Cornell Woolrich

The Drugstore Cowboy

There were more drugstores in that certain town than one would care to count, but one and one only that has to do with this story. It had two huge crystal urns in the window tilled with colored water, one magenta and the other green, both backed by nickel reflectors that made them flash gloriously. Inside they sold novels, electric waffle-irons, chocolate sundaes, glass beads, face powders, tooth powders, headache powders and roach powders.

Out in front of the store they had an upright chiclet machine with an oval mirror, and not far away there was always a certain young man. Sometimes he was with two or three of his friends. As a rule, though, he was all by himself. He was always standing there; never seemed to have any other place to go. Even when it rained he was there with his coat collar turned up around his neck and his back against the brightly lighted window. He seemed to have been burn with a cigaret between his lips. It was just as much a part of his face as anything could be. There were brief intervals, matters of seconds only, when one had burned down dangerously close to the gums, that he would take it out and put a fresh one in.

One peculiar thing about him, though, he was always singing under his breath. It wasn’t through happiness, but because it was in him to sing that he did it. He couldn’t have stopped himself even if he had wanted to. He had tried one job after another and somehow he couldn’t make good at any of them. In a town like that there wasn’t much variety. You could be clerk in a shoestore, in a grocery store, or in a hardware store. Or else you could be usher in a theater or counterman in a lunchroom, or you could deliver the mail, or you could clean windows. He had tried all of these things. There weren’t any vacancies at the bank, as a rule. You had to have pull to get in there. So there didn’t seem to be anything else to do but stand out in front of a drugstore and whistle your time away.

Every night from eight until twelve he stood there by the mahogany chiclet machine and knew all the girls by sight as they strolled in for an ice-cream soda. And of all the girls in town the one he admired most was Betty Reeves. Her people were very wealthy, and she lived in a great, big expensive house. But that wasn’t the reason. It was because once, while she was passing the corner he was standing on, a dime had dropped out of her handbag and rolled over toward him. And when he had picked it up and handed it back to her, she had given him a friendlier smile than any one had ever given him before, and just said, “Thank you.”

Other girls were very careful not to be seen talking to him, they purposely looked the other way when they went by.

Now Betty had a little blue car her father had given her on her birthday with strict injunctions to watch out for cops, and she knew nothing whatever of what people were saying about the kind of young men that stand in front of drugstores. What she really liked was to take long runs through the open country and feel the wind through her hair like a knife. Her father had forbidden her to be out alone in the car after dark. That was why she did it, anyhow.

And this is what happened.

She ran out of gas on the loneliest road in three counties, where there wasn’t a light to be seen. She signaled for help with her horn until it went out of commission from overexertion; then she slumped down and waited. When she saw by her watch that it was already half-past ten and getting later all the time, she abandoned the car to its fate and started the long walk back.

And that very same night for the first time in months there was no one standing in front of the drugstore. No one but the chiclet machine. The cowboy had finally gone. He had left the lights of the town behind him and was already several miles away, walking along in the dark, when all at once he made out something white across the road like a cotton bush in full bloom, only there weren’t any cotton bushes around there. It began moving away and he ran after it shouting, “Hey, there!” at the top of his voice. It stopped, bent down and then straightened op again and a childish voice threatened, excitedly: “I’ll hit you with this if you come near me!”

He stopped a short distance away, not knowing what to do.

“I mean it!” the voice insisted.

He lit a match. It was a girl. Then he recognized her. It was Betty Reeves. She had on a white dress with shiny little things sewn all over it, “jiggers” he called them, and they caught the rays of the match and blazed.

“Leave me alone,” she repeated. “Go on away.”

The first match had gone out by now, so he lit another and still another and finally another. Her arm was still up over her shoulder all this time ready to hit him with a stick that wouldn’t have hurt a bird.

“Put your hand down,” he laughed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said finally. She dropped the piece of dead wood and brushed her hands.

“I ran out of gas about three-quarters of a mile back,” she told him. “I was afraid to stay there alone, so I thought I’d better foot it the rest of the way in.”

He gave her a look of supreme disgust.

“Nine chances out of ten you’ve lost your car.”

“The car’s the least,” she said.

“Car’s the least? You must be Chevrolet’s daughter,” he remarked.

“Hardly. What brought you ’way out here?” she asked.

“I was leaving town.”

“Leaving town? What for?” she asked curiously.

“Forget it,” he said. “I’ll walk back with you.”

They walked the whole way in silence, his coat around her shoulders. By the time they had gotten to the outskirts of the town the moon was out, clear as a diamond. They came to the most gorgeous dwelling he had ever seen, in an outlying section that was comparatively new to him. There were two stone griffins at the entrance and a great, wide lawn smooth as velvet. She handed him back his coat.

“My tip to you,” he said, “is not to go out there any more with a teaspoonful of gas in your tank and expect it to do a thirty-mile stretch for you.”

She laughed, “Good night,” she said finally, “and much obliged.”

“Good night,” he answered with a touch of sadness. “Don’t mention it.”

When she had gotten as far as the front porch she turned around and called back, “I forgot to tell you my name is Reeves.”

“And I forgot to tell you mine is Jerry Jones,” he answered from where he stood.

Tired as he was and late as it was, he walked all the way back to where he had met her and even beyond that, and just when he was beginning to give up hope he met a vegetable truck coming his way towing a smart-looking roadster at the end of a piece of rope. He stepped out into the glare of the headlights and flagged them.

“I ran short on gas,” he lied cheerfully. “I’ve been trying to get help for over two hours.”

“You the owner?” growled the truckman. “What was the idea of leaving this baby-carriage out in the middle of the road?”

He climbed in without a word and took the wheel the rest of the way in to town. They dropped him off in front of the drugstore, which was dark and deserted by that time. He let the car stand there in the open all night, and in the morning looked for her number in the telephone book and called up.

“Miss Reeves there?”

“Who is it, please?”

“Uh, Mr. Jones,” he said, embarrassed.

She got on the wire. “Been doing any more hiking?” was the first thing she wanted to know.

“No, but I got your car for you,” he said, vain as a peacock.

“You what?”

“It’s standing right outside. Want to come down and take a look at it?”

“The car’s been back in the garage since twelve o’clock last night!”

“You’re kidding!” he said, trying to get back some of his breath.

“No, I’m not. You see Daddy sent some one after it”

“Well, it makes me an auto thief,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “That’s what it does.”

“You talk as though it’s my fault,” said Betty. “Wait, I’ll be right on over. I’m curious to see it. I’ll bet it’s something handed down from the Spanish War.”

“It’s a peach.” he objected, but she had hung up.

Coming out of the drugstore, he found a number of his acquaintances gathered about the sleek little model. They regarded him with open admiration.

“Who handed you this. Jerry? Did you win it in the lottery? How about a little ride, Jerry? It’s good for the nerves.”

He scowled at them unfavorably. “How would you like to go chase yourselves?” he suggested, uncharitably.

“Just a pal,” they remarked. And one of them added, “I bet he stole it.”

Jerry winced. “You always have to be the ray of sunshine around this outfit, don’t you?” he growled. “Some day somebody’s going to change the color of your eyes for you.”

All at once he saw Betty coming. As she crossed the street to where they were gathered, he raised his hat and his companions, melting tactfully into the background, did likewise, with a sketchiness that was quite superficial.

“So this is it,” she said, laying her hand on the back fender. “How’d it get so spick and span?”

“I’ve been dusting it off with my silk handkerchief all morning,” he confessed. “We all chipped in and fed it gas.”

“Wonder who mislaid it?” she observed.

He twisted his cap around in his hands like a corkscrew. That was his way of registering uneasiness. “Honest, I thought it was yours,” he said, anxiously. “I wish I could figure out what to do about it. It’s stolen property as long as I keep it standing here.”

“Then why keep it standing?” she suggested. “Let’s get in and see how it works.”

What a chance to show off in front of the rest of these drugstore cowboys! It was too good an opportunity to miss. Girls like Betty Reeves didn’t often invite themselves for rides in his company.

“Bet your life!” he said with a good deal of enthusiasm. Proud as a peacock doesn’t begin to describe his feelings as he drove down the main thoroughfare with her beside him. A number of people recognized Betty and paused to stare after her. Two friends of hers, in particular, who were coming out of a millinery shop, watched her go by.

“Well, if that isn’t Betty sitting there in broad daylight with that fellow that hangs around the corner drugstore! He tips his hat to me, but I don’t encourage him in the least.”

“Well, I should hope you wouldn’t,” said the other girl. “Betty must be out of her mind.”

And they went up the street to spread the glad tidings.

Jerry heaved a sigh of relief as he left the residential section behind him. Out here there was less chance of any one spotting the car. About three miles out Betty became aware of a black speck in the mirror. She pulled him by the arm.

“Is that a cop back there? Better give it the juice; I think he’s after us. Give me the wheel. Let me show you how to treat this car.”

She had taken it out of his hands before he realized it, and he felt the car lurch forward under them and eat up the road. The telegraph poles flickered by like the shutter of a camera now. Betty was standing up, driving on both feet like a Roman charioteer. “Move over and let me sit down,” she commanded, tersely, “before I fall out.” They shifted places. It was his turn to watch the mirror now. The demon on the motor-cycle was growing smaller and smaller with every mile.

“Still there?” Betty would ask from time to time.

“Clear out of sight,” he announced at last.

They both relaxed like little rag dolls, all the tension going out of their limbs.

“How was that for a close shave?” she said. “Let’s turn down here and see if we can’t fool him.”

They jounced off the smooth hardness of the road into a narrow lane that rapidly lost itself in and out of some trees and followed this until they were safely hidden. She shut down the motor and they jumped out, breathless with excitement.

“Break off some branches,” Betty directed, “and cover the tonneau so no color shows through to catch his eye. Quick! I’m going back to get rid of the tire tracks.”

“I’ll say you have a head on your shoulders,” he commented admiringly. He buried the car under a pile of greenery; she meanwhile smoothing out the dust ruts as well as she could with the sole of her shoe.

“Come on, get back in and we’ll pray for luck.” They crawled under the leafy covering and crouched waiting, their eyes fastened expectantly in the white ribbon of road that they could make out through chinks in the branches. A faint humming drew near.

“He’s coming,” murmured Betty. “Don’t breathe.”

His fingers closed over her icy hand.

The hum increased to a roar. It reached a climax and the motor-cycle climbed past them like a black bullet.

Belly stood up.

“Better stick close,” he cautioned. “He may come back.”

“He’s probably at Atlantic City by cow,” she laughed.

“What’ll I do about the car?” he ventured at last. “It isn’t mine, and I can’t keep it here in town; they’ll catch on to me.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know some people who would recognize it the minute they saw it.”

“No one wants to give me a job. They think I’m just a drugstore Johnny. I’ll never amount to anything if I stay here,” he mourned. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York, where nobody knows each other. I’d show them that I’m good for then.”

She sat there watching him with an old look on her face, a look that was almost motherly. She hadn’t known she could feel that way about any one.

“Well, why don’t you?” she said suddenly. “A chance like this may never come your way again. Drop me off at the nearest station and I’ll go back by him. Then you make a break for New York or Chi or any place you want to do.”

“But I hate to think of running off with any one’s car like this. You wouldn’t he if it was your car,” he added.

“Wouldn’t I?” She laughed under her breath as she said it, wondering what he’d think if he knew the truth.

Half an hour later Betty stepped out of the roadster at a little wayside railroad station. The white turnstile that marked the railroad crossing was slowly being bowered and the train was whistling in the distance.

“Cood-bye.” She paused gracefully with one foot on the running-board and turned to him.

“I... I almost hate to see you go,” he shuttered, with a ghost of a laugh to cover his embarrassment.

“So much has happened,” she admitted, looking down at her shoes, “that it seems as though I’ve known you a long time.”

“Can’t you feel little sympathies tying us to each other already?” He patted the car’s glossy side. “Don’t you suppose I know that this is yours?” he told her.

“Don’t argue,” she said. “Here comes the train. Just bring it with you when you come back. Good-bye.”

He caught her by the wrist. “At seven o’clock a year from today — watch for me. I’ll be back.”

Their lips touched bashfully.

He let go of her hand. She flew across the narrow platform and he saw the cars whisk her away, out of his life, forever, it seemed.

On the train Betty sank back in her seat with a little sigh. There were three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. But he wouldn’t be back. She had always maintained that boys broke their promises as a matter of course.

“Great news, Betty!” her father sang out to her at dinner that evening. “I think we may have your car back for you inside of a day or two. It got away from a motor-cycle officer by the skin of its teeth this morning—”

Betty’s eyes never left her plate. “I know,” she said, “I was in it at the time.”

“Betty!” everybody gasped.

There was a quenchless pride in her voice, a pride of accomplishment that was like a man’s pride. “When I drive I leave them all behind,” she said.

“Betty!” they all repeated helplessly, “what do you mean?”

She lifted her chin and faced them squarely, her eyes blazing. “You tell the authorities that when I need their help I’ll let them know! The car isn’t stolen. I’ve sent it to New York for repairs.”

“It’s an outrage,” her father said. He emphasized it by bringing his fist down on the table.

“What I could’ve done with a car like that!” sighed her young brother.

“Ram it into a tree, I suppose,” said Betty.

About a month later, at a party, Betty met Gordon Nye. His main qualification was an absolute day-dream of a mochatan roadster. Apart from that Gordon Nye weighed a little too much, was inclined to be a little too sure of himself and had one of those baby-blond Student-Prince mustaches. As a matter of fact, in the beginning her family had almost had to manacle her to get her to go out with him at all. “People will think I’m his trainer,” she said heartlessly. Still, when he let Betty take the wheel and name her own speed on straight never-ending moonlit roads she forgot everything else. He became just like ballast in the car with her. Later on he began to make a habit of holding her hand. Several times during the course of these maneuvers she had noticed a particularly bright diamond on his little finger. Then one day, without exactly realizing how it had happened, she discovered herself to be wearing it on her left hand. She thought of making him take it back but hated to hurt his feelings. He was just the build that was liable to break down and cry on her shoulder. While she was trying to decide what to do about it her family spied it on her and it was too late to do anything but smile weakly and admit that she was engaged. Her mother beamed and her friends showered her with congratulations, and a luncheon-party was arranged, timed to begin at the fashionable hour of three.

Betty’s friends gathered about her, all talking at once. The only thing needed, as far as Betty could see, was something to laugh at. This, to her mind, was adequately supplied by the arrival of her fiancé in a camel’s-hair overcoat that added to his proportions. He came straight to where she was with all the singleness of mind of a steam-roller, took her two hands in his and kissed the tips of her fingers reverently as though he were smelling violets.

“Betty,” he murmured, looking at her soulfully.

They were left alone together in an angle of the living-room provided with rose-taffeta cushions and a droplight, and hinting of intrigue and flirtation. But to flirt with Gordon with that mustache of his was like making eyes at a totem pole, for all the kick Betty got out of it. He sat there gazing into her eyes until she felt like charging him admission.

“I’m so glad we have a chance to be alone together like this.”

“I am, too,” said Betty.

“You’re looking marvelous.”

“I am, too,” said Betty, capturing a yawn before it quite got away from her.

“Tired, dear?”

“I am, too,” murmured Betty.

Relief in the form of cocktails approached. Betty selected the nearest one.

“Precious!” Gordon whined.

“What’s the matter?” she asked innocently.

“You don’t want to drink that, do you, dear?”

“Don’t be silly, of course I do,” she answered. (She felt like saying, “What do you think I want it for, to blow soap bubbles with?”)

“I don’t like to see you do that,” he told her.

“Then look the other way,” she murmured, lifting it to her lips.

Suddenly he took it away from her. “I’ll put it out of your reach,” he said, and finished it.

If Betty had ever felt a spark of tenderness for him, it died at this point.

“Let’s dance,” said Gordon, jumping up.

“Go ahead,” said Betty indifferently.

He went over and switched on the radio. But Betty had no intention of dancing with him. “The heel of my shoe is loose,” she fibbed. “Ask some one else — that’s a good boy.”

So Gordon danced with one of the others while Betty just sat there and watched. But they had no sooner begun than a new number went on. “Station ABC, New York,” said the announcer. “The next selection will be ‘Have You Forgotten?’ by the Pep Twins, Jerry and Jemima Jones.”

Betty turned around with a curious expression on her face. One of those names sounded familiar to her, somehow. She tried to think where she had heard it before and couldn’t place it.

“I like them, they’re good,” Gordon was saying to her over his shoulder.

Betty didn’t hear him and wouldn’t have paid attention even if she had heard. She felt herself grow rigid all at once. It was like a dream that you want to remember and can’t. She had heard that voice before, but when and where? What was it that had happened long ago? She seemed to see a railroad-crossing and a white turnstile slowly falling into place. That was it, she remembered now. His name had been Jones, Jerry Jones. She got up all of a sudden and went over to the cabinet. She couldn’t be mistaken, — that was his voice coming from there. “Have you forgotten?” he pleaded. “Have you forgotten?” Oh, why did she have to be reminded like that? She felt as if she couldn’t stand it another moment, and quickly turned the dial. The sound of his voice stopped.

“It isn’t finished yet,” protested Gordon, turning around.

“Don’t do that,” the rest were saying. “What are you messing it up for like that?”

“No, no,” said Betty, “please. Tune in on something else.” And she ran out of the room.

Dinner came just in time to forestall her handing Gordon his ring back. She decided to wait until afterward and save his appetite for him. Dinner wasn’t a very lively affair. Betty was coughing suspiciously often and her eyes were strangely wet. “Too much cayenne,” she explained with a wistful little smile. And then all at once she noticed the diamond-and-platinum watch on her wrist. It was five to seven. Betty dropped her fork with a great clatter. “What’s the matter, dear?” her mother asked anxiously. “Are you ill?”

“Mother,” asked Betty with a strange look on her face, “when was it I sent my car away? Can you help me remember the date?”

Her mother stopped to think. “Let me see. I think it was the day I had my first bob. Why yes, I remember now. Just a year ago today.”

“Th... thank you, mother. I can’t eat any more dinner.” Betty got as far as the door. Gordon came hurrying after her to stop her. That was just like him; he was always stopping her. “Please, Gordon,” she said. “There’s a call I have to make,” and brushed heedlessly by him. Out in front of the house the white road stretched past the place to the end of the world, where promises lie waiting. It was seven o’clock. She wondered why she had gotten up to come out here like this. There was nothing out here, nothing on the road but a little dust stirring in the wind far away. It came closer. It wasn’t dust after all; it was a car. She could make it out quite plainly now. It was blue. She came down the steps to watch it go by. Only it didn’t go by; it stopped right in front of the gate and a girl in it stepped out and came over to her, swinging her hips as New York girls will.

“Are you Betty Reeves?” she asked. “You remember Jerry, don’t you? He wants to know if you’ll come over and say hullo to him. He’s too bashful to get out of the car.”

She gave the house a good beauty stare over Betty’s shoulder. “Gosh,” she remarked, ceasing to chew her Wrigley’s for a moment, “what a bungalow this is!”

Betty went down to the car, walking as if on ice. All the sunshine seemed to have gone out of the world, somehow. Who was this girl he had brought with him?

“Say that you’re glad to see me,” he pleaded. “Say that you’re glad I came back.”

“You did come back,” Betty said, “but you didn’t come alone...” She turned to look at the other girl, who was standing picking leaves from a bush.

He laughed. “That’s my sister,” he said. “We’re the Pep Twins and we have a radio date at eleven. You’re coming back with me. Get in.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“Oh, no. I’m engaged.”

“Betty,” he faltered. His hands reached out to her, then dropped.

“But I can’t go through with it now that you’re here.” She took the ring off. “It isn’t the diamond that matters a whole lot; it’s who gives it to you,” she said. “I’ll leave this under the mat.”

She rang the doorbell and came running back to him.

They drove down the street together in the little blue roadster, just as they had driven a year ago, and on the way they passed a certain window with a beam of green-and-magenta light.

“What was that?” asked Betty. “A funny light got in my eyes just then.”

“Only a drugstore,” he said. “Remind me to buy it some time.”

Content

Cornell Woolrich
The Drugstore Cowboy