“They only strain your eyes more and then you get more myopic,” Sonia told him.
“Well then, I’ve got a really drastic solution for you. Cut your bangs.”
“Never!” Sonia was adamant.
“Aside from your ocular problems, how do you manage to blow your nose?”
“Very funny,” she sniffed.
“As a matter of fact, if you don’t cut those damn bangs soon,” Pennington told her, “you’re going to have a hard time locating your mouth to eat. You’re a skinny wench at best, and you can’t afford any forced starvation diet.”
“You can always find it for me,” Sonia murmured. “Can’t you?” Her upturned lips were very close to his.
Pennington kissed her. It was a long kiss during which both his hands were very busy under the tablecloth. Sonia was indeed quite thin, but what she lacked in flesh she made up for in responsiveness. Her slender body was like a tightly coiled spring of sexuality reduced to heightened essentials. She was a bundle of nervous energy — all of it erotic.
After a while they ordered. When the food arrived they made a game of eating with chopsticks one-handed. Each of them kept the other hand under the table where they caressed each other like greedy adolescents. They even giggled like kids as the rice eluded their lips.
They cooled off over the tea, getting ready to return to their respective work. “Darling,” Sonia said, suddenly becoming serious, “I have a problem. A financial problem.”
“Like what?” Pennington wondered.
Sonia explained.
Pennington’s face became grave as he listened. “That’s a tall order,” he said when she finished.
“I know. And it’s rotten of me to lay it on you. But there’s no one else I can turn to.”
“I’ll manage something,” Pennington promised.
Just what he was going to manage and how was much on his mind when Pennington got back to the office. Together with Clytemnestra Hodgkiss’ problem, it distracted him from his work that afternoon. Then a third burden was piled on top of the other two in a way that made his mother’s kvetching that morning echo in his mind like utterances by Nostradamus. The echo was there the moment he picked up the phone and heard the voice tin the other end of the line.
“Pennington? It’s me, Brandy.”
Memories of mammaries . . . Marital memories clogging the bloodstream . . . Pre-Reno sense memories . . . the aphrodisiac aroma of perfumed red hair catching in his lips as he sought out the long, even redder nipple its fanned strands blanketed . . . The sweet taste of love nectar as the swell of her hips rolled frantically in response to his deep-questing mouth . . . The husky sound of pleasure moans as he dug his nails into fiery buttocks to make their fierce joining ever fiercer . . . The sight of her naked teasing designed to spur an encore with the quick-panting movements of extra-large breasts, the bump-and-grind of the quivering, red-curled triangle of desire, the hide-and-seek of her tongue laving his loins . . . the touch of her throbbing clitoris against him, and then the feel of that surprising strength in her thighs as she locked her legs around him and the wondrous palpitating suction that embraced his manhood like a hot, clutching glove . . . Sense memories of Brandy . . . anatomy of a bitch . . . all for love—-and love for all she could get! That was the voice in Pennington’s ear; that was his ex-wife, Brandy!
“Hello, bitch.” He greeted her with mixed feelings. Bitchiness in the bedroom can be as much a reason for rueing a divorce as bitchiness at large can be for ending a marriage.
“Don’t be like that, Pennington. Don’t be bitter. Please. Not now when I need you.”
“You need me? Since when? And by the way, where were you back in those days of marital bliss when I needed you?”
“Please, Pennington. I don’t have time to refight old wars. I’m in trouble. You have to help me.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Let’s keep that straight.”
“All right. I’m throwing myself on your mercy. If you ever felt anything at all for me . . .” There was a lot more in that vein. When Brandy wanted to pull out the stops, she was damn good at it. She knew just what strings to twang, just what nerves were exposed, just what emotions were still raw enough to respond.
“Okay. Okay.” Pennington couldn’t take any more. “Let’s hear it. What’s bugging you?”
Brandy told him.
“How much did you say?” That was Pennington’s answer.
She repeated the figure.
He whistled. “What makes you think I’ve got that kind of money?”
“You’re a saver. You always were. In your savings account . . . Maybe if you cashed in some stocks . . . I have no right to ask, I know. It’s crummy, but . . .”
“Okay,” he interrupted. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get back to you.” Pennington hung up the phone.
He sat at his desk and stared into space for a very long time. It got late and people started to leave for the day. Soon the place had emptied out except for Pennington. Still he waited. When all the other offices were darkened and the entire floor occupied by the firm had been quiet for a while, he finally got up, wearily, and did what he had decided to do.
He put his attaché case on his desk and opened it. He selected certain of the ledgers he’d been going over and put them in the attaché case. He left it there, still open, while he walked down the hallway to the office with the nameplate “A. K. Fuller, PRESIDENT” on the door.
He entered the office and walked directly to the painting behind Fuller’s desk. He pushed the painting aside to reveal the safe hidden behind it. He dialed the combination surely. Only two people knew it—-Mr. Fuller himself, and Pennington P. Potter, COMPTROLLER.
Pennington withdrew the cash box and counted the contents. There was over seventeen thousand dollars in cash. It was the week’s receipts for local sales from the company’s retail outlets. Tomorrow it was due to be deposited in the bank.
Pennington counted out ten thousand dollars and replaced the rest of the money. He put the cash box back and closed the safe. Then he replaced the painting and left the office, the bulky stack of bills clutched in both hands. Back in his own office, he arranged the bills in his attaché case and closed it. Then he left.
More than two hours later, he entered the apartment he shared with his mother. He was empty-handed. He was not carrying the attache case. Neither the ledgers nor the cash were anywhere on his person.
His mother wasn’t home. There was a note chastising him for not coming home on time as he’d promised and saying that she’d run down to the grocer’s and would be right back. Pennington ripped the note off the pad and wrote a note of his own on the sheet under it.
He phrased the note carefully. When he was finished, he went to his bedroom and removed a pistol from the bottom drawer of his bureau. It was a Luger, a souvenir of his peacetime army service in West Germany. He loaded the cartridges in the chamber carefully. He propped the note he’d written on top of the bureau. He held the gun in his right hand and pressed the muzzle against his right temple. He pulled the trigger.
Pennington P. Potter blew his brains out!
CHAPTER THREE
Flatulence!
Loudly and rudely, it broke the hush. Dr. Kilembrio always reacted to stress situations with flatulence. He couldn’t help it. Nervousness built a gaseous pressure which demanded an immediate, explosive release and was incapable of a slow, silent outlet. And so there was a hearty, loud, frank breaking of wind to break the hush in Pennington P. Potter’s bedroom.
“You could say ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Mrs. Potter protested indignantly.
“You shouldn’t blaming yourself,” Dr. Kilembrio said soothingly as he looked with distaste at the hole in Pennington’s head.
“I’m certainly not doing anything of the sort,” Mrs. Potter informed him haughtily. “Besides, I was referring to your rudeness.”