Free The Anatomy of Violence by Charles Runyon Page A

listening to the tires whine on the asphalt causeway.
    Jules turned off and stopped before an iron gate with the name CURTRIGHT wrought into the pattern. An eight-foot rock wall stretched a quarter-mile in each direction. Above it I could see the roof of the Curtright mansion studded with a dozen windows. They had a glassy, empty look.
    “Nobody here but rats since Grandmam died,” said Jules, grunting as he forced open the iron gate. “You can fire at will.”
    Weeds scraped against the car as we drove inside, past the jumble of blackened concrete that had been the servants’ quarters, skirting the cocklebur jungle around the stables. Beyond the buildings the drive wound past ragged shrubs and flowerbeds that had spread and spoiled their neat patterns. We crackled through a wooded area matted with thick underbrush, and stopped beside a vine-crusted summerhouse.
    “Shooting range,” said Jules, waving at a flat area with a high bank at one end. “I learned to shoot here.”
    I was still awed by the sight of so much neglected wealth. “Why did you ever close this, Jules?”
    “I wouldn’t live here alone.” He got out and opened my door. “I’ll set up some targets.”
    I watched him part the vines and winnow his way into the summerhouse. I felt rootless; as transitory as a fruit fly compared to Jules. How would it be, I wondered, to attach myself to those deep solid roots and provide an heir to all this? It would be nice to fall in love with Jules.
    Later, I fired until the base of my thumb was swollen and red from recoil. When I could no longer hold the gun, Jules pulled a picnic basket from the trunk and we crawled into the summerhouse. I wanted to say no. I’d planned to find Riemann this afternoon. But I owed Jules something for helping me.
    As we ate, I found myself relaxing. The vines shut out the world. Only birds interrupted Jules’ voice as he told how he’d grown up behind the walls of the estate with a domineering grandmother; ran away at sixteen to become an oil-field roughneck, been brought back; then left again two years later and joined the air force.
    When he finished eating he lit a cigaret and squinted at the smoke curling up from it. “I’m glad I wasn’t the man.”
    “So am I.” I lay back on the blanket and looked up at the vines.
I should leave now.
    “I mean, you aren’t a bad shot.” He lay back beside me. “When you shoot, your eyes pull down at the corners like almonds speckled with fire, and you catch your lower lip between your teeth and stick your jaw out. I’ll bet you could hear the bullets hitting his flesh.”
    “I thought you were watching the target.”
    “No, but I got an idea while I was watching you.” I felt his left hand slip under my head. “We’ll go to New York. You can see the sights and start studying when you’re finished.”
    “Not yet, Jules.” I felt his fingers caress the skin behind my ears. I tightened my stomach and resisted an urge to get up and run.
    “You’ll have your own hotel suite. Simone can be a chaperone”
    I thought of the girl with the red-gold hair. “You’d take Simone—for me?”
    I could hear the grin in his voice. “After last night she isn’t for me. We can be there by midnight and you can start forgetting this mess.”
    “Not until I … until they find the man.” I felt his leg touching mine. I edged away.
    He turned on his side and faced me. “You said last night you were serious about acting.”
    “Last night I—” I caught my breath as his right arm came to rest across my waist. I concentrated hard on the patches of blue sky which showed through the leaves above me. “Last night I wanted it more than anything else. Today I feel like a little girl who fell into a sewer on her way to a party. I’ve got to get the stink washed off.”
    “Let Koch do it.” His fingers caressed my neck and sent a shiver down my back. “He has a personality like a sandbur, but he’s a good detective. I know. Grandmam