The Brat (12 page)

D
E
G
REEF
struck me hard across the back of the neck. “Paddle!”

I lashed back at him. The boat rocked and for a moment I hung over dark water. He stood there glaring at me, his teeth white against the shadow of his face.

“Damn you!” he said softly. “Make it fast and quiet. When I tell you to do something—do it!”

I turned, kneeling, and looked at him again. I was ready to jump him then; everything rushed up inside me and I suddenly didn’t care what happened. All I knew was that had been Evis and I had to get to her. If she got away now, I knew I’d kill him.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. He hauled his gun from the holster under his left arm and waved it at me. “We’re here now. That’s your wife in there—right?”

I knelt across the seat, watching him, listening to the harsh sound of our breathing.

“I’d as soon shoot you right here,” DeGreef said. “I don’t like you. Any part of you. So paddle!”

He would. I knew that.

I turned slowly in the seat and began paddling.

“That’s better.”

We both strained. The boat crept toward the island. I thought of what lay beneath the surface of the water, lurking to strike at the movement of hands.

There was no sound from the island. We moved across the water, gaining speed. I found myself overcome with vicious hate now, wanting to see her. It had built in my mind until the blood began to pound in my ears.

“What the hell’s that?” DeGreef said.

Stretching from the island out over the swamp, was a small network of piers and docks, small buildings. Everything was in terrible condition. Black lacings of boards had caved into the water. The one long pier looped up and down like a miniature roller coaster, into and out of the water.

Something large broke water nearby, then dove again, slithering in a slant dive, and I heard the lingering whip of a heavy tail.

We paddled on in silence.

Again I thought of attempting to capsize the boat and swim ashore. But that thing in the water …

“Okay,” DeGreef whispered. “We’ll tie up at the pier.”

We brought the boat in and tied it to a rotting piling against the side of the pier. The ancient boards went directly into the water on the channel side of the boat. The pier led to the island.

DeGreef pushed me roughly out of the boat onto the rotted planking, with the gun rammed into my back.

“Walk careful,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Someone ran across crackling brush, then feet pounded on sand.

“Faster,” DeGreef said.

We moved along the pier. Planks had fallen into the water and with every step the entire structure weaved and cracked. There were large spaces of nothing over the water and we had to walk the side beams which were little more than four-by-fours, nailed with bent, rusted spikes to the old pilings.

Then I saw her.

She stood against the dark undergrowth.

“Who is it?” she called. Then her tone changed, became hesitant—almost meek. “Berk?”

DeGreef was at my side, his eyes on the island. I struck the gun down, hitting his arm, and it fired. He was already off balance, trying to say something. I hit him again, hard, balancing and leaning into it. He spun with a yell from the pier. I turned and ran as he struck the water.

“Evis!”

Her legs flashed along the narrow stretch of beach. She turned into the undergrowth along what must have been a path.

I was straight out of my head with the effort to reach her. I wanted to get my hands on her—I couldn’t wait!

“Evis!”

I leaped from the edge of the pier into ankle-deep water. Muck sucked at my feet as I staggered toward the beach.

“Sullivan!” DeGreef called from out there. “Don’t be a fool!”

I ran along the soft beach. Fiddler crabs rustled in crackling waves ahead of me, fanning thickly. There was a moment of crazed shrieking and a wild thumping of unseen wings among the trees. Then the island was still.

Reaching the spot where she’d entered the woods, I ran in after her. I paused, listening, heard her feet pounding along the ground up ahead.

Then the sound ceased. Nothing.

There was a path, suffused light from the sky spreading through trees and vines. Mangroves had been bent back out of the way, but one lashed free and caught me across the chest. I fell, got up and ran again.

“Evis?”

No answer.

The path curved toward the island’s center. The smell of smoke was stronger now. Then I burst into a small clearing.

She was leaning over the fire, beating at it with a long stick. Sparks showered, and I recalled that day she’d burned her books and magazines. I heard her low cries as she swung the stick, trying to put out the fire. Then she saw me.

“Evis—damn you!”

She gave a little cry, flung the stick and turned, running full tilt. She could run like hell, I knew that. I took out after her. At the far end of the clearing there was a wall tent, staked lopsidedly against the trees.

She ran for the tent.

I dove for her as she made the tent’s entrance. She whirled, dodging away, looked down at me and for one brief instant I saw her frightened eyes, the hair swinging across her face. She looked wild and half crazed. She turned, running low down and hard along the side of the tent, and I got up and went after her.

“Don’t, Lee—don’t you touch me!”

I caught her this time, one hand snarled in a shred of dirty white dress that felt like silk, and I swung her around. We were both breathing hard, gasping. I threw her with everything I had and the dress peeled in a long tear from my hand. She sprawled backwards and slammed against the side of the tent between taut guy ropes. A stake popped out of the earth, releasing a shower of dirt. Her hands sought for the ropes stretched from the springy canvas as she landed and the canvas whipped her erect. She missed the ropes, came toward me in a running stagger.

I caught her by the shoulders.

I began shaking her. I couldn’t stop. It was as if I wanted to crush her in my hands. Her head wobbled around on her shoulders loosely and her eyes were wide and scared. Her long thick hair fell around my fists.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Kill me—go ahead!”

“Shut your mouth.” She knew how I felt. “Jesus,” I said. “I’d
like
to kill you.”

I couldn’t stop shaking her. She took it, then began cursing me. She kicked and clawed.

“You’re hurting me, Lee. Stop!”

I hurled her at the tent again. She landed and this time clung to the guy ropes, lying back against the side of the tent, legs spraddled, hair falling down one side of her face. Moonlight and firelight played across her body, over the torn, dirt-splotched white dress, the full thrusting breasts, the swath of naked thigh showing where the dress was ripped to the waist. She lay back against the tent, watching me, breathing that way. She was barefooted. She was home.

“You through?” she said. “Are you through, Lee?”

I didn’t speak, trying to catch my breath. Then I shouted at her. “Where’s the money, Evis? Where’s Kaylor? Don’t lie to me! That’s all I want from you.”

She lay back against the tent and slowly let herself slide to the ground, the dress pulling up to her waist. She sat on the ground, crumpled there, and began to laugh. She looked like a two-bit whore propped up in an alley after wearing out a line-up.

I heard somebody running through the brush across the clearing.

DeGreef burst into the clearing, saw us, stopped.

Evis went on laughing. She was some picture, sitting against the side of the tent with her hair hanging down that way. She sat with her knees drawn up and wide apart, her full bare white thighs exposed to the thin line of pants.

“Sullivan—damn you!”

DeGreef charged across the clearing, stumbled around the fire.

Evis stopped laughing. “Who’s he?”

I stood above her, breathing hard, still wanting to hurt her in some way and at the same time afraid I had.

“You bitch,” I said. “Where’s that money?”

She looked up at me. “I don’t have it.” Just then DeGreef reached us. He stopped and looked down at her, then over at me, then at her again. I saw the way his eyes drew at her, and something heavy came into his expression.

“So, this is Evis,” he said. He had his gun in his hand. He sighed deeply and there was a watery squish as he changed position. Water slowly dripped from his clothes. He was soaking wet and covered with mud and bits of black seaweed.

Evis made no attempt to cover herself. She stared at him and said again, “Who’s he?”

“He’s the Law.” I told her his name and who he was.

“So, you’re Mrs. Sullivan,” DeGreef said again.

“Yes!” she shouted. “Yes! So what?”

She got up and stumbled around the side of the tent and stood facing the fire.

I stepped past DeGreef and he grabbed my arm. “You two can get ready to make for home,” he said.

“Didn’t you hear her? She doesn’t have the money.”

“She’s lying.”

“Fine. Okay. She’s lying.”

We stared into each other’s eyes. He jerked free and went over to her and took her arm, holding the flesh tightly. He seemed to lift her off her feet and bring her around and set her in front of him. His voice was hoarse and loaded with fury.

“Now, little girl,” he said. “Where’s the money you and your herd of stallions took from that building and loan association?”

She put one hand to her mouth and stared across his shoulder at me, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

His hand came up, flashed against her face. The mark showed white, then red and dark, even in the light from the fire.

I moved toward him, then stopped.

“Let go my arm,” she said.

“I’ll break your arm right off short,” he said slowly. “You’d better talk, and damned fast, girlie.”

“Don’t call me girlie.”

I went over and grabbed him and whipped him away from her. Then I faced her. I started talking and I was so damned mad I couldn’t talk. It all caught in my throat and I just stood there staring at her.

“Yes,” she said. “You don’t have to believe me. I know you won’t believe me. Berk left me here—just left me. You understand that?” She leaned a little forward, speaking bitterly. “I don’t expect anybody to believe me. He left me here and took off and he’s got the money with him. By now he’s on a plane out of Miami. And I’m glad, you hear that?”

“She’s lying like hell,” DeGreef said, with a sigh.

I saw now that the dress she wore looked as if she’d been living in it for days, but I knew it hadn’t been that long. It was streaked with mud, and she seemed altogether wild and sick and lost.

“He pitched me off the air boat. Right out there in the water and mud,” she said. “Tent, clothes, and everything.” She looked at me. “Oh, why in hell should I try to explain?”

“You tell
me
,” I said.
“I’d
like to know why.”

“She’s lying like hell,” DeGreef said again. He brushed past me and elbowed her out of the way and ripped the tent-fly open and went inside. I heard him grunting, rooting like a bear. Evis kept watching me, her eyes sick and frightened.

“I mean it,” she said softly. “I mean it, Lee.”

“I’m laughing.”

DeGreef came out of the tent and looked at us. “She’s alone,” he said. “She wouldn’t've had time to hide that money.” He came up to me, his eyes dark shadows under the bristling brows. “Sullivan? Oh, Christ!”

He stepped a few feet away, then held the gun in the air. He fired it, waited a moment, then fired again, waited, and fired a third time. Then he flipped the gun open, felt around in his trouser pocket, brought out some shells and reloaded the revolver.

“They may hear that and they may not,” he said. “The upstate cops’ll be around, Sullivan. They’ll hear it sooner or later, and they’ll be here. You won’t get off the island, so don’t try anything.” He stood there watching us. “Go ahead and talk, you want to talk.” He turned and walked squishing over to the fire, held the gun in the air and squeezed off three more well-spaced shots into the night. The explosions rocked and echoed off across the swamp.

We waited.

There was no answering shot.

There was nothing I could do about him. I watched him peel off his jacket, wring it out, and drop it across a cabbage palm stump. I wondered if the shots had been for our benefit, maybe just to prove his damned gun worked, or if he actually thought the upstate cops were in the vicinity. It looked to me as if he wanted all the glory of taking us in. And he wanted that money, too. He began gathering wood for the fire from around the clearing, watching me all the time.

I looked over at her. “Where’s Kaylor?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to tell you. Can’t you see?”

“Who in hell did you think you were calling to out there, when we came in with the boat?”

She turned away. “I thought it was Berk coming back. What else? He won’t come back. I know that.”

She looked at me again, standing in front of the tent opening. Then her gaze turned to the ground. Then she looked up at me again. Oh, great. So what could I do to her? I could hate her and what good did it do? She could stand there and look at me that way, like a little kid with her finger in the God-damned jam jar, and I knew what was going on behind those eyes.

“You framed me for murder,” I said. “There are two dead men. You robbed and you ran and you stand there with the sweat of a dead man still on you, and look like that.” I was disgusted and mad. What the hell—it would never touch her. Not her. Not that one. Nothing would touch her.

“I know, Lee—I know.”

“Oh, fine—you know!”

DeGreef coughed loudly and I heard him break some dry wood, toss it on the fire. The fire blazed a little higher, flaming across her features, and her eyes watched me with a kind of determined bitterness now.

I took a step toward her. “I ought to wring your neck,” I said. “I mean, really wring it.”

She backed away from me, her eyes frightened again.

“I’ve had all I can stand!” she snapped. “Don’t you see? I’m sorry—sorry—
sorry!
What do you want me to do?”