The Lost by Jack Ketchum Read Free Book Online Page B

small treachery. Her father’d never know.
    “You busy Friday night, Ray?”
    “Hold on, let me check my calender. Let’s see, Monday night, nope. Tuesday night, busy. Wednesday night, unh-unh, busy again. Thursday night, nope. Friday night—I’ll be damned. It’s free.”
    “Clown.”
    “Joker. There’s a difference.”
    “Pick me up at eight.”
    “Are you gonna tell me what you have in mind?”
    “I don’t think so. And do me a favor?”
    “What.”
    “Make it a solo appearance. No little groupies, please.”
    “You mean Tim and Jennifer?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who are Tim and Jennifer?”
    “Good. See you then.”
    “Not before? Friday’s a long way away.”
    “Your schedule wouldn’t permit it.”
    She hung up feeling pleased with herself. She did like the guy, quirky as he might be. Quirky as he definitely was . And it was good to be skipping lightly over the rules again.
    Since moving she’d been such a good girl.
    She didn’t really think it suited her.

Chapter Five
    Ray
     
    Perfect timing, he thought. He no sooner got off the phone with her than Jennifer came padding out of the bathroom. A couple seconds earlier, he’d have had to have used a little finesse talking with Katherine on the other end. Not necessary. Jennifer was wrapped in a white motel bath towel. As usual she didn’t look as good to him after a fuck as she had before one. But it was like that with most of them anyway.
    He went to the refrigerator, opened it and popped a beer.
    “Who was that?”
    “Huh?”
    “Heard you talking.”
    “My goddamn mother. Just some scheduling thing we’re having at the front desk. What else is new.”
    She pulled off the towel and began to dry her hair. Her hair was long and she would always bend over and towel dry it in front of her. He wished she’d do it in private but she never did. There was a crease in her belly when she bent over like that that hadn’t been there a year ago and that he didn’t like to see.
    He pushed some Batman comics off the Naugahyde chair and sat down in front of the TV set and turned it on. He reached over and skimmed the channels. There was some kind of news summary on NBC. Lindsay was bickering with Rockefeller over municipal funding. Pope Paul VI was celebrating a mass in Uganda. Nixon was winding up his tour of Asia. Who could possibly give a flying shit?
    About the only remotely interesting story was that some court had denied an inquest into the carwreck out at Martha’s Vineyard, the one where that girl got her ass drowned after partying too hearty all night with that ugly fuck Teddy Kennedy. He wondered if Kennedy had been fucking her. It sounded that way. The thought of Teddy Kennedy fucking anything was revolting. Guy looked like a chipmunk. He turned the dial. There was a Bowery Boys movie and Way Out West with Laurel & Hardy but he’d already seen them. There was a Mets game being broadcast from Montreal. Baseball bored him to tears. He decided on the Bowery Boys. You couldn’t hate Huntz Hall.
    The phone rang again and this time it really was his mother.
    “I want you over in nineteen. Now.”
    “Why? What’s the problem?”
    “Carla says the toilet’s backed up. Says it’s all the hell over the place.”
    Carla was one of the part-time maids. Eighteen, with a cute little ass on her. He’d already fucked her twice and one of these days he just might fuck her again. He decided to throw her butt out of the unit before he got down to work. Toilets were gross and he’d have to be digging around in there. He didn’t want her watching.
    Spoil the image.
    “Great,” he said.
    “Hurry up and get over there before it ruins the rug.” His mother’s voice was harsh with too many Kents over too many years.
    “All right. I got to get dressed, though.”
    “I don’t care if you run over in your goddamn birthday suit, Raymond. Just do it. Quick.”
    He wished his father were around. If his father were around it would fall to him to plumb out