Donald Westlake - Smoke

"What for? I've seen you swim, it's the only time I can see you, or something like you."

"Just come along, okay?"

His Playtex hand took her hand, and she allowed him to lead her around the house and up the slope to the pool, where he carefully closed the door in the fence and said, "Come on in the pool, Peg."

"In?" That would truly be exposing herself to sunlight, with no protection at all. Water was no protection. "I didn't bring my suit," she said.

He laughed, as he peeled off his own clothing. "You don't need a suit, " he told her.

That was so strange, to watch him disappear like that, to watch a complete human being turn into nothing more than a pile of clothing on the deck. Then there was a giant splash as he cannonballed into the water, and there it was, the ghost dolphin again, coursing through the pool.

"Come on in, Peg!"

It was along the lines of a last request, after all, she told herself, so she decided to go along with it, stepping out of her clothing, leaving it all more nearly on a chair than he had on the deck, and then stepping gingerly into the pool to find it not cold at all, the water first warmed by the pool heater and then by the sun. She descended into the sparkling water, and the giant dolphin swept toward her through the pool, and put his warm wet arms around her, and kissed her on the mouth.

"Mmmmm," she said.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"Mmmmm," she said.

Sex in the swimming pool, in the buoyant warm water, languorous and slow. This was the first time since Freddie's transformation they'd been together like this when it wasn't pitch black, and it was kind of terrific. Very sexy, very loving that was, to be turned and stroked by a giant ghost dolphin in the water, someone you couldn't really see, but almost, and finally, when all was said and done, it didn't matter. Peg and Freddie and the warm moving water flowed together into one being, loving and content.

Well, after that she couldn't just put her clothes on and go home. They spent the afternoon together, for a while with Freddie in a terry-cloth robe — one size fits all, as Martin had pointed out — and espadrilles, with a white towel tossed over his head. That wasn't so bad, seeing the spaces where there ought to be a person. Maybe, if she had small doses of it like this, particularly with pleasant interludes like the one in the swimming pool as part of the arrangement, maybe eventually she could begin to get used to this new Freddie. In small doses.

It was Peg's idea they try a candlelight dinner at home, with only two candles. That made it a bit hard to find the food, but Freddie was now in a short-sleeved polo shirt and slacks, no gloves or head, and in the dimness she hardly minded the fork as it moved in and out of the candle glow, or the lack of anything at all above the shirt's soft collar. They had wine with dinner, and it was impossible for Peg to leave after that, and in any case the pool experience and the romantic dinner, and the protected solitude of their hideaway house here in the country, suggested a different ending for the evening, so that was what they did.

But now it was Sunday afternoon, and they could stall no longer. Peg could not bring herself to kiss Frankenstein's monster's cheek, but she patted the cheek, and that was no good either: cold, and not at all lifelike. "Freddie," she said. "I'm going to close my eyes now, and I want you to kiss me good-bye."

"Hell and damn," he said, but she closed her eyes, and she heard the rustle of latex, and then he kissed her for a long time. Then she opened her eyes, and the morose monster was back. "I'll call you tonight," she told it, and got into the van quickly, before she would start to cry in front of him.

Which was another advantage he had, she told herself, as she tried to be hard and cold. If he cried, who would know?

The monster stayed in her rearview mirror, waving its Playtex hand. She honked as she went around the curve that put him out of sight.

Driving south, she thought furiously but profitlessly about herself and Freddie and their problems and their options, and nothing seemed to make sense, nothing at all. She drove much faster than usual, because she was upset, and it was lucky she didn't get a ticket. At one point, on the southern part of the Taconic, she zipped past a red Ford Taurus poking along moodily in the right lane, with two long-faced guys in white yachting caps inside it, illuminated like a stage set because of their sunroof, but she didn't even give them a glance. She had troubles of her own.

The apartment was hot and stuffy and dusty and empty. There was a window air conditioner in the bedroom closet, which she lugged out and installed in a bedroom window, sweating gallons along the way. After she showered, the bedroom was a little cooler, but the rest of the apartment was still hot.

She called Freddie from the bedroom phone, but it turned out they had very little to say to one another. Both felt extremely awkward, and both were happy to end the call, with, "Talk to you tomorrow." Then Peg went out to a deli to get some necessities, went home, called a Chinese take-out place, carried the TV set into the cool bedroom, and spent the evening eating anonymous foods in front of anonymous reruns.

She went to bed early, but it was very hard to get to sleep. On the other hand, she had no trouble at all waking up when Barney Beuler kicked the leg of the bed and snarled, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Fucking Beauty."

49

Like the valet in Sullivan's Travels, Mordon Leethe viewed the entire proceedings with a sense of gloomy foreboding. It was not his desire to be here, aiding and abetting the commission of any number of felonies not normally associated with the partners of corporate law firms, but on balance his situation was so impossible in every direction that it was probably best, all in all, that he be here, present and culpable in these acts of breaking and entering, kidnapping, coercion, and possibly even battery upon persons, because if he weren't physically in this place he'd still be a coconspirator, still just as guilty in the eyes of the law — and in his own eyes as well — and without even the hope that he might somehow influence events, blunt the worst excesses of Barney Beuler, this associate in crime to whom he found himself so inextricably lashed, or that he might help steer the fragile ship of his own good name through these felonious reefs toward the barely visible shore of early retirement, a beaching that was coming to seem more and more advisable with every passing moment. Or, as Henry James might have put it, he was in it now, up to his neck.

At six on Monday morning, they had let themselves into Peg Briscoe's apartment, Mordon and Barney and the three cigarette-company thugs, Creeping, silent, they had observed the woman asleep in her air-conditioned bedroom, with no second body shape mounded beside her and with no male clothing to be seen anywhere. Nevertheless, reclosing her bedroom door, they had swept the apartment just as they'd done last time, to be absolutely sure the invisible man was not here. Only then did all five invade the bedroom once more and Barney wake the Briscoe woman with his patented charm.

Her eyes popped open. She sat bolt upright, staring at the five men in her room. Under a sheet, she seemed to be wearing some sort of long T-shirt. Instead of aroused, Mordon felt embarrassed. Before Barney could do or say anything else crude, he stepped forward, saying, "Miss Briscoe, it's Freddie we want."

"Oh, Christ !" she cried, in apparently genuine exasperation. "It's you guys again. For a second there, you had me terrified. Hold on while I use the bathroom," she said, sliding out of bed. Yes, a long white T-shirt, not quite opaque enough. "Make some coffee, will you?" she said, and sloped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.