I'll Get You for This

by James Hadley Chase

1

A PACKARD sedan swished to a standstill before one of the air towers. I glanced through the office window to satisfy myself that Bones, the negro help, was on the job. He was there all right. I watched him fussing around the car, gave him full marks for his enthusiasm, returned to work.

I still got a big bang out of seeing a customer arrive although I had now been running the service station for three months. It was a good buy, and after spending money on it, I had already doubled the business the previous owner had got out of it.

Clair had been startled when I had told her I intended to buy a service station. She thought I was planning to get a job with a big company in New York. So I was, but after that ’phone call from Lois Spence I had changed my mind.

I guessed Lois had found out that I had reservations for an air passage to New York, and would follow me there. I decided to duck out of sight. If I had been on my own I’d have waited for them, but Clair complicated things. I couldn’t be with her every minute of the day, and they wouldn’t have had much difficulty in handling her if they ever caught up with her.

So I cancelled the air passage, told Clair I wanted to go into the motor business, and pulled out of Paradise Palms in the Buick for a long haul to California.

I found what I was looking for on the Carmel-San Simeon Highway, within easy reach of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was a small, bright well-kept station, and the owner was only giving up through ill-health.

It had four pumps, ten thousand gallons of storage, oil lube tanks, two air and water towers, and a good bit of waste land for extra buildings. The thing that really decided us was the house that went with the business. It was only a few yards from the service station, and it had a nice little garden. The house itself was cute, and Clair fell for it the moment she saw it. I fell for it too because she would be close to me all the time, and until I was sure we had lost Lois and Bat that was the way I wanted it.

I began to make alterations to the service station as soon as we moved in. I had it painted red and white. Even the pavements of the driveways were divided into red and white squares. I had a big sign hoisted on the roof which read: THE SQUARE SERVICE STATION.

Clair nearly died laughing when she saw the sign, but I knew it was the kind of thing that pulled in suckers.