Free A Bullet for Cinderella by John D. MacDonald Page A

walked. The walk wasn’t long enough. By the time I got to the Inn I was still sore at Prine and company. I could grudgingly admit that maybe he thought he had cause to swing his weight around. But I didn’t like being picked up like that. And it had irritated me to have to tell them I had no job, no permanent residence. I wasn’t certain what legal right they had to take that sort of a statement from me.
    I had a drink at the dark bar at the end of the cocktail lounge at the Inn. 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. He became aware of my interest. He turned and gave me a long look and turned back to the drink the bartender put in front of him. He had movedhis head slowly when he turned to look at me. His eyes were in shadow. I had a sudden instinctive premonition of danger. Fitz was danger, but a known quantity. I did not know this man or where he fitted in. I did not want to attempt to ask him. He finished his drink quickly and left. I looked down into my drink and saw myself lying dead, sprawled, cold. It was a fantasy that had been with me in the prison camp and later. You think of your own death. You try to imagine how it will be—to just cease, abruptly, eternally. It is a chilling thought, and once you have started it, it is difficult to shake off.
    The depression stayed with me the rest of the evening. Thoughts of Ruth, of the new emphasis she had brought into my life, did little to relieve the blackness and the hint of fear. My mission in Hillston seemed pointless. It was part of running away from myself. There was no chance of finding the money and even if there was and I did find it, I couldn’t imagine it changing anything. Somehow I had become a misfit in my world, in my time. I had been jolted out of one comfortable rut, and there seemed to be no other place where I could fit. Other than Charlotte—and, too optimistically, Ruth—I could think of no one who gave a special damn whether I lived or died.
    After the light was out I lay in darkness and surrendered myself to the great waves of bathos and self-pity. I wondered what would become of me. I wondered how soon I would be dead. I wondered how many other lonely beds there would be, and where they would be. Finally I fell asleep.

•    SIX    •
    S aturday morning was dreary, with damp winds, low, scudding clouds, lights on in the stores. I couldn’t get a better line on the Cooper girl until the administrationoffice at the high school opened on Monday. The few leads had faded away into nothing. I wondered what I would do with the day.
    After buying some blades and some tooth paste, I drove around for a while and finally faced the fact that I was trying to think of a good excuse to see Ruth Stamm. I went without an excuse. She was in the reception office at the animal hospital. She gave me a quick, warm smile as I walked in. A woman sat holding a small shivering dog, waiting her turn. There was a boy with a Siamese cat on a leash. The cat, dainty and arrogant, purposefully ignored the shivering dog.
    Ruth, smiling, asked in a low voice, “More questions?”
    “No questions. Just general depression.”
    “Wrong kind of hospital, Tal.”
    “But the right kind of personnel.”
    “Need some kind of therapy?”
    “Something like that.”
    She looked at her watch. “Come back at twelve. We close at noon on Saturday. I’ll feed you and we’ll cook up something to do.”
    The day was not as dreary when