The Kill-Off Read Online Free

Doc said. And he gave me one of those straight, hard-eyed looks like the county attorney had.
    So there I was. A hundred and fifty dollars a month gone down the drain. Practically every bit of my winter income, except for a little wood-cutting and stuff like that. Well, sure, I’d always kept a pretty big garden, canned and dried a lot of stuff. And, of course, there were the pigs, and we had our own eggs and milk and so on. And, naturally, I had some money put by. But, you know, you just can’t figure that way; I mean, you can’t count on standing on rock bottom. You do that, say, and what happens if things get worse? If a rainy day comes along, and that water that’s only been up to your chin goes over your nose? Money can go mighty fast when you don’t have any coming in. Say you run in the hole five dollars a day, why in a year’s time that’s almost two thousand dollars. And say you’re forty like I am, and you’ve got maybe twenty-five years to live unless you starve to death…! I tell you I was almost crazy with worry. Anyone would have been. But now it was the first day of the season, and all my worries were over—I thought. I’d just work a little harder, make enough to make up for what I didn’t make during the winter, and everything would be fine. I mean, I thought it would be.
    I finished my chores. Then, I spread a big tarp in the back of the Mercedes-Benz, and put my mower and tools inside. You’re probably wondering what a man like me is doing with a Mercedes, them being worth so much money. But the point is they’re only worth a lot when you’re buying; you go to sell one it’s a different story. I did get a pretty good offer or two for it, back when I first got it—two seasons ago—but I kind of held on, thinking I might get a better one. And, of course, I liked it a lot, too, and I did need a car to get around in, to haul myself and my tools and passengers during the season. So, maybe it was the wrong thing, but it looked to me like I couldn’t really lose since I’d gotten it for nothing. So, well, I’ve still got it.
    The man who did own it was a writer, a motion-picture writer, who used to come up here for the season. He began having trouble with it right after I went to work for him, and he had me tinker on it for him; and it would run pretty good for a time and then it would go blooey again. He got pretty sore about it. I mean, he got sore at the car. One morning he got so mad he started to take an ax to it, and I guess he would have if I hadn’t stopped him. Well, back then, there was a summer Rolls agency over at Atlantic Center—that’s a pretty big place, probably ten times as big as Manduwoc. So I suggested to this writer that as long as he needed a car and he didn’t like the Mercedes, why not let me tow him over there and see what kind of a trade-in he could get.
    Well, you know how it is. Those dealers can stick just about any price tag on a car they want to. So this one said he could allow six thousand on the Mercedes (he just boosted the Rolls price that much), and the writer snapped him up on it. And as soon as he’d driven off, the dealer signed the Mercedes over to me. I tinkered with the motor a little. I’ve never had to touch it since.
    Yes, this writer was pretty sore when he found out what had happened. He claimed I’d deliberately put the Mercedes on the blink, and he threatened to have both me and that dealer arrested. But he couldn’t prove anything, so it didn’t bother me that much. I mean, after all, a man that’s got twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars to throw away on a car, has got blamed little to fuss about. And if he can’t protect an investment like that, he shouldn’t have it in the first place.
    After I’d finished loading the Mercedes, I went in and did a quick job on the house. Which didn’t take long since I’d slicked everything up good the night before. I ate breakfast, and then I fixed more breakfast and carried it up to