things than marketing to talk about. Like the little woman’s birthmark, and what it might look like. Like how she had bitten him once when she came, hard enough to draw blood. Like how things were going for the Bitch Goddess since Handsome Hubby discovered she had a little taste for what was on the other side of the sheets.
But things hadn’t turned out that way. The secretary had said, “I’m sorry, but both Mr. Trenton and Mr. Breakstone are out of the office this week. They’ll probably be out most of next week, as well. If I could help you—?” Her voice had a rising, hopeful inflection. She really did want to help. It was her big chance to land an account while the bosses were taking care of business in Boston or maybe New York—surely no place as exotic as LA, not a little dipshit agency like Ad Worx. So get out there and tapdance until your shoes smoke, kid.
He thanked her and told her he would ring back toward the end of the month. He hung up before she could ask for his number, since the office of the House of Lights, Inc., was in a Congress Street phone booth across from Joe’s Smoke Shop.
Now here he was, eating cheeseburgers and wondering what to do next. As if you didn’t know, an interior voice whispered.
He started the van up and headed for Castle Rock. By the time he finished his lunch (the Dilly Bar was practically running down the stick in the heat), he was in North Windham. He threw his trash on the floor of the van, where it joined a drift of like stuff—plastic drink containers, Big Mac boxes, returnable beer and soda bottles, empty cigarette packs. Littering was an antisocial, antienvironmentalist act, and he didn’t do it.
Steve got to the Trenton house at just half past three on that hot, glaring afternoon. Acting with almost subliminal caution, he drove past the house without slowing and parked around the corner on a side street about a quarter of a mile away. He walked back.
The driveway was empty, and he felt a pang of frustrated disappointment. He would not admit to himself—especially now that it looked like she was out—that he had intended to give her a taste of what she had been so eager to have during the spring. Nevertheless, he had driven all the way from Westbrook to Castle Rock with a semi-erection that only now collapsed completely.
She was gone.
No; the car was gone. One thing didn’t necessarily prove the other, did it?
Steve looked around himself.
What we have here, ladies and gents, is a peaceful suburban street on a summer’s day, most of the kiddies in for naps, most of the little wifies either doing likewise or glued to their TVs, checking out Love of Life or Search for Tomorrow. All the Handsome Hubbies are busy earning their way into higher tax brackets and very possibly a bed in the Intensive Care ward at the Eastern Maine Medical Center. Two little kids were playing hopscotch on a blurred chalk grid; they were wearing bathing suits and sweating heavily. An old balding lady was trundling a wire shopping caddy back from town as if both she and it were made of the finest bone china. She gave the kids playing hopscotch a wide berth.
In short, not much happening. The street was dozing in the heat.
Steve walked up the sloping driveway as if he had every right to be there. First he looked in the tiny one-car garage. He had never known Donna to use it, and she had told him once she was afraid to drive her car into it, because the doorway was so narrow. If she put a dent in the car, Handsome Hubby would give her hell—no, excuse me; he would give her heck.
The garage was empty. No Pinto, no elderly lag—Donna’s Handsome Hubby was into what was known as sports car menopause. She hadn’t liked him saying that, but Steve had never seen a more obvious case.
Steve left the garage and went up the three steps to the back stoop. Tried the door. Found it unlocked. He went inside without knocking after another casual glance around to make sure no one was in sight.
He closed the door on the silence of the house. Once more his heart was knocking heavily in his chest, seeming to shake his whole ribcage. And once again he was not admitting things. He didn’t have to