Hit Me by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780316127356
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: 2013-02-12T08:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

The lounge chair Keller selected gave him a good view of the block of four staterooms, one of which housed Carmody and his strawberry blonde. He sat down, put his legs up, and set about the business of anointing himself with suntan lotion. It boasted a high SPF number, and he found himself wondering if there was any point to the whole process. Wouldn’t it be simpler to skip the lotion and stay in your cabin? Wouldn’t you come out about the same?

Earlier, Keller had checked the listings, and found that Mr. Aldredge Smith and Mr. John Westin had occupied a cabin one flight below. That was unfortunate, because if their removal to a hospital in Nassau had left a Sun Deck stateroom vacant, Keller might have used it as a base of operations.

Keller hadn’t thought to pack a bathing suit, but the shipboard shop had been happy to sell him one. It was black, and not too skimpily cut, but he still felt conspicuous in it, though less so than if he’d stretched out on the lounge chair in long pants and a shirt. And the sun felt good, and the ship had set sail shortly after lunch for Virgin Gorda, wherever that was, and Keller found its motion soothing. All he had to do was lie there and relax and keep his eyes open.

The third requirement turned out to be impossible. Your eyes are closed, he realized at one point, and told himself he’d have to do something about it, but by then it was too late. His mind had found a corridor to explore, and he drifted right off…

And came to abruptly. There was no sudden noise, and no one jostled his lounge chair or walked past it to block the sun. He wondered later if it might simply have been an unconscious awareness of her presence that did it, because when he opened his eyes there she was, not ten yards away from him, Ms. Va-va-voom herself, sitting sidesaddle on a lounge chair of her own, and applying coconut-scented suntan oil to those portions of her anatomy not covered by the scarlet bikini.

Which was to say almost all of her.

She took her time oiling her golden-brown skin, and it seemed to Keller that she was caressing herself as much as she was protecting it from the sun. He didn’t want to stare at her, but seemed incapable of averting his eyes, and the next thing he knew she was looking right back at him.

He looked away, but it was as if he could see her no matter where his eyes were turned. He looked her way again, and she was still gazing at him, with an expression on her face that was not quite a smile, although it was definitely headed in that direction.

Then she turned her eyes from him, and swung her legs up onto the lounge chair, and worked the controls to lower the back into a horizontal position. She was still sitting up,

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