The Good Neighbor by William Kowalski Read Free Book Online

and Marge,” she prompted him. “What did you say to her?”
    “I made an offer,” he said. “She’s going to take it back to the owners.”
    His hand was still there on her thigh, squeezing, rubbing, sug gesting. They hadn’t had sex in a month, probably. Maybe six weeks. And now he wanted to mess around in the car, like teenagers? Not likely. Yet despite her indignation, Francie felt her self growing warm. It was the house that was really doing it to him, she told herself. Or the deal. Spending money always made him horny.
    “Just like that?” she said. “It’s done?”
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    “No, it’s not done,” he said. “All I did was make an offer. That’s only the first step.”
    “Who owns it, anyway?”
    “A bank. A bank I own stock in, as a matter of fact.” He slid his hand farther up her leg and began to massage her inner thigh. Through her jeans, she could feel the friction on that never- sunned part of her body, as pearlish and tender as the inside of an oyster shell. She clamped her legs shut like a flytrap and pulled the hair on his wrist. “A bank? Do you think they even know what it looks like?” she asked.
    “I’m sure,” said Colt, shaking free of her, “that they have a very clear financial picture of the place.”
    “But what it looks like, I said. Not how much it’s worth.” “They’re not stupid people. That’s why I own their stock.” “How much did you offer?”
    “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “If you knew it would keep you up tonight.”
    “Oh, Coltrane!”
    “I said don’t worry. We can afford it. We can afford ten houses like this. About time we started spending some money, don’t you think?”
    “I guess so,” said Francie, surprised. It seemed to her that some thing in Colt had changed recently without her noticing, until now. First he had agreed to drive her out to the country, and then he had noticed the house at the same time she did, and now this. She wondered what had brought it about. It was one of the greater ironies of Colt’s character that he took no pleasure in spending money, only in earning it. For him to really get turned on, he had to make a killing at work. He already had piles of money, scads of it, oodles. He had literally more money than he knew what to do with. It was sitting in all kinds of different ac counts, earning yet more money in interest and dividends, and making the two of them rather disgustingly rich, to be honest. But Colt had never before wanted to buy anything big; and Fran
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    cie had never been the furs-and-jewelry type. They didn’t even own the apartment they lived in, though they could have easily enough. It occurred to her now that perhaps Colt was entering some sort of Golden Age of his own. If so, she wanted a glimpse of it—just to see. She knew she would never be a part of it, even if he bought them both everything they’d ever wanted. It would al ways be his money, and the things they bought with it would al ways be his things.
    Except the house in Pennsylvania. That was already hers. She’d felt it from the moment she set foot on the porch. It was like com ing home.

    ❚ ❚ ❚

    They rounded the Delaware Water Gap again, the water choppy and cold-looking in the slanting sunlight that lay over it as thin as gold foil. A couple of optimistic powerboaters were out, deter mined to make the most of the waning season.
    “That looks like fun,” Francie said.
    “I never saw the point to having a boat,” said Colt. He reached over to stroke the side of her breast with the backs of his fingers. She took his thumb in her mouth and bit it, gently but seriously, and he pulled away again. “Look at those guys. They drive all the way down here from God knows where with a boat on a trailer, just so they can put it in the water and race up and down. It seems dumb.”
    “Why are you coming on to me here, like this?”
    “What do you mean, why? You’re my wife, aren’t you?”