Night of Violence

by Louis Charbonneau

  As they fell the grenade exploded, lighting the night in a blinding flash, the impact hurling Art against the wall. In a shower of dirt and debris he came to his feet. He had shifted the shotgun in his hand. A second shot exploded from the rear. As the small man tried to twist away, Art smashed downward with the shotgun’s stock, feeling a shuddering blow as the hard wood thudded against the man’s head.

  Without pausing, Art ran. He hit the front door of Cutter’s unit on the dead run, using the meat of his shoulder like a battering ram. The door smashed inward and Art plunged across the room, letting his momentum carry him. He hit the floor on the far side of the room. A girl was screaming.

  Silence suddenly shut down over the rooms, except for the sound of a girl weeping hysterically. Art didn’t move. The sound of his own breathing was loud in his ears. His left arm and shoulder throbbed with pain. He still had the shotgun in his right hand.

  Art heard a slithering sound from the other room. Careful, stealthy movement. Cutter was still there. Or the other killer, the big boy. In the darkness Art could make out two figures lying on the floor. One of them was the whimpering girl. The other, Art knew, was Marina. She didn’t move.

  “Marina?” Art called softly.

  “Art! Oh my God, Art, he’s in the other room! Oh my God!”

  Art felt relief so acute it was like pain, sharper and more intense than the pain in his shoulder or the throbbing in his head. She was alive.

  He edged over on the floor, out of the line of fire from the rear bedroom.

  “Lie still,” Art said. “Don’t make a move. Stay where you are.”

  He held the Winchester with the barrel pointing at the bedroom door. It was awkward, handling the heavy weapon with one hand. But there was one thing about a shotgun. At this distance he couldn’t miss.

  36

  Cutter heard Art’s voice and the girl’s answer. He stared into the darkness of the front room, feeling his astonishment increase. That was the owner, for Christ’s sake—the motel owner! How in hell had he got in there?

  The astonishment faded, replaced by a cool sense of satisfaction. The owner couldn’t be there unless he had taken care of the other killer. That’s what the explosion must have been about. Cutter smiled, feeling the confidence surge through him, easing the tension he had felt. Hell, the guy was an amateur. Cutter could handle any amateur, no matter how good he was.

  But he had to be careful. This guy had looked tough and competent. And the fact that he’d been able to handle Garner’s man on his own proved that he wasn’t any pushover. If he had used a bomb outside, he sure as hell wasn’t going to use one in here, though—not with the women exposed to it.

  Cutter inched forward slightly on the floor, keeping low. He peered into the other bedroom, trying to see his target. He could make out the two bodies of the girls on the floor. The man’s voice had come from the corner, near the bathroom, but Cutter couldn’t see him. He might even have got across the room into the bathroom. The front door was open, but it didn’t give much light except right in front of the door.

  That surprise plunge had been good, but it had been lucky, too. He had caught Cutter over by the back window, getting in his second shot at the stupid bastard out there. If he hadn’t crashed in at exactly that moment, Cutter would have been right there waiting for him. Okay, Cutter thought. That’s your lucky break for tonight, Mac. Now you’ve had it.

  Thoughtfully, Cutter analyzed the situation. He could try getting out through the back window. Maybe the guy would be satisfied with that. He only wanted to save the damned women, probably. But there would be a moment when Cutter would be framed helplessly in the window, a perfect target.

  No, he thought. It wouldn’t be safe. You never knew what the hell an amateur would do. They were always too nervous. And this guy might be sore because of his girl. It would be a risk, and Cutter had taken enough chances. It wasn’t necessary to gamble any more. All he had to do was get out of this and he was free—with fifty thousand bucks to take care of him.

  Slowly Cutter shifted over to his right until he was behind the small chest. Then it was safe to go into a crouch. That gave him a better angle of view into the front room.

  That stupid kid was still crying. I’d like to give you something to cry over, damn you, Cutter thought. And maybe I will after I take care of our hero in there.

  Now that he was safely behind the chest, Cutter put into action a plan which had been gradually forming in his mind.

  “Hey!” he called out.

  There was no answer.

  “There’s no point in this,” Cutter said clearly. “You want to get those women out of here safely, don’t you?”

  The man still didn’t reply, but that was okay. He was listening, all right.

  “Well, I don’t want to hurt them or you,” Cutter said. “All I want to do is get out of here, understand?” He let that sink in a moment, then continued. “Okay, suppose we make a deal. I let you leave, and the women. You can go out through the front door. Then I go out the back. Everybody’s happy.”

  The silence continued for a few more seconds before it was finally broken.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” the man said from the other room.

  Cutter smiled. He tried to locate the voice exactly. It was from the right hand corner, as he had figured. Close to the floor. Cutter’s eyes narrowed as he tried to penetrate the shadows.

  “No, Art,” the girl said suddenly. “Don’t do it!”

  “Why not? What have I got to gain by crossing you?” Cutter called out reasonably. “Those two guys were after me. All right, so I was just trying to protect myself. Now I just want to get out of here. Why should I want to hurt you?”

  The man didn’t reply this time. Cutter chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. The guy was no dummy.

  “You play it the other way,” he said carefully, “and people are going to get hurt. Not just you or me. Those girls. They’re right in the middle. That isn’t what you want, is it? You want to get your girl out safe and sound, don’t you?”

  “Don’t listen to him!” the girl cried. That was the tall girl, damn her! He should have shut her mouth before for good. And the kid, too, whose whimpering had now resolved itself into a convulsive sobbing.

  “You go out first,” the man called suddenly.

  Cutter cursed softly under his breath.

  “No,” he said. “And let me remind you. I got a gun pointed right at your girl’s head. And I’m getting tired of fooling around. You want to take my offer, okay. You and the women can get out, and I won’t do a thing. Unless you try to pull something funny. But if you don’t take the deal, then I start shooting.”

  Cutter could almost sense the other man turning this over in his mind. The silence deepened.

  “Okay,” Cutter said impatiently. “I give you two minutes. That’s all.

  He knew the other guy wouldn’t be able to wait the two minutes out. That was an advantage Cutter had. If he were in the other guy’s shoes, he’d be thinking of his own neck. The women could take what was coming to them. But this guy, he wouldn’t think that way. If he did, he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

  The seconds ticked by slowly. Cutter felt very confident.

  Marina lay tense on the floor, looking toward Art. Don’t believe him, she breathed. Don’t trust him, darling.

  She felt no fear at all. There wasn’t room in her mind or heart for fear. Everything else had been crowded out by the knowledge of what Art had done, of the risk he had willingly taken—and of the reason why he was doing it.

  She didn’t care about Lucy now. She had a feeling that Art didn’t, either—that he had found that out when he went to her room, and he was trying to tell her that when he spoke jokingly about it afterwards.

  He loved her. She was sure of it. And her only fear was for him. She didn’t want him to give in to the other man’s trick in order to save her.

  Get him, darling, she thought. Get him!

  Ar
t lay in the corner by the bathroom door, breathing very slowly and quietly, and he carefully analyzed the layout of the two rooms, trying to remember the exact placement of each piece of furniture. Beside him, against the narrow wall, was a chair with an ancient floor lamp standing over it like a sentinel. Next to that was the chest of drawers, and then the door. Across the way was the front window, before it a small desk and chair. Against the far wall the bed, and Marina lay with the young Herman girl on the floor at the foot of the bed, directly in line with the door to the back bedroom.

  Art was sure that Cutter was around the corner to the left, along the wall next to the bathroom. And against that wall there was another chest, so the gunman was probably using that as cover. There was a chair in the far corner of the room, and the bed was against the end wall. There was no other furniture in that small bedroom.

  Art thought about the chest. It was identical to those throughout the motel. About three feet high, with a six-inch clearance between the bottom drawer and the floor. Six inch legs. If Cutter was lying on the floor, as his voice seemed to indicate, the shotgun would do a lot of damage.

  “One minute,” Cutter called out softly.

  He would do it, too, Art thought grimly. He would shoot one of the two girls just to force Art to capitulate. But he couldn’t be trusted. In spite of what Cutter had done to Marina, in spite of the hatred Art felt, he would have let the gunman go—if he could have trusted him.

  No. He had to use the oldest trick in the book—the decoy. There was no time for anything else, and the layout of the rooms hampered him. He drew himself slowly to his knees. His left hand found the base of the tall thin floor lamp, then its cord. He pulled out the plug.

  “Okay, he called out sharply. “You win.”

  For a moment the gunman didn’t answer.

  “The women go out first,” Art said, stalling for time. With his eyes he measured the distance he would have to dive in order to be in front of the bedroom door, able to get in a low shot under the chest.

  “No,” Cutter said. “That sounds like a trick. I tell you what. You toss your gun on the floor, over near the door where I can see it.” He paused. “Then you lie down on the floor and crawl over to the door. That way I know you won’t be taking any pot shots at me when I leave.”

  Art waited, pretending to consider the proposal.

  “All right,” he said.

  He lifted the lamp clear of the floor, braced himself, and threw the lamp toward the open front door. In the same motion he dove forward, the Winchester held clear of the floor. The expected shot exploded in the back room, and Art had time to hear the smack of the bullet against the wall behind him before he pulled the trigger, and he had time to know that he had guessed wrong, that Cutter was not lying on the floor—but he didn’t have time to change his aim.

  His ears rang with the shotgun’s din. The young girl was screaming shrilly. Even as Art pulled back the pump in a smooth flowing motion for the second shot, he knew that he was going to be hit, and he was glad that his dive had put him in front of Marina and the girl.

  Cutter saw the blur of movement silhouetted against the front door. There was a smile on his lips as he pulled the trigger. The crack of his pistol was immediately lost in a more violent, thunderous explosion. Cutter saw the low spurt of flame and felt a terrific force slam into his legs just above the ankles. The force lifted him up as if he had been tackled hard around the feet. He landed on his side, an amazed knowledge that he had been fooled filling his mind. The stupid amateur had tricked him!

  He fired again without aiming, through the bedroom door toward the spot close to the floor where he had seen the angry flash of the man’s gun. He never knew whether his shot went home. The second blast came, and he felt the tearing weight thud into his stomach.

  Cutter’s mind was filled with a great incredulity. All the years of patience and caution, all of the exhaustive planning that had made a dangerous job safer than an accountant’s, all the endless nights of living alone, shunning the friendship that couldn’t be trusted—all of it for nothing! Ended. Finished. Because of one slip. Because of a woman. He tried to hold onto his anger, but it slipped away from him. Even the anger was futile.

  He began to slide into darkness. There was no pain, surprisingly, only a spreading warmth in his stomach. It made him think of Carla. It stole through his loins, and it was like the ecstatic heat of orgasm. He concentrated on the delicious warmth, and a new astonishment grew in him. So this was how it was! This was what he had been afraid of, this was the dreaded creature he had avoided all his life! If only people knew! If they only knew, everyone would want it.

  This was what everyone hungered for after all, but no one knew. Cutter was bemused by the simplicity of it. It wasn’t so surprising, really, that the small death of sexual release should be a poor imitation of the real thing. Like this—but this was so much better. This had no end. This was complete. Come to me, baby. You’re really something.

  Without warning, the pain struck—a vicious knot of pain that clutched at his entrails and twisted savagely, tearing from him a shriek of protest that must have been way down inside him because no sound escaped his lips. “No, God, no!” he screamed inside his mind. He tried to shrivel up into a ball to elude the pain, but it shot through him, twisted him and shook him like a rag doll.

  At the last there was only the horrible searing pain, and blood bubbling at his lips. In pain, he died.

  37

  After they had told their stories, the Sheriff told Richard and Irene Wallace to go back to their rooms.

  “There’s nothing you can do, so you might as well get some sleep. I’ll want a formal statement, but you can give me that in the morning.”

  He was a big, sunburned man wearing an expensive Stetson, and he looked harassed. Richard took Irene’s arm and they went out of the motel office. As they stepped into the courtyard, white-coated attendants were loading a body covered by a sheet into the ambulance. Richard thought about how lucky they had been. Except for a splitting headache and a cut on his temple that didn’t even require stitching, he was unhurt. And Irene hadn’t been scratched.

  Two of the Sheriff’s deputies were wrestling the small, struggling hoodlum toward a car. He was shouting obscenities at them. Richard saw one of the deputies move his arm in a short, vicious blow. The little man was suddenly silent. Seeing this gave Richard a sense of satisfaction. This man was the one who had pawed Irene, the one Richard had hit….

  “You go on to the room,” Richard said. “I want to say something to the owner.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said quickly.

  “No.” Richard’s voice was firm. “They haven’t got the other man’s body out yet. There’s no point in your seeing it.”

  Irene protested, but she knew that he was right. She had seen too much ugliness this night—some of it in herself.

  She watched him walk across to the end unit where all the shooting had occurred. He spoke to a policeman guarding the door, and after a moment he was allowed in. Irene prayed that the owner was going to be all right.

  The motel room seemed very still and empty. Irene lit a cigarette and sat on the bed. Then, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, she got undressed. When she had her clothes off, she did a strange thing. She went into the bathroom, turned on the light and closed the door. She looked at the cool face reflected in the rectangular mirror. She had always liked her face—its fine features, especially the small nose, the balanced planes of her cheeks, the exquisite curve of her lips, the total effect of almost flawless beauty and confident repose. But now her face looked different. There was a hardness in it which was unattractive. It was like the painting or the piece of sculpture or the musical composition which is brilliantly executed, displaying a dazzling technical perfection—but is completely without warmth or feeling.

  The upper half of her body was revealed in the mirror, from that point just below her slim waist where the outward curve of her hips
began. She looked curiously at her small perfectly molded breasts. Her hands touched them. She felt the silken skin and the firm rounding flesh as if they were completely new to her. Hers was a remarkably youthful body, she thought. Because it was unused. Like one of those late model cars on the lots. Clean, almost like new. Driven only a few miles. Plenty of trouble-free performance left in her.

  Only what happened to a car when it was never taken out of the garage at all? Could you open the doors one day and start it up? Would it run?

  She turned away from the minor and walked slowly back into the bedroom. Naked, she climbed into bed and lay on her back. She pulled the sheet up close around her neck. Her heart was thudding heavily in her chest.

  She remembered Richard’s passionate accusation, and she felt her cheeks flaming. It wasn’t true. She was human. But how could he know that? How could he see, behind the cool facade, the frightened woman?

  Richard Wallace walked back across the courtyard, full of admiration for the quiet man who had fought the gunmen with their own weapons—and won. But mixed with the admiration was the old familiar stirring of envy. He had seen the look in the tall, dark haired girl’s eyes. What was her name? Marina. He had seen the way she watched the motel owner, Art, and the way her hand touched his arm.

  You could always tell them, the lovers, by the way they touched each other.

  The anger he had felt earlier was gone now. His head ached, and he was bone-tired.

  He paused just outside his door and watched as the man from Unit 7, Herman his name was, was carried to an ambulance. His wound, Richard had learned, was superficial, although he had been making a lot of noise about it. A smile touched Richard’s lips. His wife, that simple unaffected woman, was going to have a rough time for a while.

  As Richard stood watching the young girl, Lois Herman, approached her father where he lay, the attendants having rested the stretcher on the ground. The girl’s approach was hesitant, timid. Afraid of the bawling out she’s going to get, Richard thought. The older Herman looked like a man who would jump all over her for the trouble she had caused—and with plenty of reason.