Dress Her in Indigo by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online

Wasn't his name... ?"
    "McLeen. I went to the public market last week with Del and he introduced himself. Said he was looking for his daughter."
    "He still around?"
    "I have no idea."
    "Walter Rockland?" They both looked blank, both shrugged.
    "They came down in a Chevy pickup, blue, with a new camper body on it."
    She looked at Mike. "Rocko?" she asked.
    "He says the name is Rockland, and the truck fits. Mr. McGee, is he a little older than the rest of the bunch? Husky?"
    "That fits."
    "Then Miss Bix came down here in bad company if she came with that one," Della said. "That one is one mean honkey son of a bitch. That one is a smart ass and a hustler. When did we have that fuss with him, honey?"
    "About the fourth of July I think. The day after the fourth." They took turns telling me about it.
    They'd gone to visit a couple they knew, who were living in a travel trailer at the trailer park over near the Plaza de la Danza. Rocko's camper was in a nearby site. Evidently someone had pried open a little door in the side of the camper and stolen his little tank of bottle gas. He came over to the travel trailer in an ugly mood, acting as if it was the fault of the friends of Mike and Della for not seeing it happen. Mike told him to take it easy. Rocko looked the situation over and told Mike he didn't need any advice from him or his spade chick. They were standing outside the travel trailer.
    Mike swung on Rocko and missed, and Rocko tagged him as he lunged forward off balance.
    "And," said Della, "Mike was out of it right then. And that mean bastard knew it, but he hit him three more times before he could fall down, and then kicked him in the side. I jumped on his back and reached around to claw his face, and he bucked me off right into the side of the trailer.
    It sprained my neck and I went around for a week with my head way over on the side like this."
    "Is he still there?"
    "Our friends left not long after that. We had no reason to go back. Maybe he's still there." They told me how to find it. It was on the west side of town. It was near a street carnival. It was near a school. It had an iron fence around it. It was near the Ford garage. Oh. And called Los Pajaros Trailer Court.
    With considerable animation, Della said, "We've got a crazy pad, built like into a corner of a Page 20

    walled garden where there used to be some kind of tourist home that burned. We met such a sweet guy in Mexico City at the art school, and we were running out of money, and he said we could stay there. Outdoor plumbing, and a well with a pump that Mike fixed, and all the tame flowers have gone wild. It's about a mile along the Coyotepec road. You ought to come and see us and..."
    She froze, and her eyes changed and narrowed. "You are some kind of sneak, man. What the hell am I saying? Who knows you?"
    "We know him, honey,," Mike said gently. "You have to go along with your own reaction. We can't keep all the walls up all the time. We can't demand credentials."
    "Easier for you," she said obliquely. "The man can be so dear, and then his partner takes over and raps you on your kinky haid until your ears bleed, and then the dear man takes his turn with sweet talk."
    "Come and see us if you get a chance. On the left on the way to the airport," Mike said. "Look for an old red jeep parked under the trees by the wall."
    "I'm sorry," Della Davis said.
    "I'll stop by and say hello. Thanks for the invitation. One thing I forgot to ask. The man who owned the car she drove off the road. Bruce Bundy. Know him? Or the woman who identified her body, the French woman, Mrs. Vitrier?"
    They did not know them. Mike said, "There are some eerie people living in these little resort spots in Mexico. Here and in Cuernavaca and Taxco and San Miguel. Some are loaded and some are just making it. And the summer is hunting time, both ways. All the kids come flooding down, and there are weirdo types who stalk the kids, and hard kids that stalk the resident crazies.
    I used to