Bring Him Back Dead Read Online Free Page B

returned to the living area of the trailer. Rita was dipping water from a pail into a coffeepot and having difficulty moving around in the narrow aisle because of her hoop skirt.
    “Thanks a lot.” She smiled. “I can’t offer you a drink. That comes in Jacques’s department. But how about a cup of coffee?”
    Latour tossed his Stetson on a built-in sofa behind a narrow table. “Thanks. I could go for a cup of coffee.”
    Rita kept having trouble with her hoop skirt. “Damn this thing. I don’t see how women ever put up with them.”
    “I’ve often wondered,” Latour admitted. He sat on the sofa next to his hat.
    Rita lighted the bottled-gas burner under the coffeepot. It was hotter in the trailer than it was outside. “I sure fell on my head. I mean when I married Jacques.” She opened a drawer of a built-in chest and took out what appeared to be a two-piece white play suit. “Would you excuse me while I put on something cooler than this Scarlett O’Hara outfit?”
    What she did was immaterial to Latour. “Go right ahead. It’s your trailer.”
    Rita fought her hoop skirt down the aisle. “His trailer. And it’s mortgaged for more than it’s worth. If it wasn’t, believe me, I’d have sold it some night when he was potted — with him in — and would be gone by now.”
    She closed the small door of the bedroom firmly behind her.
    Latour fanned himself with his hat. The delta had two faces, one for day and one for night. With the rank vegetation rising out of the fertile mud around the trailer, the clearing smelled like some jungles he’d known. Insects, attracted by the light, droned at the screened windows. He could almost hear the pad of fur-bearing night animals. In the distance, the wells continued to pump. Suddenly, somewhere far offshore, after weeks of testing and drilling, a well came in, causing the bedrock connecting the floorof the Gulf with the mainland to vibrate with the force of the explosion.
    The unblocked trailer rocked slightly. The closed door of the bedroom opened on silent hinges.
    Standing sideways to him, secure in the knowledge that she’d closed the door, the red-haired girl continued to undress.
    It was a lovely, if unintentional, strip tease.
    Instinctively Latour compared her to Olga. Where Olga was lush with a touch of the Oriental, Rita was slim, almost lean. Her breasts were firm and peaked. Her stomach was flat and made a perfect juncture with her flared hipbones. Her legs were long and tapering, ending in slim ankles and perfectly formed feet. She was naturally red-haired. He couldn’t help himself. The attraction was basic, primitive. He sucked in his breath.
    Rita turned her head at the sound and realized that the door was open. She stood a moment looking at him through the yellow glow of the oil lamp, then reached out and closed the door. When she opened it again she was wearing a pair of white shorts and a matching halter.
    “It wasn’t,” she said, “intentional.”
    Latour resumed fanning himself. “I know.”
    The girl seemed to be trying to convince herself. “When I said coffee, I meant coffee.”
    Latour laid his hat back on the sofa and lighted a cigarette. “Have I tried to force myself on you?”
    “No,” Rita admitted. She ran her fingers through her hair and they came away moist with perspiration. “No,” she repeated. “You haven’t.” She filled two cups with coffee and set them and a bowl of sugar and a can of evaporated milk on the table in front of Latour. “It’s just that it’s all so damn hopeless. Whenever I let myself think about it, I’m afraid I’ll blow my top.”
    “You mean being married to Jacques?”
    “What else?” Rita sat beside Latour. “You’ve no idea what it’s like. You couldn’t know.”
    “Why don’t you leave him?”
    “I intend to, as soon as I get a stake.” Rita spooned sugar into her coffee. “But let’s get one thing straight. Jacques lied back there on the street. Maybe I don’tamount