Read Border Town Girl for Free Online Page B

laugh. “You kill me, Shaymen. This isn’t hit and run. They may try to tell George and maybe he won’t be around to listen.”
    Shaymen whistled. “The works, eh?”
    Christy slapped his shoulder. “You and me are in, kid. We start in with a capital of a hundred and twelve thousand, with a brand new source of stuff, with the retailers in line and with George out of the way. Now give me that dough.”
    “It’s in a safe place,” Shaymen said. “Let’s just leave it there, huh?”
    “I don’t like your attitude, Shaymen.”
    Shaymen flipped his cigarette out the window. “I don’t care what you like and what you don’t like. So far we both got twenty-eight thousand. If what you say is right, I think we’ll have fifty-six thousand apiece. That makes a partnership, doesn’t it?”
    “I’ve been taking orders too long,” Christy said. “From now on I’m giving orders.”
    “If that’s the way you want it, Christy, you can kiss that twenty-eight thousand good-by.”
    Christy reached over and clamped his left hand on Shaymen’s closed right fist. He slowly closed his hand. Shaymen made one futile, feeble effort to slam his left fist toward Christy’s face but pain brought it to a faltering stop. He threw back his head and screamed like a woman.
    Christy eased off on the pressure and said, “Where’s the money?”
    “Damn you, Christy! In my suitcase,” he said sullenly.
    Christy applied the pressure again. His arm and shoulder tightened and he felt, under his palm, the crisp pop of a bone. Shaymen screamed again and fell forward across the wheel, half-fainting, his weight against the horn ring. Christy pushed him back and the blare of the horn ceased.
    “Tell me where,” he demanded softly.
    Shaymen was panting as though he had run a long distance. “All right… all right. I’ll… tell you… it’s buried under… third flagstone from the front door of… the tourist court… put it there at night…”
    “You tried to lie to me, Shaymen. You tried to be a partner.”
    Now the mist was thick in Christy’s eyes. He ground down with all his strength. Shaymen made a damp bleating sound and slumped over against the door. Christy squeezed the closed fist inside his big hand, working his fingers alternately, feeling the solidity of the fist slowly disintegrate until it felt like a sack of gravel in his hand. And then suddenly it was limp and a small crooning sound came from Christy’s lips.
    He let the ruined hand drop. He wiped his own hand on the upholstery. The mist receded. He took a chocolate out of his pocket, picked off the tinfoil and put it in his mouth. He sucked at it.
    When his mind was made up, he pulled the unconscious Shaymen upright and broke his jaw with one smash of his clenched right fist. He got out and pulled Shaymen into the passenger’s seat, went around and got behind the wheel. He drove back to Baker and then over toward the river to the Mexican settlement. There he found a sagging warehouse without lights and he turned out the car lights as he drove behind it. He stood outside the car for some time, listening. Shaymen was still breathing. Christy dragged him out of the car and stepped on his throat with the outside edge of his shoe. Shaymen’s breath whistled once and stopped. He turned Shaymen’s pockets inside out, emptied the wallet and threw it aside. He smudged his hands around the wheel and over the door handles.
    Death of one Mr. Brown, commercial traveler.
    Back in the hotel dining room Christy ate a large steak. He went to his room and napped until eleven. At half-past twelve, moving through the darkness like a shadow, he pulled up the flagstone, found the roll of bills in oilcloth under the packed dirt, dropped the stone back and melted off into the night. He was in the hotel a little after one. He paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the third floor. The damn fool nearby was still typing furiously. Christy thought hard of Diana, trying to reawaken