The Man in the Net by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online Page A

Painting? To hell with it! Let it go— let everything go.
    He made the turn at the head of the hill by the Fishers’. They were almost home now.
    Suddenly she said, “I’ll go to them tomorrow and tell them I lied about you hitting me.”
    When he didn’t reply, she said more belligerently, “I was only telling them my point of view. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? After all, you’ve probably been trying to get them around to your side all evening and they’re my friends. Aren’t I allowed to take my friends into my confidence when it’s something as important as this, when it’s … ?”
    “Linda.”
    “And I had to explain about my eye. I suppose I could have said I’d fallen down walking in the dark through the woods. But I didn’t think of it. Honestly, I didn’t think of it. I just thought I’d got to explain and everyone knows people have fights, don’t they?”
    The house loomed ahead of them. She’d left no lights burning. It looked desolate, uninhabited.
    “Well,” she said, “I don’t see why you’re being so absurd about it. You always say you don’t like them. You’re always saying they’re such bores. Why do we have to go to those boring Careys? That’s what you always say.”
    As he swung the car into the drive, she lurched sideways, bumping into him.
    “You park the car,” she said. “I’ll get out. I think I’ll just get out.”
    Almost before the car had come to a halt, she was out of it, making for the kitchen door. To hell with her, thought John. Not hurrying, oddly detached from himself and from everything, he put the car in the garage, rolled down the door and stood a moment, looking through the skeletal silhouettes of the apple trees toward the woods beyond. A faint cry sounded from the darkness, almost like a human voice calling. An owl?
    He went into the house through the dark kitchen. The living-room was dark too. As he turned on a light, he looked at the gin bottle and the bottle of bourbon. Their levels hadn’t gone down. Had she watered the gin? Or did she have a bottle upstairs? A bottle upstairs probably.
    He could hear her moving around above him. He sat down in a chair. Soon her footsteps were tapping on the stairs. She came in. The drink had sobered her. She was at that stage. She had combed her hair and put on more lipstick. The swelling under her eye was darker in spite of powder. A little secret smile was playing around her mouth.
    Automatically, although he didn’t care anymore, the machinery of his analysis creaked on. Was the smile just self-satisfaction at having outsmarted him by hiding a bottle upstairs? Or was it … ?
    She came to him and sat down on the arm of his chair, casual, affectionate, as if nothing had happened. “You’re not still mad at me, are you? I’ll make it all right. I promise. I told them I’d had a drink anyway. It’ll be easy to explain that I didn’t know what I was saying, that I got it all mixed up about you hitting me.”
    She ran her hand through his hair. He got up. “For God’s sake, Linda. Let’s go to bed.”
    She climbed off the chair arm and hurried to him, putting her hands on his sleeves, smiling up at him with that same, secret, excited smile.
    “Darling, we’ll go to bed soon, but not just yet. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
    Danger signals alerted.
    “It’s something terribly important. And you must be sensible about it. You’ve got to realize that there are times —it’s always that way in marriage—times when you’re too close to things, when you can’t see it in the proper proportion, when … Darling, I called Charlie Raines.” He stood looking at her, momentarily stunned.
    “I called him at home,” she said. “I told him you were terribly excited about his letter and had asked me to fix up a date because you’d had to go out. It’s all arranged. You’re to meet him tomorrow at six o’clock at the Barberry Room for a