t expect me to talk to you. I lost my voice back in that fourth period. That screeching like a wildcat gone lunatic — that was me.”

Zomby offered frank admiration. “If I’d known, I’d have taken time out to look.”

“That would have been a break for USC. Those guys would have let you two have the rest of the afternoon off, any time you’d asked for it. You really ruined ’em! You were wonderful!”

Bill draped an arm around her shoulders. “We had to work at it, shugie. Now you, you’re wonderful without making any effort.” He put a hand over hers, on the rim of the wheel. “Want to drive Zomby over to the Beverly Wilshire before he throws me out of the car so he can have you all to himself?”

She crinkled up the corners of her eyes and made a face at him. “It can’t be a new sensation to Mister Zombrorowski... being a football hero, I mean. But it must give you a kick, Billyum.”

Zomby came through. “That was his game, Lou Ann, — and nobody else’s, — and never let anybody tell you different. He stood out like a love seat in a locker room. I’ve been pitching leather to all kinds of assorted ends and backs for two seasons... and Bill’s the best I’ve ever seen or hope to see.”

Bill said: “Put that on record. Some time when I flub one we need real bad, I’ll have you play it back to me.”

They sped along the Million Dollar Mile, stopped at the big hotel.

Lou Ann said: “If it isn’t a very special somebody you’re going to see tonight, Mister Zombrorowski, why don’t you call it off and come to dinner with us? I hate to be the cause of splitting up a pair the whole Trojan team couldn’t break up all afternoon!”

Zomby took a deep breath, looking at her. Took his time about answering, too. Bill thought the threatback was going to take her up on it, but Zomby glanced swiftly at Bill, shook his head:

“Take a raincheck on that. Don’t think I won’t, now.” He got out, waved at them, strode away.

“Great boy,” said Bill.

“Nice boy.” Lou Ann watched Zomby’s big shoulders disappear in the crowd, before she pulled away from the curb.

“Where’ll we tie on the feedbag, shugie?”

“Jose’s?”

“Yup.” That was another thing he liked about Lou Ann; when you asked her what she wanted to do, or where she wanted to go, she didn’t stall around the way girls generally did. She just up and told you what she liked, bang. No nonsense about her. Being with Lou Ann was just like being with another guy... yet of course it was a hell of a lot better.

If you had a flock of stocks and bonds, if you could afford to marry any dame you liked, you wouldn’t wait a single minute before asking her if she’d go to wed with you, now would you, Bill?

Lou Ann was humming an old tune. He only remembered part of it...

Dreams. Yeah. He had a barrelful of those. But the trouble was, they weren’t even worth a dime a dozen. You couldn’t pay a dinner check with them... or tip a waiter.

Else they’d be heading for Bublichki... or the Players or The Mocambo right now... one of those uppercrust spots along the Strip where you rubbed elbows with big shots, or sat at the next table to a famous movie star.

Plenty of places Bill would like to take Lou Ann. Maybe at some of those exclusive joints they’d even recognize Bill, from the goings-on at the stadium, might even snap those Sash bulbs at him, sitting beside her. Dreams. Sure. About places he’d like to take her instead of to Jose’s.

Jose’s was all right. A fish house, close to the pier at Santa Monica. Red-checked tablecloths. Pink-shaded lamps. Grease-spotted menus.

They’d been there before at Lou Ann’s suggestion. But a man ought to have enough jack to buy his girl the kind of dinner she deserved. It all came back to that old dollar sign, didn’t it?

Over the crabmeat and the albacore steaks, they talked about the game. Lou Ann knew football; she had the keen eyes of a scout for strong line play and weak defensive formations, for strategy and timing. Mostly, though, she listened with shining eyes full of pride and possibly something more.

Bill had more sense than to brag to her. But he did let her see how tremendously much his first success with the Stallions meant to him:

“ ’Course, it’s only the first crack out of the box. I’ll have to keep it up, if I’m going to build up the kind of rep that pays off.”

“Pays off how, Billyum?”

“Renewal of scholarship, until I graduate. Maybe a coaching job, afterwards. Or broadcasting games. Pro ball, if they come up with a good enough contract.”

She leaned back so her face was in the shadow, but he could see the little pucker of perplexity between her eyes.

“Which do you want?”

“I don’t know, shugie.”

“Don’t you know what you intend to do when you leave the University?”

“Yeah,” he grinned confidently. “Get rich.”

She lit a cigarette. Smoke veiled her expression for a moment. “That’s actually why you’re interested in gridiron glory? Because it may lead to... to making a lot of money?”

“Why, sure.” He was sufficiently sensitive to realize she was displeased, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. “Can you think of a better reason?”

She ought to understand; a salesgirl who was earning her own living and had been for a year or so, as she’d told him. She ought to know what a dollar was worth. Maybe she wouldn’t understand about his family; probably her people had never had to scrape along from one crop to the next, the way his had, though she’d never mentioned anything about her father or mother.

But surely she’d get the picture if he told her about his town:

“I guess the Cadys were just about the poorest people in Banning. It’s a great little town. Cherry capitol of the Coast, they call it. Throw a big Cherry Festival there every year when the Bings are ripe. Parades, floats, fireworks, bands, — even a Cherry Queen.” What a Festival Queen Lou Ann would make!

She propped her elbows on the checked tablecloth, cupped her chin in her hand... and listened, serious, bothered about something.

“But that fiesta stuff is just to whoop up roadside sales. The other side of cherry ranching is getting up at three o’clock in the morning to spray the trees before the sun warms the leaves too much.

“Pruning branches in the fall until your arms are ready to drop off... picking in the spring until you wish they had dropped off. Digging irrigating ditches.

“Fighting beetles and bugs. Culling and packing until cherry juice gets sticky in your hair and runs out of your ears and your blind tired... and then seeing your crop go to the association for just enough to cover your loan at the bank.”

“You’ve done all that, Bill.” She didn’t make it a question.

“Damn right. I’ve done it. And my father did it until it finished him. And I’ve seen my mother do it until it wore her out... and I’m damned if I ever want to do it again. It’s all right for the boys with the big orchards and the mechanized equipment and lots of reserve to meet a bad dry spell or whatever. But me... I’m sick of being poor folks. Sick of big, beautiful, luscious Bing cherries. I aim to get my hands on a chunk of important money somehow... in a hurry.”

“But still,” she persisted, “you don’t know what you want to do?”

He reached across the table, took her hand. “Yeah, boy. I sure do. I know what I want to do right now. But I can’t kiss you in here. Let’s go for a buzz in your buggy, huh?”

She smiled and nodded and the shining radiance was there in the lustrous eyes again.

But the little worried pucker remained on her forehead... and it took him a while, after the convertible had been parked on Malibu Drive, to erase it.