Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Science Fiction, Private investigators
ISBN: 9780449127698
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1968-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Oh.”

Rene shook his head sadly. “And that Wilma got very snotty with the boss. That wasn’t so smart. The boss gave her a shot. A Syrette thing like out of an aid kit. Thirty seconds and she was snoring like a bugle.”

Raoul came wandering in from the direction of the kitchen. His left eye was puffed. He was spooning something into his mouth out of a can held in a big brown fist.

“What you got now?” Rene asked disgustedly.

“Beans.”

“More beans for God’s sake?”

“Good.”

Raoul sat in a chair and finished the beans. He set the can aside, wiped his mouth on his forearm, stared blandly at Kirby for a few moments, then turned to Rene and began to speak in a language Kirby was able to identify after a few moments as the vulgar French of North Africa, larded with Spanish, Italian and Arabic words. Though he could follow it very imperfectly, he suddenly realized Raoul was suggesting to Rene that he be permitted to go into the bedroom and cure his boredom by amusing himself with the scrawny little sleeping chicken. Raoul accompanied this request with winkings so convulsive they distorted half his face.

To Kirby’s horror, Rene did not react with appropriate violence. In fact, he seemed bored. He asked some casual question Kirby did not catch. Raoul said something about who was to find out, in any case. And what harm could it do? It would pass the time.

As it seemed that Rene would shrug and nod approval, there was a curiously muscular convulsion in Kirby’s mind, like a gagging in the throat. The fat watch, the golden edge , had pulled reality too thin, had made it too easy to think of the submissive world as a stage for low comedy, for tricky effects, for narrow triumphs of virtue over the brute. The watch had dislocated the world, had made temptingly feasible all the traditions of fantasy, but here would be no slender triumph of virtue. Here, for Wilma Farnham, all the games could end, and he would he powerless to stop these two. For Kirby Winter the world settled suddenly back into its ancient grind of blood and pain, of small lonely disasters in the hearts of men.

He caught the sense of Rene’s next remark, something about waiting, something about how, if they had to stay here the whole night, then, orders or no orders, they would share the chicken, wait until she wakened and could be suitably instructed in obedience, and then cut cards for her.

Raoul shrugged and yawned and said that inasmuch as he had already lost money at cards, maybe now they could play again and this time make the chicken part of the stakes. For later.

Kirby’s eyes had finally stopped watering. The end of his nose felt as big as a biscuit.

The two men moved over to the coffee table. As Rene shuffled the pack he stared at Kirby and said, “How’d you put us out and tie us up?”

“I had help,” Kirby said.

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