The Deer Leap Read Online Free

the viscous torso right in front of his mouth.
    Jury took out his handkerchief and wiped her stomach.
    Her mouth fell open and her arms fell down, clutching the bottles as if she’d wring their necks. He took one from her and swigged it.
    The empty hand went to her thrust-out hip. “Well, ain’t you a hoot and a scream, then? You can’t be queer, so what’s the argy? I mean, I ain’t exactly an old dripper.”
    â€œNot since I wiped the beer off.” Jury smiled.
    Her face went red and he thought she was going to yell, but instead she fell down on the bed giggling. “Takes allkinds.” She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re my first failure.”
    â€œMaybe I’m your first success.”
    All she did was screw her face up and look at him as if he must be crazy.
    â€œMen are thick on the ground, Carole-anne. You know what I’d do if you were my daughter?”
    â€œNah. What?”
    â€œKick your little Smartass right across the room. Maybe buy you some Gloria Vanderbilt jeans — at least the swan’s harmless — and a cashmere sweater. Loose.”
    â€œYou like kinky sex? That it?”
    Jury put his forehead against the Carlsberg and laughed. That was the only way she could look at anything.
    â€œWell, I was only trying to pay you back,” she said. “You know, for helping me with the furniture and all that.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Carole-anne, can’t a man help you without your having to go to bed with him?”
    She thought that over while she picked at the bottle label. Carole-anne shrugged. “Tits for tat.”

    The odd-lot furniture hadn’t taken a removal van to bring it, just a lad driving an old pickup. Her earthly possessions were vested largely in herself. She was gorgeous. Navy blue eyes, waist-length hair, a shape that would show through potato sacks. He’d helped her stow the furniture, turn the tiny bed-sit into some sort of home, and then taken her out to one of the locals for a bite.
    On that warm-for-September moving day, she’d been wearing bright blue sateen shorts, cut up above the line where buttocks met legs, and over this, as if for modesty, a short skirt of the same material. The modesty was very mild, however, since the skirt was slit up both sides, thereby emphasizingthe legwork underneath rather than hiding it. The weather hadn’t been that warm, but he doubted Carole-anne dealt much in coats.
    Whether you started at the floppy sandals and worked your way up, or at the spaghetti straps of the cut-off blouse and worked your way down, the effect on the men at the bar was unanimous. Heads moved in a synchronized turn that would have done a chorus line proud.
    Studying the chalked specials on the little blackboard at the serving bar, Carole-anne didn’t give the starers and hopeful-gropers a second thought. “Cottage pie, couple of Scotch eggs, chips, salad.” Then when she saw Jury was ordering sausages, she added, “And one of them ones, too.” She left Jury to see to the filling of the plate and slapped her sandals over to a little table, stuffed next to a banquette. Moses parting the Red Sea couldn’t have made more space than this vision in blue sateen.
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    â€œYou’re a what ?” said Jury, halfway into his sausage, watching Carole-anne stuffing in cottage pie.
    â€œYou needn’t get huffy. A topless dancer.” She shrugged a shoulder in some unidentifiable direction. “Over to King Arthur’s. Never been?”
    â€œThat sweatshop? Only when I was nicking one of the dips that works the passage.”
    â€œYou? A superintendent? Lower yourself, don’t you?”
    â€œThis one’s a personal friend. Listen, you shouldn’t be doing stuff like that. What in hell would your parents think? They probably don’t know.”
    â€œListen to him, would you?”