His feet squshed in the water as he went. Rain from the two roofs met there and spattered down into wide puddles with a queer wet echo like water being poured into a cistern. To get to it he walked down a narrow driveway which was between two houses close together. The place was on the alley above a garage behind a two story house. He stood there for a moment to take a good breath and then he started for the place. Then its motor roared and it went sideslipping down the street. "Thanks Rudy, I'll let you know when everything's finished.
Way out Figueroa past big old houses and then smaller houses and then on out some more to the south end. There was a rattle somewhere back of them in the truck body that kept the same time no matter how fast they went. It was the quietest night he had ever heard except for the tires sizzling and the clatter of the Ford echoing between deserted buildings in an empty street. The tires sizzled against the wet pavement as they went. It was raining outside because it was December and Los Angeles just before christmas. He went into the lean-to office with the wide glass front where Jody Simmons the night foreman kept a close watch on his crew. Maybe that was because he was scared inside and showed it outside. They looked at him curiously as he passed them. Dutch and Little Dutch and Whitey who took shots in his spine and Pablo and Rudy and all the boys. He remembered their faces floating by him as he moved toward the telephone.
He threaded his way through the floor litter of dollies and boxes and rumpled cartons and crippled loaves. He walked down the middle aisle between the steel bins that were being filled with bread. He'd heard it above the click-click-click of the Battle Creek wrappers and the rattle of the belt conveyors and the howl of the rotary ovens upstairs and the rumble of steel route bins being hauled into place and the sputter of motors in the garage being tuned up against the morning's work and the scream of dollies that needed oil why the hell didn't somebody oil them? It was so noisy you wouldn't think anybody could hear a tiny sound like a phone ringing. Here he was sick as hell and like a damned fool making his way through the night shipping room toward the telephone. Why didn't somebody answer that goddamn telephone? You could stick a whole phone in his ear and he couldn't even feel it. How could they expect him to answer it anyhow? He was tired and his head was plenty big. Telephones ringing at night are important. He would have to walk for a couple years to get to it. That damn bell must be at the other end of the world. It sounded like it was ringing in a room about a million miles wide. His stomach was going round and round and round. A man couldn't hold enough of it to get a head this big. Not from any of their sour french wine either. It was bad enough to be sick let alone having a phone ring all night long.
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