'Usually… but I will for sure if you say you're going to be here,' he said, causing the warmth she felt to pleasantly increase. 'Better yet, why don't we get together some evening… that is, if you'd like to?'
His proposal took her by surprise. She smiled. 'Why… why yes, I'd like that very much, Mr…'
'Mark,' he interrupted. 'Less formal. Okay?'
'Okay. And mine's Carol, you know,' she said, finding herself more and more excited by his casual charm.
'Good!' he exclaimed, getting to his feet, Queenie immediately rising to attention. 'Suppose we walk along with you, Carol, seeing we're going the same way? You mind?'
'Of course not! I'd love it!' she answered; then, on the spur of the moment: 'And… and suppose you come over to dinner tomorrow night? It won't be anything elaborate, but…'
'Hey! I'd welcome that with open arms!' he said, his face beaming. 'And I'll bring a bottle of wine!'
'Okay! Do you like meatloaf?' she asked.
'I'm afraid I can't offer you much better, but I do make a good one…'
'Meatloaf! My favorite dish!' he said, and then they both laughed as they walked side by side along the cinder path, their team of German shepherds leading them.
They had gone only a little way, both enjoyably reacting to their new friendship, when Carol saw the other man standing beside a tree a good distance from the path, but definitely with his attention riveted on them… or rather on her! He was drinking from a beer can and though he was quite a way off, there was no question in her mind but what it was Ed White! The clammy chill at just the sight of him crept shudderingly up her back.
'Is something wrong, Carol?' Mark asked when she stopped in the middle of telling him her apartment number and what time to come.
'N-No… no, nothing,' she stammered, tearing her eyes from the brutish man whose leer she sensed more than distinguished at that distance. 'I–I was just remembering a certain detail I forgot to take care of today… I'm sorry.'
'You were telling me what time and your apartment number,' he reminded, his discerning mind detecting the falseness of her answer and wondering why.
'Oh yes, it's 1-B, and let's make it around seven for cocktails… you do like a cocktail, don't you?' she said, straining to re-capture the warm mood they had shared only moments before.
'I thrive on them!' He laughed and shook his head as if thoroughly delighted. 'You know, Carol, you're taunting me right where it gets me the most!'
'Oh…? And where's that?'
'In my unbelieving head! Nothing this good has happened to me in three years…!'
He hadn't lied to her, Mark thought later, as he moved knowingly around his own small, seedy apartment, making himself a pitcher of martinis, some crackers with cheese, then settling down in his easy chair. He heard Queenie's level breathing beside him and felt the reassuring closeness of her strong body against his bare foot. He flicked on the small radio and found his favorite FM station, while his mind raced. If only he could have gotten one look at her, for Christ's sake! He turned up the radio to drown out the clattering worthlessness of the air- conditioner.
She had to be beautiful with a voice like that… and she was certainly no hooker. Single, evidently, or maybe divorced like him. He took off his eye-shades and rubbed at his sightless eyes. Opening them again, he wondered how dead or vacant they looked. Were they still the same bluish tint…? The color Nancy had told him she loved so much… the bitch.
He sipped at his martini, then popped a whole small cracker with cheese into his mouth. They'd told him the acid had never noticeably damaged the actual eyeball, only destroyed the thin lids, which plastic surgery had restored… plus his sight, but he had no way of knowing that was true.
Shit, that was hardly important anymore! In three years, a man learns to live with a horror, just as he accustoms himself to the loss of his wife after seven years, the girl he comes to believe is a part of him, for richer or poorer, through sickness and in health, till death…! Malarkey! Goddamn, what had gotten him off onto this tangent? He didn't want to think of that shallow bitch ever again! She was gone, on the other side of the continent, back in her Boston environment where she belonged, and he was well rid of her. More important things had suddenly, and so unexpectedly, happened to him!
The sound of Carol Dorsett's almost sensual voice and the delicate scent of her perfume shouldn't play any part in the picture, Mark knew, but he couldn't exactly get them out of him mind. Being sightless didn't destroy a man's desire… and he'd still bet his life she was a beauty! All the same, he had a job to do, and he intended to do that first and foremost! Besides, she was probably only being sympathetic… lonely too, no doubt. But he'd hate to put up a man with good eyes as competition and let her make a choice!
To hell with that crap! It was just sheer luck that he'd met her, and not to take advantage of it would be stupid! She sounded trustworthy enough, but he'd have to probe that deeper tomorrow night. Either she had told him the truth, or she was one slick operating chick… and if she was that, she damn sure wouldn't be wasting her time down in this end of town! No, she was for real, all right, and above all, he didn't want to get her marked! Christ, he couldn't protect her… couldn't even protect himself, but his end hardly mattered. Maybe, he better think about it a little bit… not be hasty and just get her uselessly involved… She sounded like a dream, almost too out of date to be true! He smiled. Imagine that, he reminded himself, Mark Cannon having a dinner date after all these years? And with what had to be a very lovely young girl! Damn, he could hardly believe it! The lingering sound of her soft warm voice taunted his memory. He drained his glass, flicking the savory olive inside his mouth. What the hell, he realized, his stupid cock had begun to stir…
Carol made herself a strong gin and tonic, poured a little Coke for Sultan and eased down into the only decent living room chair. She had to think things over. So much had happened to her in the last few hours that each unexpected, overwhelming incident seemed like a milestone in her too-uneventful life! Her lewd little episode with the handsome German shepherd beside her hardly seemed as if it had ever happened now, but she knew it really had… and only hours before! Again, she examined her conscience as she sipped at her drink! No! No, she wasn't sorry… nor ashamed… and she wasn't about to tell herself it might not happen again!
And then there was Mark Cannon! He certainly was a very striking, desirable man, and seemed untouched by the self-sympathy his affliction could cause. Instead, he acted alive and young, quite aggressive in fact, ready to ignore his handicap if she would. Carol hoped she'd shown him it made absolutely no difference to her, and guessed that she had done just that by inviting him to dinner. She really wanted him to come. There was something about him… appealing in every respect. It was difficult to think of a man like him never to have been married. He had to be thirty-two or three. Maybe, he'd tell her… and she would tell him her own sorry story… they would confide in each other…
Then the memory of Ed White's frightening appearance in the park marred her pleasant revery, and Carol drank heavily from her glass. Why had he so suddenly loomed up? She hadn't rid herself yet of the thought that he must have been following her! There was something terrifying about that ugly man! She couldn't bring herself to believe that his being in the park was just coincidental! Yet, in broad daylight, even with Sultan beside her, he scared her.
God! Carol hardly knew what to think, except that she wanted to keep as much distance as possible between her and the landlord. How his wife Peg could ever stand him was beyond her…! And then she again thought of her shapely brunette neighbor, and the almost incredible conclusions she'd come to earlier concerning Peg's lewd exploitation of Sultan. They seemed outlandish now… cruel and hasty accusations she'd readily whipped up to lessen her own immediate guilt. No… it was impossible… not Peggy! She just wasn't that sort of person… was she?
CHAPTER THREE
Carol wasn't hungry. She fed Sultan and made herself another drink, her third… or was it her fourth? It hardly mattered, she decided, the liquor's effects causing a warm, buoyant feeling to glow inside her, a pleasurable
