Heat of Night (5 page)

B
IG JUAN CAME UP
from the piers, carrying freshly cleaned mullet in a pan. He stopped on the porch where Dolores stood with Ric. “Ho, Ric,” he said. “Good to see you. We don’t see enough of you around here.”

“You know how it is, Mr. Venzino. I’m busy at the lodge — and well, sometimes I ask Dolores,” Ric glanced at her, frowning. “And she puts me off.”

“You don’t pay no attention to her. Hey? What girl this age knows what she wants, eh?”

“Papa. Why don’t you go talk to Al — or something?”

Big Juan gave Ric a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Sure. Leave you two alone, huh? Nice a young guy be alone with a pretty girl, eh?”

“We don’t know, Papa,” Dolores said. “Who would know around here?”

Big Juan moved toward the door, paused, stopped. “Ric. You stay for supper with us, yes?”

“Maybe Ric has something else to do, Papa,” Dolores said.

“Ho. What else he got to do? You stay, Ric? Right?”

Ric glanced uncertainly at Dolores.

“If — Doll wants me to,” he said. “Why sure, I’d like that fine.” He was watching her face.

Dolores was angered. It showed clearly in her black eyes. She averted her face, and then thought, why shouldn’t he stay? Why not? Stay if you want to. I won’t be here.

• • •

She sat on the top step, hands locked about her knees, watching him ramble about the front porch with the nervous energy that would never let him sit still, that had him forever fiddling with something, pulling at light cords in lamps, fussing with strings on mats, worrying the catch on the door. His hands were never still. It was as if Ric would not be able to endure the boredom of who he was and what he knew himself to be if he stood still long enough to think about it.

“Had a real live one today,” Ric said.

“What?”

“A hunting party. Came to the place last night, as a matter of fact. Fellow swore he knew me when I played for the Bears. Beats me. I never saw the guy before, you know?” He shook his head and paced the room. “This guy. Don’t even look a little familiar. And I got a pretty good memory for faces, you know — ”

“You must have seen an awful lot of faces.”

“When I played for the Bears, you mean? Yeah. Only, this guy I never saw. You know what I think? I mean, you know?”

“What?” Why wouldn’t he go home? Why wouldn’t he admit to himself that the summer she had loved him had been a lot of winters ago — he’d been a sophomore back-field sensation in Dead Bay High. She’d been just a kid. Since then he’d been a sensation for the University, for the Bears. A lot of winters ago.

“I mean I think some of these characters may have seen me play football. You know? And maybe somewhere, maybe they’ve seen my picture — maybe in the papers. And they decide because they know what I look like and have seen me play football, they figure they know me and I oughta know them. You think maybe that’s it?”

“I’m sure of it. You’re a pretty famous guy, Ric.”

“Yeah.” His voice was flat. He was no longer impressed with his type of fame. He slapped his big fist into the palm of his hand. “Looks like then I could make a go of this hunting camp idea of mine … I tell you, Dolores, I never had a idea that looked so good when I got it. I ever tell you when I got this here idea of a hunting camp?”

She nodded but he didn’t notice. He paced the front porch, bumped the old swing with his knee and then sidestepped it when it returned. She watched him fiddling with the flowers Rosa grew in coffee cans. He’d very likely uproot them without knowing he did it.

“I was playing football. With the Bears.” He turned and glanced at her. “I guess when you used to watch me play for the little old high school in this dump you’d never think some day Ric Suarez would be playing for the Bears. Huh?”

“I knew you’d do something wonderful, Ric. Whatever you wanted to do.”

He was silent a long time. He’d forgotten the hunting camp idea born to him when he was playing football for the Bears.

“No. I never done a damn thing I wanted to do. I wanted something … something big and exciting that I could do … I used to get that feeling. I felt like that when I used to play football in high school. I liked them notices I got. I liked having coaches and sports writers come as far as from Miami just to watch me play. They used to clown with me before the games in the locker room, and kid me to make me mad so I would brag before the game how many points I was going to score — maybe twenty-one or twelve — or whatever I had that feeling about in me — I always had this feeling before the game how many points I could make if I wanted to. Mostly, I’d keep it inside me. But they got on to how they could rag me and I would tell them what I was going to do in that game — and then I would go out and do it.”

“I know.”

“Sure. I got the rep for having a swell head. But it wasn’t like that, Doll. You know me. I’m no swell head. Really what I am is a guy who wants something real bad — something that half the time I don’t even know what it is I want, you know?”

“It’s all right, Ric. You’re young. You can still be anything you want.”

“No.” He shivered visibly. “No. When the Bears fired me … I knew then I’d had it. All I was ever going to be was in back of me when they fired me. I felt just the same, and I would look at myself at night standing naked in my hotel room and I looked just the same, but I just didn’t have it any more. And it got through to me that I was finished. Just like I was an old man.”

“You drank, Ric.”

She made this statement without hint of rancor, without making it in any sense an accusation. If he were smart enough to understand he would know from this that she didn’t love him. If she loved him, his drinking would worry her and she might try to change him, or improve him. If she loved him she would want him to be better than he was. But she didn’t care. He was a stranger and his drinking was his own business, and though because he was a friend, she might wish he would quit his drinking, she didn’t truly care. Why couldn’t he be smart enough to see this?

He nodded. “Yeah. I was adjusted. Is that what you call it? I was a good guy. Everybody liked Ric Suarez. I didn’t even like to drink at first. But I could get along with people I didn’t even like when I drank. I forgot what my old man had been — and what I was afraid I was going to be. All it took was a few drinks. Everything was lovely then. Yeah. I drank.”

“That’s what happened to you and the Bears.”

He shook his head. “No. That’s what they thought, and that’s what you think. But drinking wasn’t the reason. It wasn’t what finished me. I was already finished when I started drinking — and because I knew I was finished, I started drinking heavy.”

“What?”

“Sure.” He walked to the steps and stood in front of her. “You think I would have touched anything that would have hurt my football when I was here in high school — or even the first year I was at the University? But — that was when I found out. That first year up there.” He shook his head, ran his hand across his face.

She frowned. “Found out what, Ric?”

“That I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do no more. I quit the University when the Bears offered me a job. You know why? Because I knew then. I already knew in my heart that if I stayed three more years at the University, the Bears wouldn’t want me. Nobody wouldn’t want me.”

“Ric. What are you talking about?”

“About what I wanted. I found out I didn’t want to play football any more. When I went to the University on a football scholarship, I was proud because I was going to take up engineering. Old Mal Hollister was going to take me in with his construction company — ”

Old Mal Hollister. Dolores chewed her lip, Mal wasn’t old, at thirty-six he was younger in every way than Ric Suarez. She averted her, gaze, watching the horizon darken with grumbling storm clouds. She didn’t want Ric to see her eyes even though she was aware he wasn’t discerning enough to read her annoyance in them.

“Why didn’t you take it?” She managed to keep her voice level.

“Engineering? Because. My God, don’t you know? I didn’t have it. Engineering is tough. It took brains I didn’t even have. It was pulling my grades down so low the coach wanted me to take something easier.” He laughed suddenly. “It had problems you had to figure out with a slide rule. Hell, I couldn’t even figure out the slide rule.”

He laughed again but it was a hard, painful sound, torn from his throat. “And college football … It was a business. Like professional football. Just like it. Some of the boys they hired and brought in there came from schools that had restrooms bigger than the whole damn Dead Bay High. Those guys were sharp and mean in close. They were out to kill, because it was their job, and this was a business. Man, I was easy meat for them. They tore me up. Only one thing kept me going. I was still fool enough to think I could get what I wanted. So I fought back at these football sharpies. I looked good. But it wasn’t costing these sharpsters anything — and me? It was killing me to keep up with them. My God, I was only able to keep moving at all because of gallons of liniment. They killed me and they weren’t even pressed to do it. And you know what? There I was — forcing myself to look a little bit better — but all the time it was taking out of me more than I had in me.”

“Oh, Ric.”

“So. Hell. I got this chance to go pro. I mean really pro. It was all pro at the University. But I took the job with the Bears because I knew by then. I knew I didn’t have a prayer in engineering and here was a chance to pick up some fast dough so maybe in a year or two I could latch on to some kind of business. You know? But I had to live with myself, and to do that, I had to drink. But drinking wasn’t what finished me — no matter what you believe — I drank because I was already finished and I couldn’t stand to stay sober knowing it.”

“Oh, Ric. It can’t be that bad.”

He laughed in that bitter way. “Oh, yes, it can. It’s a lot worse. Because all my life I wanted something better than I could have — better schools, better clothes, better cars, a bigger drunk. Oh my God. I don’t know how to say it. But it’s like I’m still a dirty little kid playing down there on the beach at the bay and reaching for something that’s way out on one of them islands. Inside I know I can’t ever reach what I want. But God, how I want it.”

“Give yourself time, Ric. You’ll find what you want.”

“Oh no. I found what I wanted. Years ago, when I was the biggest guy this high school ever turned out. When they gave parties, they were always really for me, and I walked in with you on my arm. I had what I wanted — a blonde Cuban girl that loved me. And I was crazy about her. Wasn’t ever anybody else for me, Dolores.”

“I’m sorry, Ric.”

He stared at her. “Sure. Because I knew I had to be better than I was ever to get you. Why you think I fought them bastards at the University team? I had to stay there — I had to stay alive and on that scholarship so I could make something of myself so you would be proud of me, and I could give you something you wanted and deserved.”

“Oh, Ric — ”

“You’re all that keeps me going, Doll. I know. I’m just a bum. Sure, I own a fishing and hunting lodge. Pretty ritzy. I sell enough beer to keep going, once in a while I get a party of swells, and I make enough for taxes and all the other son-of-a-bitching costs of just staying alive. That ain’t what I want, Doll. You know? I want you. I always wanted you. Right from the first — ”

“That was such a long time ago, Ric.”

“A long time ago? It’s right now. You’re a hurting ache right in my guts, Dolores. You think Big Juan loves Rosa, huh? That’s kid stuff. I hurt, Dolores. At night alone, wanting you and knowing I got nothing to offer you.”

“That wouldn’t matter, Ric, if — ”

“If?” He stared at her. “If what? What you mean?”

“Oh, Ric. We were children. It was so long ago.”

“What? What? When you loved me?” He shook his head. “Dolores!” He yelled at her, his voice ringing so the dogs and the children down at the bay were suddenly quiet, listening. “You can’t throw me over. It’s you that’s kept me going. I been beat, Dolores. I been beat down hard, but I took it. Because — I thought I still had you. I can’t lose you, Dolores. That would take every last thing away from me. I can’t take that, Dolores. I can’t take that.”

M
AL
H
OLLISTER PARKED
his Coupe de Ville in the turn-off behind Juan Venzino’s house. Dusk was boiling up gray from the saw grass flats. He got out of his car, glancing toward the clouds banked black and threatening on the western horizon. Abrupt lightning flashes ripped them and revealed them swollen, smoky-white for an instant, and then they were blacker than ever.

He walked toward the house. The storm clouds meant there’d be no moon tonight. At thirty-six, he no longer had any use for the moon, but Dolores was young and young girls responded to nocturnal niceties. It mildly irritated him that he couldn’t order the night precisely as he desired it.

He saw an indeterminate number of cypress-brown children of all ages and sexes watching him from the corner of the house, nudging each other and giggling, pointing at him.

He couldn’t censure their inordinate interest in him. He admitted he looked rather attractive; it had taken him a long time to dress tonight and he’d done it carefully and tastefully.

One stocky child moved away from the others and approached him in a determined but timid manner, like a skittish colt searching for lump sugar.

Hollister saw that the boy was built like Big Juan but very tiny, with a pirate’s black eyes and a dirty rag tied around a deep wound in his leg.

The child came across the yard slowly, arms at his sides, looking Hollister over minutely, warily.

“There’s another one here already,” the child said at last.

Hollister paused, looking down at the dark-haired child. “That right?”

The child nodded. “It’s Ric. He’s been here a long time. Got here a long time before you.”

“Oh?”

“They asked him to stay to supper.”

“That’s good. He’s very fortunate.”

“They like him.”

“I’m sure he’s a fine fellow.”

“He’s big in football … in what are you big?”

Hollister shook his head. “Not me. I’m not big in anything.”

The child did not look astonished at this. He nodded solemnly.

“You look pretty nice,” he said in a kindly way. “Not all of us can be big in football.”

“Thank you.”

“Your eyes are not frightening.”

“No.”

“They — ” he jerked his head toward the children at the corner of the house. They watched, awed. “They said you had terrible eyes — frightening.”

“But they’re not so bad, huh?”

“To me they look very kind.”

“Why, that’s very nice of you,” Hollister said. He paused, searching for a name. “Son, which one of Juan’s boys are you?”

The little sun-darkened face got a crafty look and he grinned in a secret way. “I’m the one that can swim to that island out there. The biggest island.”

“But I like you. What do I call you?”

The imp’s face pulled into a pleased grin, and Hollister saw he’d been led into a trap by a cunning mind very proud of itself.

“Call me anything, mister. I don’t care what you call me just so you call me in time for dinner.”

The child laughed immoderately at this, watching Hollister’s face to see the effect of his
bon mot
on him.

Hollister laughed, too. This pleased the child and he laughed even louder. Hollister stared at the small hard body racking with Spanish-accented laughter over this joke.

Hollister said, “I’ll bet this is a joke you learned from Big Juan?”

The boy stopped laughing. “Him? Where would a man of his years get a new joke like this?”

“Oh? This is a new joke?”

“Sure. I just heard it.”

Hollister nodded, moved to go around the child. The boy touched at his leg. “Mister.”

“Yeah?”

“I just told you a fine new joke. Don’t you know a new joke you could tell me?”

Hollister considered. “I don’t know. You didn’t tell me your name. But — it’s all right…. Tell me, how did you get that cut on your leg?”

“A sting ray. But you should see what I do to this sting ray.”

“You let a sting ray stick you like that? Boy, if you had brains you’d be dangerous.”

The child hesitated, then recognized the joke, saw he’d been neatly trapped as he in turn had trapped the man. His mouth opened, showing gleaming teeth, and he laughed loudly, the sound racketing against the house.

“Mister, this is a fine joke.” He hesitated. “Is it new?”

“Did you ever hear it before?”

The child shook his head.

“Then it’s new.” Hollister walked toward the house. The child ran toward the other children to test his new joke. Then he stopped, returned to Hollister, caught his sleeve, looking up with friendly black eyes.

“Mister. My name is Luis.”

• • •

When Mal Hollister stopped in the yard to chat with Luis, thirteen-year-old Linda ran around the house and up the steps, going past Ric Suarez who was sprawled in a straw-bottomed rocker. Ric glanced at her, thinking she was growing up pretty fast.

He called to her, inviting her to sit in his lap, but she had more urgent matters on her mind. She tossed him a smile that carried voltage she didn’t even suspect.

The screen door slammed as she went through.

Ric sighed, staring at the storm clouds, feeling the charged silence that pushed in ahead of the storm across the bay. He remembered when Doll had looked much like Linda, but blonde.

He felt like crying and could not say why.

• • •

Linda said, “He’s here. He’s coming across the yard. This time he does not sit in the car. He’s coming into the house.”

Dolores pressed both hands against her glowing face. “It’s Mal. I’ve been home all afternoon and haven’t had a chance to get dressed.” She ran to her bedroom and slammed the door. It opened again at once. “Tell him I won’t be a minute.”

She closed the door again.

Big Juan’s hands were opening and closing.

“Why does he come in tonight?” he said. “What does he want?”

“Let him come in,” Al said. His voice had a taut quality. “Give me a chance to talk to him.”

“No,” Bea said. “Not now, Al. You’re all wrought-up. You’ve got to think it over. You’ve got to calm down.”

“Stay out of this, Bea.”

“I won’t stay out of it. Now, come on. You and I — we’ll go for a walk down by the bay.”

“You hate the bay.”

“I hate scenes worse. I hate it worse for you to say things when you won’t even know what you’re saying. Come on, AI.” Her voice was hard, determined. She stood looking down at him.

Al glanced helplessly at Juan and Rosa.

“All right, Alberto,” Rosa said. “You papa and me talk with him. Later maybe you got to see him.”

“Sure,” Bea said. “Later.”

Al got up. His pale face was tense but his hands were trembling and he suspected that maybe Bea was right. He might say too much. He was charged with anger. He wanted to say the right things. It was important they be right. He glanced toward Dolores’ closed door, frowning. Still, something had to be said. This man had to be made to see before he did something he could not recall — and Big Juan retaliated in a violent way none of them could repair.

He swallowed hard, following Bea from the room.

They met Mal Hollister coming up the front steps. Bea closed her hand hard over Al’s. They stepped aside and Hollister bowed slightly, smiling.

Bea said, “Good evening, Mr. Hollister.”

She heard Al’s savage breathing. She tightened her grip on his hand. From the chair they heard Ric Suarez grunt something. But Ric was not Bea’s responsibility. She had all she could handle with Al.

“Go right in,” Bea said to Hollister. “Dolores will be ready in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Hollister said. And Bea thought, he has such a nice, gentle voice. She dragged Al after her, hurrying toward the bay, the stinking, smelly bay. She was going to ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes walking in that wet sand.