The Bitch by Gil Brewer Page A

him on a side street, off Central. The next time I met him was at a bar out on the beaches. I still had no notion what his actual business was, if any.
    “Here we are,” Thelma said. She stopped the car abruptly and turned around to look at me. “You sure you won’t reconsider?”
    I shook my head. “Sorry.”
    She made a small sniff through her nose, turned back to the wheel and drove the car swiftly down the street—slowed, and turned sharply in at a broad upward sloping drive into what first seemed to be a park.
    It was a park. A trailer park. There was a large sign above the closed gate, CLOSED, WILL REOPEN JUNE 15. Again Thelma stopped the car and got out, sliding off the seat. I watched her jounce up to the gate, push it open, then jounce back to the car, biting her lower lip. She slithered under the wheel in a swirl of legs and skirt, tossed me a look, and drove straight ahead into shadowed, pitch darkness. Enormous oaks grew seemingly wild and untended everywhere.
    She drove fast, cutting to right and left along a narrow dirt drive that was smoothly scraped. Suddenly trailers began to flash by on either side.
    It was a weird place at night, like this, with nobody in sight. Through the jungle growth, the headlights flashed on patios, gardens, and trailers parked in rows. Windows glittered, metal gleamed, wood shone. The trailer park had been laid out with destruction of very little of the woodland’s natural growth. It was an immense park, absolutely unlighted just now.
    Thelma stopped the car suddenly beside a row of giant double hibiscus bushes, beyond which I glimpsed the top and eaves of a huge trailer, the black and white metal sides shining, and then shadows as she switched off the car lights. Through the hibiscus bushes I saw soft orange light glowing from what must have been windows.
    There was no sound at all.
    “Here you are,” she said. “Damn you.”
    She started to open her door.
    “Thelma?” I said. “What’s the rush?”
    She pushed the door open with a quiet curse, and began to get out.
    I reached over and grabbed her arm and yanked her back across the seat toward me. I swung her around, her heavy ash-blonde hair falling across her face, and pulled her up against me, sinking my fingers into the pliant curves of her body; and her head came back, eyes wide and startled. I held her that way and kissed her on the mouth, running my hand down across her back, and she was suddenly soft and eager with strain. I let her go, turned away and got out of the car. This was not quite so easy to do as I had supposed. She was a dish, Thelma was.
    Standing there, I could see her lying back against the seat, watching me, her mouth partly open, her face very white, her breasts rising and falling with a deep, fast rhythm.

CHAPTER 12
    “You’re a fool!”
    I turned slowly and looked at Morrell. He stood just at the edge of the row of hibiscus bushes, looking at me. In the darkness, all I could make out was that he wore a white suit of some sort and that he was smoking a cigarette.
    “I mean you, of course, Morgan.”
    I stepped toward him. He paid no attention, moved quickly around the front of the car and opened the seat on the driver’s side. Thelma was just moving to get out.
    Morrell laughed softly. “Well,” he said. “I told you, didn’t I? Did you think he’d want to waste that money on you, darling?”
    She got out of the car and stood up.
    “Did you work your wily ways on him?” Morrell said.
    She slapped him. It was a vicious crack. She had lied about listening in on an extension. Without a word, she stalked off around the bushes. I heard her heels smack on stone, then a door opened and slammed.
    Morrell laughed again. He flipped his cigarette in the direction she had taken, then sauntered around the car and motioned to me.
    “Where’s the money, Morgan? I hope you have it in a safe place.”
    There was an attempt at casualness in his manner and in the tone of his voice. But there was a