Dead Low Tide by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

death, and try to forget his troubles by going out and seducing some helplessly stupid little girl.”
    “Not helpless, and definitely not stupid.”
    “Oh, she’s smart to let a thing like that happen to her?”
    “Christy, you have a great deal of sexual antagonism. Men are just as nice as other people. Nicer, sometimes. You got a sour one once. So are they all sour?”
    “Ninety-nine point nine per cent.”
    “Including McClintock?”
    “Including ninety-nine point nine per cent of McClintock.”
    “Oh, come now, Hallowell!”
    She patted my hand. “Don’t take it so hard, lamb. Come on. Let’s wash the dishes.”
    She was in a movie mood and she refused to sit around and hold my hand to give me strength until the appearance of Mary Eleanor. At last she wheeled off to the late movie, riding my clutch and racing the motor mercilessly. I took off my shirt, dug out a book, and spread myself on the couch, bug bomb and cigarettes handy. My mind kept wandering off the edge of the page and making tight little circles around Mary Eleanor and Joy. My days seemed to be getting too full of women, all of a sudden. I still didn’t know how I’d handle Mary Eleanor’s visit. I forced my mind back to the novel and pretty soon I hit a place where the book took over and all I had to do was lie there and move my eyes.
    It was eleven-thirty by my watch when the MG came snorting and whuffing down the road and side-slipped into my personal jungle. This time she didn’t catch me with the shirt off, just unbuttoned.
    She came in as if she lived there, skirt swirling around her lean tan legs. She dropped herself into a chair so hard her legs swung up, and then her heels banged back onto my floor. “God, what a mizrable ole evening, Andy! Just plain terrible.”
    “You’re early. Cigarette?”
    “Thanks, dear. I had to get away early or die in my tracks.
    It was so good of you to change your mind, Andy.”
    “I want to talk to you about that. Drink?”
    “Bourbon, if you have it. On the rocks.”
    I left her there and went out and made her a fat one. She might well need it. I carried it back in to her, sat down opposite her, and sipped my own drink, smiling like a death mask and wondering how to start.
    “Did you find out something, Andy?”
    “I want to make it clear, Mary Eleanor, that I made no attempt to find out anything.”
    “But you did, didn’t you? I can tell. You look and act so funny.”
    “I might have.”
    “Then you have to tell me. You have to.” She had leaned forward, and her eyes looked like black glass.
    “I want a couple of things clear. First, I didn’t try to find out anything. And second, I don’t want the sources to get back.”
    “You know you can trust me.” I heard Christy park my car outside, walk off down the road.
    Now I had backed myself all the way into a corner. So I gingerly repeated my conversation with John Long, editing it considerably, and watching her face all the time. She sat utterly still. I wished I had seated her where the light would reach her face. I left some things out, and softened the rest of it.
    “Tell me what
you
think,” she said, her voice very calm.
    “Oh, I think he’s a little sick or something. He knows he needs a rest. And he’s afraid that will interfere with Key Estates. He couldn’t trust Dake or Gordy to do it, alone or together, and—Well, when I went out there, it gave him the idea he could use me along with Dake and Gordy, and get it finished, and it eased his mind.”
    She took a cigarette out of her evening case and tapped itsharply on the back of her hand. “The job is going well out there?” she asked.
    “Fine, as far as I could tell. Faster than I thought.”
    “You hinted, Andy, about him saying that one of the reasons, or something, for finishing it wasn’t good any more.”
    “Something like that. I suppose he meant you can’t enjoy the money you make so much if your health isn’t good. Something like that.”
    “But