The Scarred Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

and took her out to the Shell station near Forty Mile Bend. Maybe you remember the place."
        I shook my head.
        "Anyway her fist was still clenched. When we opened it up, we found blond hair in it and bits of skin and blood."
        "So one of them was blond?"
        "It seems that way. And she took a good chunk out of him. The first thing we did was notify every filling station and bar for a hundred miles along the Trail both ways to look out for three punks on choppers, one of them blond and badly scratched."
        "And?"
        "So far nothing."
        "All it proves is they didn't stop for gas or a drink."
        He nodded.
        "What about before it happened?"
        "We thought of that too. We've had State Police cars as far west as Naples and south to the Keys asking about three guys on bikes. If anybody saw them, they won't admit to it."
        "Why wouldn't they?"
        "The kind of places guys like that would be apt to go into don't like to talk to the police. They don't particularly like to help us on a thing like this."
        I didn't say anything.
        He stood up. "There's no use worrying yourself about it, Mr. Shaw. I mean it's our job. We'll get them eventually."
        "Will you?"
        "Sure we will. Well, I hope you're feeling better soon. And if you remember anything more be sure to let me know."
        "Yes."
        "Regards to the wife," he said from the doorway.
        It was a foolish thing to say, and I could see from the expression on his face that he knew it.
        He was a nice fellow and probably in the wrong business.
        

FIVE
        
        They released me from the hospital after two weeks, and I went back to the boat to wait for Stacey.
        Every day I went to visit her. Sometimes she would see me and sometimes she wouldn't. She was getting a little better though; she no longer turned her face away when I entered the room. We were able to talk about unimportant things. Never once did we discuss what had happened.
        At the end of the third week I brought her back to the boat. She was very quiet. She was still on Librium, and it made her drowsy. She slept a lot, and when she wasn't sleeping she would pretend to read. She would hold the, book, but it was obvious that her mind was elsewhere.
        I tried to busy myself with the work around the boat. Most of all I wanted to avoid giving her the feeling that she was being observed. I was hoping that eventually she would take up where she had left off with the painting and varnishing. It would be good therapy. I hated that word. It was too pat for what had happened to her. Whenever Newberry, her psychiatrist at the hospital, had used it, he turned me off.
        In my conversations with him I proposed shoving off right then and there on our trip. The sea air, I thought, would be good for her. And the excitement of cruising. Newberry disagreed. He was still seeing her three times a week, and he thought she ought to keep on with the visits. I couldn't argue with him. But if I had felt more confidence in my own judgment I would have insisted. Certainly it could not have been any worse for her.
        She was sleeping on one of the vee berths in the forward cabin. She pointedly closed the door behind her every night when she went to bed. It was unnecessary. Desire seemed a thing of the past. The memory of what had happened was still too fresh in both our minds.
        She had always been very clean about her person, but now she was fantastically so. Her skin had a taut, shiny look from being scrubbed too hard. You didn't have to be deep into psychoanalysis to figure out why.
        Music seemed to help; it didn't require the concentration of reading. She would sit by the hour up in that forward compartment listening to tapes. That bothered me because it was such a solitary pleasure. I couldn't seem to get to her. When I would suggest dinner ashore or a movie, she