Iceman Read Online Free PDF Page A

hurried on, starting to move. “I hate to rush off but I have another engagement clear across town,” she said moving, the smaller woman following her.
    “I understand,” the Wright woman said, shaking her head no furiously. “It's wonderful how much in demand you are. And the consciousness-raising you...” jabbering on a mile a minute as she followed Tina outside to the glass doors. Tina felt a hand on her arm and turned. The woman with her fingertips resting on Tina's sleeve. Standing a little close. Not wanting her to get away now and telling her of her great interest. One of those moments when it could go either way. Tina speculating idly for just that instant as to motive. Wondering if Janet Wright was gay. Not particularly caring, but mildly surprised at the thought. She patted the fingers and said sweetly, “I DO appreciate it,” pushing on the heavy doors and striding out into the parking lot.
    The woman was staying with her. “I wish you knew just how much it meant to hear you tonight. Such a remarkable experience for me...” Fine, but let it go. The persistent woman gushed on as Tina Hoyt stopped at her car, fishing keys out of a bag, “...feminist movement and the separatist...” the flexuous critique winding on.
    Enough. She cut the woman off with a crisp and airy “Thanks again. Goodnight!” Slamming the door on Janet Wright's parting words, waving good-bye, and smiling automatically as she started the car and began backing out. She hitched her skirt up to get comfortable, exposing a pair of slim, shapely legs. She felt as if she'd been wearing her pantyhose for three days. She'd have to work to keep her concentration buckled down when she spoke to the church women. Tina was tired and she felt herself getting a little bitchy over nothing, and she cracked the window and breathed deeply.
    The rural traffic was backed up behind big John Deeres and massive combines and cotton trailers, rolling their wide loads down the road to waiting fields. Tina braked, flipping her interior light on to check her wristwatch against the car clock. That was her first mistake. The woman driving the van coming from the opposite direction saw her lit up like an omen, an attractive young (?) woman alone in an ‘86 Toyota Corolla DLX 4-door, and she braked, making a neat, slow U in the next road, and easing up behind the cars waiting for the farmers to clear the way. The driver of the van appeared to be talking to herself in the rearview mirror, the way people sometimes do.
    Tina tried to relax, remembering some of the things the talkative Janet Wright had said about how important she was to the movement, and she breathed in the smell of woodsmoke as she drove. The thought of fires in some adjacent field reminded her of zoning laws, and she rolled her window up and zoomed around the slow-moving farm machinery.
    The woman pulled the van up a couple of car lengths behind the Toyota as Tina Hoyt found a parking spot near the basement entrance of Buckhead Christian.
    Tina was moving in the direction of the church door, heading for the thickly carpeted stairway that led to the church basement, when she heard a voice behind her call, “Hey! Excuse me?” And she turned and saw the beautiful woman click-clacking across the street toward her on extremely high heels.
    “Yes?"
    “Could you spare me just a few seconds?"
    “Gee. I'm sorry. I really can't. I'm running late as it is. If you can wait till after I finish, I'll be glad to speak with you then."
    “Please,” the woman said in a strange, hoarse whisper. “You'd better come hear this.” The beautiful woman conveyed an urgency and Tina turned back. “Just a few seconds."
    “All right.” Sigh. “But hurry, please."
    “Get in with me for a second.” She opened the door on the driver's side and gave Tina a big flash of long legs.
    “I don't have time to get in. Speak your piece."
    “I've got something you need to hear—and see.” She held up an envelope and some