Free The Damned by John D. MacDonald

just as well have been absolutely alone. They’d never given up their cute trick of walking hand in hand, and Phil hadn’t made them stop it. They told him they were going exploring. He got out of the car and watched them going down the dusty road, hand in hand, heads shining in the slant of the late-afternoon sun. He decided he was very proud of them.
    He saw them move to one side to get out of the way of a pickup truck that was backing up the hill. The truck backed all the way to the end of the line, then swung down through a shallow ditch and up to the front of a tired-looking little store.
    A tall young guy in glasses came trotting out, glanced at the truck, and trotted over to Phil. “Are you a doctor?” he demanded.
    “No, son. Sorry.”
    The boy turned on his heel and ran back to the store. There was quite a crowd around, staring in the door. Phil walked over to see what was going on. The big fellow who had driven the truck had gone into the store. As Phil got closer he heard some crisp Spanish and the crowd got out of the way a bit. The big guy and the young fellow came out carrying a stretcher made of a couple of coats buttoned around bamboo poles. There was a gray-haired lady on the stretcher. Phil guessed that if she were awake and on her feet, she’d look like quality.
    She certainly looked sick. Face like a washrag. Phil swallowed hard. That was the way Manny had looked when the ambulance came after him. And it made him remember that he was exactly Manny’s age. Forty-nine. The gals thought he was forty-two. Stop using the little brush and the bottle, and his hair would probably be the same color as the lady on the stretcher’s. Damn hard to be a comic, to think of the punch lines, to dress up the routines, when way down in your mind you kept thinking of death. The years go by so damn fast.
    The crowd was very still. Kids watched, wide-eyed. A Mexican slowly took off his big straw hat and then made the sign of the cross. The two men eased the stretcher onto the truck. The boy scrambled in with blankets, awkwardly wedged them under her.
    The big Mexican fellow looked around. He turned to Phil and the Texas drawl startled Phil considerably as he said, “If you could back that car of yours up, friend, I could drive out to where the ditch isn’t quite so steep.”
    “Sure,” Phil said. “Sure thing.”
    He went to the car and backed up, giving the truck plenty of room. There was a little girl in the truck now, too. A pretty little bit. Silver-colored hair and a trim little figure. Looked like somebody had given her a bust in the mouth not too long ago. But he couldn’t imagine anybody doing that. Probably she fell.
    The big fellow tooled the truck through the ditch, creeping it along. When it turned down toward the ferry, Phil moved the Packard up to the back bumper of the Cad and turned it off. He pocketed the key as he got out. He stood, blinking in the sunlight, a small worried-looking man with clown lines around his big mouth, with simian forehead, wearing an absurdly unsuitable pair of maroon shorts with wide white bands down the side seams. His two girls were two dots of pale blue beyond the dust. Phil hiked up his maroon shorts and set off down the road. He had learned, early in life, how to case a house. This one was a crazy mixture. He hoped he’d never have to play to a house like this one. Some round, glint-eyed little Mexican businessmen. A mess of paisanos. A chunky American who looked like a pro athlete of some sort. Another American looking like a banker, sort of a sad-eyed guy. A big redhead with a yellow dress about to bust in front. Some farmery-looking guys. A big tourist family with a swarm of bratty kids. All of them piled up here, just as they’d come along the highway. Down at the head of the line he found a couple of sour-looking flits, one of them with a flattened nose. Recently done. He wondered why people had been getting pounded around here.
    The ferry seemed to be stuck so