Read Online Don't Speak to Strange Girls by Harry Whittington - Free Book Online

tried to keep his pleasure out of his voice, the fact that he had wondered when she would call again. “Who is this?”
    “Why it’s Joanne, Mr. Stuart. Joanne Stark. My, you do have a terrible memory.”
    “Abstruse?” he said.
    She laughed. “Why, you are right friendly after all.”
    Clay covered the mouthpiece with his hand, jerked his head toward the foyer door. “Goodbye, Marty.”
    Joanne said, voice rising across the wires. “Are you there? Clay, you didn’t hang up?”
    “Not yet.” He watched Hoff go slowly across the room, close the door behind him.
    “Why, I’ve been calling you for perfect weeks, Mr. Stuart. Where’ve you been?”
    “I was out of town for a few days. Hunting.”
    “Hunting?” She laughed. “Why would you go out of town hunting when the best hunting in the world is right here in town?”
    He laughed with her. “They won’t let you shoot it in the city limits.”
    Her throaty voice became warmer. “Well, you sound so nice today. The other time you sounded so cold.”
    “Well, you were a stranger then.”
    “Don’t you speak to strange girls?”
    He did not answer and after a moment she said hurriedly, “I had a reason for calling you this time. Honestly.”
    “Did you?”
    “Yes. You want to hear it?”
    “All right.”
    “No. You’ve got to be nicer than that. You’ve got to say you want to hear it. After all, you must think I’m terrible the way I chase you like this … I’ll bet girls follow you around and call you all the time … say it, you want to hear why I called you this time.”
    His voice was smiling. “Oh, I do.”
    “You know, something is wrong here. I think I’ve got the wrong connection this time. This doesn’t sound like the chilled, aloof Andrew Clay Stuart I know.”
    “Why did you call this time?”
    “Well, I’m in your neighborhood this afternoon. What do you think of that?”
    Clay waited, feeling the quickening beat of his heart. What was the matter with him? Nobody in his right mind fell for a gimmick like this. There were hundreds of ways that women wrangled an unlisted number, and none of it ever led to anything good. But there was a quality of warmth and excitement in her voice. It projected itself across the wires. It caught at him, at his mind and his imagination. He had thought about her often since she’d called that first time. The biological reaction — and working across the phone lines like this. He was interested enough to want to see what she looked like. If he couldn’t handle himself at his age, what did it matter? Her voice was the first thing that had aroused his interest in months. He wanted to see what she looked like.
    “Aren’t you pleased?” she said.
    He waited again. She said, “Aren’t you? If you’re not, why I can hang up. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
    “You don’t bother me.”
    “I thought I might drop by for a cocktail. Do you like
daiquiris …? I mean, if you weren’t doing anything?”
    Yes, he thought, my God yes. Why don’t you?
    “All right,” he said. “If you’d like to.”
    “Be about an hour,” she said, excitement in her voice.
    “I’ll bake a cake.” He wanted to laugh with her. He felt young again, no longer so cold. Funny how little it took. Then she said something that chilled him, stopped it all cold.
    “What’s your address, Mr. Stuart?”
    “What?”
    “Where do you live?”
    “I thought you were in the neighborhood.”
    “What do you care, Mr. S.? I can be. Like I said. In an hour. Less even.”
    “You got my phone number, why not my address?”
    “Just didn’t work that way. What’s the matter? Why are you suddenly so stuffy again? What have I done wrong? All I asked you for is your address.”
    “Hell,” he said, “you can get that from any one of the tour guides.”
    He replaced the receiver, stood staring at it. He felt an unaccountable emptiness, a feeling of insufficiency and loss. He felt as if he had lost something valuable and the odd