The right words weren’t easy to find—words that had a fresh, clean sound and meaning, words that didn’t sound like something out of a movie. He knew that it was not going to be easy to explain to Marina. It was going to be very nard to make her believe him, because he had, in her eyes, humiliated her, and nothing could explain that away. She had offered him her love, and he knew what that must have cost her. And he had walked out on her, going into the arms of another woman. That’s the way it had looked.
Even then she hadn’t let him down. Art wasn’t afraid of Horace Stockwell or his threats. He didn’t like the man or feel sorry for him. But he did feel shame and self-disgust for what he had almost done. And it was Marina’s quick thinking and prompt action which had saved an ugly situation—one that Art was responsible for.
So what did he give her for that? A flip remark.
Instead of following Marina into the office, Art walked slowly out toward the highway and stood there, staring off toward the mountains, now only a deeper blackness against the dark backdrop of the night sky.
Maybe he had lost her. He thought of what he would be losing and knew that he didn’t deserve to have her. The memories of the past six months crowded in on him—of the long hours of working together in the office, comfortable and quiet hours; of the fast rides across the desert in the open MG, Marina’s head flung back and her eyes sparkling; of the moments of serious talk, about the desert and about God and about the past. Never the future. He had avoided that. How little he knew of her! And how much!
She was a girl who knew how to laugh, warmly and spontaneously, and how to look at a man when he talked, her face eager and her eyes alert. She had the golden arms and the legginess of all beautiful women, and there was an exquisite grace in the line of her neck, a supple exciting strength in the fine curve of her back. And she had a warmth, an animation, a delight in sights and sounds and smells that made her keenly alive.
She was the most desirable woman in the world. That he should have felt anything at all for the heavy sensuality of Lucy seemed incredible now. And yet it was so easy for a man to be incomprehensibly stupid. You were at the mercy of your body, and of your pride, and in catering to both you practiced self-deception every day of your life. It was more comfortable to lie to yourself than to tell the truth, easier to be mad than sane. Why?
Why had he felt this way about Lucy for so long? Because she had walked out on him and his pride had been hurt. Because she was good in bed, and he thought he was good, and it hurt to believe that another man could be better. How could a man do that to himself? How could it become so important, the lust and the pride? And how could it possibly survive when a girl like Marina came along? It seemed impossible to comprehend now—and yet this, too, was the usual pattern. When your vision cleared, the bodiless reality of the dream seemed a child’s fantasy.
But isn’t it a little late for you to be growing up, he thought? Art kept asking the questions and facing the answers. They weren’t comfortable answers to accept, but he acknowledged them. After a while he stopped asking the questions. You could carry that too far, also, into a conscious self-abasement that became phony.
It might take a long time, and he would have to swallow a lot of the sticky pride, but he would try to make Marina understand, even if he couldn’t ask her to forgive completely and to forget. His only hope would be somehow to convince her that he was in love with her, and that Lucy was just a memory. Not a bitter one even. Just a memory.
He loved Marina—this tall, clean-limbed, sparkling woman who had given him her love. There was no doubt in his mind. The love was a simple fact, like the truths that flowers grow and the sun is warm, something accepted without question. He thought of this new love, and at last it brought him a kind of peace.
The headlights of a car sliced into his thoughts. The car turned in toward the motel. It was the salesman coming back. Art turned to follow with his gaze the path of the car, and the movement brought the motel itself into focus. He thought of all the people, sleeping quietly, contented, he supposed, with their lives. And he thought of how much could happen beyond the walls of your own little room that you knew nothing about. You lived your own isolated life, and the world whirled all around you, but you didn’t really know anything about what went on outside your mental isolation booth at all, any more than you felt the actual speeding of the earth through space. Only that which touched you was real.
He started back toward the office. Thinking of Marina, and what he had done to her, knowing what she meant to him, he felt scared. He hadn’t been scared in a long time.
In the front office, Art looked around, bewildered. He knew Marina hadn’t come out, but she wasn’t there.
“Marina?”
There was no answer. The door leading into the kitchenette in back, and another door into the adjoining bedroom where he slept, were both open, but there was no light coming from the back rooms. Art walked through the kitchen, switching on the lights.
“Marina?”
He tried the bedroom but she wasn’t there either. When he came back into the kitchen he saw that the wastebasket next to the back door had been knocked over, and he frowned.
She must have slipped out the back way, he thought. But where had she gone? The MG was still parked where she had left it. Maybe she went for a walk. Maybe she wanted to think things out, too.
Art went back into the front office. After a moment’s hesitation he started out the door. Just as he reached the gravel courtyard a scream rose clear and shrill, shattering the quiet night, its chilling vibrations abruptly overpowered by the angry bark of a gun. The scream cut off suddenly.
Art started running toward the back of the motel, in the direction of the sounds. Where’s Marina? he thought frantically. Where?
Lew Cutter cursed savagely under his breath all the way from the office to the rear window of his unit. He had been stupid, unforgivably stupid. He might just as well have dug his own grave and handed Sam Garner the shovel, for Christ’s sake. He should have figured that Sam would be able to trace him quickly. He hadn’t been careful enough.
The girl was heavier than she had looked, probably because she was so tall. He staggered under the awkward weight of her but kept going. The two men weren’t on to him yet, he thought. The Harrison family gimmick must have thrown them off. They were just checking the motel. He still had a chance.
The best thing would be to make a run for it. Get rid of the girl. Stick her in his room where she wouldn’t be found until morning, grab the money and take off. In the darkness he would have a good chance of losing Garner’s men. All he needed was five minutes head start.
He reached the back window. Shifting the girl’s limp body up across his shoulders, he edged under the loose screen and dumped her through the open window. For a moment he stood listening. Then he climbed through the window.
Cutter carried the girl into the front bedroom and dropped her on the bed. She was still unconscious. When she tumbled onto the bed her skirt twisted up around her hips. Cutter looked down coldly at the slim, tanned legs and the line of white high up on her thighs. He remembered Carla.
He shivered. That’s how he had got into this mess. He walked quickly around the bed and pulled out the suitcase, the cheap brown suitcase that held fifty thousand dollars. He eased the .38 out of his pocket, double-checked the load and thumbed the hammer back to half-cock. Just as he reached again for the handle of the suitcase he heard a faint sound.
Cutter stood very still. Another sound came to his straining ears. Like clothing rustling. From the bathroom. Slowly he sank into a crouch behind the bed, holding his breath. He was trembling in the grip of terror, and he found it hard to focus his eyes on the bathroom door, even harder to point the muzzle of the Special straight, unwavering.
Slowly the knob on the bathroom door began to turn.
26
Irene Wallace lay in bed, the sheet and one blanket pulled up around her ears. She tried not to listen to Richard’s voic
e, but it went on and on. He hadn’t been like this for a long time. She had thought that he had grown used to their way of life together, that he had accepted it. But this time he was worse than he had ever been. With every word he was stripping away the facade of polite, well-mannered, undemonstrative affection which had concealed the conflict between them.
He was sitting in the chair across the room, naked, drinking out of the flask. It ought to be empty by now, Irene thought. It should have been empty before this. And yet Richard didn’t really sound drunk.
The nakedness was a coarse, defiant gesture. It angered her more than the accusing words of the drinking. It was so … vulgar.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” Richard was saying. “You put on a good act. You fooled me, before we were married. You knew how to kiss. You knew more about kissing than I did. I thought you were a passionate little thing, that’s what I thought. I didn’t mind it when you wouldn’t go to bed with me before we were married. I thought that just meant you were a nice girl. Smart, too. I didn’t mind. That’s the way I was brought up. I was brought up to think that nice girls didn’t go to bed with a man until their wedding night, and you shouldn’t hold it against them. That’s what I thought.”
Irene heard him take another drink.
“I was very stupid,” Richard said, and he fell silent.
Why didn’t you make me like it? Irene thought angrily. Maybe you could have in the beginning. It was bad the first few times. Yes, I hated it and I made it bad. But if you hadn’t been so damned polite and nice and patient about it, maybe you could have helped me to get over it.
“I see the way men look at you,” Richard said. “God, how I laugh at them. They can hardly keep their hands off you. And you’re good. You make them think you can hardly keep from letting them. That’s artistry, that is. It’s a real kick, let me tell you. I want to laugh right in their faces. God, it’s funny.”
Yes, Irene thought. I know the looks. And I know all about the hands. I could tell you about the hands.
And for the first time in years Irene remembered her Uncle Charles without instantly rejecting the memory. She lay with her face turned toward the wall and she thought about Uncle Charles. The rich uncle.
He used to come to visit her parents a couple of times a year, usually at Christmas and during the summer. And sometimes they would visit him at his ranch, but only when he asked them to. Charles was her mother’s brother, and her mother had always acted as if Uncle Charles was God’s brother instead of her own. And Irene’s father had admired and envied and even been a little afraid of Uncle Charles. Because he had money.
Before the visits, they always coached Irene to be polite to Uncle Charles. She had to kiss him. He liked to kiss and hug her. When she was very young, she didn’t mind it too much, because she could kiss him quickly on the cheeks and hug him very briefly. And she didn’t mind it too much when he would pat her on the leg or in back.
But as she grew older she came to dislike the ritual more and more. It became embarrassing to kiss Uncle Charles. And by the time Irene was fourteen, he didn’t let her get away with just kissing him on the cheek quickly. He made her kiss him on the mouth. And he always wanted Irene to sit beside him on the couch or in the car, and his leg would be pressed against hers, and he would keep patting her on the knee.
Irene was fifteen when the “incident” happened. She had never told anyone what really happened, not even her mother. But after that she wouldn’t go near Uncle Charles, no matter how her parents begged and pleaded and cajoled. And she wouldn’t tell them why. Finally one day, on Uncle Charles’ next Christmas visit, her mother got a strange look on her face when Irene shouted that she wouldn’t kiss Uncle Charles no matter what. It was that night that Irene heard the quarrel.
And Uncle Charles suddenly stopped coming. He didn’t leave them any money, either, so all the kisses weren’t worth anything at all.
All because of the incident.
It was during his summer visit. He had come early that year, in June, and he stayed for a week. On the Sunday before he was going to leave, Uncle Charles had insisted on taking Irene for a drive in his new car. He kept telling her how much fun it would be, and her parents kept agreeing that it would be lots of fun. Irene didn’t want to go, but she didn’t know how to get out of it. Her mother was going to be busy preparing dinner during the afternoon, and her father was happy to listen to a ball game on the radio.
She went for a ride alone with Uncle Charles.
He drove out beyond the city, and after a while he took a side road, just a narrow dirt road that ended by a running stream. Irene knew the stream. It was a popular picnic site. Later in the summer it was often dry, but that June it was running, and it was beautiful beside the water under the trees. Irene was glad that she had come. She sat on a rock and took off her shoes and socks and put her feet in the water.
Uncle Charles came over and sat beside her on the big rock and put his arm around her, hugging her. She wanted to pull away but she didn’t want to make him angry. And after a while Uncle Charles said (she could still hear his voice), smiling at her, “Why don’t we go for a swim?”
She didn’t want to go for a swim, and besides she didn’t have a bathing suit, and she told him so.
“Well, that’s all right,” Uncle Charles said, laughing. “There’s nobody around but us chickens. It’ll be fun, just the two of us.”
“But I can’t,” Irene had repeated, “I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“We’ll wear our birthday suits,” Uncle Charles said, still laughing heartily. “Didn’t you ever go swimming in your birthday suit?”
“I can’t,” Irene had pleaded, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he would help her, and he undid the buttons of her dress, which were down the back. She didn’t know what to say that would make him stop, because he was Uncle Charles and he was rich, and her mother and father were afraid of him, and they had made her afraid.
He helped her to get her dress off, and she kept saying, “But I don’t want to swim, Uncle Charles. Really I don’t want to.”
He laughed again, but there was a funny look in his eyes.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” he said heartily. “I’ll put my birthday suit on first. How’s that? Okay?”
He began to take his clothes off, putting them on the rock beside her. Irene didn’t know how to stop him. Finally he had all his clothes off and he stood in front of her smiling, standing in the stream beside the big rock with the water running above his ankles.
The sight of his body, the huge ugliness of it, overwhelmed her.
He put his hands on her shoulders, standing very close, and he said, “Now how about you?” Even his voice sounded strange.
Then he took hold of her hand and pulled it toward him and held it against his body.
Irene panicked. She began to cry, and when he patted her shoulder and tried to hug her she twisted out of his grasp and jumped from the rock to the shore and began to run. She ran out from the cover of the trees and started across the field in her bare feet, crying, and she could hear Uncle Charles roaring behind her, calling, “Irene! Irene! Come back here!”
But Irene didn’t turn back. She found the narrow dirt road that ran toward the highway and she fled along it, still crying. Uncle Charles caught up with her in the car. Somehow he had got most of his clothes on again. He gave her her dress and she put it on while he finished dressing. Before he started the car again he looked at her coldly.
“We won’t say anything about this to anyone, will we?” he said softly.
She wanted only to get back to the house and to be away from him, and she shook her head.
They drove back to the house. Uncle Charles didn’t say another word to her.
He did come for his Christmas visit that year, but: that was the time Irene refused to kiss him and shouted at her mother. That was the night of the quarrel.
Remembering the quarrel for the first time in years, Irene shivered. She didn’
t want to think about it, but as she stared at the wall beside the bed the scene began to materialize, gray and smoky like a motion picture.
Irene had been crying, thinking about how Uncle Charles’ coming had spoiled Christmas. Briefly she had dozed off. The voices awakened her, coming from her parents’ bedroom across the hall. At first the words made no sense, but then she heard her name coupled with that of Uncle Charles. Suddenly she was wide awake, creeping out of bed and across the room, opening the door, listening.
“My own brother!” her mother said.
“Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” her father’s voice answered. “He didn’t hurt her. She would have told us if he had. You don’t even know if he did anything.”
“You’re a man. You don’t understand what it could do to a child like her. Her own uncle!”
“Listen!” her father retorted. “She might as well get used to it. She’s going to have men trying to paw her from now on. She’s old enough, and she’s too goddamned pretty for her own good.”
Irene stood rooted in the bedroom doorway, horrified. This was her father, the one she had idolized above all people, the god who had carried her on his big shoulders when she was small, the one who had always understood, who was always strong and wise and good.
“Don’t shout,” her mother said. “You’ll wake her up.”
She couldn’t hear her father’s answer. The voices lowered and she could only hear their murmur. Slowly, as if in a trance, she stole across the hall. She stood close to her parents’ bedroom door.
“I tell you, he’s never going to set foot in this house again!” her mother said fiercely. “I don’t care if he is my brother!”
“Goddamnit, don’t you know what that would mean? He’d cut us off without a cent!”
“There are things more important than money.”
“Sure there are, but for God’s sake we don’t have so much that we can throw it away for nothing. It’s not going to hurt her if he feels her up a little bit. You know damned well that’s all he’s ever done.”
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