Heat of Night (9 page)

His laughter shook the car, his laughter and sobs. “How you know, baby? How you know? Maybe you ain’t ever lived until — right now. Now. Now …”

S
TILL THE STORM HELD ITSELF
suspended, wind waiting in the empty places, clouds swollen, black, spitting gusts of rain into the silence and dry tension ahead.

Dolores walked rigidly across the yard and went stealthily into the kitchen. She didn’t know how she got out of that car, or crossed the yard, or entered the house, or even why she bothered to do any of it. Why didn’t she simply die out in the yard?

She held her breath, afraid she’d meet someone. She didn’t see how she could endure facing any of them now. She was too dirty, she couldn’t face anyone.

She pushed open her bedroom door only enough to allow herself to slip through. She closed it cautiously and did not breathe until she heard the catch snap into place.

She turned on the light suspended from the ceiling on a drop cord. When she turned she glimpsed herself in the smoky mirror.

She bit the back of her hand to keep from screaming. Her face was swollen, bruised, but this didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Ric had hit her. Her dress was torn, ripped, and she smelled of gun oil and gasoline and whisky and stale cigar smoke and Ric and everything vile.

She trembled, toppled face first across the bed. She lay inert, refusing even to think. Tears wet the covers. A lump swelled in her throat making it difficult to breathe.

Her hands shook. She hated Ric Suarez and she hated herself and she hated God’s world and if this were God’s world, then He could have it.

“Dolores. Baby.
Mi corazon.
”

She gasped, spun over on the bed, stared up at Rosa.

Her mother wore a faded flannel gown that hung like sacking on her. She’d braided her hair haphazardly. She hadn’t slept. Rosa glanced at Dolores’ tear-streaked face but her gaze riveted on the ripped dress, torn underthings. All her nightmares were suddenly true.

She hugged her breasts, crooning her illness. “The Mother of God.”

Dolores tried to pull her dress together. Rosa shook her head, stunned, unable to pull her gaze away.

“He did this? He tear off you dress?”

Dolores’ eyes brimmed. Her mouth trembled, she did not speak.

Rosa answered herself. “You dress … he tear off you dress.”

“Mama.”

“Shh.” Rosa’s voice was stricken. “Don’t talk loud. Don’t wake you papa. Don’t let you papa see you this way.”

She turned trying to lock the door but there was no key. There were no keys on any doors in Juan’s house. He said, “With a key who you keep out? You friends. That’s only who you keep out when you lock a door.”

Rosa leaned against the door, folding her arms. If anyone tried to open it, she would have warning.

“This dress, child. Take off. Quick. Give it to me. We must not let you papa see this.”

Dolores moved woodenly, stripped away the dress, hating her body, exposed now as Ric had exposed it. Rosa gathered up the dress, retreated to the door.

“Musn’t ever let you papa know. He see this dress, he do something so terrible. We lose you papa. We can’t never lose you papa. No matter.” She shook her head. “You lie down. We got to think. I hear you cry. I come quick. I slip from bed so I not wake you papa.” She looked about, stunned. “I do not think to see this.” Her lips bared her teeth. “Do they call him a gentleman now?” She shook the wadded dress in her fist. “A fine gentleman. My God. I could kill him with my bare hands.”

Dolores stared at Rosa, shook her head.

Dolores pressed her face into the pillow. She was too ill to lie there and yet she never wanted to get out of this bed.

She squeezed her eyes shut and still could not shut out the way it had been, lying there, dead in mind and heart and body and feeling Ric’s whisky-hot breath, feeling his hatred, and dying inside because of what he did to her.

Rosa sat on the bed beside her, mattress and springs sagging and whining under her bulk. Rosa smoothed her forehead with a cool cloth. Thunder rattled the plankings of the house.

Dolores trembled, pulling away from Rosa’s hands. She couldn’t endure anyone’s touching her now. His hands … She squeezed her eyes shut again.

“Tell you mama, what he did — ”

Dolores rolled her head on the pillow.

“Tell you mama. When he get you alone, he rip you clothes. Ah, this vile thing. To a child he would do so vile a thing.”

She touched gently at Dolores’ bruised face. “Now you believe you mama. You see, you mama knows. A vile man. You will not see him again.”

“I — don’t want to see anybody — ever again.”

“Shu. This will pass. You will forget. We will not tell you papa. We bury this dress. Of clothes he never thinks.” She crossed herself. “But you face — what we do about you poor face?”

“It — doesn’t matter, Mama.”

“Shu. How it matters. This vile thing is evil all in itself but God trembles to think what happens if you papa hears. This we got to think about now. Papa was ready to kill him for coming near you. And now — ” she could not speak of it.

“You are young,” she said after a long time. “This is wicked. I am sick it is so wicked. But you are young, Dolores. You will forget.”

“I begged him, begged him not to.”

“Shu. Of course you did. Quiet, please do not wake you papa.”

“Poor Papa … Poor Mama.”

“Try to sleep. Do not waken you papa — you papa get in a rage to kill.”

Now the first stunning shock had subsided, Juan was her first concern. It had always been like this. All their lives the children lived with Rosa’s terror of the law and Juan’s contempt for it, her fear of the consequences of Juan’s violent temper driving him to commit a crime and thrusting him into the clutches of the law. She did not see how she and her brood could exist without Juan. Her first thought was to protect Juan from himself.

“We can hate this man, but we got to think what you papa do if he learns the truth. You love you papa but for a little while you disobey him. You think Dolores is so grown up, know all about men. Now you believe you papa, you be all right. We keep this terrible secret, you and me.”

Her voice softened to a crooning whisper. “You sleep now, my beautiful one. Some way I think on these bruises of your face … we tell you papa you bump something in dark kitchen. This make you cry. Then mama come in to see. Like now. Is this not the answer?”

Dolores did not move.

“Tomorrow we go to confession. We ask God to help.”

“God.” The way Dolores said it made Rosa tremble and cross herself.

She closed her fingers on Dolores’ shoulders, looking upward supplicatingly, speaking inside her mind: The child is young, God, she does not understand. Such a child. Such a big hurt. Surely in a heart big like yours, you can find it to forgive her?

Aloud she spoke coldly, “Don’t talk this way about God. Is not God’s fault a man is like this one — dirty and evil — to chase young girls.”

Dolores lay, eyes closed, remembering the knife she’d seen on the kitchen drainboard. When she walked through the kitchen a sudden flash of lightning glared on the knife blade. She’d paused, trembling, still seeing the knife after the white flare of lightning passed. So easy, she thought, there was the knife, so close and so easy.

“I want to die,” she whispered.

Rosa clutched the girl’s body fiercely against her. Her face twisted, tormented: to take one’s life a mortal sin, to think of it, a sin.

“Don’t talk this way.” Her voice was hard with the fear in it. “No. Don’t you never talk this way — not to you mama, not to nobody.”

She rocked the girl in her arms, crooning. “You are my body. You are from my body. My child. My heart. So young. So lovely — you mama want to cry when she sees you walk on a street, in a church. So lovely, so much to live for, you must never talk this way.” She shook her head. “When you not see this old man no more, you forget — ”

“What?”

Dolores lay back on the pillow, staring up at Rosa. “What did you say, Mama?”

Rosa shrugged, shook her head. “I don’t know. What? You no see this wicked old man no more. We keep you from him now. You see only nice Cuban boy. We not talk about him no more. We no let you papa talk about him.”

Dolores shook her head, unable to believe Rosa thought Mal capable of this ugly crime. She felt a sudden urge to hysterical laughter. Why not Mal? A man like him, foreign to them, who else but Mal?

Dolores cried out, shaking her head.

Rosa clapped her hand over Dolores’ mouth, pressing her down into the pillow.

“You want you papa should come in here? You do not have to protect this dirty man from us. Never would I let you papa know what this man has done because you papa would kill him — and he’s not worth you papa’s toe!”

“He didn’t do it!”

“You all upset — ”

“Listen to me — ”

“I believe what I see. We beg you to stay away from this dirty man, this divorce man. We ask him nice to leave you alone. You go with him — you come back clothes all rip, face bruise. This I see. I believe what I see.”

“Ric!
It was Ric!
Drunk. He was — waiting for me — ”

She covered her face with her hands, shuddering.

Rosa stared at her a long time, eyes distended, face bloodless. She heard the words but could not believe. Ric was a good boy, a good church upbringing. She nodded to herself, it was clear, Dolores was shielding this man, even from her.

“Hush. Now hush,” she said at last. “You not know what you say. In the morning we get the priest, we get a doctor.”

Dolores turned her face to the wall, buried her face in the pillow.

Rosa stayed a long time, soothing her, crooning, singing the songs she’d sung to all her children. She thought of what Dolores had said about Ric, tried to believe it, tried to reconcile it in her mind with what she knew about Ric, about his family. She couldn’t do it. She shook it from her mind.

When she thought Dolores at last asleep, she said a prayer over her, snapped out the light. She stood a long time in the darkness, finally went out and closed the door softly. Dolores rolled over on the bed.

Her eyes were wide open.

D
OLORES SCREAMED.

It was the last thing she wanted to do, the last thing she would have done except that a long time after Rosa left her alone, she fell asleep.

She screamed in Ric’s car when he ripped off her dress. It may have been an instant after she fell asleep, a few minutes, an hour later. It did not matter. She screamed and lunged upward in bed, feeling the chill in the room, the cold against the windows.

Suddenly everyone in the Venzino household was awake and yelling at each other. The dogs barked, quieted, and then barked again louder than ever. The smaller children wailed, the older ones giggled. Within minutes all were on their feet and every light burned brightly.

The raging storm could no longer be heard inside the Venzino house.

Dolores reached out frantically, turned on her light.

She sat up in bed, shivering, stunned by the sound of her own scream, staring at the limber shadows the wind shook against her window.

Rosa stood guarding the door to her room, haphazard braids bobbing, bulbous hips almost filling the doorway.

“Is all right. Is all right,” Rosa was saying. “Go back to bed, children. All of you, back to bed.”

“Dolores screamed,” Al said. His voice was calm but troubled. Across Rosa’s shoulder, Dolores saw Al, eyes puffed, sleep-swollen, thinning hair standing up about the crown of his head. “What’s the matter with Dolores?”

“She had — bad dream, this is all. Please — go back to sleep.”

“Come on, Al,” Bea said from behind him. “Let’s go back to bed.”

For all of them this had a middle-of-the-night unreality. Al peered over the top of Rosa’s head and his eyes widened, his mouth twisted. Dolores remembered the discolored bruises and turned her face away, covering it with her hands but it was too late.

“Ma, I want to know,” Al said. “What’s the matter with Dolores?”

Rosa ignored him, herding the children to their beds. They all protested, all had to troop to the kitchen for water, the older ones padded to the back porch to quiet their dogs. Finally they straggled back to their beds with Rosa crooning, “Back to bed. Is all right. Everything is all right.”

She still barred Dolores’ doorway with her body. Finally, Al firmly but gently moved her aside and stepped into the room.

He stared at Dolores. “What happened to you, kid?”

“Dolores is bump her face. In the kitchen in the dark, when she come home. This is all. Is this not true, Dolores?” Rosa was frantic with her lie, crossing herself, mutely pleading with Dolores to substantiate her story, because even hearing it from another would take some of the curse off her lie, make it nearer the truth; at least, the sin would be shared.

Dolores nodded. She did not lift her head. She kept her face covered with her hands.

“Dolores, you’re lying. Something happened to you. I want to know what it is.” Al was firm but at the same time very kindly.

“All right. All right. Shu.” Rosa felt relieved, less abandoned by heaven now Dolores had agreed she’d bumped her face in the dark kitchen. She was ready now for another lie, another sin.

She crossed herself covertly. She’d get them all back in bed and quieted, somehow pacified. She glanced about worriedly for Juan and caught her breath, hearing him moving about in another part of the house. The world tilted, seemed to stand still as she waited. She was troubled, confused, had to keep her mind on what she said had happened to Dolores so none of them heard anything too near the deadly truth.

She touched Al’s arm. “She — had a little fight — ”

“A little fight? She looks like she was overmatched.”

“I do not mean a fight at all.” Rosa brushed a braid from her face. “This I do not mean. A quarrel. With this man — make her unhappy — ”

“Hollister?”

Rosa nodded. “But all for the betters. Dolores have make up her mind. She is not going to see him any more. Is this not true, Dolores?”

Dolores nodded, the words were painful, she wasn’t ready to hear them spoken yet. She wasn’t going to see Mal any more — she couldn’t face him after what had happened to her but she couldn’t endure either to look ahead to the empty days without him.

“What’s the truth, Dolores?” Al said.

“What’s this, Alberto?” Rosa sounded injured. “You think you mama tell you a lie?”

Al smiled faintly but ignored Rosa. “What happened, Dolores? Did Hollister throw you over?”

She shook her head, did not look up.

Bea said, “Whatever it is, Al, it’s too painful for her to talk about. Her heart is broken.”

“What do you know about it?” Al said. “When did you ever know anything about a heart?”

“I studied one once. In biology.”

Al sank to the side of the bed. “Dolores. Tell me. What’d he do? I’ll go up there right now. I’ll beat hell out of him.”

“Al, please — ” Bea said.

“You stay out of this. I listened to you once tonight. I let you drag me out of here when Hollister arrived. I should have talked to him then. If I had talked to him then, none of this would have happened.” He put his hand on Dolores’ shoulder. “What’d he do to you, baby?”

“Nothing.” Dolores whispered, pressing her hands more tightly against her heated face.

“Don’t try to save his bacon, baby. Don’t lie to save that no-good.”

“He didn’t do anything!”

Al stared up at Rosa. “Well somebody is wrong. No sense trying to get anything from either of you. I’m going up there and see Hollister.”

“In this weather?” Bea cried. “This time of night?”

“What the hell do I care what time of night it is. I can’t sleep anyway.”

Bea caught his arm. “Al, for heaven’s sake. Wait until morning, anyhow.”

He laughed at her, a snarling sound. “Sure. Wait until morning. Make a social call on that bastard. Well, we’ve been polite too long now. If we’d told him once and for all how we felt — Dolores wouldn’t be messed up like this.”

Dolores touched his arm. “Al — please don’t…. He didn’t do this…. Ric — did it.”

Al gave a puzzled laugh, hesitated. He glanced at Rosa but obviously she didn’t believe Dolores. Al didn’t know what to do.

He shook his head. “Why would Ric do a thing like this? He never did anything like this before.”

“Shu. She’s all upset. Don’t know what she says.” Rosa watched Al’s face, seeing her own need for vengeance in his eyes. Hollister was to blame, no matter what anyone could prove, and she wanted him hurt, as Dolores was hurt, as she and her family were hurt.

Al nodded. “You afraid what Papa might do to Hollister, kid? Think he’d be easier on Ric?” He shook Dolores’ shoulder. “Is this true?”

“No. I told you. It was Ric, I swear.”

“Stop covering up for Hollister. By God, I’m going up there. I can’t stand seeing a thing like this happen to her.”

Rosa nodded, this was as it had to be, the only way. She wanted revenge, she could not think of vengeance cruel enough but she knew Juan would kill Hollister and she didn’t want this. She wanted Hollister dead. Alberto was smart. There was much Alberto could say and do.

She closed her fingers on Al’s arm, face white. “Yes. You go there, Alberto. Quick. Before you papa can do something we all regret.”

Al stared at Rosa. He’d never seen her face like this, contorted with rage and the need for vengeance. He nodded, not looking at Bea.

“All right, Ma. All right.”

He heeled around, strode from the room. He struck his shoulder against Juan who was coming through the doorway. For a moment they stayed wedged there because neither cared to give way. Juan’s face was like something hewn from peeled cypress.

Rosa stared at Dolores’ torn dress wadded in Juan’s fist. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Juan was dressed, ready to leave the house.

“Papa,” Rosa said.

She caught Juan’s arm, looking wildly at AI, her black eyes begging him to do something. Anything. He held her gaze a moment then strode across the parlor. If he got to Hollister ahead of Juan he could throw a scare into him, get him out of town.

Juan stepped close to Dolores’ bed, grasping the torn dress in his trembling fist. He shook Rosa aside as though she were a small child.

“Dolores.” Juan’s voice was deadly.

With hands over her face she looked up. In his face she saw the agony and anger. Her swollen mouth quavered in a silent prayer. When he learned she’d been attacked, he’d kill somebody — Mal or Ric. He would kill. She had to lie with Rosa and keep him from learning the truth. She hated Ric, she wasn’t trying to protect him, she only wanted to protect her father from his own wrath and its consequences.

Mostly she wanted to be left alone — in the dark.

He saw the bruises on her face now, but since he’d found the dress where Rosa had stuffed it behind a chair in their bedroom, he’d become immune to further shock. He shuddered. His eyes darkened.

“I find this.” He shook the dress. “This you dress? Dress you wear out of here tonight?”

“Papa,” Rosa said. “Is not what you think.”

“Is not what I think. How you know what I think?” Juan’s voice was flat. “Is what I know.”

“Papa, no,” Rosa said.

He shook the dress again before Dolores’ face. She sagged against the pillow.

Bea bit at her lip but did not speak. She stared at the torn frock, frowning. Something was terribly wrong. She couldn’t make herself believe Mal Hollister had done this. She knew Rosa and Juan would believe Hollister was guilty but wouldn’t believe Ric was. You trusted first in your own people.

“Dolores,” Juan’s voice was choked, but gentle. “Just answer you papa one question. You hear you papa?”

Dolores nodded. His trembling fist shook the dress. “This man. This Hollister do this?”

She moved her head from side to side.

“He did not tear it? This Hollister?”

“She tell you no!” Rosa said.

“You stay out of this. Now, Dolores. You papa ask you one more thing.”

Dolores did not move. Bea went to her, put her arm about her and Dolores sagged against her.

Juan looked ill. “He not do it, then who?”

She shook her head, frightened eyes darting toward Rosa. If they told him Ric had done it, his rage would be uncontrollable. She prayed Rosa would not speak.

Juan bent forward, pleading. “Dolores. You papa very sad. Very sick. You not fool with you papa. Not now. You tell Papa. If not this Hollister, then you tell me quick.” His voice rose, raging.
“Who did this?”

She shook her head, pressing hard against Bea.

He raged at her. “You don’t have to tell me. I know — and I kill.”

He turned and his shoulders sagged. His mind was tormented and full of gray thoughts. He was no longer young — once he had acted in rage, now he stopped to think first. He was getting old. The thought of killing was more terrible now than in his youth. But he had not gotten so old that a terrible wrong like this should go unpunished. It was just that it seemed to him he was old suddenly and God was turning his face away when for the first time in his life he needed Him. He moved toward the door.

“Papa.” Rosa said.

He turned, waiting.

“It was not this Hollister, Papa. You got to believe the girl.”

“You lie about it, too. You think to turn me from what I got to do?”

Rosa ran after him, caught him when he reached the high shelf in the front room where he kept his ancient Colt
.45.
They looked at each other. The rain battered the roof, driven by wailing wind.

“You crazy, Papa? You gone crazy?”

“I guess so. Mama, maybe I never had good sense. The man who does this to my daughter. If he lives — what kind of man am I?” His fist closed on the dress.

“Papa, you think I not hate? But — maybe it was not this man — what then?”

Juan nodded. “I’ll give him his chance to beg before I — ”

“Oh, Papa. If you kill this man, you kill not just him but also kill me, you kill yourself — and the children.”

“You talk as if this is something I want. Is something I must do.”

“He’s not worth it, Papa.”

“No. But not worth living, too.”

“But that’s it, Papa. He not worth it. Not worth the bullet. Not worth one day of Luis’ happiness. And Linda? What of her? At thirteen, she begins to need a papa — what of her? And of me, Papa? You think I have not had nightmares when you talk of hunting treasure in the Gulf? Why do I weep to keep you home? Yet a hundred times I rather you go out there and hunt this treasure — with air-lung, without air-lung — because in the night when I stand on the porch looking for you to come home across bay — I know in my heart maybe there is a chance you do come home…. But no — if you go now, if you kill this man, I got no hope. I cannot live like this, Papa … not without no hope.”

He shook his head slowly, tears standing in his haggard eyes. “What you want I should do, Mama?”

She looked about prayerfully but her gaze came always back to the ripped dress, the big ugly gun. “Leave the gun here, Papa. Sí. Sí. I know. You got to do something. Sí. Go to the sheriff. Tell him what happened. Ask him what to do. Tell him there must be a law — some law.”

He thought about this for a long time, looked at the wadded dress, at the gun. “I go to him, Mama. But Hollister is — a rich man. I am a fisherman. I do not hope the sheriff will do much.”

“But you will have try. Never can they say you did not try.”

Finally he nodded. “Still I tried to talk to this Hollister. This did nothing.”

“But you did try. Once more try, Papa. For me.”

He nodded again. “But if the law does nothing, then I must. You see this, Mama?”

She nodded, no longer hoping for anything but time. “You wait for me, Papa. I go with you as far as the church. I must pray.”

He jerked his head impatiently. “Then hurry. I might change my mind as I stand here.”