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

began to sag and a tiny spray of blood began to jet with each impact.
    Suddenly he dropped to his knees, one hand on the bed to hold himself erect. Lane, knowing that he was too arm-weary to punch the man again, swung the side of his shoe up against the point of Christy’s chin. The big head tilted back sharply. He was poised in that position for a moment, and then with a sigh he went over onto his side, tugging the spread from the bed with his left hand so that it fell across his short, stocky legs.
    Lane was trembling with weakness. “Good Lord!” he gasped. “I was beginning to think he couldn’t be knocked out.”
    The girl was taking quick, short steps in Christy’s direction. He saw her foot swing back and he grabbed her just in time, before the high heel slashed the unconscious man’s face. She turned into his arms, laughing and crying and trembling from head to foot.
    He held her away and slapped her twice. Bright color appeared in her cheeks and the sounds stopped as though a switch had been pulled.
    “We’ll have to tie him. With something strong. Coat hangers ought to do it—the wire kind.”
    She brought a handful of hangers. Lane rolled the man onto his face and wired his wrists together behind him, then his ankles. He used three hangers on the wrists and three on the ankles, twisting all the ends tight. He soaked a hand towel, jammed most of it into Christy’s mouth and then tied it in place with one of Diana’s nylons.
    Only then did they sit down, utterly exhausted from the physical and emotional strain. As he sat in the stupor that comes after violent action, Diana went and knelt beside Christy. He numbly watched her take a fat sheaf of large bills from an inside pocket. From another pocket she took a tight roll of bills wrapped in oilcloth and fastened with a rubber band.
    She sat very still, a curious expression on her face.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “I’m busy adding two and two.”
    “From here that looks like a lot of money.”
    “It is.”
    “Is that the money to pay for whatever is hidden in my car?”
    “Yes.”
    “Would it be too much trouble to brief me? Or would you rather not?”
    She smiled at him. “Maybe some day I’ll be able to tell you how much I owe you.” She laughed. “I don’t know your name, even.”
    “Sanson. Lane Sanson.”
    “I’ve got a phone call to make, Lane. I don’t want you to hear what I say.”
    “That’s blunt enough.” He stood up. “I’ll wait in the bathroom.”
    “Wait until I get my party. It may take some time.”
    It had happened so quickly, so finally, leaving the big man grotesquely on the floor, that Sanson had a strong sense of unreality, a feeling that his violence had no relationship to actuality—indeed, that this had not happened. But it had happened, and with the realization came the knowledge that it was a commitment he did not care to make. Once an act is performed there is no handy way to sidestep the flow of events that stem from that act. The record of his failure with Sandy was a record of responsibilities sidestepped because the initial act was never performed. But with this act a strong flow of events had been initiated. He did not know where they would carry him, but he did know that with his act he had ceased to function in any way as a free agent, and thus would be carried along with the events, a reluctant passenger. And he was afraid.
    He heard the murmur of Diana’s voice as she placed the phone call and it seemed to come from a great distance.
    She hung up the phone and turned to smile almost shyly at him. An indescribable muskiness hung about her—not something which could be scented, but was rather felt.
    “Sorry?” she asked.
    “I don’t know how to answer that. I am and I’m not. I never did anything like this before. God, I could have killed him with that glass!”
    “I would have been glad!”
    “That’s nice. You could have sent cookies to my cell.”
    She came to him and put her palms