The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

age, too."
    She threw an arm over his shoulder, hugging him briefly, sweat like hot oil on her arms and face. "I'm too rough on you."
    "Naw...."
    "I'm sorry. It's just the way I am."
    "The way you are what?"
    She was fiddling with her watch, one of those plastic computers on a black plastic band. "We ran up here at a seven-fifteen pace. Let's try to get back in under sevens." Ford said, "I thought we were going to swim."
    "We are. But not in the pool. In the bay, when we get back."
    "But look at the pool. All to ourselves. Nice and cool; nice lane markers—" But she was already out the door.
    Halfway back to Dinkin's Marina, with Ford fighting for what seemed to be his very life, the woman said, "About two years ago, my fifth year on the circuit, I went to a party. One of those grand-opening kind of deals, I forget what, but they wanted celebrities, and that was back when I still liked the idea of being recognized."
    Ford said, "Uh-huh," not realizing, for a moment, that she had decided to tell him about Marvin Rios.
    She said, "I was—what?—twenty-two and getting my picture in magazines. Getting interviewed. For a girl who'd spent her life like a hermit, always on the tennis court or studying, it was hot stuff. So I went to this party, and Rios was one of the main guys. Like a host. It was on island, and the local big shots were there. Everybody getting drunk and trying not to show it. All the usual bullshit, but I was too naive to realize what a crock it was. No, not naive. I don't think I've ever been naive. Probably just full of myself, and a little too polite, too."
    Ford said, "Uh-huh." thinking, how can she run so fast and still talk?
    Dewey said, "He must have followed me out into the garden or something, because somehow we ended up alone. I knew he'd been eyeing me all night, and I had to get away from all that smoke, and there we were. He starts off asking me about my tennis sponsors, and were they treating me okay. Very authoritative, as if he could underwrite the whole bill himself. Talking like he could do me favors.
    "He's standing there talking about money and tax breaks, speaking to me like a child, and the whole time I'm thinking. How in the hell can I get away from this chubby little nerd? I make a move to get past him, and he takes me by the arm—not hard, but holding me. He's looking up at me with those piggy little blue eyes of his. I go to pull my arm away, but he just moves with me, looking in my eyes. Then he pulls his other hand on my breast. It still gives me the shivers, thinking about that. Not hard, but moving it around and staring at me.
    "If that sort of thing happened in the movies, the girl'd smack the guy in the face. Or scream maybe. But it's different when it happens for real. I froze. You know how a mouse freezes when a cat has it? Like that. Like an animal feeling. Like shock. My ears were ringing and I couldn't look at anything but his eyes. Then he takes his hand away, but I feel it fiddling with my skirt. I'm backing away real slow, and he says, 'I can help you a lot. You know that.' He says, 'What you need is a man.' That's exactly what he said. 'A man.' "
    Listening, Ford wasn't thinking about the pain in his chest now, or his legs.
    Dewey said, "And I stood there. Makes me sick. now. I let him do that. He touched me. You know for how long I couldn't sleep at night, thinking what I should have done, what I should have said?"
    Ford croaked, "Not your fault."
    "I was an idiot for letting him get me alone like that. A jerk."
    Ford wanted to say that victims always blame themselves. but he couldn't. He said, "Unh-uh."
    Dewey said, "Then I hear like a zipping sound. Maybe he's unzipping my dress, but I don't have a zipper on my dress. I can't look at anything but his eyes, and I feel him take my arm and try to move my hand down, and then I know what zipper. But I wouldn't let him do that. I yanked my arm away and, at the same moment, the glass doors slide open and some other people