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

sellers. "Charley, there's nothing here worth fooling around with. The big one with the the shades he wants twenty-four bucks for. The redhead would maybe go for thirty. But, honest to God, Charley, they're both of them so damn dirty it would turn your stomick. The redhead has spilled food down her shirt, and you should see her neck."
    "Knock it off!" the boy said in a pinched little voice.
    "Charley, the big one here is named Jeanie, and she doesn't take baths. And all three of them are stoned out of their skulls on something. The kid has got the dirtiest hands I ever seen. Scrawny Page 22

    little bastard. If you ever could get him cleaned up, I don't think even old Crazy Eddie would grope him."
    "Get away from us! Get away from us! Get away from us!" It was the redhead, in a dismayed little whine. All the waiters were wide awake. Pedestrians had stopped to admire the volume of sound. Some tourist tables were staring, eyes bulging slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy make the move, snatch at the bottle. So I gave him full attention, snapped my hand up and let the bottle slap into the palm. I twisted it away and put it carefully back on the table and gave him a wolfsmile and said, "That's lousy manners, sonny."
    I stood up and said, "Charley, maybe a couple of years ago these fatso broads would have been worth a free jump, but now they're so far over the hill... Charley! Can you hear me, Charley?"
    "Just barely," he roared.
    "Even if they were cleaned up and dressed nice, they couldn't even make expenses at a hardware convention in Duluth."
    I dropped all the way back to merely a hearty conversational tone and smiled down at them and said, "Thanks anyway, kids. You got any slim clean pretty little friends who need more vacation money, send them on up to the Victoria and tell them to ask for McGee. But don't send any turned-on slobs like you two sorry girls. Fun is fun, but a man likes to keep his self respect.
    Right? See you around."
    I went back to Meyer. He rolled his eyes when I sat down with him. I slid down in the chair, ankles crossed, thumbs hooked in my belt, and smiled amiably at the three.
    They tried to brass it out for a little while. But the redhead started snuffling and choking. They gathered up their market bundles and took the route around the nearest corner and out of sight.
    Meyer sighed. "In a queasy kind of way, I think I enjoyed it. Did you?"
    "The target was the redhead."
    "And?"
    "She won't be able to leave it alone, Meyer. She'll have to pick at it. She's not so far gone as the other two. She can't endure anybody having that reaction to her. They have to be wrong. So she'll have to tell me how wrong I am. Ruptured pride. And then I can ask about Nesta, Rockland, and company. What if I'd asked them today?"
    He nodded. "I keep forgetting how devious you are at times. McGee, it was one of your better performances. You were in good voice. But... it was brutal."
    "Because it was too close to the truth. Let's go."
    The car was ready when we got back to the Ford garage. The shift still whammed me on the knee bone, but everything else was fine. I found a place to park it not far from the Ford place, and we walked over to the street carnival area and then located the Los Pajaros trailer park.
    There was a spiked iron fence around it, crumbling stone pillars. There were big old trees with dusty leaves shading unkempt flower beds. Paths had worn the grass away, and nobody had Page 23

    picked up the scraps of litter in a long, long time.
    The bossman was a jolly fat little type in a ragged blue work shirt and paint-spotted khakis. He had a big gold-toothed grin, and more English than I had Spanish. We went into his little office-store and he looked the information up in his registration notebook. When he pronounced Rockland, it came out "Roak-lawn."
    "Ah, yes. The Senor Roak-lawn, on place numer seexteen, from... ah... twenny-four of Abreel to... ah... twenny three in Zhuly? Yes. Tree month. He