Read Online All These Condemned by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John D. MacDonald
Ads: Link
than I had thought.
“I’ve sure liked you on the TV, Miss Jonah.”
“Thanks, friend. You’re one of the last survivors of a dwindling race.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He was big and dumb and honest and sweet. I had pained him. “I’m planning to retire,” I said, wondering why I said
that
.
“You are? Well … I suppose it’s a case of quitting while you’re ahead.”
“I might get married, even,” I said. The conversation was rapidly working its way into a hole.
“That would be nice.” Boy, we were sparkling.
“It’ll be tough to do. I’ve done that bride routine so often.”
“Hey, I remember that! You did it in that movie. Where you got all fouled up with that long thing in back.”
“My train.”
“And then you got the hay fever from the bouquet.”
“And tried to keep from sneezing, like this.”
He watched me with pure delight and laughed andslapped my shoulder and nearly knocked me down. Then everybody was staring at us. The trooper turned bright red and began looking stern. We’d been whistling in church.
It was, all in all, a highly unreal Sunday morning. Vividly unreal. We seemed to be standing around like a cast waiting for the director. When you stay up all night it does strange things to the following morning. But I didn’t sag. I was aware of Paul in the room. I felt keyed up. Mavis had finally stopped.
What happened next was purely and simply nightmare. What happened next I do not really believe I will ever pry out of the back of my head. It’s still there, in color. Just last week I woke up out of a juicy nightmare about it and Paul held me safe and close, and a long way off a coyote howled. I needed a lot of comforting.
Four
(STEVE WINSAN—BEFORE)
I KNEW I WAS GOING TO have to go up there to Wilma’s place and do plenty of scrambling. She made that clear when she phoned me. She’s cute, like a crutch. “Randy has been telling me I’m dreadfully poor, darling. He keeps going over lists of things and making little check marks. He gave you three little marks. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I guess you’ll have to ask him.”
You never let a client see you squirm, especially if the client is Wilma Ferris. “We’ll still have our beautiful friendship, kid.”
“And poor Gil will be so depressed if he can’t read about himself in the papers any more.”
“I guess I can make it all right, Wilma.”
“I thought you would,” she said a bit obliquely, and hung up after telling me to be there by cocktail time. It meant canceling out some things in town, but nothing too special.She phoned me on Wednesday. I managed to keep telling myself everything was fine until late Thursday afternoon, and then I hit bottom. Dotty came in and stood by my desk and asked me if there was anything else and I growled at her to go on home.
After she left, banging the reception-room door behind her, I took a yellow pad and a soft pencil and tried to figure out just where the hell I was. I figured it out in the most pessimistic way possible. I assumed I’d lose all three of them. I had already figured on losing Judy Jonah. Willy, her agent, had given me the confidential word on the trouble he was having trying to place her show. It was, of course, too expensive to operate to take any gamble on sustaining, even if a decent half-hour spot could be opened up for it. And the way the rating had skidded, he had a big problem interesting any new sponsor. We agreed that it was highly unlikely that Ferris would go along with her another season.
A thing like that you can stand. But three at once makes a hell of a hole. I had to keep paying on the tax deficiency they’d nailed me for, and keep sending Jennifer her five-hundred-a-month alimony so she could sit on her scrawny tail out there in Taos, and keep paying the rent on the office and the apartment, and keep paying Dotty, and keep up the personal front. I’d built the list up to twenty-one hundred a week. And with a
“I’ve sure liked you on the TV, Miss Jonah.”
“Thanks, friend. You’re one of the last survivors of a dwindling race.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He was big and dumb and honest and sweet. I had pained him. “I’m planning to retire,” I said, wondering why I said
that
.
“You are? Well … I suppose it’s a case of quitting while you’re ahead.”
“I might get married, even,” I said. The conversation was rapidly working its way into a hole.
“That would be nice.” Boy, we were sparkling.
“It’ll be tough to do. I’ve done that bride routine so often.”
“Hey, I remember that! You did it in that movie. Where you got all fouled up with that long thing in back.”
“My train.”
“And then you got the hay fever from the bouquet.”
“And tried to keep from sneezing, like this.”
He watched me with pure delight and laughed andslapped my shoulder and nearly knocked me down. Then everybody was staring at us. The trooper turned bright red and began looking stern. We’d been whistling in church.
It was, all in all, a highly unreal Sunday morning. Vividly unreal. We seemed to be standing around like a cast waiting for the director. When you stay up all night it does strange things to the following morning. But I didn’t sag. I was aware of Paul in the room. I felt keyed up. Mavis had finally stopped.
What happened next was purely and simply nightmare. What happened next I do not really believe I will ever pry out of the back of my head. It’s still there, in color. Just last week I woke up out of a juicy nightmare about it and Paul held me safe and close, and a long way off a coyote howled. I needed a lot of comforting.
Four
(STEVE WINSAN—BEFORE)
I KNEW I WAS GOING TO have to go up there to Wilma’s place and do plenty of scrambling. She made that clear when she phoned me. She’s cute, like a crutch. “Randy has been telling me I’m dreadfully poor, darling. He keeps going over lists of things and making little check marks. He gave you three little marks. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I guess you’ll have to ask him.”
You never let a client see you squirm, especially if the client is Wilma Ferris. “We’ll still have our beautiful friendship, kid.”
“And poor Gil will be so depressed if he can’t read about himself in the papers any more.”
“I guess I can make it all right, Wilma.”
“I thought you would,” she said a bit obliquely, and hung up after telling me to be there by cocktail time. It meant canceling out some things in town, but nothing too special.She phoned me on Wednesday. I managed to keep telling myself everything was fine until late Thursday afternoon, and then I hit bottom. Dotty came in and stood by my desk and asked me if there was anything else and I growled at her to go on home.
After she left, banging the reception-room door behind her, I took a yellow pad and a soft pencil and tried to figure out just where the hell I was. I figured it out in the most pessimistic way possible. I assumed I’d lose all three of them. I had already figured on losing Judy Jonah. Willy, her agent, had given me the confidential word on the trouble he was having trying to place her show. It was, of course, too expensive to operate to take any gamble on sustaining, even if a decent half-hour spot could be opened up for it. And the way the rating had skidded, he had a big problem interesting any new sponsor. We agreed that it was highly unlikely that Ferris would go along with her another season.
A thing like that you can stand. But three at once makes a hell of a hole. I had to keep paying on the tax deficiency they’d nailed me for, and keep sending Jennifer her five-hundred-a-month alimony so she could sit on her scrawny tail out there in Taos, and keep paying the rent on the office and the apartment, and keep paying Dotty, and keep up the personal front. I’d built the list up to twenty-one hundred a week. And with a
Similar Books
