The Kill-Off Read Online Free PDF

their hides. And giving me work would get under ’em bad.
    He didn’t need to care what they thought of him; his business was all with the summer trade. He owned most of the rent cottages, and the pavilion, and two of the hotels, and oh, probably, two-thirds of the concession buildings. So to heck with Manduwoc, was the way he felt. The town people hadn’t ever done anything for him. In fact, they’d always been kind of down on him, sort of resentful. Because even back when he was a day laborer, cleaning out cesspools or anything he could get to do, he was as independent as a hog on ice. He’d do a good day’s work, but he wouldn’t say thank-you for his pay. If anyone called him by his first name or just Pavlov, he’d do exactly the same thing with them. No matter who they were or how much money they had.
    He straightened up from his desk, and looked at me. I smiled and said hello, and remarked that it was a nice day. I said, “I guess I better be getting to work, hadn’t I, Pete?”
    He waited for me to say something else. I didn’t, because I was just too worried. Here was maybe another twenty-five dollars a week going down the hole. The only chance I had left for any income.
    Pete kind of squirmed around in his chair, kind of scratching his rear, I guess. He leaned back and picked something out of his nose, and held it up and looked at it. And then he pushed his lips out, moved them in and out, while he stared down at his desk.
    “Well, hell,” he said. “I tell you how it is, Ralph. The way this goddamned summer business is going, I figure on hiring out myself.”
    I didn’t say anything. I guessed things weren’t as good for him as they used to be, but I knew he was still setting pretty. He had plenty, all right, Pete Pavlov did. It would take more than a few slack seasons to hurt him much.
    “What are you looking like that for?” he said. “You think I’m a goddamned liar?” Then, his eyes flickered and shifted, and he let out a whoop of laughter, and slapped his hand down on his desk. “Well, you’re right, by God! I wish you could have seen your face! Really had you going, didn’t I?”
    “Aw, no, you didn’t,” I said. “I knew you were joking all the time.”
    “You know what a broom looks like?” He waved me toward the door. “Well, see if you can find one that’ll fit your hands.”
    I got out. I got busy on the restrooms, and after a while, as he was leaving for downtown, he looked in on me. Stood around talking and joking for a few minutes. He asked about Luane, and said he was pretty goddamned hurt the way she never told any dirty stories about him. I laughed, kind of uncomfortable, and said I guessed that was his fault, not hers. Which was mainly the way it was, of course. Because how can you mud a man up when he’s already covered himself with it? To annoy people, you know. What’s the point in saying that a man does such and such or so and so when he lets ’em all know it himself?
    He had a family, a wife and daughter, but Luane couldn’t do much to dirty them, either. There just wasn’t enough to them, you know, to hold dirt. They were dowdy and drab. They went around with their shoulders slumped and their heads bowed—like they might cut and run if you looked their way. No one was interested in them. There wasn’t anything to be interested in. And if the time ever came when there was, well, I figured Luane would do some tall thinking before she gossiped about it.
    You see, years ago—before Luane and I were married—her father gave Pete an awful raw deal. Cheated him out of a pile of money, and then placed it in Luane’s name, so that Pete couldn’t sue. Luane’s always felt kind of guilty about it. She’d think a long time before she did anything else to hurt Pete or his family.
    “Well,” Pete said. “I got a feeling that this may be a good season after all. The best damned season yet.”
    “I think it will, too,” I said. “I think you’re right,