Bad Desire Read Free Page A

of the city, he checked into the Tides Inn. He paid in cash and signed the registration card with a name that occurred to him as he stood at the counter: Jim Haskins of Beaumont, Texas.
    At eleven-thirty that morning, he left the rented room and drove twenty miles inland to the town of Morocco. It was exactly twelve noon when he entered the old Cypress Line train station, where a window fan stirred the damp heat and dust. A CLOSED sign hung lopsided in the ticket cage; the pewlike benches were deserted.
    The room sounded hollow as Beecham made his way to the wall of metal lockers. From his pocket, he produced the small metal key, inserted it into the lock of locker number 28 and opened the six-inch-square door. The locker contained two Antonio y Cleopatra cigar boxes. Again, Beecham looked around him before he opened the lid of the box on top. It was filled level with used twenty-dollar bills—altogether there would be seventy-five hundred dollars, payment in full. He emptied the money into his gym bag, discarded the boxes and left the key in the slot.
    Now would come the time that he hated, the two-day wait when his mind and the world fused into emptiness. There were still things he had to do, a few loose ends to take care of, but already he knew how it would happen. He could almost feel the minutes yielding, one into the next, impossible to stop now.

2
    There were six of them, six young girls walking along side by side, rhythmically swaying their hips, and in their supple carelessness they were like thoroughbreds, long-legged and high-hipped, switching their tails. One of them ran up in front of the others and started walking backward, telling of some adventure, but Slater hardly looked at her. With his eyes hidden beneath the bill of his cap, only one girl among them held his gaze; only she had a kind of grandeur. She was like something he had left behind long ago.
    She was a magnificent-looking ash blonde. He couldn’t see her face—her head was turned—but he knew it. At seventeen, she was like ice cream, all the wonderful, cool, ripe colors: cherry and vanilla, peach and a smear of blueberry for her eyes. Thoughts that had lain dormant within him for years and years stirred once again.
    In the light of the late afternoon, she was walking away and time seemed endless to him, elastic and slow. Her hips pumped softly, switching from side to side with the subtlest kick, her hips rising and falling and switching and then that tiny kick as if something very sweet were caught between her legs. On and on, pump and shift and then that little kick, pump and then kick, alternating to the movements of her straight sleek legs.
    Her arm came up as she walked and settled around the girl next to her. She lowered her own head, drew the girl over close and whispered into her ear. Slater could almost feel her soft breath strike his cheek, imagined the small secret voice spilling into his ear, and the sensation of it ran up and down his body like a flame.
    But time was passing, after all, and while he watched, she turned the corner. The shivery excitement washed through him; he was gripping the steering wheel harder than he knew. On his left hand, the square diamond ring gave off steely points of light. He forced himself to wait to the count of ten, careful, always careful, before he pulled away from the curb and went after them. Stopping at the intersection, he saw the girls trailing along together, drifting down the sidewalk. The traffic light was red; Slater made a right-hand turn, but before he could decide how to proceed, other cars were coming up behind him. He couldn’t go slow enough to stay in back of her, so he speeded up, drove past without even glancing her way. At the corner he turned, went to the next intersection, whipped into a U-turn and came flying back.
    The girls were gone. It was as if the late afternoon light had swallowed them. How could they disappear?
    Halfway down the block, past the point