The Name of the Game is Death Read Online Free
Author: Dan Marlowe
hundred-and-four, Bunny would never call me about anything. The knife slash that gave him the livid throat scar had also reached his vocal cords. Bunny was a mute.
Bunny hadn't sent the telegram.
Only someone who had intercepted a thousand-dollar envelope meant for Earl Drake could have sent the telegram. I looked at it again. It had originated in Hudson, Florida.
I drove back to The Tropics and found Hudson in an atlas. It was a crossroads town south of Perry on U.S. 19, en route to Tampa.
I checked out of the motel.
The soreness was gone from the shoulder. It was still stiff, but it would have to do. Three-fifty, four hundred miles a day without killing myself, I figured. Five days.
Knowing Bunny, I was sure there was only one way he could have been dealt out of the game.
I had business in Hudson, Florida.
II
The only time I was ever in the pen, the boss headshrinker gave me up as a bad job.
"You're amoral," the prison psychiatrist told me. "You have no respect for authority. Your values lire not civilized values."
That was after he'd Hipped his psychiatric lid at his inability to pierce my defense mechanism, as he called it. I had him taped from the first sixty seconds. He didn't care what I was; he just wanted to know how I got that way. It was none of his damn business, so I gave him a hard way to go.
Oh, I could have told him things. About the kitten, for Instance. I was maybe eleven or twelve. Fifth or sixth guide. I saw this kitten in the window of a pet shop. A blue Persian, although right then I couldn't have told it from a spotted Manx. I ran my finger across the glass and watched her little pink nose and big bronze eyes follow it, and I knew she was for me.
I went home to make my case. I wasn't from any underprivileged family. The kitten's price might have jolted my folks a little, but I wasn't in the habit of asking for much. I was the youngest in the family, with a bushel of sisters and mints, so getting me the kitten became a family project. I they'd been trying for some time to get me to play more with the neighborhood kids. I'd given up trying to explain that other kids gave me a pain, king-sized.
I named the kitten Fatima. First syllable accented, ail short vowel sounds. It seemed to suit her coppery eyes and smoky coloring. I played with her by the hour. I even taught her tricks. No one teaches a kitten anything it doesn't want to learn, but Fatima humored me. We had a grand time together.
I still got a load of guff frequently from the family about not participating more with my age group. I paid no attention. I had Fatima, and she was all the company I needed. In some moods she was a natural-born clown, but in others she had an aloof dignity. I'd never have believed that anything so tiny could be so fearless. Fatima would have tackled a lion if one had got in her way.
Some women's organization in town gave a pet show. YWCA, Junior League, Women's Club, American Legion Auxiliary, BPOE Does—I don't remember which, but I remember women were running it. I bought a little red leash for Fatima out of my paper-route money, and I entered her in the show.
Fatima and her red leash knocked their eyes out. She was a real ham. She sat up in the center of the outdoor ring and went through her whole bag of tricks, better than she did them for me in private. She went through the kitten and cat classes like a streak, and we were brought back for best in show. In the ring for the final judging there was Fatima, a big boxer dog. a black rabbit, a hamster, a goat, and a bowl of topical fish shaded from the sunlight.
The boxer belonged to a kid who went to the same school I did, a fat tub of lard a grade or so ahead of me. I knew him by sight. If I ever knew his name, I've forgotten it. When I saw the boxer, I steered Fatima to the other side of the ling, She just plain didn't like dogs. The fat kid saw what I was doing, and he followed me in a smart-alecky way.
Fatima swelled her throat ruff and hissed a
Bunny hadn't sent the telegram.
Only someone who had intercepted a thousand-dollar envelope meant for Earl Drake could have sent the telegram. I looked at it again. It had originated in Hudson, Florida.
I drove back to The Tropics and found Hudson in an atlas. It was a crossroads town south of Perry on U.S. 19, en route to Tampa.
I checked out of the motel.
The soreness was gone from the shoulder. It was still stiff, but it would have to do. Three-fifty, four hundred miles a day without killing myself, I figured. Five days.
Knowing Bunny, I was sure there was only one way he could have been dealt out of the game.
I had business in Hudson, Florida.
II
The only time I was ever in the pen, the boss headshrinker gave me up as a bad job.
"You're amoral," the prison psychiatrist told me. "You have no respect for authority. Your values lire not civilized values."
That was after he'd Hipped his psychiatric lid at his inability to pierce my defense mechanism, as he called it. I had him taped from the first sixty seconds. He didn't care what I was; he just wanted to know how I got that way. It was none of his damn business, so I gave him a hard way to go.
Oh, I could have told him things. About the kitten, for Instance. I was maybe eleven or twelve. Fifth or sixth guide. I saw this kitten in the window of a pet shop. A blue Persian, although right then I couldn't have told it from a spotted Manx. I ran my finger across the glass and watched her little pink nose and big bronze eyes follow it, and I knew she was for me.
I went home to make my case. I wasn't from any underprivileged family. The kitten's price might have jolted my folks a little, but I wasn't in the habit of asking for much. I was the youngest in the family, with a bushel of sisters and mints, so getting me the kitten became a family project. I they'd been trying for some time to get me to play more with the neighborhood kids. I'd given up trying to explain that other kids gave me a pain, king-sized.
I named the kitten Fatima. First syllable accented, ail short vowel sounds. It seemed to suit her coppery eyes and smoky coloring. I played with her by the hour. I even taught her tricks. No one teaches a kitten anything it doesn't want to learn, but Fatima humored me. We had a grand time together.
I still got a load of guff frequently from the family about not participating more with my age group. I paid no attention. I had Fatima, and she was all the company I needed. In some moods she was a natural-born clown, but in others she had an aloof dignity. I'd never have believed that anything so tiny could be so fearless. Fatima would have tackled a lion if one had got in her way.
Some women's organization in town gave a pet show. YWCA, Junior League, Women's Club, American Legion Auxiliary, BPOE Does—I don't remember which, but I remember women were running it. I bought a little red leash for Fatima out of my paper-route money, and I entered her in the show.
Fatima and her red leash knocked their eyes out. She was a real ham. She sat up in the center of the outdoor ring and went through her whole bag of tricks, better than she did them for me in private. She went through the kitten and cat classes like a streak, and we were brought back for best in show. In the ring for the final judging there was Fatima, a big boxer dog. a black rabbit, a hamster, a goat, and a bowl of topical fish shaded from the sunlight.
The boxer belonged to a kid who went to the same school I did, a fat tub of lard a grade or so ahead of me. I knew him by sight. If I ever knew his name, I've forgotten it. When I saw the boxer, I steered Fatima to the other side of the ling, She just plain didn't like dogs. The fat kid saw what I was doing, and he followed me in a smart-alecky way.
Fatima swelled her throat ruff and hissed a
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