John MacDonald - The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper

“I think maybe some Black Jack on one rock.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. McGee.” When he served it with a proper flourish, he said, “Jesus, I’ve felt half sick ever since. And... I guess you’ve got a right to feel a lot sicker than me.” The implied question was very clear.

“Jake, we walked out of here and shook hands and sang one small hymn and said good night.”

He flushed. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I was just thinking she didn’t have the right moves, you know? So what she is doing is trying to get even with a boyfriend who’s cheating on her by doing some swinging herself, so she takes you home and the next day she tells him how she got even, and he can’t stand it. She’s laughing at him. He grabs the first thing and—”

“Stares in horror at what he’s done and, sobbing his heart out, dials the cops.”

“It’s just that you try to figure out what happened.”

“I know, Jake. I’m sorry. Everybody plays that particular game. That’s because we always want to know why. Not so much how and who and when. But why.”

“Can I ask you something? Did you stop in your room before you came in to eat?”

“No. I parked in front. The question implies I’ve been away from the place. So somebody has been trying to get me.”

He looked uneasy. “Well, it’s Mr. Holton. He comes in off and on and he’s never any trouble. He’s a lawyer. He was here about five o’clock looking for you. He had two quick ones and he came back about quarter to six. He’d have some and then go looking for you and come back. I let him have more than I would somebody else, on account of he’s local and a good customer and he’s always treated me good. Well, he finally got mean and loud and I finally had to cut him off. From the way he walked out... maybe a half hour before you came in to eat... he could have passed out in his car by now. Or maybe he’s still on his feet and waiting for you by your room. He began telling me, toward the end, that he was going to whip your ass. Looking at you, I think maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to do, unless he sucker punched you, which he acted mad enough to do. I thought you might want to keep your eyes open on your way back to the room.”

It earned him the change from a five for the one drink.

I decided to walk around to 109 rather than drive, as I had planned. I went the long way around and moved onto the grass and kept out of the lights. I stopped and listened and looked and finally discerned a burly shadow standing near a tall shrub and leaning against the white motel wall. I reconstructed the memory of what he had done with the revolver when he got it back. He had shoved it into his belt on the left side, under his jacket, well over toward his hip, grip toward the middle, where he could reach it easily with his right hand. I squatted and figured out a plausible route and then pulled my shoes off and circled and ducked quickly and silently through two areas of light, and then crawled slowly and carefully on hands and knees into the shelter of the foliage just behind him and to his right. As I neared him I heard his bad case of hiccups, a steady solid rhythmic case, each one a strangled, muffled sound due to his effort to stay quiet enough to ambush me. From then on I made each move on the hiccup, a jerky progress as in the most ancient motion pictures. At last, unheard, I was on my hands and knees right behind him and slightly to his right, just where a large and obedient dog would be. I inched my knees closer and put my weight back and lifted both hands. On the next hiccup I snapped my hands out and grasped his heavy ankles and yanked his legs out from under him, giving enough of a twist so that he would land on his left side. As he landed I scrambled onto him, felt the checkered wooden grip, and yanked the revolver free and rolled across the grass with it and stood up.

He pushed himself slowly to a sitting position, rolled up onto his knees, put his hands on the wall, and slowly stood up. He turned and put his back against the wall and shook his thick head.

“Bassard,” he said thickly. “Dirry stud bassard.”

“Settle down, Richard. I cured your hiccups.”

He grunted and launched himself at me, swinging wildly while he was still too far away to punish anything but the humid night air. I ducked to the side and stuck a leg out and he went down heavily onto his face. And once again, with the painful slowness of a large damaged bug, he got himself up onto his feet, using a small tree as a prop.

He turned around and located me. “Wages of sin,” he mumbled. “My lousy ideas. Memories. All worked up. I read it, you bassard. Made her sore at me, you tricky bassard. Kept her here and soft-talked her an’ pronged her, you lousy smart-ass.”

And with a big effortful grunt he came at me again. As he got to me I dropped, squatting, fingertips on the grass. As he tripped and spilled over my back I came up swiftly and he did a half turn in the air and landed flat on his back. He stared at the sky, breathing hard. He coughed in a shallow gagging way.

“Sick,” he said. “Gonna be sick.”

I helped him roll over. He got onto hands and knees, crawled slowly and then stopped, braced, vomited in dreadful spasms.

“So sick,” he moaned.

I got him onto his feet, and with one arm across my shoulders, my arm around his clumsy waist, I got him into the room. Once in the bathroom he was sick again. I held his stupid head, then sat him on the closed lid of the toilet and swabbed the mud and vomit off him with a wet towel. He swayed, eyes half closed. “Loved that girl. Loved her. Lousy thing. I can’t stand it.” He opened his eyes and looked up at me. “Honest to God, I can’t stand it!”

“We better get you home, Rick.”

He thought that over and nodded. “Best thing. Bad shape. Who cares anymore? Janice doesn’t give a shit. Penny the only one cared. Gone. Some sumbitch killed her. Some crazy. Know it wasn’t you. Wish it had been you. Fix you good.”

“Where do you live, Holton?”

“Twenny-eight twenny, Forest Drive.”

I got his car keys from him and the description of his car, and went around to the front and drove it back to the room. I went in and brought him out and helped him into the red convertible, and got behind the wheel. He muttered directions.

When I had to stop for a light, he said, “Sorry I had to smack you around, McGee. You know how it is.”

“Sure. I know how it is.”

“Get it out of my system. Hated you. Shouldna layed my girl, my wonnerful freckly nurse-girl. But man to man, shit, if she wanned it, she wanned it, and why should you turn it down, huh? Great kid. Greatest piece of ass in the worl’. You’re a nice guy, McGee. I doan wanna like you, you sumbitch, but I do. Hear that? I do.”

I had to shake him awake to get more directions. When I turned into the asphalt drive, he was asleep again. It was a cement-block house, one story, white with pink trim, a scraggly yard, house lights on, a gray Plymouth station wagon in one half of the carport.

I turned away from the carport and stopped near the front door. The outside light went on and the door opened and a lean, dark-haired woman looked out through the screen door.

I got out and came around the car. “Mrs. Holton?”

She came out and looked at her sleeping husband. She wore dark orange slacks, a yellow blouse, and she had a bright red kerchief tied around her slender, dusky throat. Gypsy colors.

“Unfortunately, yes. Who are you?”

“My name is McGee.”

I had the feeling that it startled her slightly and I could think of no reason why.

“I’ll help you get him in.”

She reached and took hold of his jaw and turned his head slightly. She raised the other hand, held it poised for a moment, and then whip-cracked her lean palm across his face twice, very quickly and with great force. It brought him struggling up out of the mists, gasping and looking around.