Death Trap by John D. MacDonald Page A

into my car. I knew the trouble he could cause if I hurt anybody on his property. One of them had come after me, running in deadly silence. He yanked me around by the arm, swinging at the same instant. It was the southerner. The blow hit me high on the cheek bone, driving me back against the wagon and lighting up the night sky for an instant. He trusted that punch too much. He tried it again. I slapped his arm down and to the side and heard his quick suck of breath as his hand hit the frame of the wagon between the windows. I pushed him away to gain room, and hit him in the pit of the stomach. He doubled over and I slapped the side of his head as hard as I could. It made a noise like a pistol shot and knocked him down. The thin intensity of his yell came from the bursting pain of a ruptured eardrum.
    The other two moved in on me, one from each side. I took a fist on the throat and felt as though I might strangle. Garson’s co-ordination was poor, his belly swollen with ten thousand beers. I put arm, shoulder, back and hip into one right hook that couldn’t have traveled over ten inches. It made a sound like tossing a shovel load of wet concrete into a wooden bin. He went back four steps and sat down heavily, making gagging noises and holding his belly. There was no more to do. I could have, and should have, stopped right there. But my throat ached and my left cheek bone felt like flame. I felt as swollen with anger as the hump of one of the black bulls of Miura. As the third man tried to run, I kicked his feet out from under him. He went down and scrambled up, turning, his face in silhouette against the car headlights. I caught him with one clean blow, an overhand right against the jaw shelf that sprung his mouth open and emptied his eyes and felt as though it drove my knuckles up into my wrist. I had sense enough to catch him as he toppled forward, or he would have smashed his face against the asphalt.
    I got into my car. The southerner was stirring. Garson had labored up onto one knee.
    “Stay away from my kid,” he gasped. “You stay away from her.”
    I started the motor and drove away. I fingered my cheek bone. It was puffing, but it wasn’t split. Each time I swallowed, my throat rasped with pain, but it seemed to be diminishing.
     
    The Big Time Burger was ten minutes away. A white building set in a large lot. Spotlights were focused on a huge replica of a hamburger “all the way” that revolved slowly on a pedestal on the roof with the poisonous yellow of mustard, a sick red of tomato. The big lot was more than half full, the carhops busy. They wore tight, red, shiny, bullfighter pants, short white coats with gilt buttons, pert black hats with patent leather bills. There was a racked mike beside each parking space to use to place your order. Until the button was pressed on the mike it served as a speaker, rocking and rolling in a tin voice.
    The girl who brought my beer was not at her best in skin-tight pants. She hooked the tray on the window, reached for my dollar.
    “You know the Quarto boy?”
    “Quarto?”
    “He runs a yellow cut-down Ford with a fish-tail rear.”
    “Oh, those damn kids. They don’t come to my station no more. They’re over on the other side. Three hours of trouble and then a dime tip. Angie ought to run ’em off the place for good, but he’s got no guts. One night some of them were busting bottles and Angie went out and they showed him a switch blade and he went and hid in the kitchen for an hour. They don’t scare me. I just said, ‘Kids, you eat at my station and keep stiffing me with them dime tips and maybe I can think up something real fancy to do to your food before you ever even get a look at it.’”
    “I suppose the Paulson girl used to come here.”
    “Sure. She came a lot of times with that bunch that’s over there now, and then a lot of times with college guys, Those college guys are fine. They want to look big so they tip as big as they can afford. Jane Ann