Read Online Nothing More than Murder by Jim Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

midnight while I was taking a last turn through the house, Jimmie’s two boys came in with what was left of the display matter. They’d been on the run all day, and they were shaking and so out of breath they could hardly talk. They hurried right on home with Lottie to get supper ready before Jimmie got there.
    All of a sudden it hit me that the only people who were dependable and hard working were those that didn’t amount to anything. It wasn’t fair, but it was that way. And I wondered why it was.
    I wondered why, when there was so damned many of ’em, they didn’t get together and run things themselves. And I made up my mind if they ever did get an organization—a going organization, that is—they could count me in!

12
    E lizabeth woke me up early Saturday morning.
    “The film truck just came, Joe,” she said. “It’s here.”
    “‘Jeopardy of the Jungle’?”
    “Yes. You’d better get up right away. We’ve got a lot to do.”
    I said okay, and she left the room. I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to stay right there and leave everything that was going to happen a good long way in the future. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t because, while I didn’t want to go through with it, I didn’t want not to, either. That sounds crazy but it’s the only way I know to put it.
    Just a few days before, any little thing was enough to make me throw the brakes on. Like, for instance, passing up that hitchhiker. But now I knew nothing could stop me. I hadn’t liked the scheme, but neither had I fought it. I’d just rocked along with it, getting a little more used to it every minute, and now it was doing the rocking.
    I couldn’t back out.
    I didn’t want to back out.
    Coming out of the bathroom, I glanced into Elizabeth’s room. A hat with a heavy veil was laying—lying—on a chair near the bed. Next to it was a little overnight bag. The hat was an old one and would never be missed in case anyone should get funny ideas and start checking up. The few odds and ends she was taking in the bag would never be missed, either.
    I went downstairs, swallowed some coffee, and went out to the garage.
    I’d got a travelogue, a newsreel, and a cartoon along with “Jeopardy.” In all there were twenty-three reels of film.
    “I was just thinking,” I said. “Carol may not be able to get anyone. Perhaps we ought to wait until—”
    “How are you going to wait?” Elizabeth asked. “You’ve got to go into the city.”
    “I don’t have to,” I said.
    “Yes, you do, Joe. The farther you’re away from things the better off it’ll be. If Carol shouldn’t get anyone there’s no harm done. I’ll straighten things up and we’ll try again in a few weeks.”
    “But someone might look in and—”
    “Don’t be silly. I’ll keep the door locked.”
    We ran the reels through the rewind to shake the water off of them. It was turned on full speed, since we weren’t checking the film, and it didn’t take long.
    I unreeled fifteen or twenty feet of the cartoon, and Elizabeth knitted it back and forth through the other film. We shoved the pile underneath the rewind table.
    I pulled the good cord loose from its connections, and hooked the motor up with the old one. I threw a few loops around it with the cartoon and pulled the rest of the reel under the table.
    I stood back and looked things over.
    The film was touching the bare copper of the cord in a couple of places. I shifted it back and forth until it was just right. Carol wouldn’t need more than a minute. But she’d sure as hell need that.
    Elizabeth was sitting on the stool. She looked even paler than usual.
    “You didn’t need to help with this,” I said. “I could have done it.”
    She got up. “You’re all through now? You’re not going to leave that other cord on the floor, are you?”
    “Why not? It’s the best way of getting rid of it.”
    “Yes,” she said. And I wasn’t just imagining that she was paler then.
    She went out the door ahead of