The Third Victim by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online

again—safely, secretly turned away. Behind him he heard the sound of water running. She was rinsing her cup. Soon—in moments—she would leave. But moments could be hours.
    To Advertising
    The door was closing behind Florence Klein. He was alone with the words: To Advertising. Carefully bracing himself against the low packing table, he allowed his eyes to close. Step by step, foot by foot, he began imagining his passage up to her small, cluttered cubicle.

Tuesday Afternoon
    U SING THE TIP OF her little finger, Joanna wiped mayonnaise from the corners of her mouth, then transferred the stain to a paper napkin. With luck, she wouldn’t have to re-do her lipstick, therefore effecting a small but significant savings in the day’s cosmetic expense—and partially offsetting the dollar thirty she’d just spent for lunch.
    How many more savings could she make? Already, in just two months, she’d almost drained their small savings account. Soon—very soon—she must call a lawyer. All of her friends—her numerous divorced friends—had told her that she must begin divorce proceedings. She must force Kevin to help support them. When he’d left, Kevin had told her to take their savings. But since then they hadn’t talked of money. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Yet the car, last month, had taken more than a hundred dollars in repairs—just the car. Today’s trouble could cost another hundred. She’d be smart, a mechanic had said, to trade the car in, while it was still running.
    But a new car meant payments—more expense, not less. Actually, she’d be better off without a car. There would be fewer expenses—more money.
    Yet, without the car, Josh would have to change day-care centers. After only two months, he’d have to adjust to a new group of children, make new friends—fight new battles.
    She slowly folded the napkin into a small paper hat. It was a trick she’d learned as a girl, and had never forgotten. At odd times in her life, in odd places, she’d found herself folding something into the shape of a child’s paper party hat. It was doubtless a form of regression—a retreat into the simpler, happier time of childhood.
    Had those days really been happier?
    At the time, she hadn’t thought so. With parents divorced—often forced to change neighborhoods and schools as her mother moved—she’d finally found refuge in the fantasy world of painting. She’d created a separate reality in charcoal and chalk and oils.
    If only she could stay home now, and paint.
    She could save on clothes and cosmetics and carfare and food and baby-sitting. If Kevin would give her even a hundred dollars a month, she could quit her job and get unemployment insurance. She could paint full time. It was a dream that almost never came true—the impossible dream.
    Could she make it come true?
    Could she support the two of them, painting?
    She could probably get food stamps. A twenty-dollar investment in paints and canvas might finally get her started. Driven by pure necessity, she could paint two or three pictures a week: commercial pictures—flower arrangements, landscapes, seascapes, city scenes. Josh could come home after school—to his own home, to milk and cookies waiting on the kitchen table. He could play with the children in the neighborhood, as he’d always done. He’d be happier. He wouldn’t cry out in his sleep so often—wouldn’t cry for his daddy.
    Others had done it—painted for money, and supported themselves. She could sign with a commercial gallery in Los Angeles—one of the tourist traps, so called. Legitimate artists disdained the tourist traps. If you showed in a commercial gallery and the word got around, the museums discriminated against your work. They’d never admit it, but they did. Yet artists had expenses too. Commercial success wasn’t shameful. Dickens, Balzac, Dostoevsky—they’d all written day to day, bundling their manuscripts off to the popular magazines, desperately