And that’s like what Auntie did.» A few days before Christmas the man from whom his
grandfather rented the farm «turned us off the place,» the boy continued. «That’s how come we
started out for Texas. Looking to find Mrs. Jackson. I never seen her, but she’s Johnny’s own
blood sister. And somebody’s got to take us in. Least ways, him. He can’t go a lot more. Last
night it rained on us.»
The car stopped. Perry asked Dick why he had stopped it
«That man’s very sick,» Dick said.
«Well? What do you want to do? Put him out?»
«Use your head. Just for once.»
«You really are a mean bastard.»
«Suppose he dies?»
The boy said, «He won’t die. We’ve got this far, he’ll wait now.»
Dick persisted. «Suppose he dies? Think of what could happen. The questions.»
«Frankly, I don’t give a damn. You want to put them out? Then by all means.» Perry looked at the invalid, still somnolent, dazed, deaf, and he looked at the boy, who returned his gaze calmly, not
begging, not «asking for anything,» and Perry remembered himself at that age, his own
wanderings with an old man. «Go ahead. Put them out. But I’ll be getting out, too.»
«O.K. O.K. O.K. Only don’t forget,» said Dick. «It’s your damn fault.»
Dick shifted gears. Suddenly, as the car began to move again, the boy hollered, «Hold it!»
Hopping out, he hurried along the edge of the road, stopped, stooped, picked up one, two, three,
four empty Coca-Cola bottles, ran back, and hopped in, happy and grinning. «There’s plenty of
money in bottles,» he said to Dick. «Why, mister, if you was to drive kind of slow, I guarantee you
we can pick us up a big piece of change. That’s what me and Johnny been eating off. Refund
money.»
Dick was amused, but he was also interested, and when next the boy commanded him to halt, he
at once obeyed. The commands came so frequently that it took them an hour to travel five miles,
but it was worth it. The kid had an «honest-to-God genius» for spotting, amid the roadside rocks
and grassy rubble, and the brown glow of thrown-away beer bottles, the emerald daubs that had
once held 7-Up and Canada Dry. Perry soon developed his own personal gift for spying out
bottles. At first he merely indicated to the boy the whereabouts of his finds; he thought it too
undignified to scurry about collecting them himself. It was all «pretty silly,» just «kid stuff.»
Nevertheless, the game generated a treasure-hunt excitement, and presently he, too, succumbed
to the fun, the fervor of this quest for refundable empties. Dick, too, but Dick was in dead earnest.
Screwy as it seemed, maybe this was a way to make some money — or, at any rate, a few bucks.
Lord knows, he and Perry could use them; their combined finances amounted at the moment to
less than five dollars.
Now all three — Dick and the boy and Perry — were piling out of the car and shamelessly, though
amiably, competing with one another. Once Dick located a cache of wine and whiskey bottles at
the bottom of a ditch, and was chagrined to learn that his discovery was valueless. «They don’t
give no refund on liquor empties,» the boy informed him. «Even some of the beers ain’t no good. I
don’t mess with them usually. Just stick with the sure fire things. Dr. Pepper. Pepsi. Coke. White
Rock. Nehi.»
Dick said, «What’s your name?»
«Bill,» the boy said.
«Well, Bill. You’re a regular education.»
Nightfall came, and forced the hunters to quit — that, and lack of space, for they had amassed as
many bottles as the car could contain. The trunk was filled, the back seat seemed a glittering
dump heap; unnoticed, unmentioned by even his grandson, the ailing old man was all but hidden
under the shifting, dangerously chiming cargo.
Dick said, «Be funny if we had a smash-up.»
A bunch of lights publicized the New Motel, which proved to be, as the travelers neared it, an
impressive compound consisting of bungalows, a garage, a restaurant, and a cocktail lounge.
Taking charge, the boy said to Dick, «Pull in there. Maybe we can make a deal. Only let me talk.
I’ve had the experience. Sometimes they try to cheat.» Perry could not imagine «anyone smart
enough to cheat that kid,» he said later. «It didn’t shame him a bit there with all those bottles. Me, I
never could’ve. I’d have felt so ashamed. But the people at the motel were nice about it; they just
laughed. Turned out the bottles were worth twelve dollars and sixty cents.»
The boy divided the money evenly, giving half to himself, the rest to his partners, and said, «Know
what? I’m gonna blow me and Johnny to a good feed. Ain’t you fellows hungry?»
As always, Dick was. And after so much activity, even Perry felt starved. As he later told about it,
«We carted the old man into the restaurant and propped him up at a table. He looked exactly the
same — thanatoid. And he never said one word. But you should have seen him shovel it in. The
kid ordered him pancakes; he said that was what Johnny liked best. I swear he ate something like
thirty pancakes. With maybe two pounds of butter, and a quart of syrup. The kid could put it down
himself. Potato chips and ice cream, that was all he wanted, but he sure ate a lot of them. I
wonder it didn’t make him sick.»
During the dinner party, Dick, who had consulted a map, announced that Sweetwater was a
hundred or more miles west of the route he was driving — the route that would take him across
New Mexico and Arizona to Nevada — to Las Vegas. Though this was true, it was clear to Perry
that Dick simply wanted to rid himself of the boy and the old man. Dick’s purpose was obvious to the boy, top, but he was polite and said, «Oh, don’t you worry about us. Plenty of traffic must stop
here. We’ll get a ride.»
The boy walked with them to the car, leaving the old man to devour a fresh stack of pancakes. He
shook hands with Dick and with Perry, wished them a Happy New Year, and waved them away
into the dark.
The evening of Wednesday, December 30, was a memorable one in the household of Agent A. A.
Dewey. Remembering it later, his wife said, «Alvin was singing in the bath. ‘The Yellow Rose of
Texas.’ The kids were watching TV. And I was setting the dining-room table. For a buffet. I’m from
New Orleans; I love to cook and entertain, and my mother had just sent us a crate of avocados
and black-eyed peas, and — oh, a heap of real nice things. So I decided: We’re going to have a
buffet, invite some friends over — the Murrays, and Cliff and Dodie Hope. Alvin didn’t want to, but I
was determined. My goodness! The case could go on forever, and he hadn’t taken hardly a
minute off since it began. Well, I was setting the table, so when I heard the phone I asked one of
the boys to answer it — Paul. Paul said it was for Daddy, and I said, ‘You tell them he’s in the bath,’
but Paul said he wondered if he ought to do that, because it was Mr. Sanford calling from Topeka.
Alvin’s boss. Alvin took the call with just a towel around him. Made me so mad — dripping puddles
everywhere. But when I went to get a mop I saw something worse — that cat, that fool Pete, up on
the kitchen table gorging crabmeat salad. My avocado stuffing.
«The next thing was, suddenly Alvin had hold of me, he was hugging me, and I said, ‘Alvin
Dewey, have you lost your mind?’ Fun’s fun, but the man was wet as a pond, he was ruining my
dress, and I was already dressed for company. Of course, when I understood why he was
hugging me I hugged him right back. You can imagine what it meant to Alvin to know those men
had been arrested. Out in Las Vegas. He said he had to leave for Las Vegas straightaway, and I
asked him hadn’t he ought to put on some clothes first, and Alvin, he was so excited, he said,
‘Gosh, honey, I guess I’ve spoiled your party!’ I couldn’t think of a happier way of having it spoiled

not if this meant that maybe one day soon we’d be back living an ordinary life. Alvin laughed — it
was just beautiful to hear him. I mean, the past two weeks had been the worst of all. Because the
week before Christmas those men turned up in Kansas City — came and went without getting
caught — and I never saw Alvin more depressed, except once when young Alvin was in the
hospital, had encephalitis, we thought we might lose him. But I don’t want to talk about that.
«Anyway, I made coffee for him and took it to the bedroom, where he was supposed to be getting
dressed. But he wasn’t. He was sitting on the edge of our bed holding his head, as if he had a
headache. Hadn’t put on even a sock. So I said, ‘What do you want to do, get pneumonia?’ And
he looked at me and said, ‘Marie, listen, it’s got to be these guys, has to, that’s the only logical
solution.’ Alvin’s funny. Like the first time he ran for Finney County Sheriff. Election Night, when
practically every vote had been counted and it was plain as plain he’d won, he said — I could have
strangled him — said over and over, ‘Well, we won’t know till the last return.’
«I told him, ‘Now, Alvin, don’t start that. Of course they did it.’ He said, ‘Where’s our proof? We
can’t prove either of them ever set foot inside the Clutter house!’ But that seemed to me exactly
what he could prove: