Deadly Welcome by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

bad Joe Ducklin had such no-account kin, but it wasn’t really close kin, and wasn’t Joe a hell of a fine man to take me in like he did? They never thought how much wages Joe saved. So I was supposed to be grateful and knowmy place. And it made them all uneasy when I got better grades than their sons and daughters, and they felt kind of strange about it when I could run harder and faster and carry a ball better than their sons. And get up quicker when I was hurt. And it didn’t seem right I should be popular in school and get invited to things, and run around with their kids. I guess they’d look at me and see I was mannerly and knew which fork to use, and they wished they could put a big tag on me, saying I was bayou trash. I was too big for my britches. So then I did just what they wanted. I did it up fine. Got drunk and robbed good old Joe. That proved something, didn’t it? You cain’t trust that bayou trash. They’ll turn on you ever’ time. Got that mean shifty streak in ’em.”
    He turned his head violently away from her and looked blindly south down the afternoon beach, and felt the unexpected sting of tears in his eyes.
    “Oh, Alex, Alex,” she said softly, and for just a moment she laid her hand on his arm, and took it away. “It was long ago. You were just a kid.”
    When he was sure of his control he turned back toward her and smiled a crooked smile. “It was so long ago, wasn’t it, that there wouldn’t be any point in my lying now?”
    “I … I wouldn’t think so. What do you mean?”
    “The sad crazy thing about it is I didn’t do it.”
    She was frowning, her eyes moving quickly as she searched his face. “But you pleaded guilty. It was in the papers.”
    “I pleaded guilty. They talked to me and talked to me and they said if I tried to fight it I’d end up in Raiford sure as hell. So be sensible, kid, and plead guilty and it’s all set so the judge’ll let it drop if you enlist right off. And I was going to enlist anyway. That was what the party was about. I passed out. Somebody took the store key out of my pocket and they went and they took twenty cartons of cigarettes, and those pensand lighters, and nearly two hundred dollars out of the register. Then they shoved the key and two twenty-dollar bills and three fountain pens in my pockets.”
    “But you
should
have fought!”
    “I know that
now
, Betty. But I was sick and I was scared and I was confused. All I wanted was to get out of that cell and get in the army and never think about Ramona again.”
    “Why didn’t you write Joe later and tell him the truth, Alex? Or write any of your friends?”
    “I wouldn’t have written Joe. I should have written to Myra. I must have started a dozen letters. I couldn’t say it right. I tore them up. I told myself when I got out of the service I’d come back and clear things up. I was going to be my own private eye and find out who did it. But I got out and … I couldn’t make myself come back. I knew I’d never come back.”
    “And now here you are.”
    “I got older. And smarter, maybe.”
    “But it still hurts, doesn’t it? You sounded so bitter it made me feel … sort of strange. Have you thought of who could have done it?”
    “It was a big party, Betty. A beer party and dance. I guess over a hundred of the kids. I kept having to make speeches. It was Willy Reiser brought that raw ’shine, and we got to drinking it out of paper cups. They let us have the Legion Hall and when I passed out early, they put me in one of those little back rooms and stuck flowers in my hand and went on with my going-away party. Almost anybody could have done it. It isn’t a long walk from Ducklin’s to the Hall. They’d need a car, maybe, to carry the cigarettes, but anybody who didn’t have a car could borrow one. I’ll never know who did it, Betty.”
    “What a filthy, filthy trick! Worse than the stealing was making it look like it was you. But even so, Joe wouldn’t have had to