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

should have turned, didn’t you?”
    He nodded.
    “You’ve been so damn clever, Mack, haven’t you?”
    He stood up. “Sure. Old Mack. A big I.Q., darling. Let’s go.”
    Mack watched Quent carefully during the next few weeks. The days were growing shorter and cooler. Mack watched the slow inexorable change in his partner, watched the listnessness, the climate of the rejected. One evening, knowing that Quent had gone back to the office after dinner, Mack returned also, occupying himself with work that could have waited until the next day, knowing that there was no need, actually, to talk to Quent, yet feeling a strong compulsion.
    He wandered at last into Quent’s office. Quent looked up, and Mack saw the lean pallor of his face, the obscure sickness in his eyes.
    “Knock off and have a quickie?” Mack said.
    Quent stretched and yawned. “I guess so. Sure.”
    They walked side by side through the darkness to the brittle cheer of the Alibi and sat at stools at the quiet bar. When the drinks came, Mack waited and then asked quietly, “What’s the pitch on those wedding bells, Quent?”
    Quent’s smile was not a good thing to see. “You tell me, maybe. Erica’s going back east next week. She doesn’t seem to like it out here.”
    “You kids have a little scrap?” Mack asked.
    “I wish we had, Mack. I wish like hell that we had. Then I could figure it out. She just … cooled off toward me. Ever since that picnic it hasn’t been the same. As if she took a good second look at me and decided I wasn’t the guy after all. What the hell is wrong with me, Mack? What is it?” There was a certain taut desperation in his tone.
    “Don’t think that way, kid. That’s no way to think.”
    “What other way is there? Tell me that.”
    Mack knew there were no words. Nothing, after all, to say. “Quent, it’s one of those things. Roll with the punch, kid. Couple of months and you won’t remember what she looked like.”
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “It’s a big wide wonderful world, kid. And a good cigar is a smoke.”
    “You’re a good guy, Mack, and I know what you’re trying to do and all that, but it isn’t doing any good and it isn’t going to do any good, so let’s just drop it, shall we? Let’s just drop the whole thing. I don’t want to do any talking about it.”
    “Sure, kid. Sure.”
    Mack tried to talk shop, but it was flat. The air was stale. The drink didn’t taste right. Quent was trying to respond, but his eyes were dead. Mack kept wishing there was some way to explain. They finished the drinks. Mack paid, and they went out onto the dark street.
    “Want a ride, kid?” Mack asked.
    “Thanks. I think I’ll walk it.”
    Mack’s car was in the opposite direction. He stood and lit a cigarette and watched Quent until he had turned the corner and the sidewalk was empty. He wondered why thinking of Erica should make him feel older, feel a little worn around the edges. Hell, a blind man could have sensed it. That was the trouble with Erica. The kid was well out of that deal. He’d get over it. It was something you had to keep telling yourself. The night wind cut through his topcoat, and he shivered. Marie expected him. As he walked slowly toward his car he decided that this was a night for going home. A little warm milk. Call Marie in the morning from the office. This was a night for going home and going to bed and hoping sleep would come quick before your mind started roaming around that squirrel cage.

Long Shot
    It was a chilly evening at the Orange Lane Dog Track, and the crowd was thin. The cool wind tore away the brass notes of the band so that the music came across the infield in fragments. There were another four minutes before the windows would close for the seventh race. I was at one of the five-dollar win-place-show windows. Joe Stack, the manager, had moved me up from the two-dollar show window, where I had started. Lately he had been hinting about moving me back to the money