Read Online The Drowner by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page A

I can make a detailed report. And I’ve got the younger sister in my hair.”
    “Saw her at the service, not to speak to. Nice-looking girl.”
    “She’s afraid the company’ll try to put something over on her. I can’t seem to make her believe we won’t stoop to faking anything.”
    “You’ll talk to Sam Kimber?”
    “Have to.”
    Nile puffed his cheeks and patted his sturdy belly. “Word of advice, boy. Play it very very straight with Sam. You got a little tricky with me here and there, and that’s your job, I suppose. But just because Sam might look and act a little bit country-boy, don’t rate him low. He’d smile and look a little sleepy if you get cute with him, and it wouldn’t get you a thing. And ten minutes later he’d pick up the phone and make a call or two, and you’d be looking for work.”
    “Thanks for the warning.”
    “He’s like an old ’gator. On the mud bank they look as if they’re smiling. That’s because they’ve got meat tucked away in the bottom of the pond, getting ripe.”
    “How about Hanson?”
    “There’s not a thing he can do for you or to you, except maybe try to punch you in the mouth if he’s drinking. And from the look of you, that would be a mistake. Never mess with a man who looks a couple of inches shorter than he is. I’d guess you at one-sixty if that didn’t look like an eighteen neck size.”
    “Seventeen and a half. One ninety-three.”
    “Wrestler?”
    “And the weights and the bars and the rings. Fun at the time, but I’m paying for it now, because I have to work out or it turns to flab. Thanks for the drink and thanks for the talk, Doctor.”
    “You have not called me Doc. And you haven’t asked for any free advice. So come around any weekday the same time and rap on the back door. This is the pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the Daniels’ hour. Bad luck on your mission, but good luck to you, boy.”
    “Thank you, Doctor. I don’t want to step on any toes. There are towns where people don’t like questions of any kind about anything.”
    “No trouble here, Stanial. It’s a—what would you call it?—fragmented society. In one way or another, except for some of the oldest families out along Lake Larra, and a few old ones in town and some of the grove money, everybody is a come-lately. It’s growing fast and changing fast. Not for the better. County population twice what it was ten years ago. The lines are vague. I guess there aren’t any towns any more the way there used to be. Just shopping centers with houses around them.”
     
    Barbara Larrimore was quiet when he picked her up and walked her out to his dark little utilitarian two-door sedan. In the evening angle of the sun he saw that her eyes were puffy, the lids reddened, her lips swollen.
    “Have a nap?” he asked as they drove away.
    “A little one. I… didn’t think I was going to cry so soon. I thought it would come later. But after you left me I was thinking… off guard, I guess… how I’d tell Lu about all this. So much to tell her. And then all of a sudden I knew… I really knew… I’d never be able to tell her anything, ever again. The terrible finality of it hit me, I guess for the first time. And now it isn’t real again. It’s gone away for now, but it’ll come back again I guess.”
    “That’s the way it happens. Will Ocala be all right?”
    “Anything you say. Have you lost anybody that close to you, Paul?”
    “I’ve made a career of it.”
    “Oh?”
    “I’m sorry. That sounded pretty smart. My parents are alive. In Michigan. I lost an older brother. He was the hero. I couldn’t do things right. I wanted to be able to do them right and get him to finally approve of me. And when I started to be able to do a few things right, then he wasn’t around. But when anything does work out and I feel good about it, there’s a little sort of flash in my mind. Sort of ‘How about this, Joe?’ And then I feel the loss. He was one of the