Heat of Night Read Online Free Page A

married me and got out of all this.”
    “Sure, Bea.”
    “Well, you could still be right here, you know. Here in this Godforsaken village.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’ve got me to thank.”
    “Thank.” He said it purposely that way.
    “Oh, stop being a smart Cuban. You know you hate all that dirt and the dogs underfoot. You’re going to be somebody — someday — when you quit even coming back to this place at all.”
    “That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Bea?”
    She missed the irony in his voice. She always missed it or ignored it or overlooked it. Now she exhaled. “It would be a miracle. It would be God answering my prayers when you stopped running over here every time they called you.”
    “It’s my family, for God’s sake.”
    “Your family. What have they ever done for you? I can tell you, anything that’s been done for you, my family has done it. My family. And yet, every time these people yell, you come running.”
    He smiled in a savage way that pulled his mouth out of shape. He was stocky as all Juan’s sons were but he was not as tall as Big Juan, and there was about his chiseled features the look of Rosa. His mouth was soft, his black eyes were gentle. He was losing his hair. It was receding at the temples and he was not handsome as Big Juan was in that rugged, disturbing way. Bea had thought Al very handsome when they met but sometimes now she admitted Albert looked older than his father, especially when the exigencies of the insurance business bore him down. Being inside the office all the time, he had lost his tan, and there was an odd paleness about his olive complexion that made him look as if he’d just been released from the hospital after a long convalescence.
    “Not every time I don’t come running, Bea,” he said in a flat tone. “Sometimes you forget to tell me they called.”
    Her voice flared. “I do it only to protect you. If they had their way you’d spend all your time over here, giving them all your money and patching up all their woes.” Her voice lowered, becoming very level and patient, but firm. “If they want money this time, Albert, you tell them no, you understand?”
    He exhaled, did not speak. They were entering the village now and he swore to himself with a warm inner smile that the place had not changed at all. The same curios in the curio shops that stood empty and forsaken, waiting for the occasional tourist that wandered off the main highway, made a wrong turn or found the spot on a road map and felt adventurous. The streets always looked deserted, even during the busiest hours of the day. Main Street was wide, paved with red Georgia brick that dismayed him when he considered how it must have been trucked in here across those marshes years ago, before he was born.
    He watched from the corner of his eye some children playing hopscotch and jacks in the small park next to the drug store. Even when people hurried in Dead Bay they moved slowly. But mostly when people got fretted into hurrying for any reason, they just sat down and stewed about it in the shadiest place they could find.
    “You understand me, Albert?”
    She was getting through to him again.
    “What?”
    “Money. No money to them this time.”
    “All right, Bea.”
    “You know what will happen. Your father will start spouting about that damned fool idea of his of deep-sea treasure diving — ”
    “It might not be so crazy, Bea. I always thought Papa might be right. You tell me who knows more about the Gulf than Papa. He might really know where there’s buried treasure.”
    “Oh, he does.” Bea’s voice was scathing. “In your pockets. They’re just lined with treasure for him. That’s where his buried treasure is. And not buried very deeply, either.”
    “I got to help them the little I can.”
    “I wouldn’t mind ‘a little’ so much. But it’s constant. And that talk about buying diving gear and an aqua-lung so he can dive for treasure.” She sniffed, crossing her arms over her