A Bullet for Cinderella by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

him and said, “What the hell was the idea of going through my room.”
    He leaned on his car. “You have a nice gentle snore, Howard. Soothing.”
    “I could tell the police.”
    “Sure. Tell them all.” He squinted in the afternoon sunlight. He looked lazy and amused.
    “What good does it do you to follow me?”
    “I don’t know yet. Have a nice lunch with Ruthie? She’s a nice little item. All the proper equipment. She didn’t go for me at all. Maybe she likes the more helpless type. Maybe if you work it right you’ll get a chance to take her to—”
    He stopped abruptly, and his face changed. He looked beyond me. I turned just in time to see a dark blue sedan approaching at a high rate of speed. It sped by us and I caught a glimpse of a heavy balding man with a hard face behind the wheel, alone in the car. The car had out-of-state plates but it was gone before I could read the state.
    I turned back to Fitz. “There’s no point in following me around. I told you I don’t know any more—” I stopped because there was no point in going on. He looked as though I had become invisible and inaudible. He brushed by me and got into his car and drove on. I watched it recede down the road. I got into my own car. The episode made no sense to me.
    I shrugged it off my mind and began to think about Leach again.

•    FOUR    •
    T hough the high-school kids had gone, the doors were unlocked and a janitor, sweeping green compound down the dark-red tiles of the corridor, told me I could probably find Mr. Leach in his office on the ground floor of the old building. The two buildings, new and old, were connected. Fire doors separated the frame building from the steel and concrete one. My steps echoed in the empty corridor with a metallic ring. A demure little girl came out of a classroom and closed the door behind her. She had a heavy armload of books. She looked as shy and gentle and timid as a puppy in a strange yard. She looked at me quickly and hurried on down the corridor ahead of me, moccasin soles slapping, meager horsetail bobbing, shoulders hunched.
    I found the right door and tapped on it. A tired voice told me to come in. Leach was a smallish man with a harsh face, jet eyebrows, a gray brushcut. He sat at a table marking papers. His desk, behind him, was stacked with books and more papers.
    “Something I can do for you?”
    “My name is Tal Howard. I want to talk to you about a student you used to have.”
    He shook hands without enthusiasm. “An ex-student who is in trouble?”
    “No. It’s—”
    “I’m refreshed. Not in trouble? Fancy that. The faculty has many callers. Federal narcotics people. Parole people. Prison officials. County police. Lawyers. Sometimes it seems that we turn out nothing but criminals of all dimensions. I interrupted you.”
    “I don’t want to impose on you. I can see how busy you are. I’m gathering material about Timmy Warden. Ruth Stamm suggested I talk to you.”
    He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “Timmy Warden. Gathering material. That has the sound of a book. Was he allowed to live long enough to give you enough material?”
    “Timmy and some others. They all died there in the camp. I was there, too. I almost died, but not quite.”
    “Sit down. I’m perfectly willing to talk about him. I take it you’re not a professional.”
    “No, sir.”
    “Then this, as a labor of love, should be treated with all respect. Ruth knows as much about Timmy as any person alive, I should say.”
    “She told me a lot. And I got a lot from Timmy. But I need more. She said you were interested in him.”
    “I was. Mr. Howard, you have probably heard of cretins who can multiply two five digit numbers mentally and give the answer almost instantaneously.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “I know. I know. Timmy was no cretin. He was a very normal young man. Almost abnormally normal if you sense what I mean. Yet he had a spark. Creative mathematics. He could sense the—the rhythm