Open All Night
written by: Clive La Pensée
They had formed a cluster. It was the only way. The filling station, cafe, motel and dispensing chemist were there, in a line, behind the vast car park, now empty apart from the gently swaying gantries with upturned cauliflowers of weak electric lights casting strange shadows across the tarmac.
The supermarket, white goods and bike shop had decently turned in at 8pm. Their fronts were black caverns in the poor light. The cafe took the corner position – two lonely glass panels separated by a perfect right angle, fronted a bare interior.
An expensive model, which hadn’t seen a carwash in months, entered the parking lot and ground the stones into the tarmac as it swung on full lock to park next to a lighting tower. The driver turned off the throbbing V8 and with headlights dimmed, there was just the low hum of the wind through the pylon cables, running untidily to the various shop units, to disturb the night.
A man climbed from the passenger side of the car and shattered the quiet with an unnecessary door slam. He walked to the back of the car, opened the trunk and withdrew a long heavy tube. The second slam of the trunk provoked sleeping crows hunched in the perimeter hedge. They flew up and their silhouettes cast unreal shadows beneath the lights. Their calls were unnerving and the man with the tube waited until they had resettled, before walking to the front of the car. He rested on the hood, making the car dip forward under his weight. He surveyed the buildings with a slow concentration that disquieted the observers behind the windows.
The hotel receptionist noticed he carried no luggage – apart from the rod or tube or gun. She couldn’t work out what it was from that distance and in the gloom surrounding the car she could only be sure he hadn’t a suitcase and thus, wasn’t looking for a room. She did wonder why the driver had stayed in the car and why the man resting on the hood stayed – leaning on the hood, but she lost interest in him. No suitcase meant no customer.
She hated the long nights and stupid drunks who, having lost their money at the casino down the road, would come into the hotel for a drink, and refuse to pay, then hit on her, get a refusal and turn abusive as she called security. Only she knew there was no security. Just a buzzer that parped gently beneath a lazy flashing red light. The thing was, it had always worked. No one questioned the authority of a buzzer and red light.
She returned to her book. Mickey Spillane wasn’t a good read when you are already nervous from a lone car parking, but it was a long way off. She looked up again. They definitely had no luggage. And if they wanted fuel, why not park in the filling station?
‘That leaves the pharmacy or the cafe,’ she thought. ‘Back to Mickey.’
Two women wearing fashionable hats were sitting opposite each other in the bare-walled cafe, chatting and occasionally turning to the tea pot and topping up their cups, but the arrival of the car had their attention.
‘Is that a gun he’s carrying?’
Two businessmen in trilbies turned from the woman they were entertaining and glanced at the window.
‘It’s too bright in here. I can’t tell, but it could be,’ the other woman agreed. Her breathing betrayed her anxiety, and her ample bosom stretched her tight green pullover.
The first woman turned to the bartender and called, ‘Jake! Douse the lights. There’s a creep out there with a gun.’
Jake obliged and then moved, along with the businessmen to stand by the women. Once their eyes were accustomed to the dark the bartender whispered, ‘Well I’ll be darned,’ and tiptoed toward the entrance to access the telephone booth. He began dialling.
The pharmacist’s hand rested on the alarm button, huge and red in the centre of his desk. That looked like one awesome weapon and who knew if the perspex screen would protect him from such a blast. No one had tried it. If the man came his way he would set off the alarm sooner rather than later. It was wired through the telephone system directly to the local police building. As a 24-hour pharmacist, who had the methadone for the town, he was taken care of. His lack of accessibility suited the residents as the drug users would tend to stay out of town and his location limited the number of kids with a habit he would have to deal with.
But this was new territory! and it must be a rich kid to have a habit and afford such a flash sedan – even if an older model and in need of a valet. But the man resting on the hood didn’t move like a kid with a habit. More like an old man – maybe he was already out of his mind.
The filling-station attendant was the most alarmed, but he held the most cash, and he’d had the most guns poked in his face late at night and wasn’t about to risk another confrontation with a twitchy kid with an addiction problem. That apart, he had strict instructions to take no chances. He picked up the phone and dialled a short number. His boss answered.
‘If he approaches, let the shutters down. We still have holes in the ceiling from the last jerk,’ he instructed.
The attendant didn’t wait for an approach. He ran from the building and hooked padlocks on the pumps. The quiet was broken as the shutters descended, and then came the sirens and blue lights.
With the sedan surrounded by armed police, the man dropped the tube onto the tarmac as instructed and put his hands in the air. The car park fell quiet as the last car switched off its siren and one could hear the barked orders from the boss of the posse.
‘Get out the car, miss!’
A slim woman emerged, old, not used to being called Miss, she was well dressed and moved with assured elegance. The chief of police was confused, and in a less confrontational voice asked for her driver’s license.
He read slowly, holding the license at arms length but it didn’t help. He managed ‘Josephine,’ but stopped. The light was too dim for him to get further. He knew he needed replacement batteries for his flashlight and it was too late for that and who cared what her name was?
‘You ain’t local. NY number. What you doing down here?’
‘Driving my husband.’
Her classy New York accent temporarily withered the rural Police Chief who was never comfortable around smart women, so he turned to the man.
‘Why you here?’
‘Research.’
‘Into what? What do you reeesearch at this late hour, in the dark when respectable folk are at home in bed?’
‘I’m a painter and…’
‘There sure as hell isn’t anything here needs painting – in the dark. Are you trying to jerk me around mister?’
‘Not at all. I paint people, loneliness, and by the look of things, this time I’ll be painting fear.’
The chief of police ignored the jibe. He wasn’t afraid of some city seniors with posh manners.
‘What’s in the tube buster.’
‘Utensils.’
‘You- what? Open it up, but real slow.’
An easel and brushes clattered onto the tarmac. The artist managed to control his urge to leap forward to save his sketch pad from an adjacent puddle. The chief picked up the pad, walked under the lights and flicked through it.
‘You famous? I mean, my kid in fourth grade could do this stuff. What’s your name? And if I ain’t heard of you, I’m locking you both up for the night.’
‘Edward Hopper,’ came the assured answer.
The Police Chief hesitated, then ordered, ‘Cuff them both!’
- Open All Night - July 14, 2024
