Savage Season Read Free Page B

artist, boxing, kenpo, hapkido, and he revived my interest.  When I was in high school, until the time I met Trudy, I had been heavily involved in that sort of thing.  Guess I dropped it later because I didn't feel it fit my new peace and love image or something.  Anyway, I had been away from it for a time.  I was glad to get at it again.  I got better than ever before.  It helped me work out some frustrations.
    After a while, Trudy started coming around, and each time she went away she left me a bigger wreck than before.  Built me up with promises, then left me sudden and flat.  She always found a new man who was big in some movement or another.  Supporting lettuce workers or saving seals from the business end of a Louisville Slugger.
    Each time she left, I told Leonard I was through with her.  And each time it was a lie.  But the last time, after the Great Drunk, even I believed it.
    And now she was back.
    All this was going around and around in my head when she came in buck naked and put her arms around my neck and bent and kissed me on the ear.  The minty clean soap smell and the aroma of sex came off of her in waves.  I reached up and touched her hand where it rested on my chest.
    "I woke up and you were gone," she said.
    "I got thirsty."
    "I got horny.  Come back to bed."
     I stood and took her in my arms and kissed her.  She was shaking from the cold.  I opened my robe and stretched it around her as far as it would go and held her to me.  Her hands played at my sides and rump, and finally around front where she took hold of me.
    "You're pretty ruthless," I said, "treating an old man this way."
    "You don't feel old, sugar."
    We went back to bed, but this time she didn't let loose with the laugh I liked.  She lay there when we were finished and finally eased out of bed and picked up her panties and pulled them on.  I hated that.  I liked the view.  Covering that downy crotch of hers with panties was as vile an act as tossing a wet bath towel over the face of the Mona Lisa.
    "It's cold," I said.  "Come back to bed,"
    "Hap, I haven't been entirely truthful with you."
    "Not that you ever are.  But this time, don't feel too bad.  You haven't had a lot of time to lie."
    She walked to the window and stood with her back to me, looking out, hugging herself.  She turned slowly, her arms crossed over her breasts.  "You sound pretty vindictive."
    "Guess I was starting to pretend again.  But you've put me back on track."
    "It was always good for us, wasn't it, Hap? The sex, I mean."
    "For a little while, more than the sex."
    She picked up my robe where I had dropped it on the floor and put it on.  She climbed on the bed, crossed her legs, and sat looking at me.
    "Hap, I need your help."
    "I'm tapped out for money.  I got maybe fifty dollars, that's it.  Fifty cents in change."
    "I didn't come for money."
     "But you always come for something, don't you? Long as it doesn't have anything permanent to do with me."
    "I don't want to argue.  It's just that I need your help.  I couldn't think of anyone else to ask."
    "Maybe I can."
    "I want you to do it, because this time you'll profit.  This time will make up for all the other times."
    "Nothing can make up for those times."
    "This might go a long way toward it." She put her hand on my shoulder.  "Hap, my love, how would you like to make an easy two hundred thousand dollars? Tax free."

    Chapter 3

    Early next morning I left Trudy asleep and rattled my old green Dodge pickup over to Leonard's place.  He had a little house off the same dirt road I lived off of, and he was only about five miles away.
    I parked up close to the house, got out into the cold morning air, and tried the front door.  It was locked.  I got the key from its hiding place beneath the porch and let myself in.
    There was a fire in the fireplace, though it had dwindled considerably, and the house smelled like coffee.  I followed my nose to the kitchen and found the pot and poured a