Body Language by James W. Hall

Author:James W. Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Stan and Jennifer were in the third-floor corridor of Jackson Memorial. Stan gimping along on the pair of aluminum crutches Jennifer had smuggled into his room. His left leg in a cast that went almost to his knee. Ten pounds of plaster. He was wearing his blue Adidas track suit, razored up the seam of his left leg so the cast would fit.

While Stan hobbled on the crutches, Jennifer rested her hand on his shoulder like that would’ve helped catch him if he lost his balance. As they approached the nurses’ station, some kind of argument was going on between two black women, everyone else listening in. Stan kept his eyes on the floor, moving steadily but not too quick. Passing by without a word from any of them.

Then they were in the elevator, grinding down to the basement, where she’d parked the car. Jennifer stood beside him.

She said, “Whew. That was tense.”

Stan waited till they were between the first and second floors and then reached out and smacked the red stop button.

Jennifer looked up at the numbers and waited. She had on a low-cut red dress that showed freckles on her shoulders. For the last three months, every chance he’d had, Stan had been trying to lick those freckles off. She wore dark leather sling-back sandals and earrings made from feathers and beads, more of the Navaho crap she was so fond of.

From all the supercharged sex they’d had, Stan had stored up a lot of good will for Jennifer McDougal. Which was how he was managing at the moment to keep from punching her in the teeth.

“So, tell me, Jen. You left maybe a couple of million dollars sitting in your closet. That was your idea of hiding it?”

She kept her eyes on the lighted numbers.

“It wasn’t my closet. It was the guest room closet.”

“Oh, the guest room closet. Well, yeah, that should’ve thrown them off. How in the world did they ever figure it out, do you think?”

“Look, I feel bad about it, Stan. I do. I’m sorry. But these things happen. And anyway, you and I don’t need all that money. We’re happy like we are. Aren’t we, Stan?”

“These things happen,” he said. “We don’t need the money. Just like that, blow it off. Are you crazy, Jennifer? Are you fucking out of your mind? Of course we need that money. I risked my goddamn life for that money. Without that money, I got nothing.”

“You got me, Stan.”

With a jerk of her head, Jennifer tossed her hair back over her shoulders, like a horse flicking its tail at the flies. Only there were no flies in the elevator. No reason for her to be flipping her goddamn hair every three seconds. Maybe she’d done it all along and he’d never noticed it before. Maybe it was one of ten thousand annoying habits he was just now starting to become aware of, because Stan wasn’t horny for her at the moment, clear-eyed, seeing her for what she was, a girl whose mind hadn’t caught up to her body yet, probably never would.

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