Fires That Destroy

by Harry Whittington

  He caved to his knees. But they wouldn’t let him fall any farther. Mitch kept his hand twisted in that tie. Carlos’ head was flopping as he tried to breathe. His lungs were afire and his heart had gone crazy, pounding in its need for oxygen.

  Every time his head flopped they hit him in his face. He felt his nose break, and the blood spurted from his eyes. But he couldn’t breathe any more, and without breathing, nothing else mattered. His head began to spin, and the pain was nothing beside his need to breathe, and then it was all darkness. He heard nothing and felt nothing and saw nothing. He was careening through a vacuum trying to get one breath of air.

  Funny how you never knew how much breathing meant, until you couldn’t breathe any more.

  Fifteen

  The telephone rang.

  Bernice was still sitting on the divan where Carlos had left her. Her head was bent away from his kiss, and she was too tired to move. She had lain there, perfectly still, as the minutes dragged into hours, in an almost catatonic trance: not resting, her muscles rigid, her mind completely numbed.

  At first the ringing of the telephone came through to her from a long way off, as though the bell were in another cottage along the court. Finally the insistent clamor bored through her torpor and she straightened up on the couch.

  She got up and moved across the room. The telephone began to shrill as she picked it up.

  “Hello,” Bernice said. She could hear a radio’s muted tones in the background, but there was no answer. “Hello,” she said again. She heard the connection being broken almost stealthily.

  Bernice stood there with the receiver in her hand. She dropped it back on its cradle. If it rang again, she wouldn’t answer it.

  She went back to the couch. She picked up one of the magazines from an end table. She couldn’t concentrate on the bright pictures. The stories seemed dull and unappealing.

  The telephone began to wail again. Bernice smiled to herself and went on sitting there.

  The doorbell clanged in the middle of the ringing of the telephone.

  Pleased that there was something to do, something to end the long period of apathy and inertia, Bernice got up, lifted the receiver. “Hello?” When she heard the connection being cut off a second time, she replaced the telephone and went to the front door.

  The court owner stood there. He smiled, but Bernice could see that it was an effort.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brandon. How are you this evening?”

  “I’m all right. Will you come in?”

  “No. Not this time. A funny thing has happened. I’ve been waiting to see if he’d return. You see, I don’t like to interfere with my people here in the courts. I don’t want them to think that I’m an old busybody. I like to give the people who stay here complete freedom. Reason most people come to Florida, I figure, is to get away from the lives they’ve lived up home. So here at Rockledge, I say they can get away with anything they like in my cottages—short of murder, eh? Heh-heh. Anything short of murder.”

  “Yes. What is it? What has happened?”

  The telephone began to clatter behind her. She stiffened against the sound of it.

  “Your telephone, Mrs. Brandon. Answer it. I can wait.”

  “Let it ring. It must be a wrong number. I’ve answered it twice, and nothing happens.”

  “Yes, sometimes it does that,” the motel owner agreed. But plainly the sound of the unanswered bell offended his orderly mind. “Well, Mr. Brandon went off and left your new car parked right in the entrance of the court. Some folks have just cut out around it, but others are complaining. I’m afraid somebody will swing in from the highway. Might be a lot of damage done.”

  Bernice looked beyond him. She could see the sleek car gleaming in the neon lights of the motel sign. She frowned. “I’ll move it.”

  She went with the owner out along the roadway. She could hear the wail of the telephone, racing after her, reaching at her. She knew they were both conscious of it. She got in the car and drove it to her cottage. The telephone was still ringing.

  Taking her time, Bernice removed the ignition keys and rolled up the car windows. She got a perverse pleasure from hearing the jangling of the telephone.

  When she entered the cottage, she strode across the room and grabbed up the receiver.

  “Hello,” she said. “Who is this? What do you want?”

  “Is Carlos there?” It was a guarded voice. A woman’s voice.

  “Who is this?” Bernice said. She felt suddenly feverish. She knew then how that widow, Vivian Barrows, must have felt when she found Carlos with another woman.

  “Is Carlos there?” the voice said again.

  “No. He isn’t.”

  She heard the connection snapped off. Her hands trembling, Bernice stood with the receiver clutched in her fingers. She dialed the operator.

  “I just had a telephone call,” Bernice said. “Is there any way you could trace the call for me?”

  “No, there isn’t.” The operator’s voice was smug. “The connection has been broken. I’m sorry.”

  Bernice dropped the receiver. She looked about the room.

  That woman’s voice. The walls of the room seemed to be pressing in around her. Anger and jealousy made her weak and empty-bellied. She told herself she didn’t care where Carlos was. She even hoped that Bert Chester had lied. She hoped that they had taken him out of the car. Maybe they had killed him. Why should he go on living? Such a rotten, lying tramp.

  The tramp I love.

  She felt the sting of hot tears. Crying. Crying for Carlos. Angered, she pulled off her glamour glasses and laid them on the table beside the telephone. She found a Kleenex and dabbed at her eyes. What a wonderful husband she had! He didn’t want her, but any other woman would do. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Carlos were simply a poor lover. A lot of men and a lot of women aren’t vigorous sexually. She could have stood that. She loved him and she was content when he was with her. But he was an alley cat. She wondered if he went around leaving every woman as dissatisfied as she was.

  She wandered into the bedroom and fell across the bed. Why had she murdered Lloyd Deerman? She stared at the ceiling. Because she had wanted to buy beauty and happiness. She wanted to be treated the way beautiful women were treated: the Rita Baehrs, and the lovely empty little bitches who traded simulated passion for advancement and homes and security and attention. And how sure she’d been that she had what she wanted that day when Carlos asked her to marry him and run away to Florida.

  She could no longer stay on the bed. She couldn’t stand the silence and the loneliness. There was just one thing to do. She would get dressed and go across the highway to Dugan’s bar. She had no idea how long she could go on drinking herself into oblivion, waking up without knowing where she’d been. But for tonight, at least, it was the only answer.

  She dragged out a powdery blue net dress she’d bought in Elhanner’s shop.

  The telephone rang. She dropped the dress in a heap and ran into the front room.

  She grabbed up the telephone. “Hello. What do you want?”

  “Is Carlos there?” the woman said. There was nothing guarded about her voice now.

  “Who is this?” Bernice demanded.

  “What difference does it make who it is? I want to talk to Carlos.”

  “I told you, he isn’t here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you’re lying. If he’s there, I want to talk to him. Tell him he’d better talk to me.”

  “He isn’t here,” Bernice replied.

  “Where is he? I rode by. His car is there. I saw it. Tell him I want to talk to him.”

  Bernice laughed. “When he comes in, I’ll tell him.”

  “You tell him now!”

  Bernice laughed again. The frantic anxiety in the woman’s voice pleased her. It changed everything. It made her master of this situation. She replaced the telephone.

  Immediately it rang again.
r />   Bernice picked it up. “Good night,” she said. “Pleasant dreams.”

  She cut the connection and then placed the telephone off its hook on the table. She slipped on her glasses and started back to the bedroom. Carlos, it seemed, couldn’t be true to anyone, except in his own inimitable way.

  There was someone at the front door. Bernice paused, listening.

  “Bernice!” It was Carlos’ voice.

  She ran across the room, pulled open the wooden door, and stared at Carlos, stretched across the front stoop.

  She caught her breath, and for a moment didn’t move. She had a strange thought in that flash of time. She’d once read a mystery short story called “The Monkey’s Paw.” She had never been able to get it out of her mind. In her imagination, she had been able to see the ruined body of the son as he struggled back to the front door of the cottage in answer to his mother’s prayers and the magic of the monkey’s paw. For that instant, Bernice thought she was seeing that gory apparition.

  “Bernice,” Carlos whispered. “Help me inside. For God’s sake, help me inside.”

  Repelled at the sight of his bloody, torn face, Bernice helped Carlos in to the couch.

  “I’ll call a doctor,” she said.

  He caught her arm. “No. Don’t do it.”

  “Your nose is broken. One of your eyelids is cut.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want a doctor. I’ll be all right. Just get something from the medicine chest. Get this stuff off my face. I’ll be all right.”

  She looked down at him. “Why should I help you?”

  “Please. Good God, Bernice, not now. I’m in agony.”

  “There are all kinds of agony, Carlos. I’m in agony, too.”

  “Please, Bernice, I came back to you. I just kept telling myself that when I got back to you, I’d be all right.”

  “And now you’re not, are you?” she said. “If there’s anything wrong with you, you’ll have to fix yourself. I won’t touch you. When you’re through, you can get out.”

  “Bernice! My God, I can’t walk. I can’t move! I’m nearly dead. Haven’t you any pity?”

  “No. I haven’t. Some woman has been calling you all evening. Why don’t you go to her? Maybe she would pity you.”

  His head rolled loosely on the divan. “Oh, God, Bernice, I came to you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You always do when you need help, don’t you?”

  “This is different, Bernice. My God, can’t you look at me and see that? I’m in trouble, Bernice. Bad. This time if you’ll help me, if you’ll take me back, I’ll make it up to you. So help me God, Bernice. I’m through pretending I’m anything I’m not. I’m back to you on my knees. Help me, and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be what you want, Bernice. So help me God.”

  For a long time she looked at him, the broken nose, the bleeding eyes staring at her, beseeching her. She walked over and dropped the telephone receiver back in its cradle. They both waited, without breathing. The silence stretched out, and they both exhaled heavily. Bernice turned around and looked at Carlos again.

  “I’ll get something,” she said quietly. “I’ll fix your face.”

  Sixteen

  Lloyd was falling. Rolling, twisting, falling. His neck dangled crazily. His eyes, sightless, obscenely white, moved, followed her no matter how far he fell...

  Bernice awoke. She was cold, nauseated. She was certain she was going to be sick at her stomach, but she was afraid to get out of her bed in the darkness. The nightmare and the fear in the nightmare had taken her insides in clammy talons and twisted them dry. She lay flat on her back, trying to burrow deeper into the mattress. Her eyes were wide open now, staring up at the darkened ceiling.

  She wondered what time it was, but knew she couldn’t even reach out a chilled arm for the small bedside clock. She could only lie, tense and rigid, and pray that Carlos would come home soon.

  She was too cold and too frightened for tears. Yet she wanted to cry. The whole thing had started all over again with Carlos. His smashed nose was not broken. His face healed quickly. As soon as he was well, Carlos seemed to forget what had happened to him. A week and a half he lay around the cottage, walked with her on the beach, lolled morose in the Cadillac while Bernice took him for long drives. He was attentive and almost kindly.

  Bernice twisted on the bed. She had been content. She knew Carlos well enough so that she no longer asked anything of him. It was good to have him all to herself. There had been no dreams, no nagging, bottomless voices crying insistently after her. She had slept and wakened and eaten regularly.

  She heard a car far off on the highway. She strained, listening to it as it came near and then sped past in the darkness. It had begun again last night. Carlos had walked out after dinner and returned just before dawn. The night had been hell. Bernice had tried not to sleep, and had fallen asleep fighting it. The dreams began at once, and the wailing, sobbing voices. In her dreams she ran swiftly, but not fast enough to escape Lloyd’s white, sightless eyes. She turned on all the lights and was sitting up in the middle of the bed when Carlos came in.

  The look he had hurled her dared her to find fault. But she was too relieved to have him with her to care where he had been. The next day she cared. The next morning she was ill with anger and jealousy. And tonight she’d sobbed herself to sleep, and wakened from a nightmare too horrible to endure.

  She heard a car swing into the motel driveway. When she heard the sound of the braked wheels outside her window and knew it was Carlos, she relaxed and turned over on her side. He was whistling as he came in the front door. He slammed it behind him. She pretended to be asleep when he came in the bedroom.

  So this is what my money has bought me. Not much. Nothing. Less than nothing.

  At ten o’clock the next morning, Carlos was still snoring into his pillow. Quietly Bernice slid out of bed. She bathed and returned to the bedroom. She found that Carlos had taken all the money from her purse again last night before he went out.

  She didn’t want to touch the money she had hidden. Carlos might wake up. She couldn’t ever let him find that money. It was the only hold she had on him at all now. She knew the truth as only the completely disillusioned ever know it. Carlos was not only greedy; he coveted everything. He hated the idea of anyone’s having anything that might some way be his.

  She went to the chair where he’d tossed his trousers when he came in. She found a five-dollar bill in the pocket. When she withdrew her hand, a small slip of white paper fluttered to the floor. She picked it up and unfolded it. It had been scribbled hastily, in pencil, a single letter and numbers: “C-75633.”

  She closed her fingers over the paper and the five-dollar bill. She put them both in her purse. Moving stealthily, she chose the most flattering dress she’d bought at Elhanner’s, white pique with flared shoulders and slash pockets.

  She worked a long time on her face to the background music of Carlos’ uninterrupted snoring. When she was dressed, she looked down at Carlos and went into the front room. She closed the bedroom door behind her.

  She sat on the edge of a chair at the end table. She took the slip of paper from her purse. She didn’t need it. She had memorized the numbers on it. She lifted the receiver and dialed C-75633.

  The telephone rang a long time. Her face set, Bernice sat stiffly on the edge of the chair, hearing the sound across the wires. Finally there was a rumble as though someone fumbled with the receiver and a woman’s sleepy voice answered, “Hey-o?”

  “Cookie?” Bernice said. Her heart was pounding.

  “Yes.” Cookie’s voice lost its bedroom warmth when she found it was a woman she was talking to. “Who is this? What you want, middle of the night like this?”

  “I want to talk to you,” Bernice said. She listened for movement in the bedroom.

  “Who is this?”

  “Bernice Brandon.”

  “Oh.” There was a brief charged silence. “What you want to talk to me about?”

&n
bsp; “I think you know.”

  “And I don’t think I do.”

  “I’m coming to see you, anyway. Where do you live? You may as well tell me. I’ll find out from the restaurant.”

  “My, you are persistent, aren’t you?”

  Bernice laughed coldly. “You’ll find there’s nothing I won’t do to have what I want.”

  “All right,” Cookie said. Her voice was defiant. “I live at Gulf Sands. Apartment Eight-A. Come on over. You won’t get anywhere with me. You’re not the only one who knows what she wants. But I’m awake now. I think I can stand talking to you. I’ll have some coffee first.”

  Bernice parked the Cadillac outside the Gulf Sands Apartments. A rambling, single-storied building of white stone, it was shining brightly in the sun. Bernice knew the place was expensive. It had that look. How did a waitress afford an apartment like this?

  She slid out of the car and slammed the door after her. She had been cold and determined before. But now she was angry. She’d found the front seat of the car covered with sand. It was all over the upholstery. Carlos and Cookie swimming in the moonlight. She remembered the way it had been, their bodies naked and lighted up with phosphorescence. Now it was Carlos and Cookie. Swimming together. Clinging together.

  She was sick at her stomach. The things she wanted Carlos had. With some other woman.

  What had she wanted all her life? To be treated as lovely women are treated; to be loved and wanted and noticed and made over. She shivered. She’d killed because that was what she wanted above everything else in the world. She was farther from her desire than ever.

  At Apartment 8-A, she punched hard on the doorbell. Cookie Dawson answered at once. Her blonde hair was straggly and she’d tied an unbecoming negligee loosely about her waist. Bernice’s spirits lifted a little. The waitress sported a round, protuberant little belly in unguarded moments like this.