Part 1 (2/2)
”No. You were quite famous.”
”They get new ones every year.” I wished we could get back to the car trade. You can't eat six-year-old football scores.
”Why didn't you join the pros?” She took a puff on the cigarette she was smoking and tossed it into a flower bed without taking her eyes from my face.
”I did,” I said. ”But it didn't jell.”
”What happened?”
”b.u.m knee.” I squatted on my heels. ”How about the car? You really want to buy one?”
”I think so. But why do you want to sell it?”
”I need the money.”
”Oh,” she said.
”It's out front, if you'd like to drive it.”
”All right,” she said. ”But I'd have to change. Would you mind?”
”Not at all. I'll wait in the car.”
”Oh, come on up. It's cooler inside.”
”O.K.,” I said. We stood up. She was tall, all right. I picked up the suntan lotion and the book and towel.
”I'm Diana James,” she said.
She saw me glance down at her left hand, and smiled. ”You'll only have to make one sales talk. I'm not married.”
”I'd have given you odds the other way.”
”I was, once. But, as you say, it didn't jell.”
We went up the outside stairs at the rear of the building and in through the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of bourbon out of a cupboard and set it on the drain.
”Mix yourself a drink, and go into the living room. Soda and ice cubes in the refrigerator.”
”I hate to drink alone this early in the day,” I said. ”It scares me.”
She smiled. ”All right. If you insist.”
I mixed two and handed her one. We went on through to the living room, looking out over the Gulf. She took a sip of her drink and put it on the coffee table.
”Just make yourself at home,” she said. ”I think this month's True True is in the rack there. I won't be long.” is in the rack there. I won't be long.”
I watched her walk back across the dining room to the short hall that led to the bedroom and bath. It seemed to take her a long time.
The car, I thought. Remember? Don't louse it up.
I sat down and glanced around the room. It had the anonymous look of any furnished apartment, but it wasn't cheap. Hundred or a hundred and fifty a week during the season, I thought. It was odd she didn't already have a car, and that, not having one, she wanted to buy a secondhand one.
Her purse was on the table at the end of the couch. I glanced at it, thinking she must be careless as h.e.l.l or convinced all ex-football players were honest, and then I shrugged and started to take another sip of my drink. I stopped, and my eyes jerked back to the table.
It wasn't the purse. It was the alligator key case lying beside it. The zipper was open and the keys dangled loose on the gla.s.s. And one of them was that square-shouldered shape you recognize anywhere. It was the ignition key to a General Motors car. Just who was kidding whom?
Well, I thought, she didn't say she didn't have one. Maybe she wanted two, or she was selling the other one. It was her business.
When she came out she had on a short-sleeved white summer dress and gilt sandals without stockings. She was tall and cool and very easy on the eye. Taking another sip of the drink she'd left, she gathered up the purse and keys and we went out to the car. She slid in behind the wheel.
I was deliberately slow in handing her the keys to it, and she did just what I thought she'd do. She opened the alligator case and started to stab at the dash with her own. She caught herself, and glanced quickly at me. I didn't say anything, but I was beginning to wonder. She was trying to cover up the fact that she already had a car. Why?
We cruised to the end of the sea wall and out the beach, not saying much at first. The sand was firm, and when we began to get clear of the traffic and the suntan crowd she let it out a little, to around fifty-five.
”It handles nicely,” she said.
”You're a good driver.” I lit two cigarettes and handed her one.
”What do you do, Mr. Scarborough?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the beach ahead.
”This and that,” I said. ”I sell things. Or try to. Real estate was the last.”
”I don't mean to pry,” she said. ”But I take it you're not doing anything at the moment?”
”That's right. I'm thinking of going to Arabia with a construction outfit. That's one reason I want to sell the car.”
”How soon are you going?”
”Probably sometime next month. Why?”
”Oh, I just wondered.” She didn't say anything more for a minute or two; then she asked, ”Are you married?
”No,” I said.
”Did you ever think of making a lot of money?”
”Who hasn't?”
”But did you ever actually think of doing anything about it?”
”Sure. Someday I'm going to invent the incandescent lamp.”
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