Jealous Woman Read Online Free PDF

reason.”
    “Who is your former husband, by the way?”
    “Richard Sperry.”
    “I never heard of him.”
    “He was well enough known when I married him. His scientific standing as a petroleum expert is good and solid. Backed up by her money, though, he’s become internationally eminent. And I imagine her money will tell the story here.”
    “You mean—she’ll offer Tom?”
    “I think so.”
    “And Tom will take it?”
    She talked along about society people, and what they will do for money, or even free booze, like indorse this, that, or the other brand of whiskey, and I got the idea friend Tom could be had, and maybe cheap. We saw a deer and a pair of eyes we decided was a puma, though if you ask me, most of those pumas along the road would yip like coyotes if you coaxed them with a rock. She took my hand and patted it. “Yes, I think we can assume that little Connie didn’t come all the way from Bermuda, as much money as she has, just to say please.”
    “... Your husband lives in Bermuda?”
    “Didn’t I say? He’s a geologist for the oil companies.”
    “Didn’t know Bermuda had any oil.”
    “Bermuda’s his base. You can’t live in Venezuela. It’s too hot, and they’ve got malaria.”
    “How’d she find out about this annulment?”
    “Through the frizzle-haired simpleton.”
    “His fiancée?”
    “Who’s reached the bragging stage now.”
    “Would her bragging reach Bermuda?”
    “It’s practically a suburb of New York.”
    “She certainly got here quick.”
    “What’s the matter, Ed?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Have I upset you, talking about Dick?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Well, something’s eating on you.”
    “I said nothing’s the matter.”
    We drove to the hotel, but Bermuda, the policy, and the pass at Keyes certainly seemed more than coincidence.

4
    T HEY SAY A ZEBRA , as long as he can see the lion, goes on grazing without getting too much excited about it. But when he can’t see him, and can only hear him, and has no idea where the sound is coming from, he gets so nervous he can’t eat, can’t run, and can’t stand still. I was that way about Keyes. When he didn’t come in next day and he didn’t call, I stood it until noon, but by that time I had to find out what he was doing. I drove over to the hotel, and he was in the barber shop. The barber was working on his head, the shine boy on his feet, and the manicure girl on his paws. When I went bug-eyed he acted like nothing had happened, though you could tell from the way Marguerite had to cue him that he’d never had a manicure in his life, and I wouldn’t bet much he’d ever had a shine.
    In the lobby, when the production job was done, so he shone and squeaked and smelled, he propositioned me about my car. “As there’s absolutely nothing I can do until I hear from New York, I’d kind of like to drive Mrs. Sperry around, and if you could accommodate me—”
    “It’s yours. Here’s the key.”
    “But if you need it I can rent one.”
    “You? In a U-Drive jalopy?”
    “Oh, I drive.”
    “But you’re so valuable to the company.”
    “I guess that’s right.”
    He was pretty solemn about it, and I dead-panned, though I kind of liked the gag, and I filed it away so in case I had to make a speech at a company banquet I’d have something to tell the boys. Pretty soon he said: “She knows the country and is going to show me a lot of things, like the old mines in Goldfield and Tonopah and Virginia City—those are ghost towns, aren’t they?”
    “They were, till fires burned the ghostly garments up.”
    “Extraordinary woman, Ed. Wonderful mind. I was telling her about this problem of ours.”
    “Yeah? I’m a little surprised.”
    “Oh, I mentioned no names.”
    “Then of course that makes it different.”
    “She thinks, as I do, that on big things, you instinctively know what you think, with no evidential substantiation. Beautiful phrase, Ed.”
    “Here we call it playing a hunch.”
    “Her mind