Free Clemmie by John D. MacDonald Page B

was the best, wasn’t it?”
    “The very peak.”
    “But by the time we reached Italy it had begun …”
    “.. to wither.”
    “Exactly, Craig. I cabled Daddy. He sent me money. I came back alone. For months I couldn’t smile. Tears would come without warning. I’m rich now, my darling. You need a year in a rest home. Good food, treatment, kindness. I shall write you a check.”
    Over his protests she wrote an imaginary check. He took it, folded it, put it carefully in his pocket. There were more drinks. He did not seem to feel them. They played other games, took other parts. He played with an increasing facility that pleased her. It was a game, but in another sense it was love play. It made him intently aware of her, of the quickness of her body and the mobility of her face. When she would turn toward him as he lifted his glass, so that the back of his hand brushed the warmthand tautness of her young breast, he could not tell if it was accident or design.
    And quite suddenly she ended the game, looking at him almost without expression, her pale blue eyes wide, her mouth still and level.
    “Now walk me home, Fitz,” she murmured.
    When they were out in front he asked her if she wanted a cab. She said it was only a few blocks, and turned toward the river.
    “Down this way?”
    She hugged his arm against her. “Down this way, yes. Don’t sound like Daddy. Don’t go all moral and stuffy. You’ve been lovely so far. Don’t get stuffy, please, darling.”
    She hummed as they walked and then began to sing in French in a voice that was husky, sweet and true.
    “Pretty,” he said when she was through.
    She giggled. “Then you don’t know French. A girl from Paris taught it to me. In a boarding school near Lucerne. A long time ago. Daddy was on wife number three then. The Canadian one. So they popped me off to school. The song is filthy, actually.”
    “Is he still married to her?”
    “Oh, no. She died. And that was the damnedest thing ever happened to Daddy. He thought you divorced them. It seemed indecent to have one die. He’s alone now, and he keeps making animal sounds about how I should give up my mad, mad life and go out and make like the lady of the house in that redwood stadium of his. I keep telling him to go live at one of his clubs, but he couldn’t bear to part with the three incomparable and loyal servants who give him a screwing on the household bills every month. I’m the only chick he has, but he can’t force me because two years ago, when I turned twenty-one, a lovely little income started coming in. Thank God my grandmother had some sense about money. If old Georgie didn’t want to spend his senility alone, he should have thought twice before sending a lonely kid off to schools on other continents.”
    “If it’s a nice income, why this neighborhood?”
    “So I won’t have stuffy neighbors. Wait until you see the layout. Here we are. Down this alley.”
    “Isn’t this a warehouse?”
    “So it is! Imagine that. And all the time I was thinking it was an apartment house.”
    “What are you getting so sore about?”
    “Every time you open your mouth you lose five yards. This is a warehouse. That is a shed. Inside the shed is my car. This is a door. That is a loading ramp and— Oh, for God’s sake!”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Wait right here. Don’t join the group. Be right back.”
    She went over toward the loading ramp. A tall figure came out of the shadows. They spoke to each other in tones so low he couldn’t make out a word. The man had a deep rumbling voice. His words had a plaintive begging sound. Her voice had a sharpness, an impatience. Finally he turned and went off into the darkness. She came back to him.
    “Who was that?”
    “A creep. He depresses me. He hangs around like some kind of kicked dog. He has a big thing about me. He gets so stinking tragic about everything. He’s a writer. Now he says he can’t write anything and he can’t sleep and—the hell