The Amateurs Read Online Free PDF Page A

feeling was still there, frustration and faint panic and, yeah, a little bit of self-loathing, too. She finished zipping her boots.
    At the door, she went with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Have fun with Cassie tomorrow.”
    “Thanks. The four of us still on for breakfast on Saturday?”
    “Sure,” she said, “whatever.”
    “Hey.” He stood framed in the doorway, still naked. “You OK?”
    “I’m fine.” Then she turned and went down the stairs to hail a cab.

CHAPTER 2
    T HE HEALTH CLUB WAS SWANK, one of those places yuppies paid big money to not use. Not the good doctor, though. Bennett had been watching for a while now, and apart from one very interesting weakness, the doc was about as exciting as oatmeal. Up in the morning, coffee with the wife—through the windows she looked like she’d once been pretty—then the gym. Thirty on the treadmill, thirty in the pool, a massage, a shower, and off he went.
    Bennett liked people who kept a routine. Sure as a poker tell, it meant they had some part of their lives where they varied, went a little crazy. Everybody needed something to hold back the press of days. Dieters binged, teetotalers threw down punch at the Christmas party, faithful husbands got blown by flirty sales associates on business trips. Screwing up was wired into the DNA.
    And thank God for it. Man had to make a living.
    He walked in the front door of the gym, offered his pass to the pretty boy behind the counter, who said, “Your guest membership expires tomorrow. What do you say—ready to make a better you? Should I get the enrollment forms ready?”
    “I’ll think about it,” Bennett said, then headed for the pool.
    Four lanes, half-Olympic length, under bright fluorescent lighting. A fat woman in a bathing cap did a slow breaststroke, her expression painfully earnest. Beside her, the doc cut through the water with a nice clean crawl, four strokes to a breath, flip-turns at the end of the lane. He wore goggles and a Speedo, and managed three laps to every one of the woman’s. Bennett stood behind the glass and watched, chlorine in his nostrils.
    After ten minutes, the doc pulled himself out of the water. He stood on the edge and stretched, then headed for the exit. The lady’s eyes tracked his retreating back, something like hunger in them. Bennett held the door open.
    “Thanks,” the doc said.
    “No trouble.”
    Bennett stood for a few more minutes, watching the woman swim. There was something about her that touched him. She had to know that she was never going to change, that next year, and the year after, she would still be here, still be fat, still be swimming her clumsy breaststroke before showering and going home alone. And yet here she was, water weights on, plugging away. Human drama, right in front of him. Broke the heart.
    He walked down the hall to the massage rooms. A hatchet-faced girl with big hands was heading for a closed door.
    “Excuse me,” Bennett said.
    “Yes?”
    “I know this is odd, but I work with the doctor. There’s been an incident at the lab. I need to speak to him right now. It’s urgent.”
    She hesitated, then said, “Well, I suppose I—”
    “Thanks,” he said, one hand on the door handle. She stood there for a moment, and he said, “Sorry, but as I’m sure you know, our work is sensitive.”
    “Umm . . .”
    “I appreciate it.” Then he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
    The doc lay on his belly on the massage table, a towel across his ass. Candles glowed from a Zen stone arrangement in the corner, and soft music came from somewhere. Swank.
    “Cindi,” the doc said to the floor. “Afraid you’ve got your work cut out for you. My shoulder’s killing me. I think I pulled something.”
    “That’s one way to put it,” Bennett said.
    The man’s head whipped around, and he planted his hands on the table, came partway up, then hesitated, seeming to realize he was naked under the towel. “What—”
    “Easy, Doc.”