Read Online The Barbarous Coast by Ross MacDonald - Free Book Online

uncoiling behind it. George walked backward onto the tender new lawn. He looked at the sky in a disappointed way, as if it had dropped something on him. Then he shook his head and started back toward Leonard. He tripped on a garden hose and almost fell.
    I stepped between them, facing Leonard. “He’s had it. Knock it off, eh?”
    George shouldered me aside. I grabbed his arms.
    “Let me at the little runt,” he said through bloody lips.
    “You don’t want to get hurt, boy.”
    “Worry about him.”
    He was stronger than I was. He broke loose and spun me away. Threw another wild one which split the back of his suit coat and accomplished nothing else. Leonard inclined his head two or three inches from the vertical and watched the fist go by. George staggered off balance. Leonard hit him between the eyes with his right hand, hit him again with his left as he went down. George’s head made a dull noise on the flagstone. He lay still.
    Leonard polished the knuckles of his right fist with his left hand, as though it were a bronze object of art.
    “You shouldn’t use it on amateurs.”
    He answered reasonably: “I don’t unless I have to. Only sometimes I get damn browned off, big slobs thinkin’ they can push me around. I been pushed around plenty, I don’t have to take it no more.” He balanced himself on one foot and touched George’s outflung arm with the tip of his big toe. “Maybe you better take him to a doctor.”
    “Maybe I better.”
    “I hit him pretty hard.”
    He showed me the knuckles of his right hand. They were swelling and turning blue. Otherwise, the fight had done him good. He was cheerful and relaxed, and he pranced a little when he moved, like a stallion. Featherhead was watching him from the window. She had on a linen dress now. She saw me looking at her, and moved back out of sight.
    Leonard turned on the hose and ran cold water over George’s head. George opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Leonard turned off the hose.
    “He’ll be all right. They don’t come out of it that fast when they’re bad hurt. Anyway, I hit him in self-defense, you’re a witness to that. If there’s any beef about it, you can take it up with Leroy Frost at Helio.”
    “Leroy Frost is your fixer, eh?”
    He gave me a faintly anxious smile. “You know Leroy?”
    “A little.”
    “Maybe we won’t bother him about it, eh? Leroy, he’s got a lot of troubles. How much you make in a day?”
    “Fifty when I’m working.”
    “Okay, how’s about I slip you fifty and you take care of the carcass?” He turned on all his neon charm. “Incidently, I should apologize. I kind of lost my head there for a minute, I shouldn’t ought to of took the sucker punch on you. You can pay me back some time.”
    “Maybe I will, at that.”
    “Sure you will, and I’ll let you. How’s the breadbasket, cap?”
    “Feels like a broken tennis racquet.”
    “But no hard feelings, eh?”
    “No hard feelings.”
    “Swell, swell.”
    He offered me his hand. I set myself on my heels and hit him in the jaw. It wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. My legs were middle-aging, and still wobbly. If I missed the nerve, he could run circles around me and cut me to ribbons with his left alone. But the connection was good.
    I left him lying. The front door was unlocked, and I went in. The girl wasn’t in the living-room or on the terrace. Her terrycloth towel was crumpled on the bedroom floor. A sun-hat woven of plaited straw lay on the floor beside it. The leather band inside the hat was stamped with the legend: “Handmade in Mexico for the Taos Shop.”
    A motor coughed and roared behind the wall. I found the side door which opened from the utility room into the garage. She was at the wheel of the Jaguar, looking at me with her mouth wide open. She locked the door on her side before I got hold of the handle. Then it was torn from my fist.
    The Jaguar screeched in the turnaround, laying down black spoor, and leaped up the