Chapter 16

She slept curled in the corner against the door, as I drove slowly back out the gully. I drank a beer, and felt pretty damned beat myself.

She had filled in the gaps in this fantastic web of sex and evil, or most of them. I still had to press her about a couple of unpleasant points. And I still felt I was missing something big.

I drove past the last streetlight of the city and into the stretch of meadowland and cane growth, alive with the throbbing of insects. The night was cloudy now so it was quite dark, and I kept glancing at Jamie as though I had to protect her from minute to minute, shield her from the pain and humiliation into which she had let herself be pulled.

I finished the beer and threw it out, then opened another as I drove into the beginnings of the swamp. Total darkness, the trees and moss and vines giving a tunnel effect, strangely dissected by the sharp, bright car lights. Again, I glanced at Jamie, and saw that she was stirring now.

What were those damned girls up to, I asked myself as I took a swallow of beer. I sensed something far more dangerous than telling the town Jamie's father was something of a dirty old man. Because I had realized one fatal weakness in their threat that apparently had not occurred to Jamie.

She was awake and wiping her eyes as I pulled up beside her car at the gully. I took a final swallow of beer and threw it out.

"I slept like a rock," she mumbled, as she sat up and yawned.

"How do you feel?" I asked, as I moved over to her.

"Much better," she said. "Nothing great, but a little bit more like a human being again."

"How about a beer? I'm like you were back in the bar. So beat if I quit drinking I'll fold up."

"I'm not much of a beer drinker," she said. "And that short, heavy sleep kind of took the edge off things. I think I'd be better off without one."

I opened a beer and rushed a swallow to catch the gushing foam. This one was somewhat tepid, but I drank several quick swallows.

"I lived up to my end of the bargain," Jamie said, when I sat back and looked at her. The blue eyes were wide, and there was a faint, provocative smile twisted on her full, damp lips. It seemed her body was a luscious, molten mass straining against her clothes, and her skirt was pulled high on her slim, white thighs.

I went hot in an instant. "Yes, you did," I said.

The smile fled and her voice nearly broke when she spoke again. "Oh, Carl, am I making a fool of myself again?" she asked, and put her hand on my arm. "Do you want me? I feel so wretched, so utterly depraved, I find it hard to realize anyone could want me, except for some kind of perverted sexual thing. . .

I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. "Dammit, stop talking that way about yourself," I snapped. "Of course, I want you, Jamie. I love you. What happened makes no difference with us, now that I know. Sure, it's all pretty sordid, but

I've been around and I've been involved in some things that might curl your pretty blonde hair, baby. Now, dammit, stop punishing yourself, and remember that night-mare is over. You won't have to get involved with the girls again."

"I love you, too, Carl," she said. "And you were right. Telling everything made me feel much better. You know what I want right now, I mean, next to you, darling. The longest, hottest shower in history, to wash away every trace of those little bitches. Tonight, after they left, I spent a couple of minutes just washing my mouth out there.. . "

"Jamie," I interrupted. "There are a couple of things we must discuss, baby. To get everything straight."

"Yes, I know," she said, wearily, and took a deep breath. "The rape, I suppose."

"The rape," I said. "Tell me what really happened, Jamie."

"I can only tell you what I think happened," she said, and turned her face up to me. "Honest, Carl, they would never had taken me into their confidence. Of course, I know he didn't rape Millie, as said. I mean, it wasn't that he drove her out to some spot, against her will, and beat her up, and raped her, just because she had dated him and let him kiss her good night. Well, that's what she testified at the trial."

"What did they tell you about it?"

She shook her head and looked away. "Absolutely nothing, Carl. It's just that knowing what I knew about Millie and the girls, I knew she teased and taunted that poor guy until he couldn't stand it and he did beat her up and rape, try to rape her, God knows exactly what happened. You know, I really think he just beat her up, I really do. That would infuriate Millie worse than anything, and she tends to fly off the handle and do extreme things. And I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't run home and scream rape and then it was too late to back down. The other girls were down on her a lot, and they're constantly telling her to shut up or calm down or something."

"You knew all this and you let that poor bastard go to the chair?" I asked.

"Now, Carl," she said, and her body stiffened, and there was desperation in her voice. "You can't turn against me now, Carl. I believed in you and what you said and I told you everything. Don't hate me for that. I hate myself enough. Do you know what that did to me, knowing, suspecting what I did? The girls kept me under their thumbs and I was just in that terrible nightmare of not caring and hating myself. Now, Carl, you do hate me, after all. . . "

I stopped her babbling with a kiss and held her tight. "Easy, baby," I soothed. "I shouldn't have jumped on you like that. No more talking for now, how about that?"

She kissed my ear, and snuggled against me, her breasts heaving against my chest. "I like that," she said. "Later, we can talk and talk. But not now, Carl."

"You know, just one thing, Jamie," I said. "Do you realize the weakness in the girls' threat to expose your father?"

"No," she said. "And this sounds suspiciously like more talking." She traced a nail around the rim of my ear, and her breath was warm and damp on my neck.

"Just a minute," I gasped, as she pressed her warm, quivering body tighter against mine, and I went warm all over. "The threat was valid as long as they simply knew he was involved with the teenage tramps. But once he got involved with them, to expose him would be to expose themselves."

"What a fool I was not to have realized that," she said. "Well, I wasn't realizing anything at that point, and those flood gates had opened and I might not have stopped even if I had realized it."

"Jamie, those girls will never let your father win that freeway fight, if they can help it," I said. "From what people say, it would ruin their families. A large part of what wealth they have left is tied up in land. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they would expose themselves, to ruin your father. Or maybe they would claim he tried to corrupt them.. . "

I did not want Jamie to return home, but she was adamant, and finally I agreed it was best.

"Be reasonable, darling," she said. "You can't abduct me in the middle of the night. My father would definitely call the police. And no matter what, we can't abandon him like this."

"I'd say to hell with him," I said. "I have little sympathy for him, frankly. No, that's not fair. He is your father, and I fully believe those girls capable of damn near anything. Look, you go home. But you don't leave that house, under any conditions, without me."

She nodded. "That's suits me, Carl," she said. "I'll just tell the girls I'm sick."

"Listen, you don't have to do what the girls want, Jamie," I said. 'Tell them to go to hell."

"Carl, I've got to play along somewhat, until we can find out what they're going to do about Daddy," she said. "You've got me convinced they're going to do something, darling. By the way, what are you going to do tonight? Go back to the hotel?"

I shook my head. "No, the girls think I'm leaving and if they check and find I've left the hotel, it will throw them off guard. I agree. If we're going to help your father, we'll have to play games with them a while longer. But, Jamie, you realize that whatever happens, it won't change the fact your father is hung up on young girls. No matter what these girls have in store for him, he might still crawl after Peggy Sue on his hands and knees, and there's nothing we can do about that."

"I know that," she said. "I'm going away with you, darling. And after that, Daddy can crawl all he wants to. We've just got to help him now, when this freeway thing could make the girls do something desperate. But Carl, how do we start helping him? We have no idea what's happening."

"I have a plan," I said. "And a few definite ideas, Jamie. But they can't involve you. So you go on home and try to sleep, and don't leave the house."

"Sure, baby," I said. "If I'm not dead asleep. In that case, I'll call tomorrow morning."

We kissed goodnight, and she got into her car and drove away. I followed her several miles, but cut away when she got to the intersecting road.

I checked into a motel, but was wide awake with tenseness and knew I wouldn't sleep. So I drove out of town to a honky-tonk I knew the girls would never visit.

But as! had my second beer, and thought again about my plan for tomorrow, I did have a familiar visitor-the fat, red-faced deputy sheriff.

"Still hanging around?" he asked, as he sat down opposite me in the booth. He ordered a beer from the tall, thin waitress.

I shrugged, checking my anger, telling myself a brush with the sheriffs office would ruin everything. "I'll be getting out of here tomorrow," I said finally.

"Well, that's good news," he said. "Because I been hearing some more about you messing around with some of our nice girls. And I was just tonight thinking I might have to pick you up for questioning. Or something."

The waitress brought the beer and he nodded at her, smiled pleasantly, then drank half of it in one great swallow.

"That something you wouldn't like, buddy," he said, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I see," I said, and busied myself with my beer.

He finished his beer in another huge swallow and stood up. "I wouldn't let sundown tomorrow catch me around here, if I was you, buddy," he said, nodded pleasantly, and lumbered away.

I cursed aloud, drained my beer, and ordered another. Then I got change and picked my way through the crowd back to the telephone on the wall.

Jamie answered on the first ring. She was whispering and I could barely understand her with the noise all around.

"I love you," I said, interrupting an excited and somewhat garbled flow of words.

There was a pause and then she spoke louder. "I love you, too, and I thought you would never call," she said. "Where are you? Things have been happening since we separated. Sounds like a party."

"I couldn't sleep and drove out for some beer," I said. "What's happening? Are you all right?" I decided not to tell her about the deputy's warning.

"I'm okay," she said. "But I miss you. It's kind of spooky here, and I'm not at all sure what's happening, but Daddy got home about half an hour ago, and he was in some state and went into the library and started drinking bourbon. Well, I went in, and we looked at each other but didn't talk. We haven't in weeks, months really, about his involvements with the girls. But he looked all funny and red-faced, and he put down about four quick shots of bourbon and then he turned to me, Carl, and said, and he was nearly shouting: "Nothing will stop me getting that freeway on my land. Nothing."

A drunk stumbled against me and I turned from the phone, but he staggered away. When I put the receiver to my ear, Jamie was saying: "Are you there, Carl?"

"Some drunk shoved against me," I said. "Sorry. Go on."

"Well, I said something like, sure, Daddy, and he said that this would be the peak of his climb from the other side of the tracks, and that kind of thing," she said, talking softer again. "And he said, in a loud, kind of shouting voice again, that he worked hard and would not apologize for his affairs with women, and that he had been involved with women before who got money and gifts out of him, but that he didn't care, because he had the money to spend. Then he said he hadn't had time for girls when he was young, had worked too hard, and never dated and had always wanted the girls he didn't have when he was my age, and he rattled on, and. . . Just a minute, Carl."

"Jamie? What's wrong?" I asked.

"I thought I heard someone," she said. "Well, then he poured a double shot of bourbon and said that tomorrow night the board of supervisors and the highway commission was having a joint meeting and he had everything lined up and would have things his way. He was like a man gone man, Carl. And finally, he shouted that he didn't give a damn what the town thought of him, and that if a bunch of stupid girls thought they could pressure him, they were crazy, that it wasn't the first time women had tried to use his sexual quirks to pressure him. He stopped abruptly, and he was shaking, and he walked out and went upstairs. Five minutes later, the phone rang, and he got to it first and it was for him and I listened on the extension."

"And it was one of the girls?" I asked.

"Peggy Sue," she said. "She was so sweet and gushing, and called him Ron, and said she was sorry she had been so nasty and threatened him. She said that she was just upset and that she felt awful about the things she'd made him do, well, I needn't go into those disgusting details. But she purred so sweetly that she had had a change of heart and simply had to meet him tomorrow right after lunch, and that she wanted him to be the first man to go all the way."

"He agreed?"

"No, he said tomorrow was difficult," she said. "But I could tell he was practically panting over the phone. Oh, what a fool he is, Carl. To think how I literally worshipped him all those years. He's really despicable."

"But did he agree to meet her?" I asked.

"Yes, at one-thirty," Jamie said, and caught her breath. "But I don't know where. They just agreed on the 'usual place' and she hung up. What do you think that means?"

"It means, baby, your father better not go out with her," I said. "Look, somehow, you keep him from meeting her. I don't care how. I'm going to be busy tomorrow morning, and by noon, I hope to know what the girls have in mind."

"What are you going to do, Carl?" she asked.

"I don't want you involved, Jamie," I said. "Please trust me. Stay at home, and make sure your father doesn't go out with Peggy Sue."

She reluctantly agreed to trust me, and not ask questions. We said good night, and I hung up, fended off the lurching drunk, and walked back to my booth.

I didn't want to tell Jamie that my plan was to get Emily Ann to go out with me, by whatever he or means necessary, and ply her with Singapore Slings and get her to tell me the truth.

Jamie had mentioned in our talk after love making earlier that Kerry and particularly Emily Ann had not been too bad with her, had never taken part in the worst things, and that Emily Ann at times seemed sorry she was in this setup, though she always played the giggling, nice-girl game, and always spouted off about the old, aristocratic families and that kind of nonsense.

I sank down into the booth and sipped the beer. It was tepid. I ordered a fresh beer, and relaxed back in the booth and shut my eyes as I remembered Emily Ann's nymphet-face, glasses, and those damn breasts. . . .

"Strictly business, and deadly business tomorrow," I muttered aloud, and forced myself to think of Jamie.

That was easy, and pleasant, and I sipped the cold beer and thought of our life together when I got her away from Harrisville.