This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online

the copper-colored beer can between his palms. Fear had crept over his scalp. Had the girl possibly followed him to the house? But she had no car. “What do you mean?” David asked.
    â€œI mean, she asks me all about you, and boy, she doesn’t forget what I tell her!”
    â€œYou’ve talked to her?”
    â€œI’ve had a cup of coffee with her, that’s all,” Wes said in a calm, placating tone, drank some of his beer, and looked down at the yellow carpet. “Twice, in fact. I ran into her near the diner. Once in the diner.”
    David did not quite believe that was all. He could see Wes’s guilt.
    â€œIt was funny, I’d try to ask her about herself, and she’d steer the conversation right back to you. I told her we worked at the same place, you know, and boy, questions, questions. You’ve certainly made a conquest.”
    â€œDon’t make me laugh.” David closed his eyes and leaned his head back against his locked fingers.
    â€œI’m not joking. She’s very sad that you have to be away every weekend. She told me so. Anyway, I certainly couldn’t get to first base with her, even if I wanted to.”
    â€œAnd do you want to?” David asked, opening his eyes.
    Wes looked at him with his head on one side. “No, my friend, I really don’t. But there’s such a thing as enjoying female company, you know, a beer in the evening, a little gab and a laugh or two and then home again, back to the hellhole. You wouldn’t know about that, I guess.”
    David was silent.
    â€œWhile I was talking with her, something funny crossed my mind. I thought, what if old Dave’s—” He stopped, his eyes on David’s face.
    â€œGo ahead,” David said casually.
    â€œI shouldn’t say it, considering your mother.” When David said nothing, Wes went on in a rush, “I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if you had a girl somewhere that you went to see on weekends, and all the rest of us thought you didn’t care a damn for them—or you couldn’t ever look at a girl because of that girl you told me about—” He smiled at David, though he looked a little ashamed. “It’s a bad joke.”
    At the word “joke,” David obediently gave a laugh. “Yes, it would be funny.”
    Wes carried his empty beer can to David’s wastebasket, and got a fresh can from the paper bag he had brought. He extended it politely to David, who shook his head. David had drunk one. Wes drank beer more or less on the sly at the factory, but it put no weight on him. Wes was five feet nine, but so slender and small-boned he seemed taller. His fine brown hair was inclined to rise up over his forehead. Most of the time, he looked like a happy, intellectual seventeen-year-old boy, a boy who had had to wear glasses always.
    â€œSpeaking of going away places,” Wes said, “I’d certainly like to have some place to go weekends.” He tipped up his beer can and looked at the light fixture on the ceiling—splayed, tortured metal, two light bulbs and two empty sockets. “There are times when I envy you this simple dwelling, even if you do have to share the john. At least this room is yours. Nobody’s going to barge in and demand that you share it with them—unless it’s Effie!” Wes finished with a laugh that transformed his face.
    â€œNot with Mrs. McCartney on patrol, she won’t.”
    â€œAh-h, all landladies patrol. Things happen anyway.” With an incongruously scholarlike gesture, Wes pushed his glasses back with a forefinger.
    Three days later Wes rented a small room on the ground floor of Mrs. McCartney’s, which had just been vacated by a thin, fiftyish woman who had not been there long and whose name David had never learned. David heard about it through Effie Brennan. He met her on the front sidewalk one night when he was going out for a