Free South of Heaven by Jim Thompson Page A

plenty of it. There were at least two kinds of everything, all served family style; two kinds of meat, potatoes and beans, and three of green vegetables. There was pie, cake, cookies and doughnuts. There were pitchers of tea, coffee and milk. We drank from metal pint bowls, instead of cups, and the “plates” were big metal trays.
    All through the meal, flunkies were running back and forth from the kitchen, carrying in food and carrying out empty dishes. At the end of the meal, boxes of apples and oranges were set at the entrance to the tent, and everyone was allowed to take one of each.
    Four Trey and I went out together, helping ourselves to fruit. I remarked that the chow was up to standard, so maybe the line’s backers wouldn’t turn out to be so chinchy after all. Four Trey shrugged.
    “They have to feel good. The men would be dragging-up right and left if they didn’t.”
    “A lot of ’em will drag-up, anyway,” I said. “Some will quit in the morning, as soon as they’ve scoffed, and there’ll probably be fifty by the end of the week. I wonder why that is, Four Trey?”
    “Do you?” he said.
    “Well, yeah, Here they’ve finally made a job, and they need dough so bad it hurts. But they blow-up or drag-up over a bad cup of coffee or for no damned reason at all.”
    “Mmm, strange isn’t it? Of course,” Four Trey drawled, “I’ve never done anything like that myself, have you, Tommy? We’re known far and wide as the old reliables of the oil fields.”
    I laughed sheepishly. “Well, all right,” I said. “But it’s sure going to be different this time.”
    “It can be, Tommy,” he said softly. “It can be. We’re just south of heaven, remember, and if you reach hard enough and high enough you’re going to make it.”
    “I’m going to,” I said. “You just watch and see. I’m going to stay on the job and keep out of trouble and I’ll deal blackjack for you and.…”
    He yawned openly, cutting me off; it was a way of telling me something. That he liked me, but that was it. That what Tommy Burwell did was strictly Tommy Burwell’s business, and what Four Trey Whiteside did was his, and he wanted to keep it that way.
    I wasn’t offended, but maybe I was just a little hurt. He’d drawn back from me on other occasions, when he’d felt himself drawn too close. But I’d felt that a change had taken place today, that a bond had somehow sprung up between us, and so I was maybe a little hurt by his rebuff.
    “Well…,” I yawned even wider than he had. “Guess I’ll go sack up. Take it easy, Four Trey.”
    “See you in the morning,” he nodded.
    I started for my tent, crimping my hat brim front and back before he could do it and walking like I was in one heck of a hurry to get to bed.
    “Tommy.…”
    “Yeah?” I whirled back around. “Yeah, Four Trey?”
    “Tommy.…” He bit his lip, took an uncertain step or two toward me. “I just wanted to tell you that…that.…Nothing,” he said curtly. “I mean, be sure and leave a call with the crumb boss. We don’t want another screw-up in the morning.”
    “Got you,” I said. And then I went on to my tent and he went to his.
    The old guy I’d talked to the night before, the crumb boss, was sitting on my bunk to hold it for me. I thanked him and gave him my morning call, then sat down and began to undress. All the other bunks had guys sitting or lying on them, smoking or sleeping or getting ready to sleep. Hardly anyone talked with anyone else. If they were awake, they lay with their eyes open, staring vacantly up at the canvas roof, or else they sat on the edge of their sack, staring vacantly down at the dirt floor. Seeing nothing, I guess. Seeing everything.
    Up near the front of the tent, a guy was twanging on a juice-harp, playing the same thing over and over, the opening bars of Home, Sweet Home. He must have played it umpteen times, and I was about to yell at him, but another guy beat me to it.
    “Knock that off, you