Read Online The Bitch by Gil Brewer - Free Book Online

you were still on top. Somebody would have gotten you off—somehow. Sam would have taken care of that, you know he would.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “Why not? He always has, hasn’t he? Whenever you needed him, there he was—all ready to go to bat for you. He’s always gone to bat for you. Trying to help you to help yourself. And this is the way you pay him back. Tate, I really think you are hopeless. Sam doesn’t think that—he keeps trying. He believes in you. And look what you’ve done.”
    “Yeah—look.”
    She did. She began to see in sharp little flashes just exactly what I’d done. You could read it on her face, and it was the same with me. You don’t see it all at once, because you haven’t lived that way and it all happened so abruptly. Death and money. And little by little it would touch me—what I’d done.
    “What are we going to do?” she said.
    “We’re going to sit tight,” I told her. “For a little while. I’ve got to do something, find something out for myself—somehow. Then, we’re leaving, Janet. We’ll go away some place. Look, I know you can’t—”
    She closed her eyes and just sat there with her hands in tight fists.
    “Janet,” I said. “I want you to listen to me.” I went over to her and knelt on the floor in front of her and put my hands on her thighs and held her to me tightly; and she just sat there with her eyes squinched shut and her hands made into little fists. “Janet, listen,” I said as softly as I could. “I know you can’t understand now. It’s even hard for me to understand. But the money’s here and when will we ever get a chance to have that much money in one hunk again? Never. You know that. I didn’t kill anybody, Janet—I didn’t murder those two people. I stole the money. All right, it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong and I’m going to have a hard time getting so I can live with that. Just the same, it can be done—it’s got to be done.”
    She began to beat at my head and face with her fists. She still held her eyes closed and I grabbed her wrists and held them tightly, coming up to my feet. I pressed her back against the couch, holding her down. I leaned over and tried to kiss her. Her lips were hot and dry and she kept turning her head wildly. She did not open her eyes.
    “Don’t, Tate!”
    I held her there. “Janet, listen. I’m going to leave the money here with you. I’m telling you right now—don’t call anybody. I’m going to hide it right here in the apartment, and you’re going to play along with me until I figure what to do. I’m in a jam. The worst one ever. You’ve been through a lot with me, and I’m going to end it—all of it. I’ve all our married life tried to do things right, and none of it’s ever come off. It always turned against me, and hurt you, and I don’t want it that way. I know all of this looks stupid, and that I made a terrible mistake. It’s worse for me than it is for you. I’ve got to live with it.”
    She started laughing again. “When I think of your brother,” she said. “And then how you came along and practically raped me. And I liked it.” She laughed again. “You did rape me, Tate. And I liked it. My God, and I married you. I married a fool—a wretched, horrible, bumbling fool!”
    “Janet!”
    She opened her eyes and stared at me and struggled angrily. I let go of her and stood up.
    “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”
    I couldn’t argue anymore. I had to get out of here.
    “Listen, Janet. You’ll get over it. A year from now, you’ll be playing with that money and you’ll love it.
Janet-
—you wanted money, damn it! You practically asked me to do something like this. I did it for you—so you could have what you wanted. I won’t be working for Sam anymore—you won’t have to complain anymore. You won’t—”
    ‘Tate! You fool—you crazy damned fool! I said all those things to spur you on into something good—of your own.” She ceased, sat there, staring