Read Online End of the Tiger by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online

with pine needles. After a hundred yards it opened into a small clearing. There was grass, a large log.
    “This looks okay,” he said.
    “Let’s go back.”
    He sat down on the log and took out his cigarettes. “Here. Sit down and smoke and take it easy.”
    She took a cigarette. She didn’t seem to want to look at him. “Sit down, Erica. You make me nervous.”
    She sat on the log a good four feet away from him. She sat with her hand braced against the rough bark. He watched her and saw the quick lift of her breathing. He saw her moisten her lips nervously.
    He reached over almost casually and folded his fingers strongly around her wrist. She stopped breathing for amoment and then turned sharply toward him. “Mack! What’s the idea?”
    He chuckled and moved closer to her. She stood up. He gave a quick yank to her wrist, and she was pulled toward him, falling to her knees. He put his arms around her, and she was like a woman made of stone, unbreathing. And then he felt the sudden softness, the great shuddering breath she took. He kissed her and then looked calmly at her face, looked at the glazed scimitar eyes, at the broken mouth. He laughed somewhere deep in his throat and took her in his arms again.
    Afterward, he stood up and lit another cigarette. His hands trembled a bit. He looked down at her face, at the blue-dark hair spread wild against the grass of the clearing. Her eyes were tight shut. She was breathing deeply, and with each exhalation she murmured, “Darling … darling … darling.” It was a meaningless metronome sound, as soft as the wind in the leaves overhead.
    He sat on the log, watching her with a curious cold tenderness. After a time she opened her eyes and looked vaguely around, like a person coming out of deep sleep. She sat up, then knelt and brushed at the twigs and bits of grass that clung to her skirt. She stood up and looked at him without expression, then stepped over and sat beside him on the log, not close to him. She picked up her leather purse, took out a comb, and combed her dark hair carefully, looking straight ahead.
    “Cigarette?” he asked when she had finished.
    “Please.”
    He lit her cigarette and she looked at him over the lighter flame, meeting his eyes for the first time. She turned away, her shoulders hunched.
    “So it was a dirty trick,” he said. “Go ahead. Rave.”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said. Her voice had a faraway sound.
    “You must have something to say.”
    “I just feel … damn empty. It was probably a mistake. The whole plan. I thought … coming back here. I thought it would change things. God knows I tried hard. Back there too many people … know. When they know, there’s no defense.” She turned and lookedat him again. “How did you know?”
    He studied his cigarette. The breeze whipped the smoke away. “I don’t know. An instinct. Little things. Signs and portents. You get a hunch and you follow your hunch. That deal of you shaking hands with him to say good night. That was a sort of a tipoff.”
    “It had to be that way.”
    “Sure.”
    “Oh, God, if there was some way … something that could be cut or burned out of me. Mack, why didn’t you leave me alone, even if you guessed?”
    “I told you in the library. I feel almost like a father to the kid.”
    “I wouldn’t have hurt him! I wouldn’t have hurt him!”
    “Not this year, maybe. Then what goes on, honey? Some smart guy selling vacuum cleaners? A meter reader? Some drunk at a party? Don’t kid yourself.”
    “Stop,” she said faintly. “Please stop!” She held her hands over her eyes. The discarded cigarette was near her moccasin, smoke drifting in the grass.
    “Now you tell me you love the kid.”
    “I do!”
    “That’s good. Then you know what to do.”
    She lifted her head. “Or?”
    “That’s an unnecessary question, isn’t it?”
    She stood up. Her face was all at once slack, gray, older. “You did go right by where we