Chill of Night Read Online Free PDF

Emporium and asked to see the buyer, who was Bev, who was also head of the sales department. She’d had an argument with her husband, Floyd, that morning, and was still smarting from some of the insults he’d sent her way. In retrospect, she knew that was what had made her vulnerable to Lenny, who could spot a broken wing like a hawk.
    Floyd was almost fifteen years older than she was, and his increasing absence from home and her bed, his constant whining about his heart condition, were symptoms of what Bev knew was a failing marriage. It was why she insisted on continuing working, though Floyd was retired now, with a decent pension and Social Security, and they could get by comfortably if she stayed home. But Bev didn’t want to stay home, cooped up in a one-bedroom New York apartment—not with Floyd. They both understood that was the reason she continued to work. Floyd had become disinterested except for when he wanted to be verbally abusive. But he wasn’t dumb. He knew as well as she did that their marriage was headed for a train wreck.
    Bev could be insulted only so much, and ignored only so long. What happened with Lenny seemed so natural, she wasn’t sure if he’d seduced her or vice versa. She’d listened carefully to what he had to sell that day, in her office right off the display floor. He was handsome in a smooth way, with lazy eyes and an easy smile, and full of bullshit from the get-go. It seemed he’d made a deal to purchase hundreds of obsolete fire extinguishers, which he’d had made into “novelty lamps.” He was now trying to market them discount because of increasing demand and decreasing storage space, due to a rental dispute.
    Bev could be a charmer herself. Never bullshit a bullshitter, she told Lenny, but in a nice way, not using those exact terms. He got the message, and with his sexy grin admitted he was stuck with a warehouse full of fire extinguisher lamps and needed to sell them cheap or he’d have to give them away.
    â€œHave you always been in the lamp business?” Bev asked.
    He settled back in his chair and crossed his legs real cool-like, the drape of his gray slacks saying they were well tailored. Lenny knew how to dress the part. Something Bev liked in a man. Some of the stuff Floyd had been wearing lately looked like it came from a retirement home fire sale. And if she told him about it…well, never mind.
    â€œBefore this I was in the coffee table business,” Lenny said. “I made this deal with a cemetery near the Hudson that was being moved. They weren’t going to reuse the damaged marble slabs that rested on top of the coffins.”
    â€œWhy on top?” Bev asked.
    â€œThat’s to keep the coffins from rising to the surface when the water table gets higher during the wet seasons. Good, beautifully veined marble. So I bought them, ground and polished them, and put some fancy legs on them for coffee tables.”
    â€œHow’d they sell?”
    Lenny smiled. “What would look good on them would be those fire extinguisher lamps.”
    â€œThe ones I’m going to buy?”
    â€œYou serious?”
    She glanced at her watch. “You want to go to lunch, we’ll talk price.”
    His hooded gaze traveled over her body, lingering on her breasts. She was sitting behind her desk, and she knew he was wondering what her legs were like. He wouldn’t be disappointed. Legs, I got.
    â€œI’m picking up the check,” she said. “Company business.”
    â€œThen I can’t say no.”
    â€œI know the feeling,” she said.
    Â 
    That fateful lunch had been three months ago. The fire extinguisher lamps still sat in the showroom, unsold. If anyone else had been head of sales, they would have been priced down and out or junked.
    â€œYou die in there?” Lenny called, from the other side of the bathroom door.
    â€œNo, out there, with you.”
    Bev didn’t bother