Читать книгу The Women's Club - Abusive partners are winding up dead… Criminals who target women are the victims of nasty accidents… Pretend it's not happening, you might live longer - Michael Crawley - Страница 7

Andy flipped a beef patty with the spatula in his left hand and nudged a rib-eye steak to a better position on the griddle with the long fork in his right. The chicken legs were doing just fine, if you liked them blackened and crusty, and he did. When it came to barbecuing for a big crowd, he took second place to no man. He’d built this cooking pit with his own two hands, brick by brick. He wasn’t having any truck with fancy-nancy fuels like gas or electric. Once he had his bed of real coals going, he had room for fifty good-sized steaks on his black-iron grill.

Bob and Monica were standing close by, ready to be first in line when he started serving. They were watching his every move, salivating, likely. Monica was too thin in the face for Andy’s taste, but those long legs – shown off nicely by her tight, hot-pink hot-pants – those were the kind of limbs he privately thought of as ‘wrap-around’.

He remembered the punch line to an old joke, ‘Don’t mind my skinny legs; make me take it.’

Bob asked, ‘Why the big grin, Andy?’

Andy couldn’t very well explain, not in mixed company, not while everyone was still sober, so he said, ‘Look around at all these fine people. Notice anything?’

Bob shook his head.

Monica asked, ‘Like what?’

‘Leaving the spouses out of this here equation, all the guys here are salesmen with the company. All the gals that are here from the office are just secretaries or clerks.’

Monica raised a drawn-on eyebrow. ‘So?’

‘It just goes to show you, women can’t sell insurance.’

‘Why’s that?’ Bob asked, grinning.

‘It’s all down to the way women talk. A woman, trying to sell a policy, wouldn’t give the client a chance to get a “yes” in edgeways.’

Bob gave a dutiful chuckle. Monica pursed her narrow lips, fiddled with her big straw bag, and frowned as much as her Botox-frozen forehead allowed.

Women, huh? No sense of humour. Andy said, ‘OK, I’ll give you a “for instance”.’

‘Go ahead,’ Bob encouraged. ‘You can’t get yourself any deeper in the proverbial doo-doo than you already have, buddy.’

‘Right, then. Say it was my wife, Sue, tending this here barbeque ’stead of me.’

‘Go on.’

‘And you two were getting really hungry.’

‘Like I for sure am,’ Bob agreed.

‘So if you were to ask, “How long will those steaks be before they’re done, Sue?”, she’d tell you something like, “Well, these rib eyes are a bit thicker than I usually buy, but the butcher said they’re extra tender, but then I didn’t get a really good bed of coals going till about twenty minutes or so ago, on account of Andy here let the charcoal get damp, so that’s slowing them down. I guess I’d have to say, if you really pressed me, that they won’t be so very long, if you like them sort of rare.”’

Bob laughed until Monica gave him that look.

‘Now,’ Andy continued, ‘suppose you were to ask me, or any reasonable man, how long the steaks will be?’

‘I’ll bite. So – how long will the steaks be, Andy?’ Bob responded.

‘Four minutes.’

Andy prodded a chicken thigh to give Bob time to laugh. He continued, ‘See what I mean about the difference between how women talk and how men do?’

Monica said, ‘I’m going to get myself a drink. Bring me a nice steak, medium-well, in about four minutes, Bob.’

Andy called after her, ‘I’ll have a beer while you’re there, Monica. Make sure it’s a cold one.’

Three hours later, when the last slowpoke had gone and they were roaming their yard with big green garbage bags, picking up, Andy asked, ‘Did you do like I said, Sue?’

‘Pump the office girls for any news about your new sales and marketing director? Sure did.’

‘Good girl. What did you find out?’

‘The new director got the promotion for having the highest billing in the entire country, four years in a row.’

Andy pursed his lips. ‘That’s impressive. Anything else?’

‘I got a name.’

‘I already know the name, L. D. Seaver. Is that all you got?’

‘I found out what the L and the D stand for.’

‘I guess that’s something. So – what do they stand for?’

‘L is for Leslie.’

‘Lesley, huh? That’s a bit limp-sounding. I bet he wears pink T-shirts.’

Sue fisted her hips. ‘My uncle’s favourite white T-shirt accidentally got washed with something red, that’s all. For God’s sake let it go, Andy.’

‘Yeah, whatever. What’s the D in L. D. stand for?’

‘Diana.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me, Diana.’

‘But that’s a girl’s name.’

‘A woman’s,’ Sue corrected him. ‘That’s right. Your boss’s new boss is going to be a woman.’

‘Hell!’

Sue smiled her sweetest smile. ‘Kinda ironic, huh, considering the wisecracks you were making earlier?’

‘Wisecracks? What wisecracks?’

Sue pulled a tiny recorder out of her apron pocket. From it, Andy’s voice said, ‘It just goes to show you, women can’t sell insurance.’

Sue explained, ‘Monica recorded you.’

‘The bitch!’ Andy thought for a moment. ‘You did good, Sue, getting that tape away from Monica. I was just joshing but some people might not understand.’

‘I didn’t “get it away from her”, Andy.’

‘How’d you mean?’

‘She gave me a copy.’

‘She what?’ Andy’s voice was almost a screech.

‘She gave me a copy, just like she did some of the other “girls”. The whole thing, right to the final “four minutes”.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘I’m not joking.’

‘If L. D. was to hear that…’

‘She won’t, Andy, just so long as you’re a good boy.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘June says she doesn’t want you making any more corny jokes about her boobs, like, “June is busting out all over.”’

‘I didn’t mean anything by that.’

‘But don’t do it again. And Irene, she says she’d appreciate it if you stopped patting her fanny when you pass her.’

‘I never did!’

‘Then you’d better steer well clear of her, in case your hands have minds of their own.’

Andy thrust his fists deep into his pockets. ‘Is that it? Are you and your girlfriends done?’

‘Not quite. Andy, your weekly poker game?’

‘What about it? It’s just a friendly low-stakes game. Sometimes I win; sometimes I lose. It evens out.’

Sue pulled a small notebook from her pocket and flipped it open. ‘That’s not exactly true, Andy. I’ve been keeping track. Once in a while you win a few bucks but mainly you’re down. On an average, you’re losing a hundred and forty of our precious dollars a week.’

‘I am? I don’t believe it.’

‘Believe it. You know what, Andy?’

‘What?’

‘A hundred and forty bucks a week would lease me that new Mercedes that I’ve had my eye on and you’ve been saying we can’t afford.’

‘We can’t.’

Sue raised the recorder. Andy’s voice said, ‘Well, these rib eyes are a bit thicker than I usually buy, but the butcher said they’re extra tender, but then…’

‘OK, OK. I got it.’

‘And I get it, right? Tomorrow? I’ll make us an appointment with that nice saleslady at the dealership.’

‘You women – bitches, all of you.’

‘Be grateful, Andy. It could be a lot worse for you, a lot worse, believe me.’