The Beach Girls by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

monotonous.”
    “That I can believe. I haven’t been hit in the face or hit anybody else for twenty years. It was very unreal. Like finding yourself in a B movie.”
    “It didn’t work like the B movies. The hero got clobbered.”
    “I don’t feel like the hero type. I could have done just as much damage flailing him with a paper towel.”
    “Leo, what’s the object of crewing for Lew?” I asked him.
    “Object? It’s a chance to learn what they didn’t have time to teach me in Jacksonville.”
    “But it’s learning the hard way. Lew Burgoyne is rough.”
    “I couldn’t help but notice. Christy, I’m full of platitudes. Basically I’m a very dull man. I believe if you want to pick up something fast, you put yourself in a spot where you have to learn.”
    “Throw the baby off the dock and yell ‘Swim to Mommy, dear’?”
    “Exactly.”
    “One word in there bothers me. Why do you have to learn fast?”
    Once again I detected uneasiness and wariness in him. His smile was too casual. “Impatience, I guess.”
    Conversation had run out. I had the feeling that he and I could talk to each other for years, and enjoy every minute, but for the moment we had run out and I knew sleep would be good for him. Time for me to leave.
    There was a little pause after I finished my drink. Not a particularly awkward pause, but I filled it with one of my faces, the one with owl eyes and a goldfish mouth. It got the familiar grunt of laughter from him. I stood up and said, “Slave girl leave king on bed of pain now.”
    “Christy, I’m very grateful.”
    “ ’Night, now.”
    “Just a moment.” He was looking at me with such a discomfiting intensity that I thought maybe there was a streak of the wolf there. “Why did you do that?”
    “Do what?”
    “Make that face for no reason.”
    “Oh, that! It’s just one of my faces. I’m Christy, the clown girl. A laugh a minute. Here’s one of my greatest.” I put the glass down and did my ape walk, knuckles almost on the floor, and made my ape face.
    He laughed and then said, “I laughed, but it made me feel uncomfortable to laugh.”
    I stared at him. “Why?”
    “Because it’s like a nervous tic. I sense something compulsive about it.”
    “Stranger, are you an exec or an undercover psychologist?”
    “I guess I’ve always had to know what makes people do things, say things, form opinions.”
    I felt very odd. Though we’d talked quite a lot, there had been an impersonal flavor about it. And suddenly it had become very personal, very immediate. To keep people out of your secret places, you make jokes.
    “Question, then, is why Christy is a compulsive clown? Because people tell me I have a nifty sense of humor and I have to live up to it.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Well, to be a clown, you have to have the face to go with it. Then you practice. And pretty soon people are laughing like crazy. And you become a very popular girl.” I’d tried to keep it light, but something worse than usual happened to my voice. And my darn eyes started to sting. “What difference does it make?” I asked belligerently.
    “The last thing I want to do is make you feel bad, believe me. I was just wondering about you. I’m sorry.”
    “No harm done, stranger. Take care.”
    “Christy?”
    I turned back again, warily. He had a horrible knack of making me feel exposed and uncomfortable. But I saw that he was the one looking uncomfortable. “What you said earlier, Christy, about the letter, joking about a secret mission. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to the other people about it.”
    “Then I
was
right!”
    “In a sense. Yes.”
    “What are you here for?”
    “I’ll make this promise to you. If I can tell you, I will.”
    “Okay.”
    “And you’re a great deal prettier than you think you are, Christy.”
    “Don’t!” I wailed, and fled like a thief. I stumbled getting up onto the dock because he had turned the sting to tears and I wasn’t seeing too