Contrary Pleasure by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online

there was an off-beat sense of
humor. An obliqueness. Marty would have the money. He had heard Marty was still
in the dormitory, in one of the single rooms. He stopped at the gate office and
checked the number. Number 312, Lowman Hall.
    It had been a long time since he had been in one of the dormitories. He
went up to Marty’s door and knocked. He remembered that it had been a little
after twelve when he knocked on the door. And a bright, good-smelling day
because it had rained in the morning and the whole world was washed clean and
new. He could hear some guys playing catch down in the quad, pock of
ball into glove. And somebody singing somewhere, in a deep resonant voice, a
trained voice. When there was no answer, he started to turn away and then tried
the knob. The door opened. He saw Marty’s clothes laid out neatly on the bed.
He remembered Marty’s habits. Marty would put his robe and slippers on, lay his
clothes out, and then go down the hall to the shower. He checked the closet and
saw that Marty’s wooden clogs were gone. Marty usually spent a long time in the
shower room. He looked out the window. Maybe Marty would be sore that he hadn’t
been over to see him. Maybe Marty would go off on one of his queer stubborn
streaks and refuse to lend the money. Or maybe Marty had heard that he had been
borrowing from everybody.
    The more he thought about it, the more positive he became that Marty was
going to say no. His hands felt wet and he dried them on his handkerchief. He
began to get sore at Marty. The little bastard would say no, all right.
    It wouldn’t hurt to make a quick check and see if Marty was flush enough
to spare the cash. Just a quick check.
    He remembered going to the bureau and the way the top drawer creaked a
little as he pulled it open. Marty always put his wallet in there when he went
to the shower room. Brock took the wallet and opened it and saw the wonderfully
crisp sheaf of bills. Marty liked new bills. His hands felt shaky. He thumbed
through the bills, counting the three twenties, a ten, a five, and four
singles. He took the three twenties out and started to put the wallet back. He
hesitated, then opened it again and took out the ten. Seventy dollars. Marty
certainly didn’t need it. Anyway, he would pay it back. Mail it to Marty in a
plain envelope after he got the summer job. No harm done.
    He felt a sudden need for haste. He opened the door and looked down the
hallway. It was empty. He walked lightly and quickly toward the staircase. He
glanced into one of the rooms as he went by. The room door was open. A boy sat
at a desk and glanced at Brock. The guy looked faintly familiar. But, hell,
he’ll never remember me. Marty won’t even know when he lost it. He was only two
blocks from Elise’s place when he realized that the bills were still folded
tightly in the palm of his hand. He stopped and, with great casualness,
transferred them into his wallet, sliding them in beside the single dollar of
his own. He’d promised Elise, hadn’t he? What the hell could you do? You
couldn’t go back on a promise. Marty would never miss a lousy seventy bucks.
Anyway, he was going to get it back, wasn’t he? It was just a loan.
    So he had given Elise forty dollars and she had taken thirty-five of it
down and given it to the wife of the building superintendent and come back
upstairs and they had gone to bed, he with greater eagerness than ever before,
as though in this way he could blind himself. Later it rained again. They made
toast of stale bread and ate it with jam. In the evening they went out and ate
well and went back to her place. Every once in a while he would think of Marty.
And he would feel angry with Marty. He stayed with her all night and missed his
first two classes, and went directly from her place to his eleven o’clock class
without textbook or notebook.
    At eleven-thirty a man came in and tiptoed to the front of the hall. The
lecturer frowned at the interruption. The man whispered