John D. MacDonald

“ I saw that I was in the small tile bathroom of the motel. The door was closed. I lay on my side on the floor. Earl Fitzmartin sat on the side of the tub. He wore khakis. He looked at me with those eyes like smoke. His pale colorless hair was tousled. I could sense at once that he had gone beyond the vague borderline of sanity. It was like being in a cage with an animal. ”

“ Jerusha. Well, your father is ’most old enough to remember what Hannah Takehim did. But, oh, pshaw! Hannah’s dead these twenty years, and Jeremiah’s a widower still, and most blind. And I am just touching on fifty-eight, so your father will remember. It’s no wonder I am a cranky old maid. (Hazel starts up again.)
Jessie. Let us all meet at my house, and go up together. I know that every one will try to make it pleasant for you, Jerusha. We will tell all our friends that you are coming to the exercises, and they won’t be surprised when they see you. ”

“ There was a subtle, sour odor in the car that sickened me. A dark-red tractor moved back and forth across a distant hillside. Drainage water bubbled in the ditch beside the shoulder. A truck went by at high speed, the blast of its passage shaking my car.
I found that a two-day drunk gives your mind a flavor of unreliability. Memory is shaky and dreams become mixed with reality. I began to wonder if I had imagined the body. When there was no traffic I looked into the back seat again. The tarp was there. ”

“ Lambert knew that mankind had come too far, too fast. Mankind had dropped out of a tree with all the primordial instincts to rend and tear and claw. Twenty thousand years later, and with only a few thousand years of dubiously recorded history, he had reached the stars. ”

“ Of course it couldn’t change her name, but this little play tells how very effectively it did change her nature, and then the contrast between name and nature was a charm in the hitherto repulsive life. ”

“ Everything I owned filled two suitcases.
Charlotte had wept, and it hadn't touched me. I had accepted being fired without any special interest. Ever since the repatriation, since the hospital, I had felt like half a man. It was as though the other half of me had been buried and I was coming to look for it—here in Hillston, a small city I had never seen. Somehow I had to begin to live again. I had stopped living in a prison camp. And never come completely to life again.
I drank in the motel room until my lips felt numb. There was a pay phone in the motel office. ”

“ Hazel. Have you made many presents this year, Julia?
Julia. Yes, quite a number of them, Hazel. I don’t remember just how many, but I surely have been busy.
Hazel (teasingly, looking at Julia) . I have heard say that it don’t take much to keep some people busy. For instance, now, there is——
Julia (quickly) . Now that’s not me, Hazel, not at all. When I work, I work.
Isabel. So does a pump-handle, Julia. But then some one must take hold of it.
Julia. I see you girls just want to tease me. Well go ahead, I don’t care.
(Enter Jessie, excitedly, laying aside her wraps.)
Hazel. Well, well! ”

“ To understand our solution, you must think of an analogy, Man Lambert. Think of a factory where machines are made. We will call the acceptable machines stable, the unacceptable ones unstable. They are built with a flywheel which must turn at a certain speed. If it exceeds that speed, it is no good. But a machine that is stable can, at any time, become unstable. What is the solution?" He smiled at Lambert. ”

“ I wandered back to the Aztec. My bartending friend told me that Toni Raselle was out in the casino in back, escorted by a general. He said she was wearing a white blouse and dark-red skirt, and had an evening scarf that matched her skirt.
I tipped him and went out into the casino. I bought chips through the wicket just inside the door. The large room was crowded. It was brightly, whitely lighted, like an operating amphitheater. The light made the faces of the people look sick. The cards, the chips, the dice, the wheels were all in pitiless illumination. ”

“ Poogla and Soobuknoora nodded in unison. "You would probably lose that one; maybe you would lose both," Soobuknoora agreed. "But it is better to lose more than half the children of a few generations to save the race."
Lambert thought some more. He said, "I shall go back and I shall speak of this plan and what it did for you. But I do not think my race will like it. I do not want to insult you or your people, but you have stagnated. You stand still in time."
Vonk Poogla laughed largely. "Not by a damn sight," he said gleefully. "Next year we stop giving the operation. We stop for good. ”

“ Jessie. Never mind how mad she is, we’ll pretend not to notice it, but all speak pleasantly to her, and gently push our way into the house.
Hazel. I am perfectly willing to go, because I would really like to see Jerusha live like other people, and not be such an unsociable old creature. Shall we all go girls? ”

“ The narrow dock had been hauled out onto the shore for the winter and hadn't been replaced. The wind had died and the lake was like a gray steel plate. Voices had an odd resonance in the stillness. Captain Marion came out of the cabin with a husky young patrolman. The patrolman had changed to swimming trunks. He wore an aqualung with the face mask shoved up onto his forehead. He walked gingerly on the rough path in his bare feet. He looked serious, self-important, and chilled.
Captain Marion said, "Try to stay on this line right here. The water looks kind of murky. How's the light?" ”

“ A lesser but still great percentage of the next generation went—and so on, until now it is almost static."
In Argonian Lambert said hotly, "Oh, it sounds fine! But what about children? What sort of heartless race can plant the seed of death in its own children?"
Never before had he seen the faintest trace of anger on any Argonaut face. The single nostril widened and Soobuknoora might have raged if he had been from Earth. "There are other choices, Man Lambert. Our children have no expectation of being burned to cinder, blown to fragments. They are free of that fear. ”

“ I’ll fix up my own tree first before I do anything else. (Stands the broom up near her rocker, fixed so that it can be easily knocked over.) There, I guess that will do. It seems that the more I do to-day the happier I get. Now I’ll put this popcorn trimming on—and this ’copia I’ll put on, and yes, I’ll just write Jessie’s name on it, too. And this handkerchief is for Isabel. And this ribbon is for Julia. Wouldn’t those girls laugh if they could see my Christmas tree and presents on it for them? ”

“ Business was light. I nursed my drink and wondered how they had picked me up so quickly. I guessed it was from the motel register. I'd had to write down the make of my car and the license number. They'd known who I'd talked to and what had been said. It was a small city and they acted like men who made a business of knowing what was going on.
Just as I ordered the second drink I saw a big man come in and stand at the other end of the bar. He looked like the man I had seen in the blue sedan. But I couldn't be certain. I had forgotten him and the effect he had had on Fitzmartin. ”

“ No man would be so stupid as to kill another man and leave the body at the place where he worked. Yet if some attempt was made to conceal the body—Perhaps then they would assume it was a temporary hiding place until Fitzmartin could think of another.
On the other hand, would any man be so stupid as to kill another man and then drive the body to the police station in his car and claim he didn't do it? ”

“ But I don't feel right about the way you fit in, either."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"Aren't you just a little too damn convenient? You hit town and everything starts to pop open. Why is that?"
"Coincidence, I guess."
"You knew Timmy and you know Fitzmartin. Maybe before you came here you knew Fitzmartin was milking George. Maybe that's why you came here, Howard."
"I didn't know anything about it."
"I'm not through with you, son. Don't take yourself any notion to disappear. I want you where we can talk some more. You're just too damn convenient in this whole thing." ”

“ I have become dangerous to myself and to our culture.
"In a moment of depression, I take these two smallest fingers of each hand. I reach behind me and I press the two fingers, held firmly together, to a space in the middle of my back. A tiny capsule buried at the base of my brain is activated and I am dead within a thousandth part of a second. Vonk Poogla is the same. All of us are the same. The passing urge for self-destruction happens to be the common denominator of imbalance. ”

“ Antoinette said.
"Don't use that kind of language with kids in the house. I'm warning you." The girl who had cried came up behind her mother and stared at us.
"You're so damn cautious about the kids," Antoinette said with contempt. "Hi there, Sandy."
"Hi," the girl said in a muted voice.
"You give the kids such a nice home and all, Anita."
"I do what I can do. I do the best I can."
"Look at the way she's dressed. I sent money. Why don't you spend some of it on clothes. Or does Doyle drink it?"
"There's no reason for her to wear her good stuff around the house. What do you want here, anyway? ”

“ On the following morning, Thursday morning, Hillston lay clean and washed by the night rains, bright and glowing in the April sunshine. Timmy had often talked about the city.
"It's more town than city. There isn't much of a transient population. Everybody seems to know everybody. It's a pretty good place, Tal."
It lay amid gentle hills, and the town stretched north-south, following the line of Harts River. I drove up the main street, Delaware Street. Traffic had outgrown the narrowness of the street. Standardization had given most of our small cities the same look. ”

“ I drove back out through April warmth and picked up Ruth Stamm at the time she suggested. She had changed to a white sweater and a dark green skirt. She seemed more reserved, as if she had begun to doubt the wisdom of coming along with me. As we got into the car I said, "How did the Bronsons take it?"
"Very hard. I thought they would. But I talked them into getting another dog right away. That's the best way. Not the same breed, but a new pup, young enough to need and demand attention."
"Where should we have lunch? Where we can talk."
"The coffee shop at the Hillston Inn is nice." ”

“ Why had it been put in my car? Somebody wanted to get rid of it. Somebody wanted to divert suspicion from himself. From the look of the wound, murder had been violent and unplanned. One tremendous, skull-smashing blow. It was inevitable that I should begin to think of Fitz. Of the people I knew in Hillston, he was the one capable of murder, and both quick and brutal enough to have killed a man like Grassman. ”

“ A turnstile?"
"Don't get sore."
"You look stuffy to me, Tal Howard. Stuffy people bore me. So what the hell was this? A sentimental journey all the way from prison camp to dig up poor little me?"
"Not exactly. And I'm not stuffy. And I don't give a damn what you are or what you do."
The glare faded. She shrugged and said, "Skip it. I don't know why I should all of a sudden get sensitive. I'm living the way I want to live. I guess it's just from talking about Timmy. That was a tender spot. From thinking about the way I was. At thirteen I wanted to lick the world with my bare hands. ”