Free Deadly Welcome by John D. MacDonald Page B

to.”
    “Then you can tell me how you got it.”
    “You can look in the top bureau drawer on the left again, Mister Deputy, sir. Under the shorts. A folder with passport and visas and work papers and pay vouchers.”
    He opened the folder, looked at the papers, threw folder and papers on the bed.
    “But right now you got no job, right?”
    “No job. Not yet.”
    “Where do you figure on working?”
    “Some place around here.”
    “I don’t figure that way. I don’t figure that way
at
all. Over in Davis we got pictures of you and we got prints and they’re in a file. And that there is what you call a dead file. Now I don’t want to have to go move that file up into the other file, the one where we keep the records of people living around here. I’m just lazy, I guess. You know, maybe you forgot to stop by and register as a known criminal, Doyle?”
    “Would that be necessary? It was a suspended sentence.”
    “I’m not up on all my law, but maybe it would have been sort of friendly of you to stop by when you come in and not let me find you by accident. And you could have brought us up to date on the police trouble you’ve had since you been gone.”
    “There hasn’t been any.”
    “Guess you been clever about it, huh?”
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Always glad to oblige.”
    “Why are you on my back? I’m not in any trouble. I don’t intend to get into any. I came back here because … this is home. That’s all. There isn’t any law about that, is there?”
    “You know, Doyle, the end of this here county is about the cleanest end of any county in the state. Roy likes for me to handle it just the way I do, on account of he doesn’t like sending in bad figures on crime up to Tallahassee. And he knows I know this end of the county better than anybody, so he just rides along and he lets me handle it all my own sweet way. You understand?”
    “I guess so.”
    “And one way I do, anybody making for trouble, I just up and run ’em off. Let ’em light some other place. Let ’em go spoil the crime figures in some other county. Now if there’s a family or something concerned, then I let ’em stay. But I persuade them to stay out of trouble. You haven’t even got a job, so it’s no trouble to run you off. Besides, I don’t like having you out here on the beach. You stay down in Bucket Bay, I might think on letting you stay ’round.”
    “I want to stay right here.”
    “What you want and what you get is two different ends of the rabbit. All this here for miles around is my little ole bait bucket. I keep it nice and clean and throw out the spoiled bait. It isn’t good for a fella like you not tohave a job. You lay around and get ideas and pretty soon you make me some trouble. But I’ll show you I’m not a bad guy, Doyle. You paid a month rent, and it ain’t likely you can get it back. So all you got to do is ask me nice if you can stay here, and tell me you won’t make trouble.”
    “I’d like to stay. Please. And I won’t make trouble.”
    Donnie Capp smiled in a thin way and unhooked the night stick, and glided toward Doyle. “Now I’ll be quietin’ you down a little.”
    Just as Doyle started to back away, raising his arms, the stick smashed down on the point of his left shoulder, bruising the nerves, numbing his arm from shoulder to fingertips. In painful reflex, he struck out at Capp with his right fist. Capp stepped aside and paralyzed his right arm with the same cruel and scientific blow, then shouldered him back against the wall beside the bedroom doorway. He could not raise either arm.
    Capp jabbed the end of the club into the pit of Doyle’s belly, doubling him over. And then, calmly, professionally, he went to work. Through the haze of pain and confusion of impact, Doyle realized that he was getting a scientific head beating. No blow was enough to destroy consciousness. And, in between the rhythms of the blows on his skull, Capp was taking practiced strokes at shins