Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

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Two years after his celebrated collection The Good Old Stuff, John D. MacDonald treats us to fourteen more of his best early stories!?
In short, here is one of America’s most gifted and prolific storytellers at his early best — a marvelously entertaining collection that will delight Mr. MacDonald’s hundreds of thousands of devoted readers.

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She stared at him with calm appraisal. Her face was a shade too narrow with the brown skin tight over the high delicate cheekbones. Her eyes were gray and her eyebrows thick and black. She made him think of the women in the fashion magazines that Ruth used to buy. He sensed breeding, money and chill selfish charm.

“I’m Nan Benderson. I imagine you’re one of the men who work here.”

“That’s right. Walker Post.”

She rested her dark head back on the rocks and shut her eyes against the sun’s glare. “Tell Mr. Drake that Dad would like to see him. Dad is much better. He hasn’t had so much rest and quiet in years. I haven’t told him how bored I’m getting.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Suddenly she braced herself on one elbow and looked at him. “Mr. Post, are you certain Mr. Burke is entirely safe? Mr. Drake told us about his delusions of persecution, but he comes to our cabin and says strange things in such a wild manner.”

Post wondered what he should say. Burke didn’t act like a man with delusions. He acted like a man who was trapped and knew it. He shrugged. “Far as I know, he’s harmless.”

She continued to stare at him. “You’re an odd one!”

He started. Then he shrugged and looked away. He couldn’t permit himself the luxury of being curious. He looked back at her. She still stared and suddenly she looked away.

“That was rude, wasn’t it? I’m sorry. But your face looks... so dead. As though you... I can’t explain it. You look hurt and glum, like a whipped child, only there’s something more. I don’t know why I’m talking like this. I guess it’s just being alone so much up here and having time to think. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

He got to his feet and looked down at her. He looked into her eyes for a few seconds. “It’s okay, Miss Benderson. Don’t think about it.” He walked along the shore. He began to wonder what he could find to cook for supper. There wasn’t much food left on the platform lowered deep into the ground.

After supper he thought he would try to exercise, to harden himself more. It suddenly seemed pointless. He watched Sam Frick stand on the shore, stoop and lift an immense boulder. He held it high in the air and then shoved it from him. It landed in the shallow water, throwing a sheet of water high in the air to sparkle in the last rays of the sun. Post stood silently for a few minutes.

Then he got the axe and cut a short thick club. It fit his hand nicely. He wondered idly why they let him use an axe. An axe can be used as a weapon. He hid the club carefully. He guessed that Frick and Strane were probably armed. It seemed logical to him that they would be.

Drake didn’t return the next day — or the next. They were reduced to tinned foods. Post spent the long quiet days sitting in his bunk. He circled the lake once each day. The first day, he saw the girl out on the rocks again. She didn’t lift her head. He stepped by quietly.

Burke came down to complain about the food. He didn’t bring Millie with him. Frick and Strane ignored him. He stomped back toward his cabin, anger showing even in the lines of his back as he walked away.

Post felt a definite tension in the air. He couldn’t reason it out and he shrugged it off. He ate and slept and watched the lake. He knew that nothing was mending inside of him. And it didn’t matter.

Drake returned on the third day at eight in the morning. He had a small man with him. Post watched them walk across the clearing. The stranger staggered and swayed. His eyes were almost shut and his face was slack. Drake walked behind him, shoving him in the back with his left hand. In his right hand he carried a light rifle. Drake’s dark face was twisted. He pushed the man through the open door of the bunkhouse. The man tripped and sprawled face down on the floor. He was breathing heavily. He didn’t try to get up.

“Frick. Toss him on one of the bunks. You don’t have to watch him. There’s enough stuff in him to keep him out for hours. He won’t remember how he got here.”

Frick gathered the man up and held him in his arms like a sleeping child. Post noticed that the stranger’s clothes were ragged, his face unshaven. Frick stepped over to one of the bunks and tossed the man onto a top bunk. His head and heels thumped against the wooden slats.

Drake sat on a bunk and wiped his head. “What a job, getting that joe through the woods. I bet he fell a hundred times.” He handed the rifle to Frick, who balanced it in a corner. “How are things?”

Frick didn’t answer. He sat down on a bunk across from Drake and jerked his thumb at Post, his eyebrows raised.

“Go ahead. Mr. Walker Post isn’t in the way.”

“If you say so. Burke has been yapping about the food and about getting out of here. His dish wants me to ask you if she can go even if Burke can’t. She’s talking about appointments she’s got.”

“She stays. Pay no attention to Burke. We’ll let him steam for a while longer.”

“Right. Benderson and the daughter are still in the clouds. She’s bored. He’s getting healthy. No attempt to get out. He wants to talk to you. She’s worried about Burke. Wonders if he’s dangerous.”

“I’ll talk to them. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Strong and silent here tried to leave with his stuff a few days back. I stopped him on the trail and I had to push him around. He hasn’t said much since. I told him he had to see you.”

Drake looked at Post. His dark eyes were full of amusement. “Restless, hey? I wouldn’t have expected that of you, Post. I thought you didn’t care where you were. Why try to leave? The work too hard?”

“I suppose you want the truth.”

“Why not?”

“These two big clowns of yours got on my nerves. They both handed me smart talk about this place. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I can see it isn’t kosher. Just tell me what it’s all about. I don’t care what you’re doing. I just don’t like not having a question answered when I feel like asking it.”

Drake turned to Frick. “Take the panel job and go after the food. I’ll have Rob help you pack it in after you get back. Same place.” Frick strolled out.

The unconscious man in the top bunk moaned softly. Drake picked at his teeth with a fingernail. He studied Post. Post looked back at him without expression.

“You remember, I told you that I’m an amateur psychiatrist? Well, this place is an experiment in applied psychiatry. Science at work. You can’t have outside factors intruding in a controlled experiment. So I’ve made it tough to get in or out.

“I’ll give you a case history. We’ll take Burke. I needed a lusty playful guy with a rich wife who has a narrow moral outlook. After a little research I located Burke in a city about two hundred miles from here.

“He fit my requirements. He was supporting this character he calls Millie. He’s been married for eighteen years to a fantastically ominous woman. She’s a modern-day dragon. I saw her. The kind of a woman who can word-whip you till your ears bleed. Burke’s never worked. He has a drawing account. She keeps a pretty close watch on him, but he’s been clever enough to keep this Millie on the side.

“I met Burke at a bar. I told him about this place I had bought and promised him that he could come up here and nobody would know where he was and nobody could find him. I got him a doctor’s prescription to take a rest. He asked me if Millie could come along. He trusted me. I told him that she could. I brought them in here.

“In my safety-deposit box I’ve got a series of negatives of Burke and his Millie. I haven’t made him any offer. He doesn’t know what I want, but he’s pretty damn sure I want money. I do. I want lots of it. Now comes the psychology. I just keep him here and let him stew, imagining what will happen when his wife tosses him out without a dime. That frightens him. At the proper moment I’ll make a contract with him that will give me a neat little income each month for as long as he lives.”

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