Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,40

weapon.) The next encounter was at the Property Owners meeting. And this was the fourth time fate had joined them together. In each instance, Marvin Goodman had been wrapped up in a subject of increasing importance to Gillian.

Money. Fifteen hundred dollars was the price quoted. She knew it was high and she knew she had to raise it – and quickly. The demands of her job precluded a visit to Japan or Puerto Rico; her status as a celebrity made any unknown doctor too much of a risk. The one doctor she could trust, a highly recommended Lexington Avenue neurosurgeon with a profitable sideline aborting the unwanted offspring of the rich and the famous, charged a flat fee of $1,500.

Gillian looked at the plate glass window behind Marvin and saw that it was freckled by raindrops.

"Damn!" she said. "That spoils everything."

"What's that?" Marvin said.

"That rain," she said. "Here 1 thought I'd have a chance to walk a few blocks with you and maybe even talk you into buying me a little drink. Damn rain!"

"It doesn't have to spoil anything," Marvin said.

From somewhere in the past, from distant days of young manhood, Marvin felt stirrings that had been quietly laid to rest shortly after wedlock. It was not simply that this woman was desirable. Nor merely that she seemed available. What truly excited Marvin was the undeniable fact that he excited her, that she wanted him. Guilt? Perish the thought. There could be no sense of guilt if one considered Helene's flagrant falsehood. Yes, Helene needed to be punished. And it was up to him.

"It's 12:45 now," Marvin said. "Why don't we hop into my wagon – it's just downstairs – and take us a little drive? We'll find a spot for lunch. I mean I'm free for the rest of the day and right now 1 think I could use a little change."

"I know what you mean."

She put her hand around his arm and squeezed it. Marvin glanced quickly around the store. Saks' Long Island store was located in Garden City, an upper-middle-class residential and shopping community a forty-five-minute drive from King's Neck, and Marvin knew the odds were well against encountering any other neighbors. And so what? So what if he did? He walked calmly with Gillian to the parking lot, into the distinctive white convertible with the MG-1 license plates. Marvin headed directly for the Meadowbrook Parkway, and he felt the slight pressure of Gillian's left thigh against him. At that moment Marvin Goodman knew his luck was about to improve.

As the big car turned onto Northern State Parkway, Marvin glanced at the gas gauge. E – that's where the needle was flickering. He bit his lip and eased off the gas pedal slightly, allowing the speedometer needle to settle back toward fifty-five. By the time Marvin found a gas station, the meter registered below empty and he ordered the attendant to fill the tank. It required just short of twenty gallons.

"You nearly didn't make it," the man said.

"You're so right," Marvin said. "But I have a feeling this is going to be my day."

The station was one of the few in the northeastern United States for which Marvin Goodman did not have a credit card. Still, even after paying for the gas, he noted that there were almost fifty dollars remaining in his wallet. Fifty in his wallet and not much more in the world. Gillian sat beside him quietly as Marvin drove past the boat basin, now devoid of its white sails, and on toward the Throg's Neck Bridge.

"How do you feel, Gillian?"

"A little nervous, Marvin," she said – and honestly. "I wouldn't want you to think I do this kind of thing with anyone."

"I don't," he said – and, indeed, he had no reason to. It was doubtless that… rugged quality. "But what do you feel like doing? What are your needs?"

"I feel," she said, "thirsty, hungry and … sexy. And not necessarily in that order."

"We can handle that list item by item," he growled.

"And not necessarily in any order."

At the Throg's Neck Bridge, Marvin dug into his pockets but couldn't locate the quarter.

"Sorry," Gillian said. "I can't help. All I've got is my Saks charge plate and my good name. Let me say, if you're ever offered a choice, take the charge plate."

He broke a ten to pay the toll and headed north. In Westchester he paid another toll on the Hutchinson River Parkway, then took the next turnoff and parked outside of Country