Run for Your Life - James Patterson [9]
The Teacher gazed into her eyes for a long, leisurely moment, the kind of look that told her he was everything she imagined, and much, much more besides. Her lips parted a little as she stared back at him, rapt.
“I’d certainly rent him for an hour or two if the mom came with him,” he said.
The full-bodied stunner arched herself like a cat, giving him a sly smile of her own.
“You’re naughty and sexy, aren’t you?” she said. “I go into the city two or three days a week, usually about this time—and I’m usually alone. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again, naughty man.” The bastion of elite modern motherhood winked, then sashayed away on her Chanel peep-toe pumps, giving him a show of her long, firm calves and rolling hips.
The Teacher stood there, puzzled. Naughty? He’d meant his remark to insult the whore, to shame her by letting her know how much her assault on human dignity disgusted him. Hadn’t his sarcasm been clear? Obviously, it had gone right by her.
But he’d been plenty clear enough. The problem was that you couldn’t possibly shame someone who had none.
There had been a time in the not-so-distant past when he would have used his formidable charm to get her “digits,” as they said—a time when he’d have taken her to a hotel and let his sadistic lust, inflamed by her pregnancy, run rampant.
But that man was someone he had once been and no longer was—someone he’d left behind in the dust as he trod the path that had made him the Teacher.
Now he could vividly imagine beating her to death with the Bugaboo stroller.
The roar of the arriving New York City–bound train mounted in the Teacher’s ears, and its weight subtly tilted the concrete platform beneath his feet.
“All aboard!” the conductor called from the ringing doors.
Next stop, the Teacher thought, as he joined the other passengers stepping onto the train: Revelation.
Chapter 6
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, the Teacher stepped onto the 34th Street subway platform for the 2 and 3 trains. It was eight thirty-five a.m., the height of rush hour, and the strip of cement was jam-packed with all stripes of humanity from one grimy end to the other.
He walked to the platform edge’s warning line, near the southern end of the downtown side. On his right was a homeless man who smelled like an open sewer, and on his left, a young female strap hanger, talking loudly on her cell phone.
The Teacher tried to ignore them both. He had tremendously important things to think about. But while he succeeded with the homeless man, it was impossible to shut out the brazen young hussy who was punishing everyone within earshot with the details of her boring, pointless life.
He watched her out of his peripheral vision. She was eighteen or nineteen, tall and thin, and, like her squawking voice, her appearance was all about calling attention to herself—dark tan set off by hair bleached an unnatural white, oversized shades, and a pink cutoff designer hoodie that revealed a diamond belly stud in front and one of those oh-so-original, above-the-butt, slut tattoos in the back.
Forced to hear her rant about her purebred dachshund’s hernia operation through mouthfuls of her onion bagel, he actually found himself leaning more and more toward the reeking Dumpster diver.
The dime-sized lights of an approaching train appeared in the distance of the far tunnel. The Teacher relaxed—relief from this petty torment was on its way.
But the human Bratz doll stepped closer to the platform’s edge, brushing past him as she moved. A blob of cream cheese fell from her breakfast and plopped onto the toe cap of his Prada shoe.
He stared in disbelief, first at his six-hundred-dollar footwear, then at her, as he waited for an apology. But so entrenched was she