Killdozer! Read Online Free Page A

Eddie.”
    “Yeah.” I turned to her and when she saw my face she lifted her hands a little and shrank back. “Why?” I asked. “Single, aren’t you?”
    She nodded. “It’s something that—Eddie, will you take my word for it—just this once?”
    “No,” I said, “I already took your word for something ‘just this once.’ Spill it.”
    “It’s—about the things I studied. I spent a month or so by myself up in the mountains not long ago—did I tell you? I didn’t see a soul for forty-two days. I was always susceptible to what has been called the psychic. Up there, I studied, and I tried out a lot of things, and experimented a lot. That was when I got on the right track. About possession, I mean. I found out how to open my mind to possession. I went too far. I held it open too long. It—grew that way. I can’t close it. I’m a permanent susceptible, Eddie. When I came down from the mountains I was different. I always will be.”
    “What the hell’s this all about?” I snarled. “Do you love me?”
    “You don’t have to ask me that,” she whispered. I looked at her. I didn’t have to ask her. I put my arms around her and said, with my teeth on the lobe of her ear, “Tell the rest of that nonsense to your husband on your honeymoon.”
    The cop came along again. I thumbed at the lake over my shoulder and told him to go jump in it. He went away laughing.
    Different she might have been but her only difference was in being better, finer, sweeter than any other woman on earth. That’s what I believed after our honeymoon. I believe it now, with an amendment. Then, I thought that what I just said covered everything. Since, I learned a little more. Maria did have a profound difference from other women.
    It didn’t show up until we came back to the city and I got back on the air again. I had a nice stretch, and she adjusted herself to it gracefully. I m.c.’d an all-night radio program from two to seven in the morning, which meant getting up around four and breakfasting at suppertime. Great stuff. That way you’re fresh and ready to go in the evening when everyone else who has to work for a living is tired out from a day’s work. Before I got married I had a thousand friends and a thousand places to go every night. Afterward, I couldn’t see why Maria shouldn’t go to at least five hundred of them with me. She didn’t like the idea. Acted afraid of it. I kidded her and swore at her and annoyed her and persuaded her. “A guy like me has to have friends,” I said. “Look. My program has sponsors. As long aspeople wire in requests for phonograph records, the sponsors know that if they’re hearing the music they can’t very well avoid the plugs. They renew their contracts and that’s what gives me nickels and dimes to buy you ice cream cones and automobiles and stuff. You’d be surprised how many people wire in from bars and restaurants, whether they know me personally or not, just because they saw me there during the evening. I got to get around. I can notice the slack-off already, when I’ve only been off the stem for a couple of weeks. Last night I played fifty-eight minutes of records and transcriptions without getting a single wire. That isn’t good, babe.”
    And she kept saying, “Then go, Eddie. I’ll be all right. I won’t run away from you if you leave me alone for a few hours. Go see your friends.” So I did. But it didn’t work out. Those weren’t stag parties I was going to. The babes all knew I was married, and when they saw me by myself all the time they got the wrong idea. A little bit of this, and I went home one night and laid down the law.
    She didn’t like it, but she didn’t argue. She took an unconscionably long time to put on her face, but she came without a peep. I didn’t expect that meekness. I told her so. She smiled without enthusiasm.
    “I’ve asked you not to force me to come with you,” she said sadly. “I guess you’ve just got to find out for