Heat of Night (12 page)

B
EA CROSSED THE FRONT ROOM
, aware of daylight pale against the windows. The storm seemed to have abated slightly, she couldn’t be sure; she’d been listening to the wind for so many hours it was as if the howling were inside her head now.

She glanced into the children’s room; all were sprawled asleep in their beds. She smiled at them, liking them for the first time. She stroked her hands along her arms against the chill, went slowly to Al’s bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

Al was lying on the bed, eyes wide and dry. He stared at the ceiling. He did not speak. She lay down beside him and they were silent.

After a moment, Dolores’ bedroom door opened and Mal stepped into the front room, followed by Juan and Rosa.

Juan waited only until the bedroom door was closed. “Why are you here?” he said to Mal. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“I came to see Dolores,” Mal said. “She needed me and I came to see her.”

“Please, Papa. We no fight now. He bring the doctor. Doctor promise Al he come, but
he
bring him.”

“For this I thank you.” Juan’s voice was cold. “Now if you go.”

“Papa.”

Juan made a sharp downward gesture at her. Rosa sank to the couch, laid her head back. After a moment, she sat forward. “Where is the priest? He promise to come.”

“Electric wires are down, Mrs. Venzino,” Mal said. “The road is washed out, trees blown across them. Maybe he couldn’t come.”

“He promise. We need him. He promise.” She glanced up at Mal, puzzled. His voice was soothing, reassuring; he had brought the doctor. It was as if she had prayed to God only to have the devil answer her prayers. “The ones we need — we are helpless and we need them, of all these people — you come to help us.”

“What you say? Why shouldn’t he? He cause all this terrible thing,” Juan said.

Rosa shook her head at him. “This we don’t
know
, Papa.”

Juan went across the room, got the Colt
.45.
Mal watching him, spoke sharply, voice steady. “Put that thing away.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Hollister. You and me, we have a little chat but you know I mean what I say. You know when I tell you to stay away from here, I kill you if I see you again.”

Mal moved unhurriedly but without hesitancy to him. “Give me that gun, Juan.” He kept his voice level.

“I tell you for the last time. You stay away from my girl.”

Rosa kept her face down, gaze fixed on the floor. She murmured something about the priest but she did not move.

“Give me the gun.” Mal closed his fingers on Juan’s right wrist. With his other hand he clasped the gun, wrenched it free.

“What kind of fool are you?” Juan cried.

“I don’t know. Only way I know to keep you from doing an insane thing is to take this away from you, Juan.”

Juan was deeply troubled now, this was evident in his face. For the first time in his life something had been taken from him by a stronger force than his own. He hadn’t known Mal had the courage to come near him, nor the strength to wrest the gun from him.

He shook his head, voice low. “I didn’t want to kill you. I only wanted you dead.”

“How nice.”

“I wanted you to see that gun. To know that if I must, I use it to keep you away from my girl. You have hurt her — make her not want to live no more. You have cause big trouble in my house. The gun does not matter — if I cannot keep you away, I kill you with my hands.”

Mal looked down at the gun, stared at Juan a long time. “All right, but first you better hear what I have to say — it may save you a mess that you can’t ever straighten out. I’m going to stay away from your daughter.”

“I don’t want lies.”

“I’m telling you the truth. When I leave here today, you won’t see me any more. I’m putting the house on the bluff up for sale. I won’t come back to Dead Bay any more.”

Juan frowned and Rosa turned on the couch, watching.

“Will that make you believe me? But there’s more. I don’t expect it to get through your thick skull but I love Dolores. As much as you do — more. But I’ve thought it over, and you’re right. I’m too old for her. Everything is wrong for us, everything — I was a fool, but sometimes when you want someone so terribly you don’t think straight.”

Juan chewed at his lip, remembering Ruby down at Jake’s Bar. He did not meet Mal’s gaze.

“I didn’t think straight because if I had, I’d have known I was wrong without you and Rosa telling me so. But I loved her. And I do love her. If I didn’t love her so much, I — wouldn’t — I couldn’t walk out of here and leave her. But if I’ve done that to her — ” he nodded toward her bedroom where the doctor struggled to save her life, “I’ll get out before I hurt her any more. That’s it, Juan. If I’ve hurt you people, I’m sorry — I can’t ever make it up — I don’t ask you to forgive me … but if only you could understand that I loved her so terribly.”

In Al’s bedroom, Bea was sitting up on the side of the bed, listening to the people talking in the parlor, but mostly she heard the hard tones of Juan’s voice.

She turned, grasping Al’s arm. “Al. Get up.”

He sat up, running his hand through his thinning hair. “What’s the matter?”

“They’re arguing in there. Juan may kill Mal Hollister.”

“So? I should have killed him.”

“Oh, you fool. You’ll sit there and let Juan kill him and wreck everything in the world for him and Rosa and Dolores — for you and me and for the kids. And why?”

“Because my sister is dying.” But Al was holding his breath, listening to the voices in the front room.

“Sure, because of what happened in there. Because of Dolores’ ripped dress and the way she tried to kill herself. But Mal Hollister had nothing to do with that — with none of it. You want to know the truth? You want to know why Dolores tried to kill herself?”

Al stared at her.

“It was because she thought she wasn’t good enough for Mal any more — after what happened to her. What happened to her last night —
after
she left Mal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m trying to tell you the truth. I’m trying to make you go in there and stop Juan before he makes a terrible mistake that can’t ever be corrected — Mal had nothing to do with hurting Dolores. Ric did that. Ric was waiting for her — when Mal brought her home. He hit her, and he tore her clothes and he attacked her.”

“Oh, fine. Where’d you ever hear a wild thing like that? Or is it something you dreamed?”

She laughed at him, her voice rose. “Get out there, Al. You know I’m telling the truth. It didn’t make sense from the first that Mal would do that. Not to me — and in your heart, not to you. But Ric showed up here a while ago. He’d been wandering around in the storm. He was wild, wanting to see Dolores, to tell her how sorry he was — ”

“Where is Suarez? Where is that guy?”

She shook her head. “Never mind him. You don’t want to start new trouble. You want to stop Juan — you want to stop and think. Just one time, Al. Just once.”

• • •

The door to Dolores’ bedroom opened and the doctor stepped through it, closing it behind him. In the light from the windows, the gray light of a stormy dawn and in the faded electric light, his face was gray.

He spoke to neither, Juan nor Rosa. He met Mal’s gaze and there was defiance in his eyes.

The three of them watched him, waiting. He closed his medical kit, snapping the locks. He glanced toward the wanly lit windows. The storm was still slashing against them. He sighed, brought his gaze back to Mal.

“I did everything I could,” he said.

Rosa cried out, biting at the back of her hand. “Will she live?”

The doctor shrugged. “Is there any coffee around?”

“Answer,” Juan roared at him. “Will she live?”

The doctor faced Mal again. “I told you. I have done all I can. She’s conscious, and she keeps babbling some nonsense about Mal Hollister — he won’t love her now, he can’t love her now. I said nonsense, to me it’s nonsense. I’m getting old — and love is a damned unimportant quality to me. Nothing I can analyze in a clinic, it causes a lot of trouble — ”

“You’re trying to tell me something,” Mal said in irony.

The doctor shrugged. “I’ve done all I can. This girl has no will to live. She
wants
to die.”

Rosa cried, “This is not true. It cannot be true.”

“It’s true all right,” the doctor said. “Unless her will to live keeps her alive — I can’t do anything for her. She calls over and over for Hollister here. If you can give her the will to live, she’ll live. But this trouble is between the two of you — only you can give her the will to live. If you want to do it — ” he shrugged.

Mal stared at him briefly, strode toward Dolores’ bedroom.

There was a fierce look in his face.

Juan said, “Man — ”

Rosa caught Juan’s arm. “Papa, you got to understand. She need him. Not you. Not me. She need him.”

Juan frowned but did not move again. He sank to the couch, face more troubled than ever. The bedroom door closed behind Mal. The doctor said, “Is there any coffee, Mrs. Venzino? I’d very much appreciate a cup of coffee.”

• • •

Bea followed Al into the front room. Al’s face was the color of paste and his legs were weak. He paused inside the parlor, looking around. Juan was alone, sitting on the couch. He was staring at the floor. They could hear Rosa and the doctor talking in subdued voices in the kitchen.

Al walked slowly to where Big Juan sat.

“Where is he?” Al said. “Hollister?”

Big Juan looked up. His eyes were brimmed with tears but the anger had gone from his face. He nodded toward the bedroom door. His voice was puzzled. “Is what she wants. Is what she’s got to have.”

Al licked his tongue across his mouth.

He looked around the room. “What are you going to do, Papa — about him?”

Juan shook his head again. “I don’t know. Is what she needs. Is what she’s got to have. What can I do? Even the fool doctor tell him to go to her…. The fool doctor give up…. Send him in there to her.”

“That’s wonderful,” Bea said. Her smiling brightened her face.

“Shu,” Big Juan said. “So what is wonderful?”

Bea touched Al’s arm. “Al, I want to talk to you.”

“What’s the matter with you? You insisted I come out here and — ”

“That’s it, Al. I’ve changed my mind.” She jerked her head toward their bedroom. “Al, please — ?”

He nodded, actually relieved that he did not have to tell Juan the truth about Ric Suarez. It had been a long night, a long storm. He was tired. He could not remember having ever been so tired. He didn’t want new trouble.

He closed the bedroom door behind him, stared at Bea. She beat hell. She kept him off-base most of the time. “You changed your mind? You don’t want to tell him?”

She moved close to him. “Don’t you see, Al? We can always tell him, if we have to. If we need to, we can tell him. But — I don’t think we’ll have to, Al.”

His fists clenched. “But this Ric. You going to let him get away with it?”

“Oh, sweetheart. You think anyone ever gets away with a thing like that? He’s got to live with himself, knowing what he is, what he did. Oh, no. He hasn’t gotten away with anything.”

He stared at her. “But when he told you — why didn’t you tell us then — why did you let him go?”

“I sent him away — ”

“Why? After you knew what he did to Dolores. For God’s sake, why, Bea?”

She spoke slowly, trying to put into words all the thinking she’d been doing since she’d seen the wrecked hulk of Ric Suarez out on the front porch earlier.

“Because, despite anything you think, I don’t believe that people are really bad — ”

“What he did? Not bad?”

“Not when you think about it. Not when you think about him. Not when you understand him. What he did was frightful and vicious. But he did it because he was helpless — he was driven. He wanted something he couldn’t have. In a way, it seems to me, AI, all of us are bad. All of us want something. Something. What, Al? A swimming pool, a membership in the country club. Most of the time it’s something we can’t have — but still we want it — and wanting it and trying to get it, that’s what makes us appear to be bad — we look bad to the people who oppose us — as they look bad to us. We look bad to people who’d rather judge us than make the effort to understand us.”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wanted something. Sons. Did that make me look bad to you, eh?”

“Maybe — neither one of us has ever really tried to understand the other one, Al. We — we’ve only fought.”

• • •

Juan heard the car pull into the front yard, tires swishing through the hub-deep water. The car pulled all the way to the front steps. Juan got up, walked woodenly to the door. Rosa came hurriedly to him from the kitchen. Her face was wreathed in smiles.

“Juano! Is the priest! Is the priest in his old Ford! The priest! He promise. I know he come.”

She ran ahead of Juan, opened the front door and went out to the porch.

She returned with the priest, holding to his arm, leading him into her house. He was a stout, bald man with a pink, unlined face. His black coat and high collar were peppered with raindrops.

“Power lines down all over town,” he was saying to Rosa. “Roads washed out. I came down your street, not knowing if I was on the road or in the marsh. It was good I had God to guide me.”

Juan tilted his head, voice flat. “It is good that you are closer to God than we are.”

The priest laughed. “I don’t think that, Juano. I’m also a good driver. I go slow. I look sharp. I think that God will help me — but I give Him all the assistance I can.”

The doctor came out of the kitchen with his third cup of black coffee. He and the priest nodded to each other. This reminded the priest of the reason for his visit.

“The young girl,” he said. “Is she living? I pray I am not too late?”

“She’s still alive,” the doctor said. “I got here.”

The priest nodded and sighed. He glanced at Rosa. “Would it please you, Rosa, if I went in and said a prayer for her before I go?”

Rosa glanced at the doctor, then looked at Juan. “What you think, Papa?”