Michael Lister - Soldier 02 - The Big Beyond Read Online Free PDF Page B

black eyeliner to give the illusion of stockings, but not Mrs. Harry Lewis. Her justification for this pass from this small wartime sacrifice was that they helped conceal the burn scars on her legs.
    Her two-tone, thick high heels brought together the black of her dress, its white collar and highlights, and the white of her gauntlet gloves and clutch bag.
    “How many? I want to know.”
    “It’s hard to say.”
    “How long have you been doing this?”
    “A few years,” I said.
    Gracefully, she crossed her long, shapely legs and straightened out her skirt. Her movements were as smooth and elegant as the silk stockings gripping her gams. They were dark, but you could still make out the burns down her right leg if you knew where to look.
    “So, of the cases
you’ve
worked, how many were guilty of cheating?”
    “All of them,” I said.
    Her eyes widened. She then exhaled heavily and fell back into her chair, the expression on her face a curious one, as if I had just shared a strange good news.
    “So the fact that I’m here almost guarantees my husband is cheating.”
    “Do you love your husband?”
    “Very much.”
    “If he
is
cheating, are you going to leave him?”
    She shook her head.
    “Then don’t do this.”
    “I’ve got to,” she said.
    “Why? Why do you want to know?”
    “I love my husband, Mr. Riley.”
    “So don’t—”
    “Like a father,” she said. “I’m not
in
love with him—not like a wife. I care about him a great deal. I owe him … well, everything. But if I knew he had someone …”
    She had trailed off, but seemed to need to say more, so I waited.
    “It would be a great comfort to me.”
    Standing in the darkened doorway now, her words not only echoed through the room, but through me.
    And her words were what I was here for.
    Easing inside, I stepped carefully, as if avoiding apparitions, making my way over to the phonograph and removing the recordings Ann Everett had secretly made of Lauren’s counseling sessions, forced to pocket my light in order to carry them.
    Records clutched to my chest with my left hand, I stumbled out into the hallway, along the corridor, and back down the stairs.
    Reaching the door, I realized I was going to have a problem opening it when the only arm I had was holding the records, but then a guy with a gun stepped out of the dark alcove and suddenly I had more pressing problems to worry about.

Chapter 9
    “H iya, solider,” he said, pressing the pistol into the small of my back. “Whatta you say we take a rittle stroll?”
    “Sure,” I said. “I could use some air.”
    “Then ret’s take in some air.”
    There seemed to be something faintly foreign, even exotic in his accent, but he was speaking so softly I couldn’t be sure, every syllable snaking out of his mouth in whispered hisses.
    We stepped out of the building, off the concrete pad, and into the parking lot, and I heard him gently close the door behind us.
    A few random desultory sounds came across the buildings from some of the all-night activities on Harrison, but back here it was desolate and dark, our footfalls and the soft whistle of the wind the only noises.
    “We headed anywhere in particular?” I asked. “Or just strolling?”
    “Hang a reft.”
    I did, all the while hoping Ruth Ann wouldn’t see us and try to intervene.
    Glancing over to the right side of the lot where she was parked, I could see she was asleep behind the wheel, her head tilted back on the seat at an angle.
    At the far edge of the opposite side of the parking lot in a dark corner beneath an oak tree, a Studebaker sat idling, its evanescent exhaust coiling up a few feet before vanishing into the damp night air.
    As we neared it, I could see that the vehicle was in pristine condition, appearing nearly new though it had been almost a year since the company had abandoned regular passenger car production. The final civilian car had rolled off the assembly line in January of ’42. The fact that it had painted