Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,50

my age. I pulled some lipstick out of my purse and put it on. I did have a brush, so I tried to tame my hair. I was marginally more presentable when I got through.

The Athletic Club was a fairly new enterprise in Lawrenceton. Built only a couple of years before, it offered memberships to businesses and individuals. It featured weight rooms, exercise classes, and racquetball courts, plus a sauna and whirlpool. My mother took aerobics classes there. I explained to the dismayingly fit woman at the front desk—she was wearing orange-and-pink-striped spandex and had her hair in a ponytail—that I was meeting Martin Bartell, and she told me he was still playing racquetball on the second court. “You can watch if you climb those stairs,” she said helpfully, pointing to the easily visible stairs five feet to her left.

Sure enough, one side of the second-floor hall was faced with Plexiglas that overlooked the racquetball courts. The other side had ordinary doors in an ordinary wall, and from behind one of them I could hear shouted instructions (“Okay! Now BEND!”) to an exercise class, backed by the deep-bass beat of rock music. The first racquetball court was empty, but in the second court the only sounds were the rebound of bodies and the ball from the walls, and the grunts of impact. Martin was playing killer racquetball with a man about ten years younger than he, and Martin was playing with a single-minded will and determination that gave me pause. In the five or six minutes they played, I learned a lot about Martin. He was ruthless, as I’d sensed. He was a man who could push the edge of fair play, staying just on the good side. He was a little frightening.

Was it possible this man, this pirate, was content to be an executive of an agricultural company? There was a barely contained ferocity about Martin that was exciting and disturbing. I’d already known he was a competent, forceful, and decisive man, a man who made his mind up quickly and kept it made. Now he seemed more complicated.

The game was over at last, and Martin had apparently defeated the younger man, who was shaking his head ruefully.

They were both pouring with sweat. I heard someone mounting the stairs heavily, then sensed a presence to my left. Someone else was standing there looking down at the racquetball court. When I glanced sideways, I saw a blond man in his forties, burly and dressed in a suit that was rather too tight. He was staring at Martin with a look that alarmed me.

When I looked back down, Martin had spotted me and was signaling that he’d be with me in ten minutes. I nodded and tried to smile. He looked puzzled, and then his eyes moved to the man next to me. Martin’s grimace of recognition was irritated, no more. He gave the man a curt nod. But then his face became angry, and when I looked back at the blond man, I found out why. The man, now only three feet away, was looking at me—and not with the hate-filled glare he’d aimed at Martin but with a spiteful speculation.

I was all too aware that the hall was empty. I’d never had anyone look at me like this, and it was horrible. I was considering if the situation warranted screaming—surely the only way the exercise class would ever hear me—when I heard more footsteps thudding up the stairs. Martin, covered with sweat, said easily, “Sam, did you want to talk to me?” He had his racket in his hand, and though his voice was relaxed, he wasn’t.

“This your little squeeze, Bartell?” asked the blond man in the sort of voice you use to say insulting things.

Little squeeze?

The man hadn’t decided what to do yet; I could tell by the set of his shoulders. If only I could step past him to Martin, we could simply leave. I hoped. But the burly man, who carried maybe twenty extra pounds around the middle, blocked my way. Deliberately. Now Martin’s racquetball partner appeared behind Martin, and I vaguely recognized him as one of the Pan-Am Agra executives who’d been with Martin at the steak house Monday. He looked excited and interested; this was like the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

We were all frozen for a minute.

This was absurd.

“Excuse me,” I said suddenly, clearly, and very loudly. They all jumped. The blond man halfway turned to look at me, and I just stepped