The Brat by Gil Brewer Read Free Book Online

brush she used, ribbons she used in her hair—all uniquely Evis. Everywhere I looked there were signs of her.
    I pounded through the house, dragging the dress behind me. I found a lot of things. She’d spent plenty of time out here with Ed Fowler. It twisted up through me. I remembered how they used to look at each other.
Now
I remembered. I’d been blind—a cockeyed fool.
    Then I found her engagement and wedding ring lying on the bureau, twinkling—the rings I’d bought her.
    Standing there in the dim bedroom, able to smell the perfume now, conscious of that and everything else … of what these walls had seen … of that note she’d left at the house, telling me to pick her up at eight-thirty, so I’d be in time to find murder and maybe with luck even be caught on the scene by the cops … and of all the hellish rest of it, too … I cursed her and tore that dress to shreds.
    It was like tearing
us
apart. I had to demolish every last stitch of cloth, scattering what remained of the dream across the floor of the room where a ghost of her still moaned and writhed in ecstacy.
    They were gone. The two of them.
    He was sucked into it now. I wanted to laugh at the son-of-a-bitch, but I couldn’t. She was vicious. She was an animal. She’d done this to me. She’d ripped me apart ever since I’d known her.
    I had to find her. I had to get away and stay away. My only chance was to find that crazy bitch and get the money back. Somehow. And I knew where she’d be—Christ, yes. There was only the one place she would go and even Fowler and all the God-damned gold in the world wouldn’t stop her….
    They’d be laughing. Right now. Squirming together someplace on the dark highway, laughing. Poor Lee. Poor Sullivan. By now the cops probably have him. He’ll never talk his way out of it….
    I grabbed the rings off the bureau and hurled them at the wall. They flashed and rattled around the room. I turned for the kitchen. The kitchen door slammed back against the wall and Pearson came charging in, his straw hat flapping.
    “What’s this?”
    I walked into the kitchen. He switched on the kitchen light, staring at me.
    “Henry?” his wife called from outside.
    “It’s all right,” I said. I must have looked plenty bad, because his face changed into a kind of wild eagerness. “I was supposed to meet Mr. Fowler here. Guess he got held up.”
    He choked a little, unable to talk. He whirled at the door and shouted.
    “Marjorie! You get to the office an’ call the police! Y’hear? Get a wag on, now. Tell ‘em to get right out here—I got ‘im, by the gods!”
    He snatched a look at me, standing hard against the doorjamb.
    “Got who?” I said.
    “You know who, you son-of-a-bitch!”
    I heard Marjorie thumping off around the side of the cabin, then across the driveway toward the office.
    “Who?” I said again. “You’ve got something all wrong, Pearson.”
    “Ain’t got nothing wrong. We caught you at last, didn’t we?”
    He slowly sidled toward the open drawer by the kitchen sink. He probably was after a weapon, a knife maybe.
    “Thieving son-of-a-bitch,” he said in a whisper. “You robbed your last place. We know who you are now—”
    “There’s a mistake,” I said.
    “No mistake! Every motel along here’s been hit. I been keepin’ an eye out for you, don’t worry. Never seen the likes—going to the front door, like you did.”
    I had to get out of here. If his wife called the cops, it wouldn’t take them long to get here. There was a twenty-four-hour beach patrol, and they worked with radio.
    I stepped toward him.
    “Don’t you try it,” he said. He sure had a bold front.
    “Believe what you want,” I said, “but answer a question. Did Fowler have many lady visitors?”
    He stared at me.
    “Answer me,” I said. “Or maybe when the cops get here they’ll only find you—all alone—and you won’t be able to tell them anything.”
    I moved still closer to him and he was against the