The Alcoholics by Jim Thompson Read Free Book Online

it."
    "Sure," said Sloan. "I'll manage. What about this old guy, the General? I spotted him out on the terrace this morning. Looked like a man who could use a slug, if I ever saw one."
    "That's right," said Bernie. "I don't see how we can give the General a drink. He'd wind up by taking the whole bottle, and Doc would-well, I don't like to think about what Doc would do. It's too bad, but…"
    "I understand," Sloan nodded. "Well, I'll see you gentlemen, after a while."
    Glowing comfortably from the whiskey, he arose from his chair and sauntered across the room. He stepped through the French doors and out onto a flagstoned patio overlooking the front yard.
    Must cost something to maintain a place like this, Sloan thought idly. But for thirty bucks a day-thirty bucks plus extras per patient- Doctor Murphy could doubtless afford it. For that kind of money, he could afford something much better than this; and, Sloan thought critically, keep it up much better.
    Of course, the place wasn't filled to capacity, but it wouldn't have to be. Say there were only seven patients, such as was the case now. Well, seven times thirty was two hundred and ten-more than that when you figured extras, but call it two hundred and ten. Two ten times three sixty-five… why, hell, it figured out to around eighty grand a year! And if half of that wasn't profit then he, Jeff Sloan, didn't know his tail from a turnip.
    His eyes narrowed, suddenly, in a kind of good-natured disgust as he saw the doctor emerge from a clump of shrubbery near the far end of the lawn. He had been down on his hands and knees-a doctor, mind you, crawling on his hands and knees-and he arose holding a bottle. He held it up to the light, shook it, then hurried it away in the direction of the trees.
    Then, head down, he came striding up a curving grayeled walk to the patio.
    Sloan stepped down off the flagstone to meet him.
    "Oh, Doctor Murphy. I'd like to talk to you about-"
    "Huh!"-the doctor looked up startled, then roughly brushed past the advertising man. "Later. Haven't time for you now."
    "Now, just a minute!" said Sloan. "This is-"
    "I said I didn't have time, Sloan!"
    "But this is important! It-"
    "It'll keep then," Doc Murphy flung over his shoulder, and he disappeared through the French doors.
    Jeff took an angry stride or two after him; then, red-faced, kicking surlily at the gravel, he moved around the house to the rear terrace.
    The good feeling, the sharpness of mind he had know a moment ago, was beginning to leave him. Now he felt shamed, cheap, and, more than that, damned good and sore.
    He wasn't drunk, was he? He'd been entirely polite and business-like, hadn't he? Well, then. Where did that bird get off at, treating him like some Spring Street bum?
    Moodily, he sat down on the terrace and lighted a cigarette, sat staring out at the ocean. Of course, he had insisted on having whiskey this morning; he'd tricked Murphy into giving him two drinks. But Murphy didn't know he was being tricked, and he'd been pretty tricky himself, and-and, anyway, anyone was apt to need a couple of quick ones when he got up in the morning, and-and the guy had been goddam rude right from the start. If he hadn't tried to throw his weight around, he, Sloan, wouldn't have-might not have-taken even one drink.
    Rationalizing, pushing down the unpleasant facts which his subconscious mind sought to present to him, Jeff talked himself into a mood of warm self-righteousness. This Murphy would have to be shown, that was all. Let these other characters take his guff if they wanted to-( why did they do it, anyway? pretty big people, some of 'em )-but Jeff Sloan would show him.
    Show him, uh, something.
    He'd think of something… just as soon as he got another drink or two.
    He sauntered into the house and down the hall, wondering how he could broach the matter to the Holcombs in a way at once polite and insistent. They struck him as being pretty cold fish, if they wanted to be. Bernie Edmonds, too,