Leather Maiden by Joe R. Lansdale

Author:Joe R. Lansdale [Lansdale, Joe R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780307270412
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-08-04T14:00:00+00:00

25

Exhausted and confused, I stretched out on the couch and was soon asleep. When I awoke the apartment was hot and full of the aroma of rotting rat. I got up and turned up the air conditioner and found something to eat in the fridge, compartmentalized my thinking about the rat to some deep section of my brain and tried to enjoy eating. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and was happy that with the air conditioner going the rat was down to half level, demoted to corporal.

I didn’t really have to check in, but I got my cell phone and dialed work and told Timpson I would be out today so I could work on a story at home. Then I dialed Belinda.

She answered immediately.

“Cason,” she said.

“Wanted you to know I took off today, but I was wondering what you’re doing tonight.”

“I called in sick, not because I’m sick, but because I’m sick of the job.”

“I lied and said I was working at home.”

Belinda laughed. “What liars we are. I called this morning and went back to sleep, not wanting to get up, wondering if maybe you had already had your fill of me. I was thinking about what my mother used to say about giving out, and how when you did it was pretty much over.”

“Mothers aren’t right about everything,” I said. “It’s time you moved into the twenty-first century, though I’ve been living here for a few years now and don’t think much of it…Look, I’ve just been a little wrapped up is all.”

“Work?”

“You could say that.”

“Is that what we’ll say?”

“Yeah. Let’s say that.”

“Will I hear more?”

“Nothing really to hear.”

“Okay, then. What are our plans?”

“It’s as much about your choices as mine, kid…But I was just sitting here thinking we ought to go to dinner tonight and maybe a movie. After that, we could come to my place, but it smells like there’s a dead rat in the wall, because there is.”

She laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe we can do the hotel again. I loved room service.”

We worked out the details, and I lay down on the couch again and went right back to sleep. I woke up after a few hours of deep satisfying sleep, got into the boxes I had first shipped to my parents’ house and brought over just a few days ago. I had yet to open them. What was in them was a new computer, the odds and ends that go with it. I spent some time setting it up and made myself a cup of hot coffee. I fiddled on the computer for a time, making sure it was working, no damage in shipping, just sort of cruising Web sites, looked to see if I could find a MySpace site for Caroline. I didn’t.

I finally decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work on a column, so I did. When I finished with a rough draft, I went back to playing online. While I killed

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