Night of Violence

by Louis Charbonneau

  They broke apart, the man she loved and the woman she hated, the woman in black. She knew that Lucy had come back. Seeing the passion in Art’s face, something she had never seen there before, something almost like anger in its intensity, she wondered if that was the way it was when you felt as he did about Lucy, if maybe that was what she lacked, a love that was an angry passion instead of a rosy dream. The image in the window blurred, and it was a moment before she realized why. She blinked at the tears, and then, because she knew she couldn’t hold them back, she dropped the little brown parcel on the step outside the door and ran blindly for her car.

  The next thing she knew she was out on the highway, and the night air was cold against the tears in her eyes.

  11

  Lefty Cox pulled into the last gas station on the highway leading south out of Albuquerque. As an attendant walked briskly toward them, Pete leaned out the window.

  “Did you see a black Ford go by here in the last half hour or so?” he asked.

  The manufactured enthusiasm faded from the young attendant’s face. “Naw,” he shrugged. “Dint notice any.’

  “California plates,” Pete prodded.

  “Mighta been one,” the youth said without interest. “I dint see it.”

  Pete grunted. He nodded at Lefty, who swung the Packard through the station. At the edge of the highway he stopped, looking questioningly at Pete Baer.

  “What the hell do we do now?” Lefty asked.

  “You’re supposed to be the brains of the outfit,” Lefty sneered. When Pete didn’t react he went on. “He musta give us the slip. Nobody saw a goddam black Ford come through this lousy town.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t come through.”

  “He give us the slip,” Lefty said doggedly. “The bastard.”

  “Okay, suppose you tell me where,” Pete said with a trace of contempt.

  “Look,” Lefty said. “We was supposed to try to catch the son of a bitch before he got to this goddam town. The other boys will catch him if he got through. It don’t matter what goddam road he took, they’ll get him.”

  “So what?” Pete said wearily. The frustration of losing Cutter was eating at him, and he felt a slow-burning anger.

  “But suppose the bastard didn’t hit the ball this far,” Lefty said. “Suppose he slipped a goddam bunt over on us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, goddamnit, listen to me, for Christ’s sake,” Lefty snarled, his quick temper flaring. “I’m trying to tell you. Suppose the bastard didn’t get this far?”

  “We were right behind him,” Pete said thoughtfully. “And he was heading this way.”

  “That’s just it, goddamnit. We were right behind him, and when we got here all the goddam motels were full up, weren’t they? So Cutter couldn’t of stopped here.”

  “So?”

  “Well, for Christ’s sake, Mr. Brains, what about that goddam small town, the one we didn’t go through?”

  “What town?” Pete asked, suddenly alert.

  “The one where that blonde was going. You know, the one that looked like she could hardly wait to jump between the goddam sheets.”

  Pete snorted contemptuously. “For God’s sake, can’t you forget that blonde?”

  “Well, goddamnit, I didn’t see you looking the other way,” Lefty retorted angrily. “And why wouldn’t Cutter have stopped there for the night? The bastard couldn’t know we was right behind him, and that’s just the kind of goddam little place he’d pick to stop at.”

  Pete Baer was silent for a minute. “Yeah,” he said finally.

  “Anyway,” Lefty said, mollified by Pete’s apparent agreement, “we got to stop some place ourselves. We’re not gonna find the bastard any place else tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Pete repeated thoughtfully.

  He nodded at Lefty and the little man swung the car onto the highway.

  Suddenly Lefty grinned. “That’s some bitch, that blonde,” he said. “That’s one I’d like to slip it to.”

  Pete wasn’t listening any more. He thought about the possibility of Cutter stopping short of Albuquerque in a small town on a side road, and the idea began to look more and more reasonable. Pete’s lids narrowed over the cold eyes as he felt the return of hope.

  And as the big Packard hurtled through the night toward Daro, twenty miles away Lew Cutter chose that moment to turn away from the front window of Unit 8 in the Hideaway Motel, convinced that he had seen nothing in the busy activity outside to worry about. The damn place was like Union Station, he thought, the way people ran in and out of their rooms or jumped in and out of their cars. But there had been nothing to disturb him except the incident of the young girl staring at his window.

  He had catalogued all of the motel occupants. The man in the gray Buick, probably a salesman, who had driven off early. The family next door to Cutter’s own unit, who had gone across to the café. The fat man who had arrived in the Cadillac with the redheaded woman in black, who was stacked clear up to the ceiling. The couple in the front office. The big guy had been moving around a lot, but that was his business. The tall girl had driven off in her little bug of a car. Finally there were the latest arrivals, the couple in the white convertible that spelled money. And there was somebody in the unit just across the driveway from Cutter, where a Plymouth was parked out front. But that had been there when Cutter arrived.

  Nothing to worry about.

  As he turned away from the window his gaze rested momentarily on the flashy, white convertible. The thought of the money it represented made his eyes swing toward the battered brown suitcase on the floor beside the bed. He hadn’t even counted the money, he thought, which was pretty stupid. He hadn’t had time. For two days he’d just been running as fast as he could move, assuming the money was all there because the oil man had been too scared to pull anything funny. But he ought to count it.

  He picked up the suitcase, flopped it onto the bed and unlocked it. When he saw the stacks of green bills his eyes glittered. He sat on the edge of the bed and began to thumb through the stacks, counting, first slowly, then more quickly. As the figures in his head mounted, the world seemed to contract until nothing outside of the room existed. There was only the suitcase and the growing stacks of counted bills and his own quick breathing.

  In the cool room he was sweating.

  12

  The Western Bar and Grill in downtown Daro wasn’t doing much business. Phil Nelson sat alone at one end of the bar, nursing a bourbon and water. This was one of the curses of being on the road. You spent a lot of time sitting on bar stools alone. You became very familiar with your image in a bar mirror.

  He thought of going back to the motel, but the featureless anonymity of the motel room held no attraction. It was a place to sleep and to leave behind, not a place to stay during the long, empty evenings.

  Years ago, right after they were married, Dorothy used to travel with him on his long trips, her laughter brightening the drab motel and hotel rooms and the monotonous treks between towns. She was with him that memorable June in ‘53, the biggest month he had ever had with American Features Syndicate, the month in which he had set a record they still talked about in the office when interviewing salesmen, because no one had ever matched that month’s production. Over six thousand dollars gross business, two thousand in commissions plus bonuses.

  Phil still remembered those last few days of the month when he saw that he could reach the unheard of goal of six thousand, and how he drove himself, caught up in the feeling of invincibility, sure that he would make it, his confidence contagious, infecting his sales talk so that he sold men he had never sold before or since. And Dorothy was with him, sharing his excitement and his success, listening to him in the evenings while he talked about the sales he had made that day, and what he had said, and how he had handled each prospect just right, letting him bite into the hook, then giving him line, giving him freedom, and reeling him in with ridiculous ease.

>   Was that the high point, then, the peak of his career, he asked himself, staring into the dark mirror past the rows of brown bottles? Was that the month he would remember, when he was seventy and too old to be on the road, and would be looking back at the distant peaks rising from the flat plain of his life?

  No! He slapped the glass on the bar, the hard rap disturbing the muted conversations in the corner and down the bar. His best months were still ahead. He knew more now. It was asinine, the way they hired kids to do a man’s job—it took a man to sell on the road, real selling, walking in cold and making a man want to buy, not just showing him a pair of shoes because he needed a pair of shoes, but creating in him a desire for something he had no thought of buying before you walked in. Phil had done it, the most difficult kind of selling, and he had had the biggest month of any—

  He caught himself. There would be bigger months, by God! All he needed was one, that one big month, and he would be on his way again. Once you started rolling there was no stopping you. That’s the way it worked.

  And you ought to be back in the motel right now working on that sales talk, he thought suddenly. You’re not going to have that big month just dreaming about it. You’ve got to work for it. He pushed the glass away and started to turn from the bar.

  A fat man with a red face and a rumpled suit slid onto the stool next to Phil’s and smiled at him.

  “New here, aren’t you?” The voice was heartily friendly.

  Phil nodded, hesitating.

  “Salesman?”

  “Yes,” Phil said, straightening up on his stool and turning back to the bar, unaware that he had just made the most important decision of his life. “Just looking the town over.”

  “Well, Daro’s a coming town, let me tell you,” the fat man said. He began to chuckle tentatively. “Reminds me of the one about the young salesman who came into this small town….”

  Phil listened, smiling now, waiting to laugh, and he wondered if the fat man was a businessman in town, perhaps a prospect, or somebody who would be able to tell him who might be a good prospect.

  The catch line came, drowned in fat, shaking laughter, and Phil laughed, loosening up and feeling better.

  “Hey, you’re empty,” the fat man said. “Joe, fix my friend up,” he called to the bartender.

  “No,” Phil said, “let me-”

  “Who’s the stranger here?” the fat man demanded. “Let me show you some Daro hospitality.”

  Phil let the rat man buy, he could get the next one, and when the drinks came he grinned across the bar into the fat man’s face reflected in the mirror.

  “Did you hear the one,” Phil began, “about the two drunks at a bar, and the one is mad and calls the bartender over and says to him, ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘this guy’s a queer!’ And the bartender says, ‘Whattaya mean, he’s a queer?’ And the drunk says, Well, for Christ’s sake,’ he says, ‘every time I kiss him he giggles!’”

  The fat man shook with shrill, high-pitched laughter, wheezing and shaking his head. “No,” he choked, still laughing, “I never heard that one. But that reminds me of the one about….”

  He went on, and Phil listened, beginning to feel good, the laughter waiting inside him, bubbling, and the thoughtful salesman’s part of his brain waiting, too, for a chance to ask questions, to get information, to use the fat man’s friendship to make a sale….

  Somewhere outside, the roar of a sports car’s engine split the quiet night, but inside the bar the sound was lost immediately in laughter.

  13

  Richard Wallace removed a chrome pint flask from the corner of his fiberglas suitcase and poured a full shot into the cap. Irene came out of the bathroom, her face and hair freshly done, looking cool and provocative in the white sheath dress. Richard raised his drink.

  “To the new Advertising Manager of the Los Angeles Branch of Venture Electronics,” he said, “and his beautiful wife.”

  He downed the drink in a gulp and shuddered.

  “Don’t be silly, Richard,” Irene said.

  She picked up her purse and gloves—regardless of the place, the weather or the occasion, Irene always wore gloves, or, at least, carried them. A lady never went out without gloves. Richard had not moved, and she raised an impeccable eyebrow at him. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “I’m a ready Teddy,” Richard said.

  Irene smiled slightly, indulgently, and waited. He put the empty cap back on the flask and rubbed his hand over his close-cropped head. He slipped on a lightweight, silk, sport jacket and opened the door for Irene. She waited while he locked the door, and they walked together across the gravel courtyard toward the highway, both of them tall, slender, well dressed, well groomed. They did not speak. At the highway Richard put a hand on her elbow and kept it there until they were across.

  As they reached the Route 77 Café, a family was just coming out, a boy and a girl with their parents. Richard saw the boy’s eyes widen with something like awe. The eyes slipped downward over Irene’s trim figure, then, guiltily, came back to her incredibly beautiful face. As he opened the door for Irene, Richard tried to think of the right word to describe the expression on the boy’s face. Stricken. Yes, that was it. Sick with desire.

  They went inside. The café was small and noisy, a juke box blaring at one end of the room. There were plastic-covered booths along the front. Irene walked along the line to the end booth, which was empty. Richard, following her, saw the heads turn as every man and woman in the café became suddenly aware of Irene. And, as always, they turned their gazes from Irene to him, the men quickly losing interest and looking back for another glimpse of Irene, the women’s eyes lingering on Richard for a moment, speculatively.

  It was like a ritual, Richard Wallace thought and after eighteen months of marriage he should be used to it. Strangely, he still felt the tingling of pride. Irene’s words echoed in his mind: “Don’t be silly, Richard.” You have no pride left.

  Irene slipped gracefully into the booth and dropped her purse and gloves—she had not worn the gloves, just carried them—onto the plastic seat. She brushed delicately at the tabletop with her fingers, removing a few stray crumbs. Her small, straight nose wrinkled slightly in disdain.

  “We really should have made a reservation, Richard.”

  “Not we,” Richard said. “Me. But then we really should have flown.”

  That annoyed her. “You know I can’t stand to fly.”

  Yes, he knew it, and there was no reason why he should keep bringing it up, but it was the one visible flaw in the otherwise perfect picture of a Venture Electronics executive’s wife. Mr. Braun himself had joked about it when Richard had been called into the president’s office just before leaving.

  “We may be calling you back to the home office,” Mr. Braun said with a smile. “And we may want you in a hurry. You must teach Irene to fly.”

  Besides referring lightly to Irene’s strange quirk, Mr. Braun in his oblique way had been hinting at great things in the future, making it clear that the assignment in the Los Angeles branch was merely a step up the ladder—if Richard had what it took. This was a vague promise which would not have to be kept if Richard didn’t show continued capacity for what was called “growth.”

  Richard had smiled. “She has a mind of her own, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, she has, hasn’t she?” Mr. Braun had said, still smiling, and Richard knew that he was not thinking of Irene’s mind at all.

  The flaw, Irene’s fear of flight, was obviously not held against her. Men like Braun would always forgive a woman like Irene almost anything. She was, after all, the perfect executive’s wife. In the past year and a half she ad been invaluable to Richard. As far as the company was concerned, the one thing he had lacked for years was a wife. The right kind of wife. Rising young executives fitted into the Venture Electronics picture better if they were married. And Richard had been reaching an age when his failure to fit into the pattern was becoming conspicuous. He had been thirty-seven
when they married, Irene five years younger, a secretary to old Harris in Personnel.

  Obviously, Richard couldn’t have made a better choice. Irene played her role superbly. Whether she was entertaining a group of the other junior executives and their wives at a small dinner party, or flirting with and fending off the older executives at one of the more important company functions, Irene’s touch was always deft and sure. And, marvel of marvels, she was able to enchant the men without offending their wives. Richard’s smile was faintly bitter. Woman’s intuition …?

  “Perhaps I could stand being amused, too,” Irene said across the table, interrupting his thoughts.

  Richard’s smile was apologetic now. I’m always smiling, he thought, one way or another. The man with the gray flannel smile.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Are you very hungry?”

  “I was….” Irene’s glance around the café was all-expressive.

  A waitress suddenly appeared at their booth, a blonde girl with full breasts, and a soiled cotton dress. Richard stared at her.

  “May I have your order?” she asked, her voice obviously impressed, straining for dignity.

  Richard’s gaze lingered longer than necessary on her throat. Abruptly he forced himself to look at the menu. He ordered steaks, rare, and a salad. He didn’t look at the waitress again.

  It was the dress that was oddly stimulating, he thought. The soiled dress….

  Thirty minutes later they left the café and crossed the highway back to the motel. When they were alone again in the small, drab room, Irene gave a sigh.

  “I think I’ll go right to bed,” she said.

  Richard didn’t answer. He sat smoking, watching her undress, the white dress giving way to cool, white flesh. He remembered the quote from Fortune, a lucky chance that had impressed Mr. Braun tremendously—that might have had quite a bit to do with the promotion to Ad Manager for the Los Angeles Branch. The magazine had been doing an article on the modern executive’s wife, and from the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of interviews, the writer had used a conversation with Irene as the key to his theme. The writer had asked Irene what she thought was the role of the executive’s wife today, hinting at the old theory of the “power behind the throne.”