Rude Awakening (Kit Tolliver #2) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page A

remember, do you?”
    Reading her mind. And how was she supposed to answer that one?
    She tried for an ironic smile. “I’m a little fuzzy,” she said.
    “I’m not surprised.”
    “Oh?”
    “You were hitting the Cosmos pretty good. I had the feeling, you know, that you might be in a blackout.”
    “Really? What did I do?”
    “Nothing they’d throw you in jail for.”
    “Well, that’s a relief.”
    “You didn’t stagger or slur your words, and you were able to form complete sentences. Grammatical ones, too.”
    “The nuns would be proud of me.”
    “I’m sure they would. Except . . .”
    “Except they wouldn’t like to see me waking up in a strange bed.”
    “I’m not sure how liberal they’re getting these days,” he said. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
    “Oh.”
    “You didn’t know where you were, did you? When you opened your eyes.”
    “Not right away.”
    “Do you know now?”
    “Well, sure,” she said. “I’m here. With you.”
    “Do you know where ‘here’ is? Or who I am?”
    Should she make something up? Or would the truth be easier?
    “I don’t remember getting in a car,” she said, “and I do remember walking, so my guess is we’re in Riverdale.”
    “But it’s a guess.”
    “Well, couldn’t we call it an educated guess? Or at least an informed one?”
    “Either way,” he said, “it’s right. We walked here, and we’re in Riverdale.”
    “So I got that one right. But why wouldn’t the nuns be proud of me?”
    “Forget the nuns, okay?”
    “They’re forgotten.”
    “Look, I don’t want to get preachy. And it’s none of my business. But if you’re drinking enough to leave big gaps in your memory, well, how do you know who you’re going home with?”
    Whom, she thought. The nuns wouldn’t be proud of you, buster.
    She said, “It worked out all right, didn’t it? I mean, you’re an okay guy. So I guess my judgment was in good enough shape when we hooked up.”
    “Or you were lucky.”
    “Nothing wrong with getting lucky.”
    She grinned as she spoke the line, but he remained serious. “There are a lot of guys out there,” he said, “who aren’t okay. Predators, nut cases, bad guys. If you’d gone home with one of those—”
    “But I didn’t.”
    “How do you know?”
    “How do I know? Well, here we are, both of us, and . . . what do you mean, how do I know?”
    “Do you remember my name?”
    “I’d probably recognize it if I heard it.”
    “Suppose I say three names, and you pick the one that’s mine.”
    “What do I get if I’m right?”
    “What do you want?”
    “A shower.”
    This time he grinned. “It’s a deal. Three names? Hmmm. Peter. Harley. Joel.”
    “Look into my eyes,” she said, “and say them again. Slowly.”
    “What are you, a polygraph? Peter. Harley. Joel.”
    “You’re Joel.”
    “I’m Peter.”
    “Hey, I was close.”
    “Two more tries,” he said, “and you’d have had it for sure. You told me your name was Jennifer.”
    “Well, I got that one right.”
    “And you told me to call you Jen.”
    “And did you?’
    “Did I what?”
    “Call me Jen.”
    “Of course. I can take direction.”
    “Are you an actor?”
    “As sure as my name is Joel. Why would you . . . oh, because I said I could take direction? Actually I had my schoolboy ambitions, but by the time I got out of college I smartened up. I work on Wall Street.”
    “All the way downtown. What time is it?”
    “A little after ten.”
    “Don’t you have to be at your desk by nine?”
    “Not on Saturday.”
    “Oh, right. Uh, Peter . . . or do I call you Pete?”
    “Either one.”
    “Awkward question coming up. Did we . . .”
    “We did,” he said, “and it was memorable for one of us.”
    “Oh.”
    “I felt a little funny about it, because I had the feeling you weren’t entirely present. But your body was really into it, no matter where your mind was, and, well—”
    “We had a good time?”
    “A very