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

Mark Adlon had found the talk inspiring, but then he hadn’t really needed further inspiration at that stage. And, however inspiring the talk may have been, the fact remained that it would only inspire one person in fifty to go the whole nine yards. (Although, he noticed, it did indeed inspire a substantially higher percentage than that to shell out $398 for the set of tapes.)

It was getting dark by the time he left the duplex. He was staying downtown at the Radisson. He found a parking space in the garage for the Lincoln and took the elevator up to the VIP floor. You paid a couple more dollars for a room there and for that they gave you a concierge on the floor, and a breakfast buffet and a complimentary newspaper outside your door in the morning, and drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the evening. It wasn’t all that big a deal, but it was deductible, and it made sense to treat yourself well. The more you established yourself in your own mind as successful, the more other people cooperated in your increasing success. And, when you felt good about yourself, you had better judgment and your instincts were sharper and you made better decisions.

In the room he fixed himself a light scotch and water, drank half of it, shucked out of his suit and stood under a hot shower. He put on a sport shirt and slacks, finished his drink, and put through a call to his wife in Overland Park. (The house in Topeka had been rented out after they’d moved to suburban Kansas City; then, a year or so ago, the right buyer had come along and he’d sold it.)

He said, “Well, girl, we now own a third house in Denver. Or we will in a couple of days. The owner’s a nice old guy who wants to live in Florida. His sister has a place in Kissimmee and he wants something just like that, with orange trees in the backyard.”

He was on the phone for ten minutes. He told her about his day and heard about hers. He had a son in the eleventh grade and a daughter just two weeks away from junior high graduation, he had a big house with landscaped grounds and a forty-foot pool, he had property management firms to collect the rents and contend with the tenants, and all he had to do was keep on keeping on and he’d get a little richer every day, and have a little more fun.

Over dinner, a plate of fettuccini Alfredo and a big bowl of salad at a downtown restaurant full of wood and polished brass and hanging plants, he found himself thinking of Bedrosian’s tenant. Well, his tenant now, or in a couple of days when the sale went through.

The wife, the little pouter pigeon, with her round body and her round face and her round eyeglasses. And the round breasts, straining the front of her shirt. He found himself looking appraisingly at a couple of the waitresses and other women in the restaurant.

He ordered a cup of coffee, and while he waited for the girl to bring it he sat with his eyes closed and breathed slowly and deeply through his nose, holding the breath for a few seconds between the inhale and the exhale. He let himself tune in to his own inner rhythms and he recognized what he found there.

He drank his coffee, added a tip to the check and paid with a credit card. Outside, he walked a few blocks on the pedestrian mall where the restaurant was located. He went back to his hotel, got the Lincoln out of the garage, and drove around. Several times he saw women at bus stops and offered them rides, but they all turned him down. Only one even bothered to speak; from the others he got a stiff-lipped stare and a quick shake of the head.

In Littleton, south of the city, he stopped at a 7-Eleven. The clerk was a very tall youth with a dirty apron. Mark bought a pack of gum and left, flipping the gum into an empty oil drum on his way back to his car. He passed up two more convenience stores because there were too many cars parked out in front. The next one was another 7-Eleven and there was only one other customer, a fat woman buying ice cream. Her entertainment for the night, he thought. Then, as she was paying at the register, two young men came in for beer and cigarettes.

He stood to one side at the magazine counter, feigning interest in a copy of Car & Driver . Every few seconds he would look over the top of the magazine at the girl behind the counter. She was taller than little Mrs. Minnick and her hair was a lighter brown. Her figure looked good, from what he could see of it. And, while she looked nothing like the woman he had seen at Bedrosian’s house, there was some quality about her, something that might have been vulnerability, that reminded him of the other woman.

She would do. That was the thing: she would do.

He waited there at the magazine counter, a forty-two-year-old millionaire an inch or so shy of medium height, with wavy blow-dried brown hair that was just starting to go gray at the temples. He’d put on weight in his eight years in the real estate game; he was tons more active than he’d been in the past, but all the running around gave him a hell of an appetite and it was easier to eat what he wanted than struggle with it. His face had filled out and he was getting a little jowly, but the up side of the extra weight was that it didn’t hurt you in business. A plump man looked prosperous, and at the same time trustworthy. You wouldn’t want to be out-and-out fat, but a few extra pounds was all to the good.

The two young men paid for their Marlboros and Bud and left. He heard their engine start, turned to check the lot outside. There was only his Lincoln, parked off to the side, and a Honda Civic that must have belonged to the girl.

His heart was racing, racing. He walked to the rear of the store, pausing at the display of auto care products to pick up a quart can of motor oil. He stationed himself in front of a glass-fronted food locker full of frozen burritos and pizzas. He called out, “Miss? Could you come here a minute?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I need your help with something.”

She was not quite his height. Young — maybe twenty-six, twenty-eight. He could smell her perfume and her sweat.

“What is it?”

Her name was Cindi. It said so on her little plastic name badge.

“Back there. Do you see where I’m pointing?”

“Where?”

She looked, frowning, leaning forward, and he swung the can of motor oil in a vicious arc, connecting solidly with the back of her head. She fell without a sound, and as she dropped one leg swung out behind her and dislodged a couple packages of Beer Nuts from a display.

He thought, Now, quickly, before anyone comes in . But he wanted her awake, he wanted her knowing what was happening. He caught her up under the arms and half carried, half dragged her into the back, where two doors set in a wall of unfinished concrete block opened into restrooms. In the men’s room, he propped her up against the sink. He stood between her legs and put his hands on her body, filling his senses with her.

She was still out, and for a moment he was afraid she was dead. But he could see a pulse working in the hollow of her throat.

He tore a couple of paper towels from the dispenser, wadded them up and crammed them into her mouth. He said, “Cindi?” When she failed to respond he ran water in the sink and splashed a little on her face. He said, “Cindi? Open your eyes, Cindi. Open them.”

She stirred. Her eyes fluttered, then opened. Brown eyes, not too well focused yet. Perspiration beading her upper lip.

He leaned his lower body against her. He settled a hand on either side of her throat. Her eyes were bringing his image into focus and he saw the fear coming into them now, the terror, and he said, “You look at me, Cindi, you look at me, darling,” and he held her eyes with his and ground his hips into hers as he choked the life out of her.

He wiped the faucets, the sink, the doorknob. With a paper towel around his hand he pressed the button to lock the door behind him, and he kept the towel over his hand as he pushed the door shut. He used it again to wipe off the can of motor oil, which he returned to its proper place on the way out of the store.