Weep for Me by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online

like the pendulum on Granddaddy’s clock, and I said nothing is too good for my old pal …”
    “Shut up!” I yelled. “For God’s sake, shut up!”
    Sam’s jaw dropped and he turned dark red. My shout echoed through the big main room of the bank. Tatley, one of the more influential veeps, stood up at his desk and glared toward the cages. Nairn came hustling over.
    “What is all this?” he demanded of me.
    “Just horsing around,” I said meekly. “A little too loud, I guess. I’m sorry.”
    “Watch that sort of thing, Cameron,” he said coldly.
    That’s the hell of working in a bank. You can knock off six years of hard work in ten seconds. In 1960, they’d still be remembering the morning I raised my voice at Sam Grinter. And I could see, just as plain as day, that I would remain a teller until the day they retired me. It wouldn’t matter how many I.C.S. and night-school courses I took. Can’t have a man yelling in a bank. No respect. Better keep an eye on him. I hit the edge of my counter and then looked stupidly at the blood on my middle knuckle.
    I knew why I looked like hell. It had been a miserable week end. The talk with Emily had shoved me a littlefarther along that tangential path that had started on Wednesday.
    I had spent the better part of the week end quarreling with Jo Anne as we had never quarreled before. Three times I made her cry, and watched her cry, and took a stolid, sadistic satisfaction in it.
    Sunday night, out of remorse, I had tried to patch it all up as best I could, but a lot of damage had been done. Our arguments were over meaningless things. Whether we’d get a new car or a good used car for the wedding trip. How many people we’d have at the reception.
    And whenever I had thought of Emily Rudolph, the little drums had started beating in my blood again. She had admitted she was attracted to me. But there wasn’t a thing I could do to give her what she wanted. Money was in the way. Money I didn’t have, and money somebody else would have.
    When I kissed Jo Anne Sunday night and tasted salt on her lips, salt from the tears that had run down her face, tears that I had caused, I felt like smashing my fist against a stone wall.
    When I had a chance I said, “Sorry, Sam.”
    He didn’t look at me. “Skip it.” He was sore. You see, by yelling at him, I had hurt him with our bosses as well as myself.
    “That was a damn fool thing to do,” I said. “Yelling like that.”
    “Just drop the subject, Cameron. That’s all. Just drop the subject.”
    I knew that bank. Five minutes after I yelled they’d know about it back in the safety-deposit vaults, know it up on the second floor. Ten minutes later the tellers two blocks away in the Chemical Trust and Exchange would know about it.
    At eleven o’clock I picked a counterfeit twenty out of a deposit being made by a bar and grill. The depositor was highly indignant. He acted as though I were to blame for recognizing it. It didn’t matter to him that someone had passed it in his place. It was a crude job,and he had been a little too tense as I was counting his deposit. My nerves were so on edge that I nearly blew my top again, caught myself just in time, and turned him over to Tom Nairn.
    After lunch I decided that the thing to do was pick up some flowers after work and make a pretty abject call on Jo Anne. Poor kid, she rated it. I’d given her the world’s most sour week end.
    I checked out fast and stopped in a florist shop on the way back to the apartment. I picked out three white gardenias. The man quickly twisted them into a corsage and put them in a little transparent box. They looked nice with the little drops of water on the white petals.
    While I showered and changed, I left the gardenias in the icebox to keep them fresh. I was going to get all the discontent and nervousness and thoughts of Emily Rudolph out of my head. I wanted, badly, to be the same guy I had been just one week before. And I was going to fight