Naked Once More Read Online Free PDF Page A

most comfortable. I was on the phone—London—those Brits are so loquacious…”
    She sat down, crossing her ankles demurely and balancing her purse on her knees. Stokes eyed this object with some curiosity; it was, like all Jacqueline’s handbags, outrageously oversized and so full it resembled a very pregnant pig.
    Stokes put on his glasses. They gave his rather bland countenance an air of needed intellectuality, and magnified his eyes almost to normal size. “I can’t tell you how flattered I was to hear from you,” he assured her. “I must give Chris a call and thank him for recommending me. How we’ll miss the dear old chap! He is one of the shining stars of our profession. Or perhaps I should say a shining planet, fixed in the firmament, shedding the glow of his integrity upon us all.”
    “I’ll tell him you said so.”
    “You will miss him too, I know. But I am confident we will develop a relationship that is just as strong and even more—er—”
    “Lucrative,” Jacqueline suggested.
    “Precisely.” Stokes smiled. “You are a lady of considerable acumen, Mrs. Kirby. We needn’t beat around the bush, eh? I hope you don’t mind if I record this conversation.”
    “Not at all.” Jacqueline’s knees were beginning to go numb. She put her purse on the floor, opened it, and took out a tissue. The click of her own tape recorder was drowned out by her genteel sniff.
    Considerable experience in such matters had already assured her she would not have to make the penultimate sacrifice to gain Stokes’s goodwill. He was smart enough to know that business and fooling around don’t mix well; and anyway, his tastes obviously ran to underage, brassy-haired bimbos whose chest measurements exceeded their IQs. She had not seriously contemplated making that sacrifice, nor had she been serious about the twenty-five percent commission; but for a while, as they bargained like fishwives, she was afraid she might have to swallow a figure almost as preposterous. They settled on fifteen, which was not out of line.
    “Splendid,” Stokes said happily. He leaned back in his chair. “What are you working on at present, my dear Jackie? Do you mind if I call you Jackie?”
    “Yes.”
    “Uh—”
    “No one calls me Jackie.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’ve been toying with the idea of a novel about ancient Egypt,” Jacqueline said. It was not a lie; “toying” was an accurate description of her thoughts on the subject of ancient Egypt. “But of course I’d like to hear any suggestions you might make.”
    Her look of limpid candor didn’t deceive Stokes, nor was it designed to do so. Neither of them had mentioned
Naked in the Ice
; for reasons that made very little sense, each was determined to force the other to bring it up. Stokes was the first to yield.
    “As a matter of fact, I was planning to get in touch with Chris about a project that has recently arisen. Perhaps you’ve heard rumors.”
    A disclaimer was on Jacqueline’s lips when an unexpected surge of self-disgust struck her dumb. She was tired of playing pointless games. “I’ve heard them,” she said bluntly. “There’s nothing I would like more than to tackle the sequel to
Naked.
I’m not sure I could do it, but I’d give it my best shot, and I think I’m as well qualified as certain other people whose names I have heard mentioned.”
    “Yours was one of the first names that came to mind,” Stokes assured her. “But of course there are others, and the decision is not mine alone. I will be consulting closely with poor Kathleen’s heirs—her mother, her half-brother and-sisters. There are certain conditions which I’m not at liberty to divulge just yet, but I can tell you that Mr. St. John Darcy has indicated that he and the others want to interview likely prospects.”
    Jacqueline raised her eyebrows. “ ‘Sinjun,’ spelled St. John? Is that really his aristocratic name?”
    “I doubt it,” Stokes said. “His name wasn’t Darcy, either,