Read Online Someone Is Bleeding by Richard Matheson - Free Book Online Page B

any place in particular. I’ll probably go to a movie.”
    ”Oh.”
    I drove in silence a while. Audrey sat staring out at the ribbon of road unraveling under my headlights. Her face was expressionless
    “You can let me off here,” Audrey said at Wilshire and 3rd.
    “I’ll take you downtown,” I said.
    “You don’t have to.”
    I slowed down at Santa Monica Boulevard and 3rd.
    “This is fine,” Audrey said.
    I kept moving. Down to Broadway. I stopped the car and she turned to look at me.
    “I’m not clever, am I?” she said. Broadway is where all the bars are.
    “Come with me,” I said. “Meet my girl.”
    “Oh, you have a girl.”
    “Come on. Shut the door.”
    “No.”
    “You’ll like Peggy,” I said.
    And from the look on her face I suddenly realized that it was Audrey’s husband who wanted to marry Peggy. And I knew that, contrary to Jim, Audrey didn’t “understand” it.
    Audrey shuddered and pushed out of the car.
    “Bye,” she said hurriedly and slammed the door.
    She was already turning the corner. I started the car and pulled around. I saw her going into The Bamboo Grill.
    I drove to Peggy’s and found the note on the door.
    Davie: Jim came. He said we had to discuss my legal case. I told him I was waiting for you but he said it’s very important. After all Davie, I have to have a lawyer and I don’t know anyone else and he doesn’t charge me. I’m sorry but I think I should go. Please call me in the morning. Peg.
    Legal case. Fat chance that’s what they were discussing. He was pouring more lies into her. I was burned up. I’d told her I was coming right back. She might have waited. After all the tension we’d had between each other—this.
    I stood beside my car, glowering, wanting to hit back. I was sick of it all. I wanted to write a note telling her it was all over. Something that would hurt. But I knew I had no right to do that.
    I didn’t want to go home, though.
    Audrey. Downtown, alone, my old pal Audrey.
    I got into my car and drove back to The Bamboo Grill. She wasn’t there and she wasn’t in the next four bars I tried, either. But I had a drink in each of them.
    In the fifth bar, I decided to hell with it. I grabbed a booth and ordered another bourbon and water. I drank half of it. And then she appeared. From the cosmos. From the universe. From the ladies’ room.
    And, even slightly potted and disarrayed, Audrey was out of place there.
    She almost passed my table.
    “Buy you a drink, girlie?” I said.
    She turned to cut me off, then smiled as she saw me.
    “Davie!”
    She slid in across from me. She still had on the rain coat. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
    “From the cosmos, from the universe,” I said.
    “I came from the John.”
    “Won’t you allow me to purchase you a magnum of chantilly?”
    “That’s lace, isn’t it?”
    “Who knows? If it’s lace, we’ll drink it anyway.”
    We drank a lot. The time seemed to pass. And I found myself sitting beside her instead of across from her. The strong sensation of drunkenness on me. The loss of balance. The sense that you’re hyper-brilliant, that your brain, though cased in numbing wool, is glittering like a jewel.
    And around midnight, I remember putting my mouth on hers. And feeling all the animal heat in me dredging up. And not caring. She made no attempt to stop my hands from touching her. Her body was warm and soft and willing.
    I don’t know what time it was. But somehow we were in the car driving up Broadway. Then over to Wilshire on Lincoln. I remember that. We parked. We were out of the car and into my room. In the darkness, weaving as in a dream. I took off her raincoat, letting all the things I believe in be washed away by the tides of coarse desire flooding through me.
    It was dark. She was naked in the cool darkness, waiting for me.
    And then a car came past the house in the alley, slowly moving out. And the light played on Audrey’s face. She was lying down on the bed and I