Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [90]
“Dead center. Gotcha.”
Her tanned legs flexed when she climbed back on the dock. She put on sunglasses, grinning up to the sky, her perfectly flat stomach beginning to shine with sweat. “Nice slow, sunny day like this? I think I’ll lay out here a while and catch some rays—”
Gerold gulped.
—and then she took off her top, just like that.
Holy moly . . .
She stretched out in a lounge chair facing Gerold’s position in the seat. All at once, the flawless snow-white breasts centered by dark nipples blared at him within the demarcation of tanned skin.
She grinned, Gerold’s own astonished face reflecting in her glasses.
“Uh, oh, sorry,” he murmured after another moment of staring.
“Hon? A gal my age’s got no problem bein’ looked at by a nice fella . . .”
Gerold raised his oars, tried not to continue staring, then just thought, To hell with it, and kept looking. “Um, I have a question, though—”
She giggled. “Yes. They’re implants, I gotta admit.”
Gerold laughed. “That wasn’t the question but . . .” He tried to focus his thought. “A minute ago, you said Lake Misquamicus wasn’t a big lake.” He shrugged and glanced behind. “Looks big to me. Real big.”
“Aw, there’s at least a dozen lakes in Florida bigger’n this. The biggest, a’course, is Lake Okeechobee, second biggest in the whole country. You never been there?”
It was impossible not to keep stealing glances. “No, but I’ve heard of it.”
“Over a trillion gallons of water in Okeechobee—”
The statement snapped Gerold’s stare. “A trillion? That’s . . . unimaginable.”
“Lotta water, sure. Hard to even reckon that much water.”
I better start rowing, Gerold told himself. This woman’s hooters are wringing me out. But the sudden question snapped to mind. “Any idea how many gallons in this lake?”
In painstaking slowness, the woman began to rub suntan oil over her belly. “Oh, yeah. Department’a Natural Resources says that Lake Misquamicus contains just about six billion gallons . . .”
(III)
Howard walks you back onto the parapet facing the inner wards and courtyard. Soft, fragrant breezes blow. You take in the scape of the fortress and beyond, more and more awed. This place makes Bill Gates’s house look like an outhouse . . . and it could all be mine . . .
But—
“Wait a minute. What good’s all this money and luxury when I don’t have friends to share it with?”
“Ah, there goes your good side shining through once more,” Howard replies. “But I’ll remind you that you had no abundance of friends in the Living World, and were quite content with that.”
You think about that. You’ve always been a friendly person but you never really needed a lot of friends. Your faith was your ultimate friend, and the opportunity to serve God. “Well, that’s true but looking at this whole thing now, I’d need some friends . . .”
Howard shrugs. “I’d like to think that I’m your friend, Mr. Hudson. I’ve delighted in your company, and I truly admire your earthy resoluteness and magnificently refined goodwill.”
The comment makes you look at him. “You’re right, Howard. You are my friend. You’re actually a pretty cool guy.”
“I’m grateful and touched.” And then Howard leans closer. “And not to portray myself too terribly mercenary . . . were you to accept the Senary, you’d easily have the power to relieve me of my laborious onuses at the Hall of Automatic Writers and have me reassigned as, say, your personal archivist and biographer? And during any free time you saw fit to afford me . . .” Howard sighed dreamily. “I could forge on with my serious work.”
“If I accept the Senary, Howard, then I’d do that—”
“Great Pegana!”
“But,” you add with an odd stammer. Something abstract seems to tilt in your psyche. If I accept the Senary, you repeat to yourself in thought.
Would you really do that?
“I-I-I . . . I don’t think I’m going to accept . . .” Yet even as the words leave your lips, you can’t stop thinking about all this luxury, all this money, and of course all these women at your disposal.
“Alas, our time is nearly done,” Howard tells