Build My Gallows High Read Online Free Page B

horn played three notes. The domino players didn’t mind. One of them was a policeman but he didn’t do anything about the horn.
    She came along the sidewalk and this time she didn’t look at anyone. She merely went to the same table and sat down. He heard her low, sweet voice asking the waiter for a brandy and plain water. He caught her eyes and grinned. A ghost of a smile crossed her face. He asked: ’May I?’ She dropped her glance.
    The waiter brought her drink. Red beckoned to him, asked for another beer and when it came watched her over the top of the tall glass. The dress she wore tonight was of some soft green stuff, but her hat was the same and her shoes and her bag matched the hat. She took a black notebook from her bag and began writing in it with a tiny gold pencil. As she wrote she pulled her eyebrows together and pursed her full lips. Her lips were very red and made her skin seem paler than it really was.
    A ragged boy crossed from the plaza and headed straight for her table. His soft voice begged for just one little centavo— please senorita, just one. She smiled at the flat, dirty brown face. Surely, the boy continued in Spanish, the senorita could spare one tiny centavo.
    She looked at Red then. She spoke. ‘What does he say?’
    ‘He wants a cent,’ Red said. Red waved him away—told him to run along before he cut his ears off. The boy laughed and took some lottery tickets from his pocket.
    ‘The senorita will win a fortune perhaps,’ the boy suggested.
    Red got up, moved to her table, gave him a fifty-centavo piece and took one of the tickets.
    ‘Gracias, senor,’ the boy said.
    ‘Por nada.’
    ‘Which means?’ she asked.
    ‘For nothing,’ Red said, as the boy went away. ‘May I sit down?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Por nada.’ She smiled and a light seemed to go on in her eyes. They were light brown, flecked with bits of gold, and her long lashes made shadows on her fine pale skin.
    ‘I wanted to speak to you last night,’ Red said.
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You looked lonely.’
    ‘I’m not. Was that why you wanted to speak to me?’
    ‘No. I wanted to ask you to walk along the beach in the moonlight. I wanted to sit beside you on a hill.’
    ’You’re the lonely one.’ She smiled again. Red wanted her to keep smiling—she was even lovelier then. ‘I don’t know your name.’
    ‘Does that matter?’ Red asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘They call me Red.’
    ‘How odd,’ the girl laughed softly. ‘Red what?’
    ‘Markham. And yours?’
    She shook her head.’You wouldn’t believe it. Why are you in Acapulco?’
    ‘I like it.’
    ‘Tourist?’
    ‘Indolent,’ Red said.’This is a fine place to be indolent in.’
    ‘Even if you’re lonely?’
    ‘I’m not lonely any more.’ He reached across the table and covered her hand with his own. ‘They have a fine bar at the El Mirador. Shall we walk up the hill and have a drink?’
    ‘Not tonight.’
    ‘Tomorrow then?’
    ‘Tomorrow afternoon. Say four.’
    ‘You won’t run away?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Por nada.’ She said the words as though she liked the sound and her voice did things to Red’s stomach.
    * * *
    El Mirador made Red think of Carmel—the hotel hanging on the edge of the cliff, the rocks and the sea and the sky. They sat at a table, high above the water. On the cliff below two boys chased an iguana. After a while they caught him and came clambering up the rocks, one of them holding the ugly thing by the tail. The girl shuddered. She asked,’Why?’
    ‘To eat,’ Red said. He was glad when they were gone. Then there were only the cliffs and the sea gnawing at the rocks far down and two buzzards riding an air current low over the blue-green water. ‘This isn’t Mexico,’ Red said.
    ’Oh yes.’ She sipped her daiquiri, leaned on the porch railing and nodded at the buzzards wheeling by. ‘They’re Mexico. I’ve seen them by the dozens roosting in the dead trees along the road. I’ve seen