The Bitch by Gil Brewer Read Free Book Online Page B

Janet’s breathing. It came te me across the rooms, slow and steady.
    I went quickly, silently as possible, into the hall and carefully opened the closet door. The strong smell of woolen clothes and a faint odor of mothballs rose in the pitch darkness of the closet. I reached toward the right, dragging the money sack along the floor, pushing at the clothes, working as fast as I could. I was half in the closet, feeling something akin to success, when the living room overhead lights went on brilliantly.
    “What are you doing, Tate?” Janet said sleepily.
    I didn’t look at her. I just stood there. The sack was on the floor, half in the closet door. I lifted it and slung it back against the far right wall of the closet, then stepped out and closed the door. I looked at her then.
    “What was that?” she said.
    “What was what?”
    “Don’t be silly. What are you doing home?”
    “I just came home. Just got in.”
    “I know that. What time is it?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What did you put in the closet, Tate?”
    “Boy, do you look sleepy.”
    She blinked at me and yawned, her gaze on the closet door. She yawned terrifically, standing there in a white shorty nightgown with tiny blue frills around the throat and hem. She stood with one foot on the other, rubbing the sides of her face with her hands, then scratching into the thick, shoulder-length mass of auburn hair. When she ceased yawning, her eyes watered, but she was still staring at that damned closet door.
    “Don’t tell me it’s morning already?”
    “Sure,” I laid. “It’s morning. Why don’t you go back to bed?”
    She stepped toward me, then stopped and grinned. Her eyes were a little sly, the way they sometimes get. Her eyes were a very dark, deep blue, with tiny spokes. They were very beautiful eyes, Janet’s eyes.
    I wanted to lead her into some other room, but I didn’t because the minute I left the room, she’d run over to the closet and have a look. I cursed myself for a fool, for bringing the money-sack here. That didn’t help.
    Fine panic drifted down through the walls. Slow-winged fright flapped through the apartment like a loathsome bird, its wings brushing lightly against my shoulders. For a brief moment, I was down—down as far as you can get.
    Every single thing that was against me at this moment stood out clearly in my mind. Every blessed little thing.
    And none of the feeling was really new. It was all old and stale and familiar. I’d been through it a hundred times. I’d made all the usual mistakes, and I was gradually ending up on the bottom of the pile. Just like always.
    I began to laugh, looking straight at her. I couldn’t control it. It burst past my lips and I sank back against the closet door, breathless with this silent, sick laughter.
    She stared at me.
    “Tate, are you drunk?”
    I quit that, sharply.
    “No. I’m not drunk.”
    I wanted to shout it all at her, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her a thing. I just stood there like a fool, looking at her, waiting for her to make her move. Waiting for her to speak—to say some of the sharp, biting, unkind things she always said when I fouled up. Because I had fouled up again.
    Her eyes were brighter now. She was coming awake.
    “I want to know what you put in that closet, Tate.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Tate.”
    I held my teeth together tightly. The sides of my jaw began to ache, the muscles seemed to catch in there.
    Janet looked at me, then walked across the room to the desk by the front window and picked up the small black leather traveller’s clock I’d bought her for the trip to Mexico that we never took. She checked the time and set the clock down without a sound.
    Then she looked at me.
    “Tate. Why are you home so early?”
    I just shook my head. It damned near tore the heart out of me, the way she said it. Very quiet and tentative now. Like a little girl, all scared and not wanting to be scared. Praying inside her that nothing was wrong,