On the Run by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

around and walked out.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m glad you talked about it.”
    “I talked too much.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why it should make me feel shaky to talk about it. I’ve never talked this much to anybody, I guess. I’ve lived with theidea Wain wants me dead. I don’t want to oblige him. You listen good, Nurse.”
    “I understand it better.” She gave him a strange and twisted look. “Jud would have gotten along just fine with Thelma.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He loved to say all the pretty romantic words. He loved making poetic statements and little caresses. He could make me feel almost beautiful. But … he would have been satisfied if things could have always stopped right there, with just the pretty words and tender kisses. He didn’t have much heart for the rest of it.” She flushed and got up quickly and went to the window, lifted a flap and looked out. He finished his drink, and went over and stood near her. She looked at her watch.
    “Did you know it’s after midnight?” she said.
    “You’ve had a busy day.”
    “What day can you leave?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    She frowned at him. “Don’t you have things to do?”
    “They’re all done.”
    “And we can fly back tomorrow?”
    “We’ll go in my car. I don’t like to be without a car. Travel any other way and it’s too easy to find out where you came from and where you went. We’ll drive right on through. You can spell me. Thirty-six hours should do it. On Monday morning old Tom can look at his grandson. I don’t know what good it will do anybody. We can pick up a couple of things on the way. Thermos for coffee. Some kind of a rig so the person not driving can stretch out in the wagon and get some decent sleep.”
    “Well … all right, Sid.”
    “I don’t know. The way you can just leave. No roots at all.”
    “No friends? No woman? Is that what you mean?”
    “I’ve got some acquaintances. I won’t be missed. No woman at the moment. No. A pickup sometimes when I get too restless. But I have to get damned restless for that kind of thing. A woman to have for a little while. Sometimes. Not often. Not many.”
    “It isn’t any of my …”
    “I know that. But you keep asking and wondering, don’tyou? You want to know all there is to know. What good is it doing you?”
    “Please, Sid.”
    “Find a warm and comfortable woman and a safe place to be with her, one that can willingly accept a man with no past and no future, one that doesn’t have any need for the kind of emotional security that makes most of them try to nail you down forever and ever. One that just accepts, without being either too humble or too grateful or too indifferent. How many of those are there?”
    “Don’t be angry with me. Please.”
    “Nurse, you found yourself a running animal, but you want to insist it has no right to be different in any way. Running isn’t supposed to change it at all. You want it to be just like anybody else, underneath. You want me to say, Aw, shucks, I’m just a decent fella had a little bad luck.”
    “But I don’t want you to dramatize yourself either.”
    He stared at her at close range. She stood facing him, the light against her cheek and her dark hair. She squared her shoulders, mildly defiant.
    “You’re just a messenger, aren’t you?” he asked gently.
    “I guess so. If you say so.”
    “How many judgments should messengers have? What do you represent, Nurse Lettinger? Perfection?”
    “I never said I …”
    “Your kind of running is cleaner than my kind of running?”
    “Now really,” she said and tried to laugh. He caught her as she started to turn away, wrapped her in long hard arms, kissed her mouth as she gasped, held her through a struggling briefer than before. She went limp and dead, the defence which had worked before.
    He turned her against the wall by the window, kept doggedly at her, stroking the long firm body under the thin green dress, searching for her response,