Read Online Marine Corpse by William G. Tapply - Free Book Online Page B

section it off into several different parts: a sofa and soft chairs around a circular coffee table in front of the fireplace, a dining table centered on an oval braided rug, a desk in a corner by floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and, for lack of a more precise term, a gymnasium, with a rowing machine, a stationary bicycle, and a weight machine. The whole room was filled with the extravagant orchestral strains of Wagner.
    “That’s Die Walküre , isn’t it?” I asked loudly.
    She nodded. “Kinda loud, huh?” She went over to the stereo in the corner near the fireplace and turned down the volume a couple of notches. It was still loud. “Don’t you like Wagner?”
    “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I prefer a little Bach counterpoint on a harpsichord, though. Usually, actually.”
    “Wagner is more inspiring, exercise-wise. You know about the Valkyries, don’t you?”
    “Not really.”
    “The handmaidens of the Norse god Odin. They hovered over the battlefield, picking out which of the young warriors would be killed. Then they conducted their souls to Valhalla. Real ballbusters, the Valkyries, flying around up there deciding the fate of the young men. Don’t you love that image? The ancients knew all about how women could get pissed off at men. Great women’s liberation themes in classical mythology, you know. Scylla and Charybdis, the harpies, the sirens. All of them real nut-knockers.”
    I smiled. “Nut-knockers.”
    “God,” she said. “This place is a mess.” She moved around the room, making little piles of the books, magazines, and newspapers that lay scattered around, and punching up the pillows. I stood there watching her uncertainly.
    When she was finished, she picked up the towel and rubbed her hair and face briskly as she came toward me. She seemed completely unaware that, aside from the skin-tight outfit she wore, she was quite naked. I was not unaware of it.
    “Stu and I used to work out together,” she said. “He used to kid me about being chubby.”
    “You don’t look chubby to me.”
    She flexed her arm. “Feel that,” she said. I did. “Hard as a rock, huh? Tell me the truth. Do you think I’m too chubby?”
    “You are definitely not chubby.”
    She cocked her head at me and nodded solemnly. “Do I embarrass you?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    She struck a body-builder’s pose for me. “My body is a temple,” she said.
    I tapped a Winston ostentatiously from my pack and lit it. “ My body,” I said, “is a hazardous waste dump.”
    “I do embarrass you.” She grinned. “Listen. I need a drink. And you undoubtedly would like something toxic.”
    “Something that will erode my stomach, yes.”
    “Bourbon? Scotch? Let me guess.” She squinted at me. “You’re a Scotch man,” she said. “All Republicans drink Scotch.”
    “Wrong on both counts. I’m a Jeffersonian Democrat, and I drink bourbon. Plenty of ice. No water.”
    “A Democrat?”
    “Well, I hardly ever vote for Democrats in Massachusetts, but that’s an altogether different story. Bourbon I drink everywhere.”
    “I hear you,” she grinned.
    She disappeared around the corner toward what I assumed was the kitchen. I went to the stereo and studied it for a while before I identified the knob that controlled the volume. I turned it down some more. Then I went back and sat on the sofa by the fire.
    She returned in a minute. She had pulled on a big baggy gray sweatshirt with a maroon seal on it that said “Veritas.” Truth. Harvard, naturally. I assumed the sweatshirt had belonged to Stu. She handed me a square glass half-filled with bourbon. She had a glass of pale amber liquid, which she placed on the coffee table.
    “Apple juice,” she said. “Gotta wait at least thirty minutes after my workout before I get my beer.”
    She retrieved the big shopping bag I had brought that contained Stu’s notebooks, flopped down on the sofa beside me, took a long swig of apple juice, and pulled a notebook from the bag. “I can’t