Free Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams Page A

been any oil and never would be any because there were two dry holes on it already. You could see it in his face. The eyes were beginning to look haunted. Pal, I thought, it took a long time, but how does it feel?
    His only hope, of course, was to find Caffery and buy back the lease. And he had just ten days to do it. The only thing he knew was that Caffery was a small-time speculator and wildcatter who operated out of a hole-in-the-wall office in Houston when he wasn’t operating out of his suitcase. He grabbed the next train east. He was gone two days, and when he came back his eyes were no longer haunted. They were wild. His face was haggard.
    He’d found Caffery, all right. And Caffery had just laughed at him. So there’d been some big oil-company geologists snooping around the land, and now he wanted to pull a fast one and get it back? Fat chance.
    If I hadn’t kept reminding myself of the thing he’d helped do to my father and Dunbar, I’d have felt sorry for him. He could lose his sanity. It was more wealth than he’d ever dreamed of, and it was lying just beyond his outstretched fingers in a nightmare where he couldn’t move.
    That was Monday. He kept calling Caffery and getting the brush-off every day until Thursday, when some girl who answered the phone said Caffery had gone out of town and she didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back. You had to admit it; Charlie was a genius. It was magnificent. The final turn of the screw came within an hour or two after that last, useless telephone call. It was a telegram from El Paso, sent by Bolton, of course. He had received instructions from the president of Occidental Glass to take up the option, and would be in town on the nine-thirty eastbound Friday night with a certified check for $275,000. If you’d touched Goodwin he’d have twanged like a bowstring, or blown up before your eyes.
    I was at his house when it came, and it was an awful thing to watch. He had to fight himself to keep from babbling and becoming incoherent when he talked. He was sweating as he called Houston again. He asked me to listen in on the extension, just in case Caffery was there, so I could see if I could detect any signs of weakening. The stupid girl popped chewing gum in his ear. Mr. Caffery? No, he was still out of town. But wait, come to think of it, he had called in from some little town just about an hour ago. She thought he was down there where he was drilling an oilcat well. No, she was trying to think of the name of the town, but she couldn’t remember it. It sounded like Snookum. Was there a town that sounded like Snookum? It was on the coast somewhere, not too far from Houston—she thought. There was something familiar about her voice, even under the seven layers of stupidity.
    I got off the extension and we both started tearing wildly through road maps, looking for it, while Goodwin kept the long-distance line open. We couldn’t locate anything that looked like it. Goodwin went back on the phone and pleaded with her. Couldn’t she possibly think of it?
    Oh, yes, she said; she’d just remembered. She had written it down and forgotten she had. And wasn’t it funny, it didn’t sound like Snookum at all. It sounded like Cuddly. The name of the town was Ludley. Mr. Caffery would be at the hotel there. There was only one hotel, she thought. Oh, you’re welcome, she said sweetly, and popped her gum. God, I thought, Charlie must have hired Shirley Booth for the job. Then it rang on me at last. It was Cathy.
    So she was in San Antonio, was she? So she could be near me? I tried to stifle the red blaze of anger.
    Goodwin finally got through to the hotel at Ludley. Caffery was out. Then, the next time, his line was busy. I listened in on the extension when he got through to him at last.
    It sounded as if a battle was going on in the hotel room, or they were having a stevedores’ union meeting. If Charlie was making all the noise alone, he should have been a one-man