Лоуренс Блок - Random Walk - A Novel for a New Age

He liked the tight feeling in his groin, and the warmth that was centered there. He liked the heat of the sun, too, and the breeze that blew up every now and then.

He dozed off, and when he stirred and opened his eyes the pool area was almost empty. The sun was gone; it wouldn’t set for some hours yet, but it had dropped from view behind the wall of the hotel. He was almost alone at the pool. The puppy-fat teenager was still there, lying on a chaise now with her bathing cap off, and yes, she was a blonde, and at last her suit was able to cover her breasts, and would probably continue to do the job until she moved.

The brunette and her husband were gone, and so were almost all of the others. One older man, gray-haired and slack-muscled, splashed himself in the shallow end, and a couple across the pool from him were even now gathering up their towels and returning to their room.

The old man left a few moments later, tucking his feet into a pair of beach slippers and shuffling off. Only the girl was left, and as Mark considered this fact she sat up, exposing the top portion of her breasts, and gave the suit her usual yank. She tucked her blond hair into her bathing cap, doing a careful job of it and fastening the strap under her chin. Then she stood up and walked to the diving board.

He studied the backs of her thighs as she walked. Come back in a couple of years, he told her silently. Come around when you’re old enough. You don’t even have to lose that puppy fat, it’s charming, but get a little older and turn up again in my life, and we’ll see what we can do with you.

She did a series of simple dives, each time adjusting the suit as she emerged from the water. Watching her, an audience of one, he began to feel intimately connected to her, as though she were addressing her performance exclusively to him. The pool area became a secluded world, and they its only occupants.

He placed a hand on his groin and felt himself. He was fully erect, urgently so, and he ached, but not unpleasantly.

Not true, he thought. There was something he could take. He could take her.

He sat there, still touching himself, still watching her, and objections occurred to him. She was too young. He was a registered guest of this hotel. And, more to the point, anyone could approach the pool at any moment and see what was going on. Even if no one decided to go for a swim, there was a wall of windows overlooking the pool. Someone could look out at them, someone could see.

She dove again and he waited for her to swim to the ladder. This time, however, she swam the length of the pool, turned, swam back. He watched her swimming laps, her crawl stroke choppy but effective. The quick glimpse of her hairless underarm midway through each stroke was a special intimacy.

He stood up, his legs trembling slightly, and walked over to the shallow end, lowering himself slowly into the water. He glided toward her in an economical breaststroke. She had switched from the crawl to a modified backstroke, using her arms as oars and rowing back and forth across the pool. He stayed with the breaststroke and matched her pace, swimming a few feet away from her.

When she relaxed and floated on her back, he swam over to her. She opened her eyes at his approach and smiled at him. “Hi,” she said.

“You shouldn’t keep pulling your suit up,” he said

“Huh?”

“Those titties are too nice to hide. You should let people see them.”

The shock in her face was something to see. She didn’t know how to react, and before she could decide he had her by the shoulders. He flung his body upon hers and extended his arms, pinning her beneath the water’s surface. She fought, she struggled, and she was strong and agile from all that swimming, but he was stronger and he had the great advantage of surprise. She put up a good fight, she was game as a trout, but at last she weakened and she was his. His climax came when the fight went out of her and the first bubbles issued from her mouth and nose.

When she was still, her lungs filled with water, her eyes open and staring, he lowered the top of her bathing suit and took her milk-white breasts in his hands. He held her for a moment. Then he released her and she slipped down toward the bottom of the pool.

#94.

In Denver he spent part of an afternoon going over some figures with his property management people. He drove by the house where Mr. and Mrs. Minnick still occupied the top flat, and he remembered how urgently he’d responded to the round-faced round-bodied little creature. Was she home now? Should he knock on her door, tell her how proud he was to be her landlord, and give her a gentle little push into the next world? Two months ago the risk had seemed too great. Now it didn’t appear all that dangerous.

Still, he decided against it. Maybe later, maybe on another trip to Denver. That was the nice thing about Mrs. Minnick. He knew where she lived, and she wasn’t going anywhere. She could remain indefinitely on his unwritten list, and someday, when the time was right and the need was great, he’d put a little checkmark next to her name.

He drove down into Littleton and managed to find the 7-Eleven store where he’d stunned the cashier with a can of motor oil and finished her off in the lavatory. It seemed ages ago, and he remembered how he’d had to improvise, how driven he’d been and how he’d had to hurry.

Nowadays he was calmer, more confident. He walked through the store’s aisles and paused to pick up a can of motor oil and feel its weight. He put it back, picked up a newspaper and took it to the counter.

The attendant was a young woman with a mouthful of chewing gum. Her plastic badge said her name was Tina. She wasn’t pretty enough; anyway, the store was crowded. He paid for his paper and left.

After Denver he intended to drive home to Kansas City to see Marilee and the children. He got on the Interstate and drove east through Kansas, but something made him get off halfway across the state to Salina.

In the morning after breakfast he went hunting. He drove to a supermarket and pushed his cart up and down the aisles, looking for women. For almost an hour he cruised the air-conditioned market without finding anyone. The few women who appealed to him had children in tow, either walking at their sides or sharing cart space with heads of lettuce and boxes of Tide.

He left because he was afraid he might be making himself conspicuous. He abandoned his cart rather than go through the charade of buying groceries he didn’t need, and it seemed to him that people were regarding him with suspicion as he left the store. He drove right out of Salina and headed towards Kansas City again, but once more he stopped short of his destination, getting off I-70 at Junction City and driving up to Manhattan.

He found a suburban supermarket and began cruising the aisles, and within ten minutes he had spotted someone, a tall brown-haired woman who wore her hair in Indian-style braids. The hairdo plus her bib overalls and sandals made her look younger than she actually was; on closer inspection, he guessed her to be around thirty.

Nice figure. Good long legs. He beat her to the checkout counter, paid for a loaf of bread and a can of ravioli, and went to his car. When she drove out of the lot he was right behind her.

And she led him a merry chase. Instead of going straight home she drove to her bank, to another plaza to pick up her dry cleaning, to a K-Mart, and to an open-air farmers’ market just outside of town. Finally he followed her into the subdivision where she lived, but when she pulled into a driveway there was another car already parked there, and he looked at his watch and guessed that her husband was home. He made a face and tried to figure out how to get out of the subdivision.