Cold Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

was talking to her.

    “Save a fortune at the hairdresser’s. I can never do the back of my head.”
    Lorraine switched off the hair dryer.
    “Oh, it just takes practice,”
    she said politely, and concentrated on finishing her hair. When she walked out from the cj^nging cubicle the nosy woman was talking confidentially to someone else, both their overweight bodies cushioned together in their white club-issue towels.

    “She used to be a police lieutenant, drunk on duty, that was what I was told. She knows the gym instructor and he told me that”
    Lorraine let her cubicle door bang hard and they whipped around like startled hamsters. She would have liked to tell them where she would like to ram the hair dryer but she didn’t. She said nothing. And all the tension her exercise and sauna had relaxed from her body was back. By the time she passed through reception she was wired and angry.

    Arthur, the gym instructor, gave her a friendly grin and called out,
    “Good night.”
    Lorraine kept on walking.

    Some friend he’d turned out to be. She decided she would not come back. She just knew she had better head directly for home instead of getting Rosie’s cider because that feeling of wanting a real drink was getting out of her control.

    Three bottles of Evian water downed between them Phyllis and Rosie were sitting in a small cafe. Only it wasn’t Rosie spilling out her tales of woe, it was Phyllis, and she had Rosie’s rapt attention.

    “I suppose in some ways I stayed on becafce it was all so dreadful and I keep on saying to myself, When it’s all ov^P, I’ll leave. But it’s not over, maybe it never will be. Sometimes it gets so bad with her I just don’t think I can take any more of it. She is so demanding, expecting me to be ready to drop whatever I am doing anytime of day or night. If she wakes up at four in the morning, she can’t be bothered to use the intercom, she just screams my name. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat because I think I’ve heard her shrieking for me, and other times, when she’s very sick because she’s taken so many pills to sleep, I just get rigid with fear and all I do is feel her pulse to see if she’s still breathing. It’s a wretched, terrible time for all concerned, a tragedy really. …”
    Rosie took a big breath.
    “I used to see all her movies.”
    Phyllis poured the rest of the Evian into her glass.
    “
    ‘Used to’ being the operative words. She hasn’t made a movie for maybe fifteen years.”
    Rosie leaned closer to Phyllis.
    “Why, why do you take it? Is it the salary? Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude, you don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry.”
    Phyllis pursed her lips, becoming defensive.
    “No, no, it’s not the salary, believe me, and lately we’ve not traveled the way we used toshe’s hardly left the house.”
    Rosie nodded.
    “Yeah, I guess it must be awful.”
    “It is, every time the phone rings. Not that she answers, just screams for me to do it, and so I get all tensed up, over and over again, hoping for news and afraid it will be bad, the worst… . She was such a pretty girl.”
    Phyllis started to sniffle, opening her purse to take out a small lace handkerchief. Rosie noticed it was a very expensive suede-lined purse, with a gold chain threaded with leather for a strap.
    “I’m so sorry to get like this, but I don’t have many friends, no one to really talk to. That’s why since I joined AA, it’s meant so much to me, you know. And Jake, he’s such a dear man, he’s been wonderful.”
    “Oh yeah, I know, he’s a godsend to me too. Would you like another glass of water, Phyllis? Or we could go on to something stronger, like apple juice?”
    Lorraine was waiting to apologize to Rosie when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up to the apartment.

    “Rosie?”
    Jake opened the screen door and then peered in.
    “Nope, it’s me. She’s not here, then?”
    “Nope.”
    “I’ll drive around, see if I can find her.