Jilling (Kit Tolliver #6) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) Read online

  Now what?

  A thought, unbidden: What she could do, and it would be simplicity itself, was forget all about Graham Weider. What did the man who moved the tricycle have to do with the man who’d taken her to lunch and to bed? Why remain committed to this curious mission to purge the planet of her past and future lovers? He had a kid, he lived in the suburbs, and what did he have to do with her, or she with him?

  She pushed the thought away. This is what I do, she told herself. This is who I am.

  She got on her bike, rode away, rode around. And was back in the Barling lot by noon. This time she stationed herself where she could see both his car and the employee entrance, and she spotted him right away when he left the building in the company of another man. They both wore shirts and ties, but they’d left their suit jackets inside.

  They walked to the Subaru, got in, and drove off. Two fellow workers, she decided, on their way to a casual lunch. She could follow, but only if Rita’s bike were jet-propelled.

  So? What was she supposed to do now, hang around and wait for him to come back, then follow him home and watch him move the tricycle again?

  She hopped on her bike, headed for home.

  Saturday morning she took a bus to Seattle and found her way to Spy Shoppe, a retail firm with a showroom one flight above a sporting goods store. Spy Shoppe worked both sides of the espionage avenue, offering a wide range of eavesdropping gadgets and just as wide a range of devices made to foil them. Want to tap a phone? Want to know if your phone is tapped? They were like international arms dealers, she thought, cheerfully peddling weapons to opposing factions.

  The gear they had on offer was so fascinating it was hard to stay focused on her reason for being there. The salesman was a prototypical geek, all Buddy Holly glasses and Adam’s apple, perfectly happy to show off for her. There was a homing device to be attached to a car’s bumper, and she asked about that, and learned how it worked.

  But it was pretty expensive, and that was just the beginning. Then you’d need something to pick up the signal and locate it for you, and that was more expensive by the time you put the whole package together, and then where were you? You could find out where he and his friend were lunching, and if you pedaled like crazy on your bike, you might get there before they finished their second cup of coffee.

  Pointless, really.

  Of course, she could get everything she needed for free. All she had to do was date the geek.

  That was something that didn’t even occur to her until he cleared his throat and stammered and looked at his feet, and blurted out that his work day ended at six, and that maybe they could meet for coffee, his treat, and uh talk about things and uh—

  “Well, I could meet you,” she said, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

  He stared at her, puzzled, until he figured out that it was a joke. And laughed accordingly.

  Sunday afternoon she went to a movie, and when she got home Rita had dinner on the table, with two places set. “It’s easier cooking for two than for one,” she said, “so I took a chance. I hope you haven’t eaten.”

  The meal was meatloaf and mashed potatoes and creamed corn, comfort food, and she let herself enjoy it, and Rita’s company. Afterward they sat in front of the TV and told stories of their childhoods. Her own were improvised, but she figured Rita’s were probably true.

  She wondered what Rita would do if she made a pass at her.

  And wondered where that thought had come from. She’d never been with another woman herself, although she’d thought about it from time to time. Never very seriously, though, and she wasn’t giving it serious consideration now, but it did raise some questions. For instance, would it count? Would she feel the same need to wipe the slate clean afterward?

  Monday morning she didn’t get to the Barling lot until 11:45. It wasn’t until 12:20 that she spotted him, and for a change he was all by himself. He headed for his car, and she began walking in that direction herself. Oh, aren’t you Graham Weider? A chance meeting in a parking lot where she had no reason to be. No, she thought, maybe not.

  She stopped walking and watched as he got into his car and drove off. He was wearing a jacket this time. It was at least as warm as it had been the other times she’d watched him head off to lunch, and previously he’d always gone in shirtsleeves, so what would Sherlock make of that?

  A lunch date with someone from outside the company. A business associate? A golf or tennis partner? Or, just possibly, a lady friend?

  If she had a car she could follow him. If someone had just left a key in their ignition—

  Oh, please. What were the odds of that? No point in looking, and couldn’t she come up with a better way?

  She got out her phone, punched in numbers, found a way around Voice Mail. To the woman who answered she said, “Is Graham Weider there? I missed him? I was afraid of that. I’ve got something he needs for his meeting and I was supposed to drop it at the restaurant, but I can’t remember . . . Yes, of course, that’s it. Thanks, thanks so much, you’ve been very helpful. And could you please not tell him I had to call? He’ll think I’m an idiot.”

  It took fifteen minutes of hard pedaling to get her to the Cattle Baron, a strip mall steak house that didn’t look very baronial from the outside. Was she dressed for it? Could she leave her bike and expect it to be there later? And, after all that bicycling, did she smell?

  She brushed the questions aside and entered the restaurant. She spotted Weider right away in a corner booth with three companions, all of them men in suits. Which made it easier, really, than if he were with a woman.

  She told the maitre d’ a friend would be joining her, and he put her at a table for two. She ordered a white wine spritzer, then went straight to the restroom to freshen up and put on lipstick. She checked, and her underarms passed the sniff test. While she didn’t exactly feel like an Irish Spring commercial, neither was she likely to knock a buzzard off a slaughterhouse wagon.

  She headed for her table, then did a double take when she caught sight of the four men in the corner. She hesitated, then walked directly to their booth. They all looked at her, but she looked only at Weider.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but aren’t you Graham Weider?”

  He hesitated, clearly not knowing who she was, and the man sitting next to him said, “If he’s not, ma’am, then I am. I’m sure I’d make just as good a Graham Weider as he ever could.”

  “It’s been a few years,” she said. “And I only met you briefly, so you’re forgiven if you don’t remember my name.” Or, clearly, anything else about me. “It’s Kim.”

  She had no idea what name she might have used when she was with him. She’d become Kim when she moved into Rita’s house, so it was simplest all around to remain Kim with Graham Weider. And it would be an easy name for him to remember. Though not, she trusted, for very long.

  “Kim,” he said, as if testing a foreign word on his tongue. He had a gratifying deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “I don’t want to take any more of your time,” she said, “but do you have a card? I’d love to call you and catch up.”

  She gave each of them a smile, especially the one who’d volunteered to take Weider’s place. He was cute, and he’d be about as hard to get as coffee at Starbucks. How tough would it be to fuck him in the restroom and leave him dead in a stall?

  Without returning to her table, she caught up with her waitress and gave her enough money to cover the drink. She’d had a phone call, she explained, and her lunch partner had to cancel, so she was going straight on to her next meeting.

  Her bike was right where she’d left it. There was a hardware story right there on the strip mall, and she went in and bought a bicycle lock. Just to be on the safe side.

  She didn’t really need his card. She already knew how to reach him at his office. But if she called him without having been given his number, she’d look for all the world like a stalker.

  Which, come to think of it, she was.
r />   She called him late that afternoon, caught him before he left for the day. “It’s Kim,” she said, “and I want to apologize. I never should have barged in while you were with other people. But it was such a surprise to run into you after all those years.”

  “I’d like to catch up,” he said, “but I’m not sure—”

  “That the phone’s the best way to do it? I feel the same way, believe me. Why don’t we have lunch tomorrow?”

  “Lunch?”

  “My treat,” she said. “You bought me lunch last time. So it’s my turn. But I’m new in the area. Can you suggest a place?”

  The restaurant was Italian, its Mulberry Street décor of checkered tablecloths and straw-covered Chianti bottles at odds with its strip mall location. She’d allowed herself half an hour to get there and made it with seven minutes to spare. After she’d stashed Rita’s bike and locked it, she used the restroom at a convenience store, checked her makeup, freshened her lipstick. She entered the restaurant right on time, and he was at one of the three occupied tables, a cup of coffee at his elbow.

  He got to his feet when he caught sight of her. He was wearing a jacket and tie, and—no surprise—a wary expression. A handsome man, she noted, and felt a little quiver of anticipatory excitement. This was going to be fun, she thought, and it would end well, too.

  He had a hand extended, but instead of shaking it she gripped his forearm with both hands and leaned forward, giving him no real choice but to kiss her cheek and breathe in her scent.

  “Well,” she said, and held his eyes for a moment. Then she sat down, and so did he, and he asked her if she’d like a drink. “If you’re having one,” she said.

  “Just coffee for me.”

  “That sounds good.”

  He signaled the waiter, and he asked if she’d had trouble finding the place. She said she hadn’t, but managed to tell him she’d come by bicycle. Isn’t that crazy? Some idiot hit my car and I can’t get a loaner while it’s in the shop, so I’ve been getting around on a bicycle.

  Then the waiter brought her coffee and refilled Graham’s cup and left them alone, and after a thoughtful silence he said, “When exactly did we—”

  “It was a few years ago. I was living in New York, and you were there on business. You were with Willoughby & Kessel, and you were staying at the Sofitel.”

  “That’s where I always stayed.”

  “I can see why,” she said. “You had a lovely room.”

  “I guess we did more than have lunch.”

  “I’ll say.”

  He took a sip of coffee. “I won’t pretend I recognized you,” he said, “but when I saw you I had the sense that we’d been, uh, intimate.”

  “We had lunch and went back to your room. Then you had to go to a meeting, and we arranged to meet again later that day. But you didn’t show up, and left a note for me at the desk. You had to fly somewhere.”

  “Oh, God,” he said. “I remember now.”

  “Well, good, Graham. I thought that might trigger your memory. I figured it was either that or show you my tits.”

  She thought that would get a smile. Instead his face darkened, and he reached again for his coffee cup, the way a person might reach for a real drink.

  And, while she didn’t realize it yet, that pretty much explained everything.

  “In those days,” he said, “I was doing a lot of drinking.”

  Was he? “I guess you had a drink or two with lunch,” she said. “I don’t think it affected you.”

  “Oh, it affected me.”

  “Not back at the Sofitel it didn’t. Not in the performance department.”

  “Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. I guess that must have been a good day.”

  “A very good day,” she said.

  He colored. “This is hard for me,” he said.

  It was certainly hard for me, she thought. But she left the words unvoiced, sensing that double entendre was not what the situation called for.

  “I was married then,” he said.

  She glanced at his ring. “So? You’re married now.”

  “Different lady.”

  “Ah.”

  “See, I drank my way out of my first marriage.”

  “And into a second one?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t even met his second wife until a full year after he’d stopped drinking. First his marriage ended, then his career went into the toilet, and eventually he found his way to rehab.

  “To stop drinking,” she said.

  “Well, that was the first rehab. For drinking.”

  “There was a second?”

  He nodded. “It turned out drinking was the symptom. The second rehab addressed the real problem.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Sexual compulsivity. I was addicted to sex.”

  “Maybe that’s why you were so good at it.”

  Most men would have taken that as a compliment, but he recoiled from it as if from a blow.

  “It almost killed me,” he said. “I was lucky. I went through rehab for it, and I joined SCA, and—”

  “SCA?”

  “Sexual Compulsives Anonymous.”

  After the waiter took their orders—pasta and a salad for both—he told her his story in more detail than she really required, and she found herself boiling it down to a single long sentence: I used to drink and I used to smoke and I used to gamble and I used to fuck around and now I don’t do any of these things but instead lead this glorious rich fulfilling life of fidelity and sobriety and moral decency and utter unremitting stifling boredom.

  “I guess that explains the coffee,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. But there’s no reason you can’t have a drink if you want one.”

  “And risk an arrest for drunken bicycling? No, I’m fine with coffee. SCA, huh? Are their meetings like AA? Do you tell each other all the things you used to do in the good old days?”

  “We tell our stories,” he said, “but it’s a little different, because we have to guard against getting off on what we tell, or what we hear. So the stories are intentionally vague. ‘I acted out with a partner, I acted out alone, I acted out with a group—’ ”

  “ ‘I acted out with two nuns and a sheep.’ I was thinking that the meetings might be fun, but you nipped that little fantasy in the bud. So you used to act out and now you don’t, and I gather you’re happily married, and did you say you’ve got a kid?”

  He nodded. “And speaking of bicycles, he’s learning to ride one.”

  It’s a tricycle, and he still hasn’t learned to put it in the garage. But of course she couldn’t say that.

  The food came, and he said he knew she’d offered to buy him lunch, but it was going to have to be on him. This, he said, would be a small way of making it up to her for the way he’d treated her in New York, back in the bad old days.

  “You treated me fine,” she said.

  “I was acting out sexually, and I exploited you.”

  “Acting out? Whatever it was you were doing, I was doing it, too. And I must have enjoyed it, and felt just fine about it, or I wouldn’t have hit on you yesterday.”

  “You weren’t hitting on me.”

  “Yes I was,” she said. “It’s what I’m doing now, too. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Kim—”

  “I know you’re attracted to me. Aren’t you?”

  “You’re a very attractive woman.”

  “And you’re an extremely attractive man, and if there weren’t other people around I’d be under the table with your cock in my mouth. You used to like that, and I’ll bet you still do.”

  “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Why not? Graham, I know you, I know what you like. Are you going to try pretending you don’t enjoy having your cock sucked?”

  He just looked at her. He was getting hard, she could tell. And something came back to her, some rush of memory from out of nowhere.

  “You wanted to
fuck me in the ass! That’s what you promised me, when you went off to your meeting. We’d meet for dinner and come back to the room, and you’d have plenty of lube on hand, and you’d fuck me up my ass.” She looked at him levelly, licked her lips. “See? If you want to make it up to me, that’d be a good place to start. You owe me.”

  The son of a bitch was hopeless. He went to AA meetings and SCA meetings, so no wonder he didn’t have time to mow his lawn. SCA might have been fun if there was a decent amount of backsliding involved, but he took it seriously, the idiot, and he took his wedding vows seriously, especially the part about forsaking all others.

  It infuriated her, and she was on the verge of losing it when she caught hold of herself. No point in cursing the fish when it wouldn’t take the bait. More effective to reel in and try again.

  “I’m sorry, Graham,” she said. “I guess I’m not used to rejection. It’s not something I get a lot of.”

  “I’m not rejecting you, Kim. It’s just—”

  “I understand. You’d actually love to fuck me, but you won’t let yourself. Because it doesn’t fit with your new life.”

  “I might not have phrased it quite that way. But that’s close enough.”

  “So now we’ll go our separate ways,” she said. “Will you think about me when you masturbate?”

  He flushed deeply.

  “I get it,” she said. “You don’t do that anymore either, right?”

  “It’s a form of acting out,” he said, “that we don’t encourage.”

  “We meaning SCA?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m glad I’m not a member,” she said, “because I have to tell you, Graham, I’m gonna have my hands full tonight. I’ll put on some music and I’ll get out my sex toys and I’ll imagine all the things you and I aren’t gonna do to each other. Oh, is this conversation making you uncomfortable?”