Heat of Night by Harry Whittington Read Free Book Online

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.”
    “Two?” the cook’s husband looked up from his ice cream. “I thought it was a banquet anyhow.”
    Perhaps it is, Mal thought with that chill of bitterness. Maybe it’ll be the banquet where the big bad wolf eats