Read Online Border Town Girl by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online

you.”
    “Do you help me?”
    “Just until I can get that damn stuff out of my car.”
    “Come on, then.” She ran ahead of him down the corridor: She yanked open a broom closet, shoved her suitcase inside, and slammed the door. The back window was open. The outside fire escape reached down to the yard behind the hotel.
    Diana looked out cautiously. “Okay. Come on.” She went down first. He followed her. A kitchen helper stood out by the garbage cans, a cigarette between his fingers, his mouth open in surprise.
    “Which one?” she said.
    “Over there. The red Buick.”
    They both ran to it He threw his bag into the back seat, slid behind the wheel. She jumped in beside him and slammed the door. He fumbled with the key, got the motor started and stalled it
    “Come on! Come on!” she said.
    The back tires skidded and threw gravel. He drove down the alley beside the hotel. Evidently the kitchen helper had run in to the desk. The clerk came along the sidewalk, his face red and angry. He jumped into the alley mouth, blocking the way, and stood there waving his arms.
    Lane lifted his foot from the gas. Diana reached her foot over and trod down on his. The car leaped forward. The clerk made a frantic dive for his life. Lane got a quick glance at the man rolling over and over on the sidewalk as they shot out into the traffic. He wrenched the wheel hard to avoid a big truck. The tires screamed, horns blew, and people shouted angrily at him.
    The midmorning sun beat hotly down on the town.
    “Now slow and easy,” Diana said.
    “Oh, fine,” he said bitterly.
    “Head east out of town. Step it up once you’re outside the city limits.”
    “Yessir, boss.”
    He stepped it up to seventy. The two-lane concrete rushed at them and was whipped under the wheels.
    “Can’t you make it faster?”
    “Take a look at the heat gauge, boss. The radiator needs flushing. Any faster and I burn up the motor.”
    They sped through country full of reddish stone, cactus and sparse dry grass. Far ahead the road disappeared into the shimmer of heat waves.
    After a full hour in which neither of them spoke, Lane saw a side road far ahead. It led over to a grove of live oaks that were livid green in the sunbaked expanse. It was a dirt road and he could only hope that the live oaks did not screen a house.
    He stepped hard on the brakes, corrected a tendency to skid, and shot down the dirt road, the car bouncing high.
    “What are you doing?” she shouted.
    “Shut up, angel. There’s been a shift of authority. You’ve been deposed.”
    She tried to grab the wheel. He slapped her hand away. The road turned sharply to the left once it reached the grove. A dry creek bed ran through the grove. There was no house. He pulled the car under the biggest tree and cut off the motor.
    “What kind of a bright idea is this?”
    “Please shut up.” He took the keys out of the switch and put them in his pocket. The world seemed silent after the roar of the motor. In the distance a mourning dove cried softly. On the highway three hundred yards away a car sped by with an odd whistling drone, fading off into the distance.
    He unlocked the back end and took out a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench.
    “Would you know where they hide stuff on a car?”
    She didn’t answer him. He shrugged, released the hood catch and shoved the hood up. The wave of motor heat struck him. He stared at the motor for a time. He didn’t know the characteristics of the drug, but he imagined it was a crystalline substance. Motor heat wouldn’t do it much good probably. It was probably somewhere in the body of the car.
    He told her to get out of the car. She didn’t move, didn’t look at him. He took her wrist and pulled her out. She walked woodenly over to a patch of grass under one of the trees and sat down with her back to him.
    Lane began to sweat from exertion as he yanked the seats out. He examined them carefully but could see no evidence that they had been tampered