The Third Victim by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online Page B

cadence of poetry. His body, aroused, had quickly grown taut and urgent against hers. As she’d responded, caressing him in return, she’d followed her own sense of headlong fulfillment, no questions asked.
    They’d slept together that night. The next morning, she’d made him breakfast. Almost shyly, they’d exchanged their dreams. He would make films—serious, low-budget art films. She would paint, of course. Success seemed very near—very precious. The prospect had humbled them.
    Joanna glanced down at her cup. Surprisingly, the cup was empty. Less than five minutes remained before she was due back at the store. She got quickly to her feet, slipped a dime and six-odd pennies under her saucer, and left the restaurant. Gorlick’s was just around the corner.
    Walking fast, she covered the distance quickly. She debated climbing the stairs to the third floor, for the exercise, but finally decided to take the elevator. She pressed the button, then stood back, letting the customers crowd ahead. The second-floor radio-and-TV department was having a summer sale. So the elevator, when it came, left without her.
    She walked a few steps away, then stood surveying the first floor. The customer count, she knew, was low. In the furniture and housewares section, July was a slow month.
    Her idly roving gaze encountered the slight, sandy-haired figure of Leonard Talbot, the new smallwares stockboy. He’d been looking at her. But instantly his eyes fell. Plainly confused, he was fussing at a display of table settings. She stood motionless for a moment, studying him thoughtfully. He was turned half away, still fidgeting. Something in Leonard’s delicate profile and nervously prominent Adam’s apple touched a distant glint of memory. Had she known him in some other town, some other place?
    No. Not this one. But one just like him, long ago. Brucie had been the first name, Hanson the last. Brucie Hanson. In grammar school, Brucie had been the one that all the other children had tormented. And, consequently, Brucie had turned to art. So they’d become friends, she and Brucie. They’d taken “special” art classes, after school. They’d often walked partway home together. But only partway. As she’d drawn close to her own neighborhood, she’d found excuses to walk alone, usually pretending an errand at the grocery store. She hadn’t wanted to be seen walking with Brucie. So, really, she’d been no better than her classmates. They had at least been forthright in their torture tactics.
    And here was Brucie Hanson, reincarnated as Leonard-the-stockboy, standing barely ten feet away. Everything was the same: the narrow, timid shoulders, the pale, uncertain eyes. Even the washed-out color of the hair was the same, and the oddly tentative angle of the head and neck, as if the man were still braced against the remembered blows of childhood. Only the face was different. The face across the aisle was coarser than Brucie’s would have been, grown up. Leonard’s face was unarticulated, as if a sculptor had taken oddments of features from several different subjects and had then failed to mold them into a convincing whole. Brucie Hanson, at age twenty-odd, would look all of a piece, however forlorn. This one—this strange, silent stock clerk—was somehow fragmented. He was—
    The elevator doors were opening. This time, she slipped between two stoutly corseted bargain hunters. She was already two minutes late.
    Kevin braked to a stop, waiting for the traffic to clear. He shifted into low, then returned the gearshift to neutral and shifted again, double-checking. He’d never liked Volkswagens, and was uncomfortable driving Cathy’s car. Without the car, though, he’d spend most of the day in buses. And he’d feel conspicuous walking up the circular driveway to the Golden Calf. Driving a VW, dressed in flares and an expensive sportshirt, he could fake it. He could be an eccentric, with-it sportsman, too rich to care what people thought