Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (best books to read now .TXT) 📕

I knew you. I'm afraid I couldn't give him much of a reference." Vic's smile was friendly.

       "Oh, lord, did they call 'you'?" Melinda laughed." Sorry, Vic, 'I'll' call them tomorrow," she said boredly. "But Charley's already got his home. He's moving in tomorrow. It's a wonderful cottage in the woods. Do you know that little house off fifteen about two miles south of East Lyme? I thought I once drove you up the road to show it to you. I've noticed it was vacant since spring, and I thought Charley would like it better than a hotel, because he's going to be here another six weeks, so I found the real estate agency that handles it—finally—and I got it for him. Charley adores it." Melinda was picking out records to play.

       "That sounds very nice," Vic said. Melinda must have driven up the road to show it to somebody else, he thought. Two miles south of East Lyme made it just two miles closer to Little Wesley than he had thought it would be. Then he tried to neutralize his thoughts, tried very hard. He had no reason to feel hostile towards Mr. De Lisle. Mr. De Lisle looked as if he were afraid of his own shadow.

       Melinda had chosen piano records, and she was playing them a bit loud. When a second record dropped down, she asked Charley if he knew who the pianist was. Charley knew.

       Vic fixed another drink for himself and Melinda. Charley was only sipping at his. When he came back into the room, Melinda was saying to Trixie, "Why don't you go and play in your room, darling? You're making an awful mess there."

       Trixie was absently building something with the Scrabble counters on the floor in front of the fireplace. Now she gave a sigh and slowly began to replace the counters in the box, at a rate that would keep her there twenty minutes.

       "That drink isn't poisoned, you know," Melinda said to Charley.

       "I know" He smiled. "I have to watch out for the ulcer. Also I've got to work tonight."

       "I hope you'll stay for dinner, though. You don't have to work till eleven. You can get to Ballinger in six minutes from here."

       "Maybe by rocket," Vic said, smiling. "He'd better give himself twenty minutes if he wants to stay alive."

       "Charley works at the Hotel Lincoln in Ballinger from eleven to midnight," Melinda announced to Vic. Her nose could have used some powder, but she looked very well with her dark-blond hair loose and flowing back, the way the wind had left it, her smooth, slightly freckled face aglow with suntan and with animal good spirits now. She had not had enough to drink to begin wilting. Vic could see why men found her charming, even irresistible, when she looked this way. She leaned toward Charley, putting a hand on his sleeve. "Charley—stay for dinner?" And without waiting for his answer, she jumped up. "My gosh, I left the steak in the car! I've got the most beautiful steak, hand-picked from Hansen's!" She ran out of the house.

       Charley absolutely refused to stay for dinner, however. "I've got to be going," he said as soon as he had finished his first drink.

       "Well, you're not going to leave without playing something!" Melinda said.

       Charley got up docilely, as if he knew it was of no use to argue with Melinda, and sat down at the piano."Anything in particular?" he asked.

       Melinda was propping up the piano top. "Whatever you like."

       Charley played "Old Buttermilk Sky." Vic knew it was one of Melinda's favorites, and Charley must have known it, too, because he had winked at her as he struck the first notes.

       "I wish I could play like that," she said when he had finished. "I play it, but not like that."

       "Show me," Charley said, getting up from the bench.

       She shook her head. "Not now. Do you think you can teach me to play it like that?"

       "If you play at all—sure," Charley said bluntly."I'll be taking off." Vic got up. "Very nice meeting you," he said.

       "Thanks. Same here." Charley picked up his raincoat.

       Melinda went out with him to his car. She stayed about five minutes. When she came in, neither of them said anything for a while.

       Then Melinda said, "Anything new with you today?"

       "Nope," Vic said. She would not have heard him if he had told her about anything that was new. "I think it's high time we ate, don't you?"

       Melinda was more than usually pleasant the rest of the evening. But the next day she was again not home at one o'clock, and again not home until nearly eight. Charley De Lisle was giving her piano lessons in the afternoons, she said.

Chapter 8

Vic knew what was happening, and he tried to make Melinda admit it and stop it before it got all over town. He simply told her, in a quiet way, that he thought she was seeing too much of Charley De Lisle.

       You're imagining things," she said. "The first person I've been able to talk to in weeks without being treated like a pariah, and you hate it. You don't want me to get any fun out of life, that's all!"

       She could say things like that to him as if she really meant them. She could actually stymie him and make him wonder if she really believed what she said. In an effort to be fair with her, he tried to see it the way she told it, tried to imagine that it was impossible that she could be attracted to a greasy, sick-looking nightclub entertainer. But he couldn't see it that way. She had made the same denials in regard to Jo-Jo, and Jo-Jo had been equally repellent from Vic's point of view, and yet 'that' had happened. Jo-Jo had been so amusing, a laugh a minute. He'd been