Benchley, Peter - Novel 07 Read Online Free PDF Page A

did not remove her hand. She smiled. Of course. Nothing surprised this
woman.
                   "Bet you wish you had a drink right
now."
                   Impulsively, ludicrously, Preston began to deny it, but then he saw in her
eyes a wisdom born of pain and exuding sympathy. He believed for the first time
that she truly knew things about him that he didn't. Wordlessly, he nodded.
                   "I did, too." She grinned.
"When they came for me five years ago, I raced into the John and drank a
quart of Scope."
                   Preston was appalled at the effect her words
had on him. Even as he reacted, he didn't believe it. He felt that she had just
kissed him—not sexually but spiritually—and that the kiss had somehow shrunk
the tumor of loneliness that had been blooming in his guts. He gaped at her.
                   Still smiling, she said, “Let's have a
shooter, then.”
                   Margaret jerked in her chair. Kimberly bounced
as if hers were on fire. Warren frowned and smoothed his hair and said, "Actually, I'm not
entirely sure that's . . ." He trailed off. But none of them did anything.
                   Dolores Stark circled the room, gazing at the
bookcases, reciting titles to herself. She stopped and stood on tiptoe and
pulled a book off a top shelf. She read the title aloud: "A la Recherche
du Temps Perdu."
                   If Preston had
not already concluded that Dolores Stark was the Uri Geller of the booze
business, he would have been surprised. As it was, he was almost amused as he
watched her open the hollow book and pull out the half-full pint of 100-proof
vodka.
                   “Proust is a safe stash. Nobody ever reads
Proust." She uncapped the bottle and started toward Preston , for some reason taking the long route
around behind the desk. She stopped six feet from him and held out the bottle.
                   What was she doing? Just give me the bottle!
She wanted him to fetch it, to grovel for it. But why? I thought you were my
friend!
                   He lunged for the bottle. His hand was six
inches from it when she upended it, and eight ounces of salvation drooled into
the wastebasket. He stopped, his hand still extended, a clot of bile rising in
his throat.
                   "Whoops!" said the heartless,
vindictive harpy. She picked up the wastebasket and sloshed the vodka around
the scummy bottom. Then she took a step toward him. “One last social drink
before we go?" A nasty grin crinkled her stony face. “Sorry I don't have a
twist."
                   He hesitated for a second, no more, but long
enough for Kimberly to see that he was tempted. Her look of ashen horror
engraved itself on the tablets of his mind.
                   He slumped back in his chair, his face
contorted by a racking sob.
                   Dolores Stark set the wastebasket on the floor
and said cheerily, “Welcome to the rest of your life."
     

III
     
                   He would have skipped from Kennedy
Airport—would have found a motel with a cool, dark bar and spent a couple of
days thinking things over—if Dolores Stark hadn't latched on to him like a
Velcro suit and stuck with him from the office to the plane.
                   He would have dodged into the men's room and
knocked back six ounces of Dr. Smirnoff’s finest from the pewter flask in his
briefcase, if she hadn't searched him like a zealous nanny and confiscated the
flask, as well as the foil-wrapped packet of Valium that he always carried in
his watch pocket, just in case.
                   He would have at least managed a few quick
see-throughs on the plane if the virago hadn't had the appalling bad taste to
summon a supervisor and instruct him to tell the chief stewardess that Preston
was not under any circumstances to be permitted to consume