Heat of Night (3 page)

I
TELL YOU WHY
we call you and Bea to come over, Alberto,” Rosa said. She had walked into the house close at his side, glancing at him with little smiles of pride, touching him, as if after thirty years she could not yet believe this beautiful man was her first-born. “We need you, Alberto.”

“Please,” Bea said. “His name is Albert. Or Al. It is not Alberto. It never was. It isn’t now — ”

“Oh, stop it, Bea,” Al said.

Bea looked about the shadowy room with its ancient furniture, scuffed and marked by the children and the dogs and time itself. She hated this room, hated the religious paintings, the religious articles secured to the dark walls. She wanted to get as damned far from this as she could, and drag Al with her because it was best for him whether he knew it or not.

“I think your people call you Alberto just to annoy me,” Bea said, sitting on the edge of a couch.

Rosa shook her head, looking at Al as if he were some fine statue she’d never seen before. “Always I call him Alberto,” she said, tilting her head. “This is the name of my grandfather. My grandfather hold me on his lap when he die. I am sitting on his lap and talking with him, the way a little child will, and I think he has fall asleep. But is dead. Sitting there dead. Is fine old man. My grandfather.

For him I name my first son. I always call him Alberto.”

“Well, you can stop.”

“For God’s sake, Bea,” Al said. “It don’t matter. It makes no difference.”

She listened to the children yelling in the yard. Luis would allow them to bury the sting ray if they were sure it was the most horrible death possible to it. She felt her nerves drawing taut.

“It does make a difference and you know it.”

Al exhaled, spread his hands. “Go on, Mama. Tell us about it. Why’d you call us over here?”

Rosa glanced at Big Juan. He tried to smile but after a moment shrugged and nodded.

“Is because of Dolores,” Rosa said.

Al walked to the front screen door and back. He had not known what to expect but it had not been this.

“What’s she done?” Al was worried. After all, Dolores was just at that age; men wouldn’t let her alone. Hell, the wonder was she’d kept it this long. He’d heard those men calling her name from the mangroves. Not even Big Juan could drive them away.

“She’s a-fall in love.” Rosa’s mouth pulled down.

“This is bad?” Bea said. “Everybody falls in love sooner or later — even in this Godforsaken place.”

“Yeah.” Big Juan paced the room. “But not every girl — nineteen years — like Dolores — must fall in love for a man twice her age.”

“My God,” Al said. “I thought she was nuts about Ric Suarez.”

“Shu.” Rosa lifted her arms, let them drop. “This we all believe. But you should hear Dolores talk about this now. This was something that happened many years ago when she is a child — nothing but a child. Then she does not even know what is love. This is what she tells me. Ah, but now. Now she knows what is love. With this old man — over thirty — why, almost as old as me — o? you papa.”

“Why don’t you have a talk with this man, Papa?” Al said. “A real strong talk.”

“Is not so simple.” Big Juan spoke in a weary way, a man who has considered all the angles and still has his insoluble problem to face.

“You want me to talk to him?” Al said.

“Now, Al, you promised,” Bea said from the couch. “We were not going to stay — ”

“Shu. Of course you stay. You spend the night. You have Al’s old bed. All to yourself.”

“Al. You promised.”

“All right, Bea. All right.”

“What’s this you promise?” Rosa said.

“Nothing, Mama,” Al said. He turned, facing Juan. “Who is this guy? I’ll talk to him. This afternoon.”

“Is not so simple,” Big Juan said again.

“Why not?” Al stared at his father. He’d never heard the big man admit defeat before. It worried him. It was as if he returned after an eternity to find Big Juan old and feeble. He studied him, troubled. But Big Juan looked the same, physically as strong as ever. “Why you keep saying that?”

Bea said, “Now, Al, if Juan wants to handle this his way, you just let him — ”

“Shut up, Bea,” Al said across his shoulder.

Big Juan padded to the screen door, stood staring at the glazed sheet of the bay and the churning Gulf beyond the channel. Clouds piled black along the horizon. There was the smell of a storm in the air.

It was hot and still in the room. He turned his back on the clouds, stared at his family.

“We try to talk to Dolores — you mama and me. Both try. But she say if we interfere, if we open our big mouth — this she say to her mama and me — she will run away and live by herself so she can see this man any time she like.”

“This is why we got to be so careful, Alberto,” Rosa said, chewing at a hangnail.

“Oh, she’s just gone nuts,” Al said. “A dame falls for some guy and she won’t listen to anybody. Beat her. Hell, take her over your knee, Papa, pull down her pants and beat hell out of her.”

“Oh boy,” Bea said. “That’s what I love about you, Al. Your realistic approach to your problems.”

“It’s what she needs,” he yelled at her.

“Oh. Oh. Ohh.” Big Juan shook his head. Here was one of the first angles he’d discarded. “She’s got one big bad temper — ” he tried to smile — “must be she gets it from her mama. But I can see in her eyes. She would love to have me try this — try to beat her. Her eyes dared me. Just try to spank me, Papa, say her eyes. This is all she needs. She really walk out then…. We cannot stand to lose her. It would kill me…. I would not want to live if any one of my kids hated me. It is something I cannot take. All of you are more than my flesh and blood. Part of my heart — each of you. So we got to do something. But what? Is drive Rosa and me out of our senses.”

“Keeps-a me cry,” Rosa said. “When I cry my nose runs. All the time, find myself crying, my nose running.”

Al shook his head. “Well, if you can’t talk to Dolores, there’s the guy. If he’s in his thirties, he ought to have sense enough — ”

“Do you have sense enough, Al Venzino?” Bea said. “Sense enough to what? Some men never get any sense. If you had good sense — ”

“Ho boy,” Al said. “Here we go. What’s eating you now?”

“You ogle every tramp you pass. All the time. You’re thirty. Have you got sense about women? Your tongue hangs out most of the time.”

“So I look at the girls at the office. On the street. My God, am I blind or something?”

“Oh no,” Bea said. “You’re not blind. I’ll swear to that. You’re not blind, all right.”

Rosa shrugged, giving Alberto an indulgent smile. “Is one thing to look at pretty girls. But is another to be in love with them — to want to touch their pretties when you are twice as old.”

Big Juan swallowed hard and turned away to the door again. He did not want them to see his eyes. He could not forget Ruby. That young Ruby, so young, and he had not realized he was getting so old and that girls could be so young, and they were lost to him like the free hot days on the Gulf were lost. He couldn’t get out of his mind the way she had undressed for him, her fingers frantic for she wanted him so terribly, and the way he had stared at her, so pretty and so open to him, and the way he had wanted it and knew nobody had touched her as he would touch her, and the way he had felt himself growing hot, crazy hot in the crazy night, gushing hot in one half-second, worse than some kid on his first date. But worse than seeing her like this was the thought of the mortal sin he had committed. He had run away, he had not done it but in his heart he had done it, wildly and frantically and exultantly he had had her in his heart. He had sinned and his mind was a painful, festering sore. He wished that things people said would not remind him of Ruby. He wished he would not think about Ruby.

The blood stopped throbbing in his temples. It was bad, like the storm brewing far across the Gulf, casting its shadow far ahead over the shallow bay. He realized that Alberto was speaking to him.

“Who is this guy?” Al said. Juan sighed, relieved that the subject had shifted.

“Is this Malcolm Hollister,” Big Juan said.

“Hollister? The contractor?” Al sat down on the edge of a chair. He stared at his parents, thinking they were kidding. “Why, that guy’s got a million dollars. He could buy dolls like Dolores by the dozen — ”

“Then why don’t he do it?” Rosa said. “Some other girls, some other dozen?”

“What would he want with a kid like Dolores?” Al still wasn’t convinced.

“I don’t know,” Big Juan said. “But he has the date with her. Tonight. Every night. She works for him. He drives her home from work. They sit out in his car until past two in the morning. You ask that girl what they talk about? She laughs. She says, who talks? And laughs again. What are we then to think? They are out there in his car, a car plush like a Pullman. A car such as I have never seen up close. They are out there but they are not talking. She admits this. What are we to think?”

For the first time, Bea relaxed. She sat back in the divan, sighing. “Why, Mal Hollister is a gentleman. You ought to be glad Dolores has a crush on him.”

“Shu. A crush. This is all right. To have a crush,” Rosa said. She remembered her own passionate desiring after the young parish priest so many years ago. Nothing came of it, not even the young priest ever suspected but he was the only man beside Big Juan she had loved, and it seemed to her no other passion ever held the same terrible bitter-sweet as that thwarted, secret longing. She shook the memory from her mind. “But this is not the same as a crush. Dolores is running after this Señor Hollister. Shameless. She is crazy for him. She thinks nothing else. Talks nothing else. Eh? What good can come of such a thing?”

“He’s a perfectly wonderful man,” Bea said. “My father knows him.”

“Shu. You father knows him. Dolores’ father knows him. But Dolores is a baby.”

“Look, Bea.” Al’s voice shook. “Hollister might be a wonderful man. A gentleman, you called him. But that’s among people of his own kind. I can tell you, when he’s with a crazy kid like Dolores, he’s after just one thing, and he’s not governed by any rules of conduct that he lives by among his own friends.”

“What do you know about it?” Bea taunted him.

“I know this. I know what I’m married to. My God, some of the people we know. I know what they think of me.”

“Al, you’re a fool.”

“Am I? I get drunk so I can stand some of your friends, so I can live with your mother, good sweet Mother Cunningham. Christ in heaven.” He laughed in an empty, bitter way. “Lord, take just the other night. I came home from a hard day at that damned office. I’d had a few drinks, I was feeling pretty good. I flopped down out in a yard chair. I fell asleep. I woke up, and what do I see? Your mother is sitting straight and rigid in the chair beside me, staring at me with her mouth set and cold. I tell you I almost yelled out loud. I thought I was having some kind of nightmare. And the old woman spends the rest of the evening telling you how can you expect any different when you married somebody like me, and what will the neighbors think, me lolling drunk in the yard chairs. Well, if that’s the way Mother Cunningham feels about me, multiply that by several hundred thousand bucks and you’ll get some inkling what Hollister really thinks about a kid like Dolores — a little nobody with the hots for him. A pants-crazy doll that he can make and then forget.”

Bea seemed not to have heard this last. She was staring at Al, eyes distended. She’d stopped listening when he ceased talking about her mother. “I never heard of anybody as sensitive as you, Al. Why, Mother Cunningham loves you.”

“Sure she does. But wasn’t it her idea that I ought to go to court and change my name?”

Rosa straightened. “Why change you name, Alberto? What have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything. I don’t have to do anything. My name is Venzino. That’s enough. I don’t have to do anything else. All that matters is what the neighbors think. So Bea and her old lady bang away at me. Change it to Vincent. Albert Vincent. Al Vincent. Good ole Al Vincent, the boy with the suntan. Ho boy. And sometimes I think it would be easier. A lot easier.”

“Al, you’re getting all worked up,” Bea said.

“Okay,” Al said. “So get off my back. I know what’s best for my kid sister. I’ll talk to her when she comes home this afternoon. And if that don’t do any good, I’ll talk to that son-of-a-bitch Hollister.”

H
OLLISTER WATCHED
D
OLORES
cross the office toward him.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that what was happening wasn’t real; he was afraid his eyes were lying even when he knew what he saw had to be true.

It was a disturbing thing but whenever she was around, he didn’t want to take his eyes off her. This was true no matter who was present, or what transactions were in progress, and when a girl is your secretary this can be embarrassing.

Somehow he had to escape this mesmerized condition. He reminded himself that he was thirty-six, divorced, what everybody called a level-headed self-made man with a master’s degree in engineering, and this girl upsetting his whole life was nineteen. But he couldn’t believe this either, because nobody could get that lovely in just nineteen years. Heaven had worked overtime on this girl. Or hell had.

He told himself coldly it was time to look at this whole affair realistically. It was enough just to fall in love, especially after what Stella had done to him. But Dolores was disrupting his business, fouling up his life, giving him an ulcer. There was just one way out and no matter how he tried to keep from facing the truth, he had to admit it at last.

She carried pencils and stenographic pad and for the life of him he couldn’t say why. She ought to be in flowing gossamer robes — she often was in his recent fantasies.

Her hair was blonde — she was a Spanish blonde with features and coloring tracing her lineage straight back to old Castile. Her blood was hot and it stirred his blood. He felt drunk when he looked at her and she was all inside him and unless he did something to end it, he was likely to remain in orbit like this forever, lost in space and off-course to hell. Well, he was going to get back on course.

“What have you got your dictation pad for?” he heard himself saying.

She smiled and she was lovely with soft lips and olive-black eyes. “Didn’t you want to dictate?”

“Do I look nuts?”

She smiled again. “It’s only two in the afternoon.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She came around the desk and he stood up, feeling the odd sense of panic her nearness always caused in him.

“What do you want?” he heard this fool saying.

“Everything! Anything! Let me show you.” She laid aside pad and pencils, reaching for his face with both hands.

“Somebody might come in.”

“I locked the door.”

“What did you do that for?” How could such fool words come from the mouth of a reasonably intelligent man?

“For this.” She pulled his head down and kissed him. “And this. And this.” Then she sighed expansively, her breath warm and sweet against his face. “Ah. I’ve been wanting to do that all day.”

“This has got to stop.”

“Why? Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I love you. Don’t you understand that’s what’s the matter?”

She kissed his throat because he held his head stiffly and she could reach only above his shirt collar.

“What’s the matter?” she whispered.

“I’ll just tell you. The matter is I not only have to fight the violent way I want you — I have to fight you at the same time.”

Her lips moved softly as a butterfly. “This is bad?”

“It is for me — the position I’m in.”

“What position are you in, darling?”

“I’m thirty-six. You’re nineteen. I’ve been divorced. You’ve never even been married. Your family would rather I killed you than married you. I know I’ve no right in the world to touch you — and I can’t keep my hands off you.”

She whispered, “I love you when you talk like this. So foolish. So noble.”

“Noble? My God, if you only knew what I’ve been thinking about you.”

“You think I don’t know? Of course I know.”

He muttered. “How could you? You don’t even know about some of the things I’ve been thinking.”

“But I want to know. I want to know everything with you.”

“My God, Dolores. This has got to stop. How long do you think I can stand this?”

“I don’t know, my love. This troubles me. You are so strong — no matter what I do, still you resist me.”

“You make me sound like a bigger ass than I am. I’m only fighting you because I could ruin everything just by grabbing you once the way I want to. The way I’m going to if you don’t get the hell away from me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

She went around the desk, sat down, pulling the hem of her skirt across knees whose dimples were hewn from pure gold. He felt chilled.

He walked to the window, stood looking out at the village. Dead Bay. No movement in the street. A bread truck stood baking in the sun at the curb. Three old men hunched over a checkerboard in the shade outside the drug store. He felt her gaze on him. Why couldn’t he make her understand? He’d had a vile marriage with Stella; she’d cheated, the whole business had been a nightmare of dishonesty, the last thing he wanted. Maybe he was nuts. With Dolores he could envision a clean, honest marriage that would be consummated the night their vows were exchanged. You could make all the jokes you liked about it; there was good on this earth but a man couldn’t throw it away and expect to have anything.

“Maybe I know I can’t have you at all,” he said aloud as if she’d been following the maze of his thoughts.

“Why?”

“Because Big Juan would shoot me before he would let me have you.”

“They don’t know you. If they knew you, they’d love you as I do.”

“Why don’t you quit this job, Dolores?”

She sat forward. “Quit? Leave here? Why?”

“I’ll give you a month’s pay. Two month’s. A year’s. Hell, whatever you want. But quit. Get away from here. Go marry a nice Cuban boy.”

“I don’t want a nice Cuban boy. I want to stay with you.”

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

“I’m glad you’re not.”

“You’re all — clean and new — and virginal — ”

“How do you know?”

“I know. Also I know that every man who ever saw you wanted you. You could have anybody. Suddenly you decide you want me. You must be nuts.”

“Yes. It is a horrible idea, isn’t it?”

“If you don’t think so, ask Rosa Venzino. If she tells you I’m the man for you, I’ll never protest again.”

“Poor Mama.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she doesn’t know how wonderful you are. How sad you’ve been. How hurt you’ve been … you deserve so much that’s good — I only hope I can be good enough for you.”

He wheeled around. “Stop it, Dolores. You think I would have held you away all these nights sitting out in your backyard if I had thought there was any chance for us — if I hadn’t known there was no sense thinking about you — that you were too lovely to foul up?”

“But I want nobody but you.” Her voice was very low. “If you won’t have me, I’ll walk down Main Street and I’ll give myself to the first man that asks me.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“It’s true. I know all about you. You’re afraid you’ll hurt me — afraid they won’t let me marry you.”

“Exactly. That’s why the whole thing has got to stop. I — won’t see you again.”

She stood up. “All right. The first man — the very first man that asks me.”

He strode to her, touched her arm. She remained rigid. “Cut it out. I’m nuts enough. Stop torturing me.”

“You’re torturing yourself. You’re torturing both of us.”

“I’m trying to be honest with you.”

“Then don’t. I’m not afraid of you. I’m only afraid of losing you.”

“Oh, lord.” He dropped his hands. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I don’t know yet,” she replied with simple honesty. “What are we doing?”

He shook his head; this made it worse: no girl could be this young, this honest. Yet he’d learned Dolores was utterly without pretenses. Once, at first, he’d decided it was a game with her, that it pleased her ego to have him walking on the ceiling, jingling change in his pocket, fumbling for words. He could have sworn she was laughing at him. She had to be. He’d be laughing at himself if he could stop crying inside long enough.

His mouth pulled wryly. He no longer believed her direct and simple honesty was a game. She was nineteen, sought after, but first above everything she was virginal. From earliest girlhood she’d wanted the kind of happiness her mother had, and Rosa had drilled into her that a girl must take her body untouched to the one man for her. It was not just something Dolores believed; it was a vital part of her, coloring everything she did.

“You do want to go out with me, don’t you?” she said.

He nodded, smiling sourly, gaze fixed on her face.

Dolores looked up at him wondering at his odd smile. He seemed possessed of some knowledge about her and it troubled her that anyone, even Mal, should know her most intimate secrets.

Finally, he pulled his gaze away thinking, it’s all right, Dolores, your secret is safe with me.

“I was thinking about something special,” he said. “I’m tired sitting out in your backyard with your folks wandering around in the dark.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I knew you’d get tired of me sometime.”

“Tired of you? I’m tired of that car. Tired of glancing around for the moon and finding Big Juan’s face peering in at me.”

“It’s just — they don’t trust you.”

“You don’t have to tell me what it is. Just the same, I was thinking that tonight we could have soft music, a good dinner with wine, and a view, maybe candles and — ”

The telephone beside him rang suddenly and he tensed, startled. Dolores smiled when he cursed.

The phone rang again and he lifted it. He listened a moment and his face went white. “For Christ’s sake, Stella. What do you want?”

He saw Dolores breathe deeply. Dolores knew Stella was his ex-wife. He’d have been pleased if he’d thought Dolores jealous, but he’d learned from life with Stella that there need not be anything personal about a woman’s possessiveness. Often she disliked another woman’s wanting you even when she personally couldn’t use you.

Stella said, “I want to talk to you, Mal.”

He scowled, a lean, tall man with green eyes bitter with old hurts, an easy-smiling mouth. “You couldn’t have called at a more inopportune moment, Stella, not even if you’d tried.”

“You think I didn’t try?”

He covered the speaker with his hand. “Take the afternoon off, Dolores. “I’ll be by your place for you about seven.”

Dolores nodded and stood up. She looked pale, hurt. He felt a sudden sense of frustration. It was as though Stella was clinging to him across this line. He’d make it up to Dolores tonight. He’d make up everything tonight.

He watched her walk away from him, close the door behind herself.

Stella said, “Where are you?”

“I’m here.” All the life had gone out of his voice. “What did you want, Stella?”

“Well, aren’t you abrupt?”

“Cut it, Stella. I’m your ex-husband. By request. Nothing more. It’s that way. I want it that way.”

“All right. I need some money.”

“Impossible. You’re in to me for more now than I ever got from you if it had been virgin platinum — and it wasn’t — either one.”

“Don’t be nasty. The routine was all pretty familiar to you, too.”

“Flattery, Stella? Now? After all we’ve done to each other?”

“I warned you to stay out of the courtroom, darling.”

“Well, you’ll never get me in another one.”

“I might, lover, unless you agree to up my alimony.”

“I’ll see you in hell — ”

“If I get there first, I’ll wait for you. Meantime, I need some money.”

“No.”

“Then we’ve got to meet. We’ve got to talk about this.”

“Impossible. We’ve nothing to say.”

“I’ll send my lawyer.”

“Well, that’s better than coming yourself, I admit.”

Hollister parked his Cadillac Coupe de Ville in the drive at the side of his house overlooking Dead Bay. He paused, glancing from this bluff where his fifteen-room house stood, across to the darkling sky over the Gulf, the calm circle of the bay and the roofs of the village to the east of him. Stella had wanted this place as a hideaway, she’d told him. The only item she neglected to mention was that she’d wanted it so she could hide away from him.

He shook his head, trying to escape the bitterness that always suffused him after any interview with Stella. It darkened the world, clouded his viewpoint. He always realized what a sucker Stella considered him. She had taken him, but good. And the worst part of it was the way she’d laughed as she twisted the knife.

He moved across the walk, entering the house through the rear door. He couldn’t really blame Stella. He had been a man running, driven. His father had been wealthy, the kind of wealthy that means passage to Europe on a whim, twenty-thousand dollar parties to celebrate a long shot winning an obscure race, losing money just to beat the income tax. But by the time Mal reached high school all the wealth was gone, everything was gone, including his old man. All that remained was the desire to be somebody, to make that name respected as it once had been. God knew, he worked all the time; he’d worked his way through a university to which his father had given two dorms and an engineering building; he’d been obsessed by a need to have more money and more clothes and more cars than anyone he knew. He began by underbidding contractors on state jobs, forcing his will on others. It had consumed fifteen long years but he had piled it up. He had almost a million dollars and more to come, and he had lost his wife. She had crossed him and cheated him in every way and he didn’t blame her. You could say what you wanted, when a marriage ruptured, it tore apart from the inside, always.

The cook turned when he entered the kitchen. Her stout face was white. “Why, Mr. Mal, you frightened me.”

Mal grinned. “Why? What were you stealing?”

The butler, man-of-all-work, was sitting at the kitchen table eating pie heaped with ice cream. He laughed, spewing ice cream from his mouth. The cook was his wife.

Mal put his arm about Mrs. Harker’s broad shoulders. “Did those things I ordered arrive?”

She nodded. “What a feast you’re planning.”

“Right, Harker. And for two.”