Read Online Corkscrew by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Donald E. Westlake
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would begin the conversation they'd agreed not to hold. No conversation, not till later. Some time later.
With the lights off, he suddenly thought of the stack of resumes he'd made at the copy shop. They were still atop the filing cabinet in his office, with the partial list of college addresses that he'd stopped, incomplete, when Bryce had spoken to him. What if he were to send them out, just to see?
Not tomorrow, that would hex everything. Thursday, after his first date (!) with Lucie Proctorr. Not even mention it to Susan, just send them out, see what the responses were. Maybe there was a wonderful job out there he didn't even know about, and some way that Susan could go on with her own career.
I'll send them, he thought. First the reconnaissance with Lucie, then I'll send out the resumes.
He couldn't sleep, was restless. At one time, turning from his side on to his back, his right hand brushed her left hand, and she at once closed her fingers around his. He held tight to her fingers and they lay side by side, on their backs, not talking, grasping hands.
The reservation was for eight, and they'd agreed on the phone he'd pick her up at her place at seven-thirty. 'If the weather's decent, we can walk, it's just a few blocks from you.'
'Oh? Where are we going?'
'Salt,' he said, naming a restaurant near her on Columbus Avenue.
'Well, good,' she said, sounding surprised he'd chosen well. 'I haven't eaten there, I've wanted to.'
'See you tomorrow,' he said, and at seven-thirty Wednesday evening he paid off his cab outside her building and stood a minute on the sidewalk.
It was a cool evening, late November, but dry. Her building was a modern high-rise, taking up half a block of Broadway in the low eighties, on the west side of the street, a part of the spurt of apartment building construction in this neighborhood a dozen years ago. The façade was some kind of mottled maroon stone, highly polished, and the broad entrance was high-tech, glass doors and wall and chrome verticals, as though it were the entrance to an airport building rather than somewhere that people lived. Inside, to the right, a uniformed doorman sat at a wide high desk of the same stone, reading.
A doorman. That wasn't a problem tonight, but what about the future? Whatever he did, however he did it, whenever he did it, it would have to be away from here. And even so, would the doorman, sometime later on, be able to identify him as someone who occasionally visited Lucie Proctorr?
Wayne turned away, and walked slowly up the block, looking through the glass wall at the doorman, who remained deeply involved in his reading. It was a
fotonovela,
a kind of comic book in Spanish that used photographs of actors and actresses instead of drawings.
Wayne walked on to the corner, then turned back, trying to decide what to do. Phone her? Suggest they meet at the restaurant? Too late for that. And what excuse would he give?
It was also too late to leave. His only choice was to keep moving forward, adapt to circumstances.
This time, as he reached the building entrance he turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat a little lower on his forehead; not too much, not to look like an escaped convict. Then he walked through the entrance and immediately held both cupped hands to his mouth, blowing into them. 'Getting cold out there,' he said.
The doorman put a finger on his place in the novela, glancing at Wayne with impatience. 'Who you wanno see?'
'Ms Proctorr.'
The doorman kept that finger on the novela, holding it open, as he reached with his left hand for the house phone, laid it on the counter in front of himself, and punched out the number, saying, 'An you are?'
'Tell her it's Wayland,' he said, and turned away to look out at the street, watching the traffic, giving the doorman less than a profile of his face.
The doorman spoke into the phone, then hung it up and was already looking at his novela when he said, 'Sixteen-C. The secon' elevators, back
With the lights off, he suddenly thought of the stack of resumes he'd made at the copy shop. They were still atop the filing cabinet in his office, with the partial list of college addresses that he'd stopped, incomplete, when Bryce had spoken to him. What if he were to send them out, just to see?
Not tomorrow, that would hex everything. Thursday, after his first date (!) with Lucie Proctorr. Not even mention it to Susan, just send them out, see what the responses were. Maybe there was a wonderful job out there he didn't even know about, and some way that Susan could go on with her own career.
I'll send them, he thought. First the reconnaissance with Lucie, then I'll send out the resumes.
He couldn't sleep, was restless. At one time, turning from his side on to his back, his right hand brushed her left hand, and she at once closed her fingers around his. He held tight to her fingers and they lay side by side, on their backs, not talking, grasping hands.
The reservation was for eight, and they'd agreed on the phone he'd pick her up at her place at seven-thirty. 'If the weather's decent, we can walk, it's just a few blocks from you.'
'Oh? Where are we going?'
'Salt,' he said, naming a restaurant near her on Columbus Avenue.
'Well, good,' she said, sounding surprised he'd chosen well. 'I haven't eaten there, I've wanted to.'
'See you tomorrow,' he said, and at seven-thirty Wednesday evening he paid off his cab outside her building and stood a minute on the sidewalk.
It was a cool evening, late November, but dry. Her building was a modern high-rise, taking up half a block of Broadway in the low eighties, on the west side of the street, a part of the spurt of apartment building construction in this neighborhood a dozen years ago. The façade was some kind of mottled maroon stone, highly polished, and the broad entrance was high-tech, glass doors and wall and chrome verticals, as though it were the entrance to an airport building rather than somewhere that people lived. Inside, to the right, a uniformed doorman sat at a wide high desk of the same stone, reading.
A doorman. That wasn't a problem tonight, but what about the future? Whatever he did, however he did it, whenever he did it, it would have to be away from here. And even so, would the doorman, sometime later on, be able to identify him as someone who occasionally visited Lucie Proctorr?
Wayne turned away, and walked slowly up the block, looking through the glass wall at the doorman, who remained deeply involved in his reading. It was a
fotonovela,
a kind of comic book in Spanish that used photographs of actors and actresses instead of drawings.
Wayne walked on to the corner, then turned back, trying to decide what to do. Phone her? Suggest they meet at the restaurant? Too late for that. And what excuse would he give?
It was also too late to leave. His only choice was to keep moving forward, adapt to circumstances.
This time, as he reached the building entrance he turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat a little lower on his forehead; not too much, not to look like an escaped convict. Then he walked through the entrance and immediately held both cupped hands to his mouth, blowing into them. 'Getting cold out there,' he said.
The doorman put a finger on his place in the novela, glancing at Wayne with impatience. 'Who you wanno see?'
'Ms Proctorr.'
The doorman kept that finger on the novela, holding it open, as he reached with his left hand for the house phone, laid it on the counter in front of himself, and punched out the number, saying, 'An you are?'
'Tell her it's Wayland,' he said, and turned away to look out at the street, watching the traffic, giving the doorman less than a profile of his face.
The doorman spoke into the phone, then hung it up and was already looking at his novela when he said, 'Sixteen-C. The secon' elevators, back
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