The Lonely Silver Rain by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-307-82682-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Saturday was a big departure day at the Cancún airport. Eastern, American, AeroMexico, Mexicana, charter services, everybody was leaving in the middle of the day. Once again Browder bought a couple of top slots on the wait list. The line heading toward the departure tax counter was three or four people wide and sixty yards long. People sighed, kicked their luggage along the tile floor and told each other to have the six hundred pesos ready for the departure tax.

I had discarded the hat, which had cost me thirty-three dollars. I had put it on the head of a twelve-year-old Mexican, to his infinite delight. The imitation-lizard boots I left under the bed, after I had bought sandals at a hotel shop. I kept the eye patch in my pocket, but I don’t know why. I thought if I saw Nancy Sheppard again by the pool, I would present her with the damn ugly thing. Anyway, I was a lot less conspicuous. Which was, as it turned out, a good thing.

The line seemed endless. When I stood tall I could see that after the payment of departure tax, the carryons went through a security X ray, and once cleared you carried them on into some sort of big lounge with plastic chairs to await the announcement of your flight.

No matter how many times you vow you will never stand in line again for anything, you get trapped. The lighting inside the big terminal was dim. The brighter light was at the check-in counters and outside the glass doors over on the other side of the big room we were in.

I was a half step ahead of Browder. He was close and to my left. Beyond him were a man and a woman, short and smiling, wearing identical yellow shirts which said “I Love Cancún.” They were kicking a duffel bag and an imitation Gucci suitcase ahead of them.

Browder lurched against me and clutched at my left arm. I thought he had tripped over his carryon. As I turned to steady him, his grasp loosened and he slipped away from me, and fell loosely, facedown, limbs sprawling. He had bought a pale gray guayabera shirt that morning in the hotel shop where I bought the sandals. It was nailed to the left side of his back, fairly low but angled upward, by something that had a narrow three-inch handle wrapped in black electrician’s tape. There was a spreading red stain around the point of entry. His carryon was gone. I could not see anyone leaving in a hurry. The people behind him looked absolutely normal and quite horrified.

A woman screamed. I put my fingertips on the absolute silence of his throat. He seemed to settle more closely to the floor. “Who did it?” I asked the people who’d been behind us.

“Who did it? Who knows? Somebody hurrying. I didn’t look.”

There were sharp whistles and the security guards came on the run. The people closest to it had moved back away from the body.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.