Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes Read Free Book Online

or—”
    “Neither.” He frowned quickly. “Something’s happened to him. All he wants is to stay drunk.”
    “Perhaps I could help him forget.” She was amused. But that was only for Les. Hank was all right. Hank could keep her from thinking. And he could keep her from being alone; if she weren’t alone, Viv couldn’t get at her. The starry-eyed bookworm wasn’t any protection; Viv could use a machine gun and Gratia Shawn would think it was in the contract.
    Les coaxed. “I wish you’d tell me about it. Maybe I could help out.”
    It wasn’t to lend a helping hand that he wanted to know. It was his greedy curiosity, the desire to be first on all scandals. If she told him, the story would be hawked in the Cub room Saturday night, whispered at the Wedgwood room, shouted at Copa. She’d be a laughing stock, the girl who thought Viv Spender was a gunsel. That might be a way to tie his hands. A small quaver warned her against belief. It would only make Viv more careful in his plannings. The point was not to be alone with him.
    She said, “There’s nothing to tell, Les. Truly. He’s going to try to give me the brush-off but he’s going to find he can’t do it.” Her mouth set hard. “For once he’s going to have to fulfill a promise. I don’t look forward to the battle but I can’t lose.” Only by death. She lashed her eyes that Les couldn’t see the fear again. “I wonder what’s happened to your friend Cavanaugh.”
    Les laughed lazily. “We probably won’t see him again until we reach Chicago. You’d better put up with me, darling.”
—4—
    He was too sober. He stood in the corridor and the corridor swayed but he was steady. He didn’t have to go to the blonde’s compartment and pick up her damn tumbler; he could walk straight along into the next car. Keep walking until he reached the club car. He knew what to do when he reached it. He could stop his mind from functioning; he’d learned how.
    Les didn’t want him to return. Les wanted to be alone with the blonde hussy. Hank didn’t give a damn about her; let Les pick her brains, find out what made her afraid. He didn’t care. The days when he’d tried to beat Les to the details of a yarn were long past, thank God.
    If he weren’t too sober he wouldn’t have seen the fear Kitten was trying to keep covered. Even if he’d seen it, he wouldn’t have cared. It wouldn’t be nagging at him now when he should be moving one foot after another towards the bar.
    What had a girl like Kitten to fear? She wasn’t smart enough to be aware of the big things, the mad chaos of the spheres. She wasn’t facing want, one look at her dispelled that fantasy. She wasn’t old enough to fear the creeping debility of oncoming age. Fear of losing love? He scoffed the idea; there was nothing dewy-eyed about Kitten.
    It wasn’t any small fear eating her; it was something basic, something terrorizing. One look and he’d recognized it. Because he hadn’t seen anything much but fear in these last years. He shook his head. He mustn’t remember; he must not remember. He must stay drunk. But he didn’t walk forward in the train. He flung open the door of drawing room B. Flung it open, despising himself for his curiosity about a tinsel doll, for expecting blood when there could be nothing but sawdust.
    The train lurched and he fell into the room muttering about damn trains and damn curves and damn tumblers and Goddamn blondes. He didn’t see the girl until he’d closed the door. She wasn’t a blonde. She wasn’t tinsel.
    She was seated by the window, her finger marking a place in her book. Her eyes were lifted to him, not so much in curiosity as in wonderment. He brushed the hair out of his eyes, the first time in years. And he damned himself silently after his hand fell. Did he think she’d see the Hank Cavanaugh who once was, simply because his hair was in place? He knew what she’d see: a gaunt scarecrow, his face riddled with fatigue and anger, not