The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [76]
“It’s silly for us to waste time talking to each other, isn’t it? We don’t have anything to talk about, really. No, I don’t want another drink. I didn’t really want this one. I didn’t come here to talk and I didn’t come here to drink. I already found what I came here for.”
“Oh?”
Her hand moved, cupped him. He felt himself growing under her touch. He was staring hard at the opposite side of the booth. He couldn’t speak.
“I don’t want people talking. They will anyway but there’s no point encouraging them. Where did you park your car?”
“Forsythe Street. Just across from the funeral parlor.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Buick. A white Buick.”
“Sit in your car and wait for me. Give me five minutes. All right?”
“Sure.”
She gave him a little squeeze, bounced her breast a second time against his arm. “Five minutes,” she said.
He sat in the car with the lights out and the motor running and felt like a Hollywood spy. “I don’t want people talking.” He thought of Mrs. Kleinschmidt: Tongues will wag. Not only Sully but Sully’s wife—
God, what a forward little piece she was. Hello, you’re Hugh Markarian, let’s fuck. A firm pillow of a tit against his arm and a greedy little hand between his legs and give me five minutes. He would slip into her, and could imagine nothing more comfortable than that.
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He told himself that he did not expect her to show up. When people came on that strong they were likely to be more interested in the game than anything else. It was unlikely that she would deliver. It was not as if he been singularly dynamic, charming her off her feet into his bed. Nor had she come looking for him. For someone, yes, but not for him. She had as much as said that she had come to the Lambertville House specifically to find a man. He had been in the right place at the right time, that was all.
He thought of Sully and smiled. If ever a man deserved to be cuckolded, Sully was the man. And maybe that was the motive, for that matter. Maybe Melanie had finally found out that her great hairy bear of a husband was running all over town screwing everything with a hole in it, and had decided to get some of her own back. Which was understandable, but it still left room for. her to get cold feet and change her mind.
He saw her turn the corner and let out his breath. He’d been unaware he was holding it. He blinked the lights once at her and saw her smile. He drove up, stopped for her, and she hopped in beside him and drew the door quickly shut.
“I was afraid you weren’t coming,” he said.
“I came, though.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And not for the last time, either. I think there’s going to be a lot of coming tonight.”
Her hand found him again. “That’s dangerous,” he said.
“It is?”
“When I’m driving it is.”
Her hand did not withdraw. “Oh, I’m not worried,” she said. “This is turning you on—”
“You better believe it is.”
“—but not in a way that’s gonna make you lose control of the car. You don’t lose control of things. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“How do you mean?”
“Because I think we both want the same thing out of the next couple of hours.”
“What’s that?”
“Some nice yummy fucking without any hassles. We’re a couple of strangers. I’m from Maine and you’re from California and we just met in a bar in Toledo.”
“Nobody ever met anybody like you in a bar in Toledo.”
“You never know. Where are we going?”
He was driving onto the bridge, slowing the car to the fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit. “Where do you want to go?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your place or a motel, whichever you’d rather.”
“My place, then.”
“I left my car in New Hope. Drop me and I’ll follow you out there. Then you won’t have to take me home. That’s if I can park the car where it won’t be seen from the street.”
“There’s a big driveway, and you can’t see anything from the street.”
“Then let me get my car. If we were going to a motel, I wouldn’t want to take it, but what’s the sense of you having to get dressed and drive me home?”
He dropped her