Border Town Girl by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

the wicker chair. She said with calculated throatiness, “But if you could help me, I wouldn’t be—standoffish.”
    He looked her up and down very closely, very coldly. “Darling, you have been traveling with the wrong group. Go back there and sit down. If you’re in trouble, I’ll try to help. But not for the prize in the bottom of the package. Just because marks are like that.”
    She went back to the bed and sat down, her face in her hands. He realized that she was crying silently. He went over and sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him. Her body trembled.
    “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m a recruit. Attired in my shining armor, I’m riding to the rescue.”
    She laughed through her tears. “You fool!”
    “Spill it.”
    The door swung open. Lane looked up and saw a remarkably unappealing man. He had a body like an ape’s, wore rimless glasses on his white, oddly distorted face. The girl looked up at him and Lane felt her go rigid with sudden fear.
    The stranger planted his feet. “Friend of yours, Diana?” he asked mildly.
    “That’s right.”
    “How’d he get in?”
    “I phoned the desk last night when I got hungry. They brought up another key.”
    Lane kept his arm around the girl’s shoulders. It was petty defiance. The stranger acted a bit uncertain.
    The stranger jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. “Out,” he said.
    The girl spoke quickly. “Oh, Christy can get away with little gestures like that.” She laughed nervously. “He used to be a strong man in a circus, you know. He’s never gotten over it. Once he gets his hands on you, brother, you’re all through.”
    Lane got the clear impression that the girl was warning him and yet trying to tell him something. He stood up and said matter-of-factly, “Well then, it looks as though I better shove off. By the way, Diana. That little matter we were just talking about—I haven’t changed my mind, but I ought to know if your friend here is it.”
    “What the hell is this?” Christy demanded.
    “He’s it,” Diana said quickly, “but I’ve changed my mind. Please don’t.”
    Lane hesitated. Diana stood up, too. Christy pushed between them and shoved Diana away from him so brutally that she staggered and nearly fell. She looked up at Lane, her eyes meaningful in her white face.
    “Now get out. Fast,” Christy said.
    Lane smiled broadly and said, “Let me get my cigarettes, if you don’t mind.” He had seen cigarettes on the bureau. He stepped quickly around Christy and went to the bureau. His back was to Christy. Instead of the cigarettes, he picked up the heavy glass tumbler. He glanced in the mirror and saw that Christy was looking at the girl.
    He spun with the tumbler in his hand, his right arm coming up and over. He threw it at the side of Christy’s head. It hit with a solid and sickening thud. The tumbler fell to the rug, bounced and rolled away. Christy stood, his eyes filled with an inward bemused expression. Lane reached him in two steps. Christy was shaking his head slowly. Lane hit him in the jaw with all his strength. Christy rocked but he didn’t go down. His hands moved slowly toward Lane. As Lane sidestepped to avoid them he saw the girl standing a little apart from them, her clenched hands between her breasts.
    Lane hit Christy again and again and again. The only sound in the room was the thick, dead impact of bone on flesh. The little blue eyes were glazed and the glasses were jolted off so that they hung by one bow from the left ear. The big hands worked and there was something almost like a smile on Christy’s face. He could no longer lift his arms. Lane swung and the glasses bounced away and broke on the floor. A vast pain ran up his right arm from his knuckles. He had the horrifying feeling that Christy was slowly recovering from the blow from the tumbler. Lane grunted with the effort as he swung. Christy’s mouth was losing its shape. His jaw