The Anatomy of Violence Read online

  “That’s gonna be a damn funny trial then. I can just see you as a defense witness saying, ‘No, that ain’t the guy.’ How’s a jury gonna convict?” He drained his glass then set it down hard. “Listen, what’s his bond?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars.”

  He whistled softly. “Man, he’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. They’ll let him see a chance to escape. Then …” He pointed his finger at me and let his thumb drop. “Pow!”

  I gasped as though a real bullet had struck my breast. I remembered that Richard had escaped from prisons twice before. “They wouldn’t!”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong about this town, but with that fat lieutenant crackin’ the whip …” He hunched over and stared into his empty glass. “If I had money for gas, I’d start burning asphalt right now.”

  His fear of Koch made me squirm. I jumped up, found two dollars and sixty cents in my purse and put it on the table. “There, buy some gas.”

  “Hey!” he called after me. “I’ll pay you back.”

  I walked on without answering. I’d thought of a way to get Richard out.

  Five minutes later I walked into the tall white office building that dominated the city’s skyline. I would simply say: “Jules, please put up Richard’s bond.” And since twenty thousand was money, even to a Curtright, Jules might say: “Very well, Laurie. Pull off your pants and get on the couch.” No, he wouldn’t be that direct.

  I found Simone sitting at a typewriter in Jules’ outer office. She looked at me as though she’d seen me crawl out of her salad, then ran her fingers through her red-gold hair and said lover-boy wouldn’t be in for half an hour.

  I lowered myself into an armchair and said I’d wait. Fifteen minutes ticked by while I breathed the odor of rich carpets and polished mahogany. The cooled air dried the sweat on my body, and my clothes lay cool and damp against my skin.

  Simone’s typewriter clicked fitfully. At least once a minute she swore under her breath, caught her lower lip between her teeth and scrubbed with the eraser. Finally she mumbled, without looking up: “Don’t laugh. This is your fault.”

  “My fault?” I was startled.

  “You turned him down Saturday night; now you’re his obsession. Told me from now on I’d earn my pay sitting up.” She slammed the carriage back and attacked the keys again. A minute later: “Goddamn it!” The carriage shrieked as she jerked the paper from the machine and threw it in the wastebasket. “I wish he’d use the goddamn telephone!”

  Her face gradually softened as she lit a cigaret. She got up and walked around the desk, swinging her hips. “What the hell, honey, I can’t really blame you.” She leaned back with her palms on the desk and her feet wide apart. “Jules is such a fabulous lover,” she sighed.

  “I’m not looking for a lover, Simone.”

  “So what’s new? That’s why he’s obsessed.” She blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Damn! I should have played it cagey like you. Held out on him. I wouldn’t be pounding this damn machine.”

  Okay, I’m impressed. You’ve been sleeping with Jules. “It’s easy to say no.”

  She smiled. “You’re new to the club, honey.” She ran her palms down the inside of her thighs and wriggled her hips. “With Jules I can never remember the word.”

  A buzzer sounded and Simone jumped as though a wasp had flown up her dress. “And he knows it, dammit!” She stabbed out her cigaret, grabbed a compact from the drawer and touched up her lipstick. She was tucking a strand of hair above her ear when the buzzer started sounding in short bursts.

  She ran to the door, paused a moment to smooth the dress over her rump, then pulled back her shoulders and gently opened the door. A moment later I heard her voice, shy and uncertain, now, telling Jules I was here.

  “Well, send her in.” Jules’ voice was faintly petulant. “Then go out for coffee or something. I won’t need you.”

  I glimpsed a flicker of pain in her eyes when she came back, but she quickly resumed her brittle mask. She walked to his door with her hand on my arm. She whispered, “Handle him right and he’ll give you anything you want.” Then, unable to resist a last reminder, she said, “I used to get whatever I wanted. The bastard!”

  Huge was the word for Jules’ office. You could have painted lines on the floor and played basketball, if you first removed the green carpet that sunk under my feet like deep forest moss.

  Jules grinned and stepped from behind a mahogany desk that could have held a five-piece band. “I’ve got everything ready,” he said, leading me to an armchair.

  I sank back, feeling like a child in grown-up furniture. Then I straightened. “You have?”

  He nodded, perching on the edge of his desk. He hiked up his trouser leg, swinging his foot, and I saw that his shoes had ridged, crepe soles. But he’d have changed since Saturday.

  “I was expecting you.” He twisted, stretched across the desk, and jerked open a drawer in one swift, smooth movement. He straightened and held up a folder. “Tickets,” he said, grinning. “Confirmation on your hotel suite.” He held up a yellow paper, then his grin widened. “And don’t bother to pack. Well outfit you completely.”

  “Pack? Listen Jules—” Anger had risen in me as I’d realized what he thought. Simone and the other women had spoiled him. They acquiesced so eagerly he’d come to expect it. “I’m not going to New York with you.”

  His dark brows met above his straight nose. “You said when they found the man—”

  “The man isn’t Richard.” I reminded myself why I’d come and sank back in the chair, forcing the anger from my voice. “I came to ask a favor, Jules. Could you put up his bond?”

  Jules looked down at his swinging foot, and a hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. He lit a cigaret with a gold desk lighter that must have cost twice as much as my chiffon formal, then spoke with smoke rolling out of his mouth. “This boy must be a dear friend of the family. Your dad was down at the bank today trying to float a loan for his bond.”

  “Did they …?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t okay it. Your dad didn’t have enough collateral. And this boy has the earmarks of a jumper. He’d be in Mexico within twelve hours and”—he lifted his palm and blew over it—“there’d be my twenty thousand. I can think of better ways to spend it.”

  He studied the lighter and clicked it on and off. Six times, I counted, and I waited. “I’d rather throw it out the window and watch the citizens fight over it,” he said, and he flicked the lighter twice more. “I like to get some fun for my money.” He looked at me from unblinking gray eyes, his head tilted.

  The yellow flame of the lighter held my eyes. I heard the chatter of a typewriter far away. All around me in the building people were working, loafing, sulking, clashing egos. In the oil fields and stations men were sweating, swearing, smearing themselves with grease. But here at the seat of power there was dead silence, as in the eye of a hurricane.

  He wants me to offer something. I pulled my eyes from the yellow flame and saw the couch against the wall, twice as long as a bed and almost as wide. I should get up now and say, “Jules, I’d do anything to get him out.” Then I’d walk slowly to the couch with just a hint of a sway in the hips. Then I’d sit down and cross my legs, revealing the merest glimpse of thigh, run my fingers over the couch and say dreamily, “Anything, Jules” So easy for some. I wondered how many times he’d pressed Simone against the rich brown leather.

  I saw a light flashing on his desk. He threw down the lighter and it bounced on the carpet as he picked up the phone. After a minute of monosyllables he held his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to me. “I’ve got Harry Riggs at the Clarion. How’d you like to stop the publicity you’re getting?”

  “Words don’t bother me, Jules.”

  He ignored that, holding out the receiver and putting a finger to his lips. When I took it, he walked around to his chair and picked up another phone.

  The man who had been Richard’s boss
was giving the details of Richard’s arrest. He’d thought something was funny, he said, when Richard had called at four in the morning and quit his job. Jules cut in, wondering if the tie between the case and the Miss Stella contests would arouse public opinion against him as the sponsor. Harry said he’d heard none, adding that he’d just followed the lead of the big papers in playing up the tie-in.

  Jules winked at me and leaned back, putting his feet on the desk. His voice became velvety. “I didn’t think the big papers would send reporters for this.”

  Harry’s voice changed, too, becoming taut. “Mister Curtright, I’ve played the story fairly. At first I took only what was on the blotter, privileged material, then the others had pictures, banners …”

  Jules picked up a silver-bladed paper knife and pricked idly at his leather-framed desk blotter. “How’d you say the other papers got it?”

  “Well, I guess some of the boys have been doing stringer work on the side.” He chuckled hollowly. “Little extra dough, not much …”

  “You’re in charge, Harry.” Jules was stabbing the knife deeper into the blotter, but his voice was still smooth velvet. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Harry’s voice was wary.

  “And if you want to pay men to work for other papers it’s all right with me, you know that, don’t you?” He paused, but there was no answer. His neck muscles showed as he jabbed the knife through the blotter. “You know that, don’t you, Harry?”

  “Yes. I’ll … I’ll fire them.”

  Jules smiled and jerked out the knife. “Up to you, Harry. Same way with this tie-in on Stella Day.” Now the knife gouged up little chunks of the blotter.

  “We’ll drop the tie-in, Mister Curtright.” Harry sounded tired.

  Jules’ smile broadened. “Harry, I leave you to run the paper the way you think best. Though it’s too bad we can’t just drop the whole case. It’s been two days—”

  “But I’ve got a front page banner on the arrest!”

  “You’re in charge, Harry, you know that.” Jules held up the knife and slowly bent the blade back against the handle with his thumb. “Incidentally, old man Shaeffer’s been wanting me about something. I heard his boy’s getting out of journalism school.”

  “Excuse me a minute.” Harry’s voice was a lifeless mumble when he returned. “We’ve killed the front page, Mister Curtright.”

  “Oh? Did you decide to drop the Crewes case completely?”

  “I …” his sigh was audible. “Yes, I decided to drop the Crewes case … completely.”

  “Harry, you’re a good man.” His voice was hearty. “I’ll tell old man Shaeffer he’ll have to buy another paper for his kid to practice on.” Jules hung up and threw the paper knife into the wastebasket.

  I hung up with a queasy feeling in my stomach. He’d done all that, I thought, to give me an example of the things he could do for me. He seemed to regard the city as a game board, and the people as pieces he could move about. Today he was showing me how the game was played; tomorrow I might be one of the pieces.

  “Harry is a good man,” said Jules, getting up. “He makes his own decisions and keeps his self-respect. I just show him the alternatives.”

  “Self-respect.” I knew this should have some meaning for me. “You always leave them with that illusion?”

  He laughed. “Illusion? The only illusion is in thinking I can’t control the alternatives.” He started pacing behind the desk in long, smooth strides. “Granddad once moved the company out of town for six months when the city council wouldn’t rezone an area he wanted for a station. Cost him half a million but they asked him back when grass started growing in the streets.”

  I watched his pacing and realized he was a big man; almost as big as Richard. Only the smooth way he handled his body and his constant, unceasing movement made him seem smaller. He was trying to tell me something in his story about his grandfather, but I didn’t get it. “Why didn’t your grandfather just change his plans for the station?”

  “Why?” He stopped and looked at me as though I’d ask what was the color of grass. “Because they told him he couldn’t put it there.” He jerked open a drawer and took out what looked like an ordinary rock set on a gold pedestal. “I got this chunk of red sandstone off the top of a rock chimney in Utah. They told me it couldn’t be climbed.” He threw it back on the desk and it left a scratch in the mahogany. “They advised me to take bankruptcy when Grandmam died. Now we’re worth ten times as much as before the depression.”

  He fumbled in another drawer and brought out a bracelet of rubies in an old-fashioned gold setting. “When I first tried to buy this, the owner wouldn’t sell because it was a family heirloom. Then his company had a run of bad luck. Five years later, I bought him out, on the condition he’d throw in the bracelet.”

  “You must value it highly,” I said.

  He tossed it in the air and caught it. “No. It’s the getting that interests me, not the having.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  He grinned and threw the bracelet. I caught it. “You’re giving it to me?”

  He nodded and leaned back against the desk, grinning down at me.

  “As a gift, without strings?”

  Again he nodded.

  I lay it across my wrist. The rubies stood out against the white skin like drops of bright blood. “All right.” I let it slide into my hand. “I’ll trade it back to you for Richard’s bond.”

  He shook his head from side to side, then threw the bracelet back and laughed. “That’s ten times what I paid for it!”

  I waited, holding it in my palm.

  “You win. I’ll put up poor Richard’s bond,” he said, catching my wrist and pulling me to my feet. “On one condition, though.” He tilted up my chin and touched his fingertips to my cheekbones. “A beauty queen shouldn’t be growing circles under her eyes. Go out tonight and have some fun.”

  “With you?”

  “I’m not John Alden.”

  Somehow, I’d get in touch with Captain Riemann later. “All right, I’ll go.”

  His grin burst forth again. “Good. I’ll pick you up.” He walked with me to the door, his hand warm on the small of my back. “Incidentally, I can’t put up the bond until morning. Is that soon enough?”

  “Not if we go out tonight.”

  He half-smiled and shook his head slowly. “Nothing in advance, eh?” He bent and brushed his lips against my forehead. “Laurie, you’re a grim girl, but I love you.” He smiled and opened the door. “See you tomorrow night then.”

  In the street I pushed away my disappointment at failing to get Richard out tonight. I couldn’t complain; a promise for a promise, and nothing lost. Rich could stand another night in jail if he knew he’d be getting out tomorrow.

  I was nearing the station when Sergeant Johnson pulled to the curb beside me and accused me of breaking my promise. I jumped in, patted his cheek, and told him I’d been searching all over for him. “Could we go to the trailer court now? I’ve got to pick up a book, some clothes, and a dog.”

  Supper was a silent, tortured meal. I was thinking of Captain Riemann, and my stomach jumped every time a dog barked. I could talk little without revealing what I’d done that day; Gwen was silent, perhaps for the same reason. Daddy took our silence personally, and was at first apologetic about Richard, then angry.

  I left the table with the few bites I’d eaten lying in my stomach like a lump of clay. I fed George and Goldie, wishing them better appetites. But Goldie was pining for Rich, and when I patted her, George gave me an accusing look and went to sulk under his shrub.

  I showered, then I dressed and lay on the bed to wait for Captain Riemann. Soon I’d know who the man was, and I wished daddy hadn’t hidden the gun.

  At nine o’clock I heard it. Owoooooo … yip yip yip. Pause. Owooooo … yip yip yip. I jumped off the bed and ran to the window. Then my heart sank. The tree limb had been cut off—I’d been planning to climb down it.
>
  I heard the sound again. Owooooo … yip yip yip. Pause. Owooooo … yip yip yip.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I whispered. I took off my shoes and crept downstairs, through the living room behind Gwen’s chair, out the back door. I felt the concrete of the back steps still warm on my bare feet, then a flashlight stabbed the darkness from the corner of the house.

  “Git outa here, you crazy hound! Git!”

  I heard a thrashing in the willows, then the beam impaled me. “That stupid hound wake you up, Laurie?” It was Sergeant Johnson. “He’s gone now. Be a good buddy and go back inside.”

  “All right.” Surely Captain Riemann would come back. I stepped inside the door to wait, ready to run out this time.

  Sergeant Johnson came to the bottom of the steps; I felt a prickle of irritation. If he wanted to talk …

  “It’s a helluva night, Laurie. Did you know Captain Riemann?”

  I gasped. “Did I what?”

  “Poor old guy was run over on the road about twenty miles east of here. Couple hundred yards from his car. They figure he was drunk, got out and started wandering down the highway. They’re looking for the car now—”

  I felt my knees go watery as I pushed open the door. “Is he dead?”

  “Lord, yes. The patrol said his body was smashed all to hell. A good man in his day, Riemnan, but the bottle …”

  I was sick with horror. Tomorrow I’ll be all dried out, he’d said. But I knew what had happened; he hadn’t gotten drunk, he’d gotten too close to the man; maybe he’d even tried to arrest him. I wondered how long it had taken Riemann to die, how long before he told his killer the signal we’d agreed on.

  I heard the sound again, far down by the black river. Owooooo … yip yip yip. My ears rang and I saw the stars wheel overhead as I fell.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I AWOKE into a jagged day.

  Someone had dressed me in long pajamas and put me to bed. My nose caught the woodsy scent of Gwen’s skin freshener. I opened my eyes to see her sitting on the edge of the bed in a cotton housecoat. “What time is it?”