Killdozer! Read Online Free PDF Page A

air—remember?”
    “Yeh.” He went to the door, turned to give me a long look, and then dashed for the mike as his number played itself out. Jakie was swell. He’d do anything for me, I knew, but there was nothing he could do about this.
    How could Maria have done these things? If she had why did she? I could easily see how. Anyone who goes clubbing with me has to spend a lot of time by himself, because I know so damn many people. I’m always hopping from one table to another. While I was making the rounds, I guess Maria had been getting in her work.
    “That—stinks,” I said.
    Long practice had taught me how to maintain a free-and-easy mike style no matter how I felt, no matter how much good luck or badhad piled into me before the show. Jakie put my theme on the table and the red light in front of me flashed on. I sat back mulling over the whole dirty business and when the last chorus of my theme faded, I grabbed the mike around the neck and went to work.
    “Top o’ the wee sma’ to ye, boys and gals. This is the man behind the mike who makes all that talking noise between the music—Eddie Gretchen’s the name. We’re open for business till the sun comes up and stops us, and if there’s any ol’ thing you want to hear over the air, drop me a wire and tell me about it. Don’t call me up because I haven’t the intelligence to use a phone. Before I play you some transcriptions and stuff there’s a little something on my mind, viz. and to wit: There’s no law yet in this country against sending me personal wires while I’m working. It’s fun for you and fun for me. But there’s nothing funny about hitting below the belt. I just got a sheaf of that kind of thing and I don’t feel so happy about it, boys and gals. I’m not saying to quit sending them, though. Oh no. But when you do, sign your names and addresses. If I find out that the information is phony, I might like to drop around and personally cave in some faces. Think it over while Tony Reddik’s swell little band shows you and you how drums are really kicked around in ‘Suitcase Shuffle.’ ” I spun the platter and let it go.
    Well, it brought results. During the show I got fourteen more wires of that sort. I think all of that powder room crowd were represented. Some of them were funny and some of them were nasty and some were just hurt about it. I got my names and addresses too. Nine of them were women. It certainly seemed as if Maria had done the most vicious piece of blabbing I’d ever heard of. She told husbands about their wives and wives about their best friends. She broke up business deals and caused fistfights and broke up more than one otherwise happy couple. I couldn’t understand where she got all her information, or what on earth possessed her to spill it around. Possessed—possessed … the word did something to my brain. That was the thing she was always trying to tell me about. The reason she didn’t want to mix with a crowd. I’d seen loose-tongued women before, but this particular woman—damn it! She was so restrained! Her every thought and movement was so perfectly controlled! Well,I thought sourly, she’s going to have her chance to explain it all tonight. Every dirty lousy little bit of it.
    She was asleep when I came in. I stood over her, wanting to kiss her, wanting to punch her lovely mouth, wanting to kick her teeth in, wanting to have her put her arms around me so I could cry on her shoulder. She must have sensed me near her. She put up her arms and smiled without opening her eyes. I took the telegrams out of my breast pocket and closed her fingers on them. Without a word I went into the bathroom and shut the door. As I peeled off my clothes and got into pajamas and a robe I heard her start to cry, and then be quiet again. When I went back she was lying with her face buried in the crumpled telegrams.
    “I see you beat me to it,” I said evenly. She turned her head ever so slightly, so that one dark eye