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  Let’s Go for Broke

  Mary Lasswell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Books by Mary Lasswell

  SUDS IN YOUR EYE

  HIGH TIME

  ONE ON THE HOUSE

  WAIT FOR THE WAGON

  TOONER SCHOONER

  LET’S GO FOR BROKE

  The characters in this book are fictitious; any resemblance to real persons is wholly accidental and unintentional.

  For

  HUGH MACNAIR KAHLER

  Chapter 1

  “THE CANDID FACT is, we can’t afford to live in our own home no more,” Mrs. Feeley said glumly, handing the tax bill back to Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it,” Miss Tinkham sighed. “What on earth can they be doing with all that money? For the past five years the increase has been astronomical. Almost doubled in one year!”

  “Countin’ City, State, an’ County, it comes to…eighty per cent raise.” Mrs. Rasmussen had done it in her head. “An’ for what?”

  “Them people must be keepin’ a harem o’ hussies with the money,” Mrs. Feeley snorted…“Ain’t no other answer.” The October sun seemed to blaze in agreement.

  “They say the Pentagon is a regular Mohammedan’s paradise, seven women for every man…” She paused for a moment. “But that was most unjust. The San Diego tax rate is probably the only thing we can’t blame directly on Washington!”

  “It ain’t like they’d made any improvements,” Mrs. Feeley said. “When Feeley an’ me bought this haffa block fifty years ago and built our Noah’s Ark, there wasn’t no finer residence and junk yard in all San Diego. Class, that’s what the neighborhood had! Nice little cottages belonging to Portuguese fishermen, Filipino fellers, and the fish cannery right down the street. That Mess-kin woman that had the hot-tamale stand right over there baked tortillas right on the lid of her wood stove. So hot they’d burn the bewhoozis out of you! Lovely place in them days, but lookit it now! Nothin’ but commercial, that’s what it is!” The three o’clock sun’s rays were beginning to weaken and the warmth began to leave the air. Shadows boxed in the tidy row of bus-houses at Noah’s Ark.

  “That’s what happens when you vote for zoning,” Miss Tinkham said. “All the warmth and color goes. Parking lots that look like igloos! We’re practically hemmed in by them.”

  “When I think o’ how the flowers used to grow here,” Mrs. Feeley sighed…”It ain’t but half a city block o’ land, but the time was when I had every foot of it, ceptin’ where the Ark stood, covered with plants, all in bloom at the same time. Now you can’t grow nothin’…not even after we piped the water from our bus-houses into the flower beds. It’s the stink from them automobiles kills ’em …did that before we had to ash-fault most of it for the parkin’ lot. Downstairs parkin’ ain’t good enough! Upstairs parkin’ they gotta have! Them ol’ boolky buildin’s cuttin’ off the sunlight from the flowers. Smother you to death!”

  Miss Tinkham continued to study the enclosures that came with the tax bill. “It shows where the money comes from,” she said.

  “We KNOW where it comes from,” Mrs. Feeley said bitterly.

  “Where it goes is astonishing,” Miss Tinkham said. “Forty-one per cent for Welfare and Hospital.”

  “That’s almost half,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Public Safety, fourteen point seven.”

  “I knew them cops’d get their fingers in the till in a minute,” Mrs. Feeley sighed. “Just like men, never around when you want ’em. Remember in Newark that time?”

  “Yeah, but Miss Tinkham broke the fire glass and that brought ’em on the trot.” Mrs. Rasmussen smiled reminiscently.

  Miss Tinkham was gazing dreamily ahead. “You know,” she said, “what we really ought to do?” Her friends knew the question was rhetorical. “We should satisfy the craving that is deep in every human being, especially in so-called civilized, urban man: go back to the land!”

  Mrs. Rasmussen’s amber eyes glowed softly as she pondered the idea.

  “Back to the land!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Sounds like a song.”

  “In the old country,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “we lived off’n the land: vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, butter, an’ cheese! Even flax we had for linen. And real, live wool from the sheeps.”

  “Live off the land, that’s what we gotta do! ’Twon’t cost hardly nothin’…” Mrs. Feeley was sold. “Only trouble is, where’s the land?”

  “We don’t have to worry about that,” Miss Tinkham said. “We have never needed one single thing that hasn’t appeared in the providential nick of time.”

  “How about a providential beer?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  Mrs. Rasmussen set the tray down on the stoop and opened three cold bottles.

  “Never snapped a cap yet that somebody didn’t interrupt,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “It’s nobody but that feller that’s always wantin’ the parkin’ lot,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “In the light of our plans for our future, perhaps a more willing ear…” Miss Tinkham said softly.

  “Got to get all the traffic’ll stand.” Mrs. Feeley nodded. “How you, young man?”

  “Just fine, ma’am. How are all the ladies?” He was tall and burly, maybe thirty-five, and obviously surprised at this pleasant reception. The short roly-poly with the white curls like soapsuds was the boss, it seemed. Her blue jeans had burst off the top button and she hastened to cover the gap with her free hand. The middle-sized one’s brindly-gray hair looked like it had been combed with precision tools, but her face wasn’t hard or purse-mouthed. The tall willowy lady with the horsy face and spine-tingling smile didn’t look like she was kin to the other two, but the three seemed welded together in their feelings like some kind of Siamese triplets.

  “I don’t like to bother you, whanging away on the same note all the time, but I’ve got my heart set on leasing this parking lot from you. I’d like to have the whole thing: the living units and all. My wife and I could live right here on the place and rent the vacant ones, besides handling the parking franchise. You ladies and the old fellow with the white mustache don’t work this thing but part time!”

  “What would you be willin’ to pay?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “What would you want?”

  “Couldn’t say, right offhand,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Three of ’em’s rented by friends that’s workin’ in the Sow de Arabia for the orl company and nobody couldn’t put ’em out nor raise the rent on ’em. You couldn’t do that to friends, an’ even if you could, they’re way over yonder. This here bus-house is double.”

  “Two baths,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Lady, I’ve had my eye on this layout for five years,” the man said. “How much a month for the double and the two singles that are vacant, plus the parking lot? That’s outside of the three you already have rented to your friends…how much?”

  “Like I say, boy! That’d take some studyin’. If we did do such a thing, an’ I’m not sayin’ we would, how do I know you’d pay? Be reliable?”

  “I’ve got a medical disability from the Service. My eyes never have been so good since I got some beach sand in them.”

  “Beach sand?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Omaha Beach sand,” he said. “I was wit
h the beach master at our post in the invasion. Helping get ’em off the LSTs…there was quite a lot of shrapnel. My disability pay is steady, and outdoor work like a parking lot doesn’t bother my eyes too much. My wife collects the money and that little gal is twin sister to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Gets blood out of a turnip!”

  “What outfit you say you was with?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

  “In the Navy since I was seventeen.”

  “Whyn’t you say so months ago?” Mrs. Feeley got up and whacked him on the back. “It just might be we could see our way clear to takin’ your name an’ figgerin’ with you. We got a few plans of our own…”

  “With all these people here parking steady every day, and seldom ever coming back at night, my wife and I figure we could work the place day and night. Do a lot of advertising and pack ’em in. People always want to park near the piers and the waterfront.”

  “Mouth-to-mouth advertising…that’s all you need.” Mrs. Rasmussen handed the young man a beer.

  “And if you’ll pardon my English, lady…a parking lot is the place to get it!”

  Miss Tinkham smiled.

  “A gentleman in Houston, Texas, organized a Society for Unplanned Parenthood to meet alternate Thursday nights in a parking lot. Once they had a famous motion picture actress from Stromboli to address them on the subject.”

  “Lots of possibilities,” the young man agreed, “if we can just set a price.”

  “Boy, we ain’t the type to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is Friday, ain’t it? Come back Monday an’ we’ll talk turkey.” The young man left rubbing his hands.

  “Must I get the pencil an’ paper?” Mrs. Rasmussen’s passion for planning stirred.

  “No use at all,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s plain to see we’ll get the nervous diseases if we stay around here much longer. Dirt and fresh air under our feet…that’s what we need. First thing to do is find us a place to go. Then we’ll figger how much we can spend.”

  Miss Tinkham was reading the real estate ads in the paper. She was thinking of the good fortune that had come to her through reading For Rent ads eighteen years ago. While looking at furnished rooms in the same neighborhood, Mrs. Feeley had stuck her head up from behind the spectacular wall of beer cans that then surrounded Noah’s Ark and greeted her as though she had known her forever. Silently Miss Tinkham blessed that day. “Spacious ranch, citrus, avocados, view of hills, two-tenths of an acre…$290 per month, no bills paid.”

  “Too rich for our blood,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “We don’t know what we want till we see it. But if it’s for us, we’ll find it.”

  “We need a ol’ tore-down dump don’t nobody want so we can turn it into something. Reckon the Cadillac will start?” Mrs. Feeley went in to get the key.

  “Ain’t been run in a year.” Mrs. Rasmussen tried the starter of the 1926 limousine without much hope. “Dead as a haddock. Battery dead,” she said. “Ol’-Timer ain’t here to start it.”

  “Tires is fine.” Mrs. Feeley kicked one.

  “Wouldn’t the service station rent us a battery?” Miss Tinkham inquired.

  “Say! I’ll go across the street an’ phone. You an’ Mrs. Rasmussen pack up the beer. We gotta go now while we got the fever bad! Prowl, that’s what!”

  Mrs. Feeley practically skipped across the street to her friend Darlene’s house. There was no one at home but she went in anyway. She got a certain satisfaction out of dialing numbers on the telephone. “I may not be able to read very good, but I can sure remember them numbers.”

  “Who’s this?” Mrs. Feeley said when the service station answered.

  “Who you want?” the voice at the other end said.

  “Who you got?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  The voice rattled off a list of names.

  “I want to hire a battery. Bring it up to Bus Town on the corner of Island and Tenth.”

  “Can’t you come an’ get it, lady? We’re busy.”

  “If I could come an’ get it, I wouldn’t need it. Hurry up.”

  Flowers. Trees. Shrubs. Vegetables. Mrs. Feeley could see them in opulent array.

  “Ash-fault.” She spat on the driveway.

  Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen kept guard over a large new plastic trash can filled with ice cubes and cans of beer. A hunk of Provolone cheese hung in its little rope hammock and a loaf of Italian bread was wedged in with it.

  “Kleenex and sun glasses.” Miss Tinkham showed the contents of her Mexican basket. “Notebook, pencil, and flashlight.”

  A red pickup rolled in with the battery.

  “Don’t go ’way,” Mrs. Feeley ordered. “You might have to give us a push.”

  The man choked the Cadillac, stepped on the starter, gunned the accelerator all the way to the floor, then let the motor idle a moment to circulate the oil. “Lots of mileage left in her yet.” He grinned. “Wanna sell it?”

  “Them tires ain’t got three thousand miles on ’em,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “This car was custom built,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “But not for you, huh?” the man laughed.

  “Did we ever wanna sell,” Mrs. Feeley stuck her head out of the back window, “that remark will cost you extra. Get outa the way.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen spurted off in uncertain lurches until her foot got used to the feel of the accelerator.

  “Whichaway?” she inquired at the corner.

  “National City? Chooler Vister?” Mrs. Feeley suggested. Mrs. Rasmussen grinned.

  “Figgerin’ a little side trip to Ol’ Mexico?” How many beer-busts the three had enjoyed since the day she left her whiny daughter and noxious grandchildren!

  “Not since their brews got so little and chinchy!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Escondido! Hidden away somewhere back in the secret valleys our castle waits.” Miss Tinkham’s eyes beamed. “Turn left.”

  “Years since we been out, seems like,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t it built up! Shoppin’ centers an’ supermarkets. Don’t see no more ranches, hardly.”

  The ladies kept a sharp eye on the new and confusing superhighways. Overpasses and underpasses led to speedways of seemingly unending length and intricacy.

  “We’re liable to end up in Jacumba,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t this what used to be Lemon Grove? So big now nobody would know it. Remember when they wasn’t nothin’ here hardly but that big yellow plaster lemon down by the railroad tracks?”

  “Maybe we’ll find Rancho Limón Escondido…the hidden lemon!” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Didn’t think no lemon was exactly what we was aimin’ to get,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, looking anxiously into the rear view mirror. “I think that prowl car has a eye on me.”

  “You haven’t done anything,” Miss Tinkham said. “You observed every single traffic sign. You are not speeding.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Feeley turned round, “but I know what she means. I don’t like the feel of their eye on me. They give me the willies. How in hell do you get down off this racetrack?”

  “I just happened to think—” Mrs. Rasmussen’s voice was dry. “I left them driver’s license home. That’s why he’s cruisin’ after us.”

  “How would he know?” Miss Tinkham asked. “He can’t see through your wallet with his radar; at least, not yet. In ten years they’ll be able to. I think it’s a case of the wicked flee…” At the mention of fleas Mrs. Feeley began to scratch. “You know, flee when no man pursueth.” Miss Tinkham said.

  A large trailer truck plunged between the Cadillac and the cops. Mrs. Rasmussen seized on the protective screen to veer suddenly into an exit on the right that appeared to lead off the freeway.

  “I don’t know where we are, nor where we’re goin’, but it’s better’n where we was.” She steered the car skillfully under concrete pillars and posts, taking every mazelike turn she could find.

  “We’re goin’ in circles,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Better than goin’ to jail,” Mrs. Rasmussen replied.
“I just remembered we got real trouble.” She jammed her foot to the floorboard and wrenched hard on the wheel. Miss Tinkham could not see the speedometer without her lorgnette, but she estimated they were doing around sixty. Suddenly, with a squealing of tires, she ground to a stop at a small five-point intersection. Apparently the overhead freeways had made the junction almost obsolete. It was of an older type of Tarvia and badly rutted. Along the sides of the roads that met to form a small island, the vegetation was rank. Brambles and a tangle of vines covered ancient wire fences some seven feet high. Massive date palms drooped dustily, their fronds ragged and unkempt. It was easy to see these roads were little used. A sign to the left of the road she had ended up on read: “Fairy Oaks. One Mile.” One pointing south said: “San Diego. Eight Miles.”

  “And where the others lead to is anybody’s guess,” Miss Tinkham said as the three sat peering from side to side, trying to decide which way to go.

  At that moment, on one of the highways above them, a siren sounded. Mrs. Rasmussen shot the car forward with a grating of gears that only a remarkably well-constructed car could stand. She catapulted into a small strip of road ahead of her. It was heavily overgrown with boysenberry vines. At about ten feet the pavement played out. She jolted down a rutted lane, full of rocks and big gravel. The trees formed an arch overhead as she plunged through the tunnel of green. The reddish-white, peeled trunks of eucalyptus hung like wraiths among the tall palms and bitter oranges. Here and there a jacaranda towered above the tangled undergrowth.

  The jungle had put the quietus on all three occupants of the car. Mrs. Rasmussen held the car grimly in what she hoped was the middle of the road. At the remains of an ornamental iron fence, it jolted to a halt as she leaned backward in the seat like a muleteer hauling on the reins.

  “Gimme a beer,” she said.

  Mrs. Feeley punched holes in three cans and passed them out.

  “What sent you into that Egyptian tizzy?” Miss Tinkham inquired.

  “Them 1958 license plates,” Mrs. Rasmussen wiped the sweat off her upper lip. “Ain’t bought no new ones.”