Read Online Dead Low Tide by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John D. MacDonald
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“He’s dead,” she said in a small voice.
“Yes.”
She pulled her hand away and stood up. “I’ve got to go to him. Where is he?”
“They don’t want you to go to him. It’s not—very pleasant.They want to know where you want him taken. You can see him there.”
“Taken?” She looked dazed. “Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he has to be taken somewhere, doesn’t he? Dangerfield’s, I guess. On Jacaranda Street. It’s next to—But they’ll know, won’t they? And I’ve been here in the sun—telling myself that everything would be …” She went down on the blanket like a doll tossed onto a bed. She fell awkwardly and cried awkwardly, and I patted her greasy shoulder and took my hand back and wiped it on the blanket, while she moaned, “Oh, oh, oh, oh.”
Women have many kinds of tears. There’s a kind they use on you, a contrived and delicate weapon that leaves them looking pretty. And there’s a healthy, lusty, snorting, boohooing brand that leaves them reddened, puffy, moist, happy, and beautifully relaxed. In that case it seems to be a form of self-therapy. Then there are the tears of agony, which must feel like acid. The gray and twisted tears, when they don’t know or care how they look. When you can walk them back to the house, as I walked Mary Eleanor back, and they stumble and lean on you and don’t know who you are, or care. I led her inside and made her lie down, and I darkened the room and sat near her until Dr. Graman could arrive. She rolled her head from side to side, and her thin fingers kneaded her flat brown belly, and not knowing, you could have thought she was in acute physical pain.
Graman came quickly. He gave me a distant, sour, who-are-you-sir look, and assembled a sterile hypo. He was real pretty. He looked a lot like Rita Hayworth wearing a false mustache. He had heard about John Long five minutes before I called, and I had caught him as he was leaving his home tocome to see Mary Eleanor. He led me to understand that he could handle things, that she would go to sleep, that he would have a nurse come over, and I could depart.
I wasted no time driving from the house down to Key Estates. A police car was parked just inside the entrance and a uniformed young man with his thumbs in his belt stood astride the road until I had identified myself. A hundred yards down the drive I passed John’s Cadillac. I went out onto the end of the finger and parked near several other cars, one of which was a police sedan, and another I recognized as belonging to Jack Ryer, local newscaster, local columnist, local wire-service correspondent, local intermittent legman for the Ledger when fat stories broke, local man about town, and—according to my sources—competent local collector of female scalps, though not of the bundle-and-brag school. I have bent elbows with him and he is a most pleasant drinking, poker, and fishing companion, though many consider his charm to be applied with a shade too clumsy a spatula, and there are those who say that he laughs with a very cold eye indeed. He is what is called clean cut and well set up, and they say he is not long for our town, as he has that integrated manner of a national phenomenon.
He came around the corner of the house nearest completion, and he was wearing his abnormally alert look, yet under the look was a grayness like the cinder blocks. He stood and lit a cigarette and had to move the match a half inch to the left to get it close enough to the cigarette. He looked at me and then said, “Yo, Andy.”
“Where is he?”
“Other side of the house.” Jack sat down on a cinder block and licked his lips and studied the toes of his shoes.
The ambulance came crawling down the new blacktop behind me. I went around the corner of the house. Chief Wargler looked at me, and said, “You’re McClintock. Tell her, did you?”
“And called a doctor. He’s to go to Dangerfield’s.”
“I figured so.” He was wide and he blocked out what
“Yes.”
She pulled her hand away and stood up. “I’ve got to go to him. Where is he?”
“They don’t want you to go to him. It’s not—very pleasant.They want to know where you want him taken. You can see him there.”
“Taken?” She looked dazed. “Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he has to be taken somewhere, doesn’t he? Dangerfield’s, I guess. On Jacaranda Street. It’s next to—But they’ll know, won’t they? And I’ve been here in the sun—telling myself that everything would be …” She went down on the blanket like a doll tossed onto a bed. She fell awkwardly and cried awkwardly, and I patted her greasy shoulder and took my hand back and wiped it on the blanket, while she moaned, “Oh, oh, oh, oh.”
Women have many kinds of tears. There’s a kind they use on you, a contrived and delicate weapon that leaves them looking pretty. And there’s a healthy, lusty, snorting, boohooing brand that leaves them reddened, puffy, moist, happy, and beautifully relaxed. In that case it seems to be a form of self-therapy. Then there are the tears of agony, which must feel like acid. The gray and twisted tears, when they don’t know or care how they look. When you can walk them back to the house, as I walked Mary Eleanor back, and they stumble and lean on you and don’t know who you are, or care. I led her inside and made her lie down, and I darkened the room and sat near her until Dr. Graman could arrive. She rolled her head from side to side, and her thin fingers kneaded her flat brown belly, and not knowing, you could have thought she was in acute physical pain.
Graman came quickly. He gave me a distant, sour, who-are-you-sir look, and assembled a sterile hypo. He was real pretty. He looked a lot like Rita Hayworth wearing a false mustache. He had heard about John Long five minutes before I called, and I had caught him as he was leaving his home tocome to see Mary Eleanor. He led me to understand that he could handle things, that she would go to sleep, that he would have a nurse come over, and I could depart.
I wasted no time driving from the house down to Key Estates. A police car was parked just inside the entrance and a uniformed young man with his thumbs in his belt stood astride the road until I had identified myself. A hundred yards down the drive I passed John’s Cadillac. I went out onto the end of the finger and parked near several other cars, one of which was a police sedan, and another I recognized as belonging to Jack Ryer, local newscaster, local columnist, local wire-service correspondent, local intermittent legman for the Ledger when fat stories broke, local man about town, and—according to my sources—competent local collector of female scalps, though not of the bundle-and-brag school. I have bent elbows with him and he is a most pleasant drinking, poker, and fishing companion, though many consider his charm to be applied with a shade too clumsy a spatula, and there are those who say that he laughs with a very cold eye indeed. He is what is called clean cut and well set up, and they say he is not long for our town, as he has that integrated manner of a national phenomenon.
He came around the corner of the house nearest completion, and he was wearing his abnormally alert look, yet under the look was a grayness like the cinder blocks. He stood and lit a cigarette and had to move the match a half inch to the left to get it close enough to the cigarette. He looked at me and then said, “Yo, Andy.”
“Where is he?”
“Other side of the house.” Jack sat down on a cinder block and licked his lips and studied the toes of his shoes.
The ambulance came crawling down the new blacktop behind me. I went around the corner of the house. Chief Wargler looked at me, and said, “You’re McClintock. Tell her, did you?”
“And called a doctor. He’s to go to Dangerfield’s.”
“I figured so.” He was wide and he blocked out what
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