One Fearful Yellow Eye by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

sloven, but good with her kids, affectionate with them like a mother bear, hugging them and whacking them. But not much sense of responsibility. She'd get off work and go to a beer Joint, and Susan would be the sitter for the littler ones. She apparently could be picked up without to much trouble, but she never took men back to her place. Susan sounded pretty special. Bright and blonde and pretty, and very earnest about seeing that the kids got proper food and were dressed adequately. And she kept the apartment clean. It looked as if they could get along on the four hundred from the annuity and the two hundred and fifty or so that Gretchen was making in wages and tips, but Gretchen liked to play the numbers and the horses too well. If there was more money, she'd just bet more.
    "Fort and I talked over what if anything he ought to do. In the end he got in touch with Gretchen and told her that if she stopped gambling, all her kids would be better off, and he had no intention of giving her any money. Then he had the same investigators get word to Susan that if any emergency ever came up that she couldn't handle, she was to contact them, but it would be best not to tell her mother about it. We wondered what we should try to do when Susan became eighteen and began getting her own money directly. We talked about it as if... Fort would still be around. She'll be eighteen next year. We wanted to make sure she'd go to college and not get cheated out of it by having to look after the other kids. She certainly wasn't any threat-Gretchen wasn't-to Fort. It was just sort of dreary and sad. I'd half decided that after Fort died, I'd go to Susan and explain everything and see if I could sort of... look after her. After all, I guess I'm only a couple of years too young to be her mother. So that's all it was. Look how long it took me to tell it. That's what comes from living alone. Dinner now?"
    "Unless you want to see a grown man cry."
    When we were eating I asked her if Anna knew about Gretchen's attempted shakedown. She said Fort hadn't told Anna about it, but he had told her about Gretchen being in town with five children. At first Anna hadn't wanted to do anything about it, but Fort had sensed it was pride and bullheadedness. She had visited once when Gretchen was there and it had ended very badly, so from then on she had visited when she knew the kids would be there and Gretchen would be working."
    "Did you go see Susan yourself?"
    "I waited too long. I had... a sentimental idea, Trav. I thought I would find out very carefully if she knew Fort was her father. If she did, I wanted to find out if she had any bad feeling about him. If she did, I was going to try to make her see how it was, how it happened, how Fort had done what he could, and then, if she was willing, bring her out here to see him. I know he wanted to see her. I mean from the report I guess he had the feeling he had fathered at least one pretty good kid. But he had felt reluctant to upset whatever adjustment the girl had made. I went there in September and they were gone. They'd been gone a couple of weeks. I asked Anna about it.

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    She looked pretty bleak. She said that if she'd known I was going there, she would have told me they were gone. She said it was her idea Gretchen didn't want Anna buttering up the kids, so she just moved, maybe somewhere else in the city, maybe out of town. No forwarding address.
    Probably some new man, Anna said, looking as if she wanted to spit."
    "Glory, have you got that investigator's report?"
    "No. I thought they'd find it when they went through everything. But I guess Fort destroyed it."
    "I wonder why he'd do that?"
    "I guess he had a good reason. Trav, Fort had a lot of... wisdom. I guess that's the word. He thought things out and did what he felt would be best for everyone. Like when..."
    "When what?"
    "Nothing."
    "From the expression on your face when you stopped yourself, it wasn't exactly nothing, girl."
    "It was just a