Night of Violence

by Louis Charbonneau

  To Richard’s surprise, Herman looked away from his daughter, almost guiltily. She spoke to him and their eyes met. There was something touching about the quiet tableau, the daughter looking down at her wounded father, the man, surprisingly, not condemning her for her foolishness, the mother watching them anxiously, the young boy standing awkwardly nearby, not knowing what to do with his hands or feet.

  A nice family after all, Richard thought. Funny. You could never tell about people just by looking at them.

  He turned and entered his room. Irene was already in bed, lying on her back with the sheet pulled up around her neck. He saw the shape of her breasts outlined under the sheet and he looked away quickly.

  She kept watching him while he undressed. Slightly puzzled, Richard told her about the motel owner, filling in the details which Irene did not know.

  “I hope he’s going to be all right,” Irene said in a low voice.

  Richard nodded. Fatigue pressed down on him heavily. Probably a reaction to the whiskey as much as the excitement. He had been getting quite drunk, saying stupid, futile things. Now he was gloomily sober. He was glad Irene didn’t bring up the subject of his earlier tirade.

  Richard walked over to the light switch.

  “Leave the light on,” Irene said quietly.

  He glanced at her questioningly, his hand poised by the switch. Irene pushed the sheet down around her hips, brought up her legs and kicked it down to the foot of the bed. She was completely nude, her body pale against the stark whiteness of the sheet.

  Richard stood immobile, his hand still hovering over the light switch, staring at her. He had seen Irene’s body before, but usually in brief glimpses—and never offered to his gaze so deliberately. She simply did not walk around, or lie around, naked. Especially when he was watching her.

  His hand came away from the switch and he walked over to the side of the bed. He gazed at her in astonishment. He had never seen anything so beautiful. The deep pulse of passion began to beat slowly in his body.

  Irene’s cheeks were a bright pink, and there was a vulnerable, pleading look in her eyes.

  “Do you mean it?” Richard asked stupidly.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He climbed into bed and lay beside her, their flanks touching. Putting his arm under and around her shoulders, he pulled her toward him gently and kissed her. The response of her lips was awkwardly eager. The throbbing of desire in his blood rose to a pounding excitement.

  “Irene!” he said. “Irene!”

  His hand caressed the sleek, boneless swelling of her hip, then moved down. For a moment the intimate touch of his hand found her body rising to meet it. Then she shuddered. Her whole body went completely rigid. He sensed the fear and revulsion. Her lips tore away from his, and she turned her head away, and he heard a choking sob.

  The effect upon him was startlingly swift. All of the urgent passion went out of him suddenly. He drew back and pulled his arm out from under her shoulders.

  “No!” she cried. “Darling, I didn’t mean that! I can’t help it!”

  He stared into her eyes. She pulled his head down and kissed him fiercely. Richard tried to call back the desire, that heat so quickly chilled by the muted protest of her body, but the only answer was the drumming of his heart, big in his chest. With his lips he returned the urgency of her kiss, but his body remained quiet. With dawning horror he realized that it was not going to respond. That same body which had clamored so loudly for so long was still, stricken by some strange psychological impotence, silent now like the coward in the crowd who is suddenly challenged to come out from the anonymous sea of faces, and who is afraid to move.

  A sharp, stabbing sense of the terrible irony made him twist away from her.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, embarrassed. “I don’t seem to be able to. Maybe I have to get used to the idea. Perhaps … perhaps tomorrow.”

  There was always the dream of tomorrow.

  Irene melted against him, all of the stiffness gone now from her slender body. Her head tilted up and her lips groped again for his—eagerly. Then he felt her hand brush against his thigh. Astonishment grew in him. He felt the gentle, awkward fumbling of her fingers, trying to coax a response from his coward body. The touch of a lover.

  “Oh, Dick, Dick—I want you!” she breathed. “Please!”

  And the words broke through the invisible dam which had contained the deep, powerful current of his desire. He felt strength surging through him, a torrent of strength and love and passion.

  He swept her into his arms. With a cry of mingled joy and pain she gave herself to him.

  38

  Lois was afraid to go to her father.

  “But, dear,” Bess Herman said anxiously, “he’s your father. He’s been hurt. He did it for you.”

  “I know.” She had spent so many tears there didn’t seem to be any more.

  “Yeah,” Frank said accusingly. “Who started this whole mess, anyway?”

  She didn’t rise to the anger Frank’s words would ordinarily have brought.

  Then the attendants set the stretcher on the ground while they climbed into the ambulance to make room for it. Lois looked at her father’s figure lying helplessly on the stretcher and her heart was torn with grief. She knew it would never be the same between them again. He would never be able to forgive her for what she had done.

  “Now,” Bess said.

  Slowly Lois walked across the courtyard. She felt very young and frightened, inwardly cringing from the harsh words she knew would come.

  Her father saw her approaching and turned his head away. The gesture hurt her more than words would have done. She stood beside the stretcher, looking down at him, trying to find the words that would ask forgiveness.

  “Oh, Daddy!” she blurted.

  Their eyes met. There was a funny look on his face, but it wasn’t the anger she had expected.

  “I don’t know why I did it,” she said. “I just wanted to … to see him. I thought he was really Sleepy Summers.”

  Still he said nothing.

  “I wanted to get out before he came back,” she said lamely. “But I couldn’t. And then he had this girl with him, and he … he shot at me.”

  “You … you weren’t alone with him—not at all?” There was something almost pathetically eager in Burt Herman’s voice.

  “No.” She stared at him, puzzled, then understood. “Oh, Daddy, no! Nothing happened like that!”

  The eagerness faded out of his face and he looked away again. She watched him anxiously, wanting now the angry words which didn’t come. She had been right, she thought with dumb grief. He would never forgive her.

  The attendants made her step back. They picked up the stretcher. Her father looked at her once more.

  “Maybe that’ll teach you a lesson,” he said gruffly. “Maybe now you’ll listen to what I tell you.”

  Lois almost smiled. He sounded just like himself for the first time. The weight of her grief lifted a little from her heart. She watched the attendants put him into the ambulance. Things could be the same again, after all.

  Her inward smile faded as the doors of the ambulance swung shut, shutting her father away from her. They had just been pretending, she thought dully, making believe that nothing serious had happened. But it had. She had cheapened herself in his eyes—and in her own.

  That was something that couldn’t be forgotten. It would always be there between them, a stain that couldn’t be washed away.

  “You see,” her mother said gently, just behind her, “he wasn’t mad now, was he?”

  39

  Dr. Moffett arrived just behind the first ambulance. He wouldn’t let the white-coated attendants move Art until after he had examined him. Art looked over the doctor’s shoulder and grinned at Marina. She tried to smile back, and she felt a fierce hatred for the inanimate piece of lead which had torn through his body. The bullet inside him had more reality for her than the man who had fired it, but when she
thought of him, remembering his cold, bloodless face, she was intensely glad that his riddled body lay in the next room, lifeless….

  “Looks like you’ll have to run things for a while,” Art said.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “Think you can do it?”

  “Better than you,” she said, but the bravado didn’t come off very well.

  His eyes became anxious. “Doctor, you’d better take care of Marina’s cheek.”

  “Shut up,” Dr. Moffett grunted.

  Art was silent for a moment. “What about the salesman?” he asked suddenly. “Nelson.”

  “Broken ribs,” Dr. Moffett said. “He’ll be all right.”

  A spasm of pain contorted Art’s face as the doctor probed. Marina’s heart was an icy lump in her chest.

  “The Smiths just left in a hurry,” she said lightly. “The Sheriff gave them a hard time.”

  “They weren’t hurt—?”

  “No. They were the only ones who never left their room.”

  “The Smiths don’t get hurt,” he said thoughtfully. “They hurt themselves—and others.”

  “You’re being very philosophical,” Marina said. “Do you always get this way when you’re shot?”

  “Always.” Art grinned. “Since you’re going to be in charge, you don’t have to take the Smiths. You can tell them to find another nest.”

  She nodded, her eyes anxiously watching the doctor’s skillful hands.

  “And you’d better have that sign painted,” Art said. “The one by the main highway.”

  Dr. Moffett stood erect. “You’ll live,” he said. “The bullet lodged against the rib cage in back. It went in just under the ribs in front. Lucky for you it was so far over to the side.”

  Art looked at Marina and smiled. “I’m just lucky,” he said. “You have no idea how lucky I am.”

  Marina became aware of the gray-haired man, Wallace, and of Lucy and Horace Stockwell, who had crowded into the room. She watched Art’s face as he grinned at Lucy.

  “You’ll have to visit us again sometime,” Art said. “Always something doing.”

  Lucy’s mouth, which had been drawn into an anxious line, broke into a smile.

  “We will,” she said. She hugged Horace Stockwell’s arm. “Won’t we, honey?”

  “No,” he said. “There are better motels.”

  But there was grudging admiration in his face as he looked at Art. Marina stared at Lucy, surprised by her almost coquettish manner toward Stockwell.

  “Maybe there are better ones now,” Art said. He looked at Marina. “But wait till we get this place fixed up the way we want.”

  “I’ll stop here any time,” the gray-haired man said suddenly. “That was quite a thing you did. Thanks— for all of us.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the rest of you,” Art said. “I was thinking of my girl.”

  Dr. Moffett stood up. “All right, this isn’t a convention,” he said. “Clear this place out.”

  The others were herded out, and two attendants eased Art over onto a stretcher. Marina walked beside him as he was carried across the courtyard. When the attendants reached the open rear doors of the ambulance Art stopped them. He took Marina’s hand.

  “Do I have to wait till tomorrow?” he asked.

  She kissed him. His lips were warm and gentle on hers, and she felt as if she had known their touch all her life.

  “How was that?” he said when she drew away.

  Marina smiled. “Sweet,” she said.

  Art made a face. “Wait till I get out of the hospital,” he said.

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Art stared at her, and his face sobered. “About Lucy,” he said, hesitating. “I didn’t. I mean, I walked out.”

  Marina nodded. Her heart felt very full.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She nodded again, smiling very foolishly. “I know,” she said. “I love you.”

  As the ambulance pulled away, she kept repeating the words to herself. It was the first time he had ever spoken them to her.

  ALSO BY LOUIS CHARBONNEAU

  HISTORICAL FICTION

  Trail: The Story of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

  Down From the Mountain

  SCIENCE FICTION

  Down to Earth

  Psychedelic-40

  Barrier World

  The Sentinel Stars

  Corpus Earthling

  No Place on Earth

  THRILLERS & SUSPENSE

  Way Out

  And Hope to Die

  The Lair

  Night of Violence

  Intruder

  From a Dark Place

  Nor All Your Tears

  The Magnificent Siberian

  The Brea File

  The Devil's Menagerie

  Stalk

  The Ice

  White Harvest

  all available as Jabberwocky ebooks

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