Chapter 3
Four hours later I sat in the dining room of a hotel across from Harrisville's tree-lined square and sipped strong, black coffee.
Dusk was purple and quiet and a string of naked light bulbs glowed in the square, strung between the magnolia and oak and pine trees. The courthouse was an old, white-columned building topped with a tower which had a clock on each side. The clock on this side told me it was eight. I thought of trying to call Jamie again-half a dozen earlier calls had gone unanswered-but I was nervous as hell and I decided to drive out to her house again.
People in town had been friendly enough, but there was obviously a residue of tension about the recent rape trial, and the execution due to take place at midnight in the state prison.
I finished the coffee, and asked for my check, then paid the tall, thin waitress for my two gin rickeys with shaved ice and bottle of beer, stuffed, deviled crab, cole slaw, pecan pie and coffee.
I walked quickly to my car and the tires squealed as I drove off. There were several new buildings lining the square, modern glass-and-brick structures that testified to the town's prosperity that had come since the Second World War from the establishment of half a dozen medium-sized factories, as well as offshore oil drilling in the nearby Gulf of Mexico.
I had noticed, in my first trip out to Jamie's house, huge, gleaming modern shopping centers and rows of rectangular brick apartment houses at the edge of town.
These relatively new parts of the town could have been found anywhere in the country. But there was another side to Harrisville.
It was essentially a traditional Southern town, with broad, tree-lined streets radiating from the square, and pleasant old houses set behind thick lawns surrounded by neat flower-filled gardens.
This was the picture of Harrisville Jamie had given, a lovely, tradition-bound town that had molded her and made her dislike sex or anything that wasn't "nice." I turned a corner and saw a huge brick house with white columns across the front. But this time, there were lights inside. I parked and ran up the curved, flagstone walk and rang the bell. But there was no answer. I cursed aloud, rang again and waited. Then I pivoted.
On my second step across the broad porch, the door opened behind me. I stopped and turned and there was a lovely, black-haired girl in a white linen dress.
"Yes, can I help you?" she said, in a slow, deep accent.
"I'm looking for Jamie Meadows," I said. 'This is her home, isn't it?"
"It certainly is," she said. "But Jamie's not here, and neither is her daddy. My name is Peggy Sue Conway, and I'm their closest neighbor. Live just on the other side of that big hedge yonder. And you must be Carl. Why, old Jamie was talking up a storm about you coming and all."
"That's right, I'm Carl," I said, as she extended her small hand.
"I'm glad to meet you," she said, and we shook hands and I glanced from the breasts which nearly spilled over the linen dress, to the angular, tanned face and big, black eyes framed by black hair. But it was her heart-shaped lips, both sweet and obscene, that made me go warm.
"I just scooted over to see if they had any ice, but they're all out, too," she said. "We're having this lawn party at my house, Carl, and it's been such a hot day, why, we gave out of ice. You come right on over and join us. I promised Jamie I'd look after you if you got here while she was away."
"Where is Jamie?" I asked, and stared at those luscious, nearly bizarre lips.
She shrugged. "Oh, she and her daddy went somewhere," she said. "Don't you worry. We'll take care of you until she gets back."
She took me by the hand and led me across the thick carpet of grass.
"Look, I'm not dressed for a party," I said, as we passed through a wrought-iron gate between two enormous hedges. "Maybe I better go back to the hotel and change."
"That's no problem," she said. "I'll just show you up to my brother's room and you can freshen up and borrow one of his jackets and ties. He's away in the army."
"Well, if it's not too much trouble."
"like I said, I promised old Jamie I'd look after you," she said, and led me into another huge, white-columned house, down a long hallway, and up a sweeping stairway to a second-floor bedroom.
"Now, you get all cleaned up and dressed and all, and I'll get you a drink," she gurgled, and we stared at each other a moment.
She was one goddam good-looking girl, and besides those wicked lips and large breasts, she had an incredibly narrow waist, flaring hips, and perfect, tapered, deeply tanned legs.
She left and I walked over and stared out the window at the party below. Pretty girls in sleeveless, flowered dresses and men in jackets and ties were dancing beneath Japanese lanterns, while Negro men in white jackets served drinks. Everything seemed serene and natural, except for one very large question.
Why in hell was this girl, who Jamie had said despised her, and whose father had been nearly ruined by Jamie's father, coming on with this gushing, good-neighbor bit?
When Peggy Sue returned with my drink, it seemed her dress was somehow drawn tighter and lower to emphasize the thrust of her large, rather oblong breasts. Or was it my imagination?
But I'm certain she had put on some perfume, a musky, provocative scent. And there was no doubt she had dabbed pink-frost lipstick onto those sweetly obscene heart-shaped lips.
"Lots of gin and just a little tonic, and so cold it will chill you right through," she said.
"So the ice came?" I said, as I took the tall, slim glass. Her small hand lingered an instant on mine.
"What ice?" she asked. "Oh, that. We finally got some from the ice house."
I tilted the glass at her. 'Thanks," I said. "Aren't you drinking?"
"Oh, I hardly ever do," she said. "Sometimes a little punch or some sherry at a party, you know.
But I don't do much real drinking, I'm afraid. None of us do, really. I mean, nice girls around here don't do that kind of thing."
I took a long swallow and the drink was goddam cold and lethal. "How about the nice boys around here?"
She giggled and stepped closer. "Silly," she purred. "It's different with boys. Everything is. But nice girls are special around here."
"So I gather," I said, and drank the gin.
She cocked her pretty, tanned face and the big, black eyes sparkled with all kinds of innocence and charm.
"I've got to get back to my guests, Carl," she said, as she raised up on her toes. "You get all cleaned up and dressed and then you come right on down and join us." Her breath was warm on my face.
Of course, I kissed those damp lips, softly pressed against them and there was a texture, a quality of flesh I'd never experienced.
She twisted her mouth slightly and an electric chill coursed my body. I kissed her fiercely and shoved my tongue into her mouth, and she stiffened, but she moved her childishly obscene, hot lips in half a dozen exciting ways. Then she nibbled at my tongue.
And as I slid my free hand around to squeeze her buttocks and draw her slim body tighter against mine, she suddenly bit hell out of my tongue.
She pranced away, dimples showing in her mocking, innocent smile. But her dark eyes were narrowed and deadly as the eyes of a bird of prey.
"Nice girls have to be careful, Carl," she said, as she backed to the door.
I nodded and sipped the gin. "You're a very nice girl," I said, intending to be sarcastic, but my suddenly heavy breathing and red face negated the attempted scorn of my words.
"I can sort of see why old Jamie-likes you so much," she said.
"When is old Jamie getting back?" I asked. "I don't think you told me where she and her father went."
"They've gone out of town," she said. "I imagine they'll be back by tomorrow at supper time, Carl. Now excuse me. I have to make sure Millie Perkins is getting along all right."
"Millie Perkins?" I asked. "Isn't she the girl who was raped?"
"That was poor Millie," she said, and shook her head. "And he seemed like such a nice boy. We're all afraid she'll never recover from what happened. A girl like Millie can't handle that kind of thing."
"You're having a lawn party on the night of the execution of the man who raped her?" I asked.
"Why, we decided it was the best possible way to keep her mind, and everybody else's, off the execution."
"Beautiful," I said, but she walked quickly from the room.
I crossed over to the window and sipped my drink. Beautiful, I repeated to myself, as Peggy Sue ran out of the house and down a flight of stone steps to a cluster of people around a short, blonde-haired girl with an exquisitely fragile and beautiful face, and a doll-like body.
It must have been Millie because Peggy Sue put her arm around the girl's shoulder and they walked away.
"Jesus," I mumbled and drained the gin and tonic.
About a dozen things didn't fit into place, but I had no goddam idea what was wrong. And I told myself to cool it until I saw Jamie.
But as I started to go into the bathroom, I saw Peggy Sue and Millie walking back through a garden, into a grove of flowering bushes. They were secluded from the party.
And delicate little Millie Perkins, the nice girl whose violated body was sending a man to the electric chair in a few hours, sank to her knees, pulled down Peggy Sue's panties, and buried her lovely face between Peggy Sue's thighs.
I stared for the full five minutes that Millie stayed on her knees. Then she stood up and Peggy Sue put on her panties. And both girls, smiling sweetly, returned to the party.
As I walked into the bathroom, my stomach was knotted and my legs rubbery, and I had that strange, hot weakness I used to feel just before going into combat in Korea.