Requiem for a Realtor Read Online Free Page A

the place for an interview.”
    â€œWhat would you suggest?”
    The bar at the Radisson, as it happened, adding to Bob’s supposition that he was talking to a disenchanted spouse. Having a drink with her would probably be the end of the story anyway. He certainly didn’t intend to write it to Susan Sawyer’s specifications.
    â€œYou know an awful lot about the business,” he said when they were settled at a table, out of the afternoon traffic of the bar.
    â€œI’m an agent, too, you know.”
    â€œI did a little real estate myself for a time.”
    â€œAnd repented?” Again she put her hand on his arm.
    â€œYou have to do something bad in order to repent.”
    She found this funny. Bob in turn found her fascinating, in a middle-aged sort of way. A little stocky for his taste, but she had a way of leaning toward him when she spoke that suggested intimacy. The next time she put her hand on his arm he covered it with his own. That was the end of talk about real estate. Instead he got the story of her life. All the dreams of her girlhood seemed to have come to naught.
    â€œWhy does marriage have to be the end of everything?”
    â€œIs it?”
    â€œAren’t you married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI find that hard to believe.”
    They were holding hands now, the ones that weren’t on their drinks. Susan was drinking martinis and not holding them too well. The happy hour crowd was convening when they left. Her car was at the agency, and, outside, Bob talked her out of driving and offered to take her home. He saw her to the door and accepted her invitation to come in.
    â€œI would say for a nightcap, but it’s too early for that.”
    â€œNot unless you intend to take a nap.”
    Suddenly she was in his arms, her mouth pressed to his. The sequel was not something Bob cared to dwell on. She was voracious, and, when he finally left, he felt used. Susan was the kind of girl who would lead if you danced with her. One thing was definite, he was not going to write a story about the Sawyer-Collins agency. Not having told her that Phyllis was his sister seemed vaguely duplicitous, but all in all a plus. In the following weeks, she left several messages for him at the Tribune, but he ignored them. He should have enjoyed it when she complained about Stanley, but he didn’t. She wasn’t much easier on her husband, the man who had thwarted her youthful promise. Bob’s abiding impression was, poor George Sawyer.
    Bob did a feature on dentists instead, full of lore on orthodontics fed him by Dr. David Jameson, who seemed to mean it when he said that everyone has a natural right to a perfect smile. The dentist himself seemed pretty grim, but he was helpful, and Bob had cast him in the starring role. The story established Bob Oliver as the paper’s human interest wiz. Once a week, he canonized some local figure, and hopeful subjects began to come to him. Most of them should have paid advertising rates for the boost Bob gave them. He always insisted on Sylvia Woods as his photographer. Her lens was as flattering as Bob’s prose, and he began to think of her as Rosalind Russell to his Cary Grant in His Girl Friday, but there was no day in the week when she was his. None of his overtures introduced an operetta starring the two of them.
    â€œDo all photographers have negative thoughts?”
    â€œOnly in the dark room.”
    â€œThat’s what I had in mind.”
    Her disdainful look would have turned a lesser man into a monk. What hurt was that she was susceptible to Stanley.
    â€œHe’s your brother-in-law?” It was the first time Sylvia was really interested in anything he said. “You ought to do a piece on him.”
    â€œYou sound like my sister.”
    â€œAt most.”
    Disappointment did not dull his hopes. He told Sylvia what kind of husband Stanley was, but this seemed to pique her interest rather than the reverse.