Naked Came the Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

debating which stop to make next. Seeing Gillian
again, he knew which one he wanted to make. He excused himself and
telephoned his foreman. He said there would be no need to check the
Freeport job unless there were problems. No sweat, no sweat at all.
He went back to Gillian. She was at the table again. Her husband
hadn't seemed to notice anything. Ernie had once played against a
quarterback who looked like Bill – no chin at all –
Michigan, it was – and he got hit once and that was it for the
afternoon.
    "Would you join me in one?" Gillian was asking.
    Ernie didn't like martinis. He didn't trust them. Anything that
looks like water and tastes like fire – he knew he couldn't
handle them. But that was the challenge and he nodded assent. He
watched the new waitress as she walked away. Maybe there was
something there, too, he thought as he watched her posterior
stretching the white nylon skirt. Ernie was always working on the
next one, even when he was in the middle of drumming up action. He
had never discovered that man has relatively little to say about
it.
    "We just got in from New York," Gillian was saying. "Do you ever
listen to our show? I don't blame you – it's basically for
women anyway."
    When the martinis arrived they were on the rocks. Gillian jiggled
the glass and noticed the expression in Ernie's eyes. She jiggled the
glass again and again it happened. It was as though his eyes had
turned to ice. It was the same look she had seen Saturday before he
turned into a raging animal. Gillian had minored in psychology at
Bard, but the psychology she relied on now was something she had been
born with.
    "The ice cubes look nice, don't they?" she said. "Nice, just
floating in the glass."
    Ernie could feel the dampness on his forehead. He reached for his
glass and took it in a single burning swallow. Better, better now.
Gillian watched the small scene with mounting academic interest, as
though once again she were observing from a concealed vantage point.
She said that it might be wise to go slow on the martinis,
particularly if he were not used to them.
    "I'll drink what I fucking please," Ernie snarled at her.
    "I was drinking when you were still using candles on
yourself."
    Gillian knew then she should get up and leave. She looked over at
her husband's table – the men had all disappeared. She felt
uneasy then, but didn't protest when Ernie ordered the last round of
martinis.
    "Do you want to tell me about it?" she said.
    "Where's your husband?" Ernie said. "Where's old shithead off to
now?"
    "Is there anything you want to tell me, Ernie?"
    "Why did you marry a shithead like that?" Ernie said.
    "You've got to have a screw loose, marrying a shithead like
that."
    "Go ahead," Gillian said.
    "Broads," he said. "I've fucked more broads than the sultan of
Baghdad or somewhere. And I've fucked your kind before. You broads
who think your ass is made of gold because you went to college."
    Gillian took a drink from the fresh martini. She opened her
compact and studied her lips. She knew it was time to go but, even as
she thought it, she chided herself. Chicken. What can happen now?
    "I've had things with broads," Ernie was saying, "things you
wouldn't believe."
    "How do you know, Ernie?" Gentle now. "How do you know unless you
tell me?"
    "I had a thing with a broad in Honolulu…." He stopped and
looked around. The main room of the Plaza was all but deserted. The
waitress with the nice ass was polishing glasses at the bar, laughing
at something Benny the bartender was saying.
    "You were telling me about Honolulu," she said.
    "Mind your own fucking business," Ernie said. "You want to know
what they're gonna put on my tombstone. Here lies Ernie Miklos, yes
sir, here lies Ernie Miklos, he got his in Honolulu."
    "Tell me about the ice cubes, Ernie," she said.
    "Up my ass," he said. "That's right. That little cunt shoved it
right up my ass just as I was blowing my load. She took a chunk of
ice and jammed it there. She took me, all