Gray Area by George P. Saunders Read Free Book Online Page A

for the elevators. 
     

 
    SEVEN
     
     
    Five minutes later, in a phone booth across the street, he called Linda
Baylor. 
    The phone rang.  No one picked up.  Diamond removed his wallet,
opened it, and looked at the only picture he had.  A picture of his eight
year old daughter, Sonia.  She was smiling; she was always smiling. 
It almost made Lou smile.  Almost. 
    No answer on the Baylor residence.  Diamond hung up and punched in
another number … a number he knew by heart.  The phone rang a hundred
times or so it felt to him.  Then a voice came on:
    “Hello?”
    The voice was that of a little girl, sleepy, barely articulate.
    Diamond closed his eyes.  Reveling in that one word, and the sound
behind it.  Hello might very well have been “daddy.”  He looked at
the picture of Sonia one more time, then hung up the phone.
     
     
    Lou Diamond didn’t normally frequent the fancy home fronts of Malibu
Beach, California.  Back in ‘92, a special ops went down in Topanga Canyon
that Diamond had spearheaded when he was SWAT.  Another successful
bust.  No casualties, except for a few dead crack-head dealers with stolen
AK-47s.  Closest he’d ever gotten to the rich and famous neighborhood of
Malibu.  Looked nice, though, he had to admit.  Quiet. 
Sexy.  Smelled of money.
    He drove into a driveway, the numbered address of Linda Baylor embossed
on a gold-sealed plaque just above an iron gate.  He could hear the waves
of the Pacific crash against the surf nearby.  Two lights were on in the
house, both upstairs.  A 55 SL Mercedes, red and brand-spanking new, was
parked in the garage.  It all but screamed, I Am Bitch, Hear Me Roar .
    Somewhere from the top level of the beach house, Paganini’s theme from Variations floated over the night air.  Somewhere in Time , Diamond
mused.  Pretty music, he thought.  Again, another touch of beaucoup
bucks and high life livin’. 
    He parked his car behind the Mercedes, then walked to the front
door.  He knocked.  No one answered.  He glanced off to the
side, saw a stairway leading to the second level terrace.  No harm in
tapping on the window—
    … as if someone gently tapping, rapping at my chamber door …
    —no harm at all.  Come on, stay focused , he chided
himself.  He knew he was getting tired, little poetic fairies were
starting to talk in his head, and he was a little punchy.  After what he’d
been through tonight already, who wouldn’t be?
    As he got to the top of the stairs, he stopped to get a gander of the
dark Pacific.  A low ground fog had formed along the beach, swirling and
snaking inland like some kind of malevolent spirit on the prowl.  Other
than that, the night was clear, a million stars burned bright against a
moonless sky.
    Diamond turned toward the window of the second level terrace.  The
curtains were drawn, so there was no obstruction to his view.  And the
view was one that caught him off guard.
    She walked out of the bathroom, naked as jaybird, oblivious to his
presence at the terrace window.  Blonde, legs from here to Appalachia,
beautiful— key words in Diamond’s moment by moment mental blow summing up
the young woman no more than twenty feet away.  He froze, afraid that if
he moved suddenly the flash of his shadow would frighten her.
    But, in the final analysis, he froze for quite another reason.
    He could not stop staring.  Or, truth be known, fantasizing ?
    The thought filled him with a furious guilt.  He told himself he was
not the least bit titillated, but she was a magnificent creature, and fuck a
duck ... he enjoyed watching her.  She had reached for a towel and
was now drying herself.  Head, neck, breasts, legs and feet. 
Luxuriously.  As if she had all the time in the world. 
    As if ... as if she knew she was being watched.
    Diamond lowered his eyes momentarily, remembering why he was here. 
When he looked up, she had left the room.  He moved quickly back down the
stairs, sucked in a cool, damp