The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [53]
“I think so.”
“I can’t judge you, kitten. I only see you on special occasions. Perhaps your mother can judge you, and I’m by no means sure of that, but I can’t.”
“I wouldn’t have told her any of this.”
“That’s something else again.”
“I went to New York for an abortion. No, I’m all right, there was nothing to it. I was pregnant and I had the money and I took care of it, and I’m fine. I didn’t| feel bad about the abortion. All I feel bad about is getting pregnant in the first place.”
“There are ways to avoid it, you know.”
“I know, but the Pill only works if you remember to take it.” She grinned suddenly. “From now on I’ll remember.”
“That’s a good idea. All right, if there’s any more to the confessional period I might as well hear it now. You dropped out of school and you’re not a virgin, and you had an abortion and what else? You’ve got ‘Property of Hell’s Angels’ tattooed on your behind.”
“Who told you?”
“Oh, it was in all the papers. Hey.”
“What?”
“I missed you. And you look good. From what you said it doesn’t sound as though you should, but you do.”
“So do you.”
“What are your plans? Assuming you have any.”
“I don’t exactly.”
“What are your inexact plans? Back to Evanston?”
“No, there’s nothing there for me. I thought I would go back to New York.”
“What’s there in that rotten town?”
“I know some people there, sort of.”
“You could spend the summer here, you know.”
“That’s what I was hoping. That’s why I came here to begin with, hoping I could stay here awhile. The only thing is I don’t know if I can.”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I?” Her eyes challenged him. “What you said. I’m not a little kid. I’m used to living a certain way, having a certain amount of freedom.”
“There are no bars on the windows, Karen.”
“I might, you know, stay out all night.”
“I think I could live with that.”
“I might even want to bring someone home with me.
“Well, I occasionally bring someone home myself. I won’t get upset if you don’t.”
“Do you really mean it?”
“I think so, yes. You have the right to live your own life, Karen. I can’t think why you shouldn’t have the right inside this house as well as out of it. What’s so funny?”
“I was picturing the four of us at breakfast. You and someone and me and someone. Do you have someone in particular?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Well, whoever she is, remind her to take her pill. You mean it, don’t you? I can stay here?”
“Oh, baby,” he said.
SEVEN
Sully closed the bar a little earlier than usual. The crowd was light, and on such nights he rarely remained open until the legal closing hour. While the few remaining customers finished their drinks he approached one of the waitresses and told her to stick around afterward, he wanted to talk to her. He spoke in a low voice and talked out of the side of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” she said, but he was already walking away and gave no sign of having heard her.
When everyone else had gone he took her in his arms and kissed her. She did not exactly resist but he felt the stiffness of her shoulders. She was a big South Philadelphia girl with high Slavic cheekbones and a flat forehead. He put a hand on her back between her shoulder blades and ran it slowly down to her buttocks. He drew her toward him, kissing her mouth again, and the lower part of her body first moved against him, then pushed stubbornly back against his hand.
He released her. “C’mon,” he said.
“I don’t know about this.”
He ignored her and she followed him to his office. It was a small room that contained a heavy Mosler safe, a small maple kneehole desk with matching chair, three other straight chairs, and a long, deep sofa upholstered in dark-red plush. The walls were bare except for two calendars from liquor distributors and a few dozen eight-by-ten glossy