"Are you sure she's pregnant?" he asked softly, leaning back in his chair so that the front legs came off the floor. He was poised on the back legs of the chair like an animal preparing to spring.
"I saw the damn test," Corliss replied.
"It was on top in the trash can, so she must have done it just this morning. Then they came downstairs all smiley-faced and Webb said they're getting married. What about my money?" Harper smiled at her, his eyes so very blue and empty, "Money?"
Panic nibbled at her nerves. She needed some money; she'd been in too much of a hurry to get out of Roanna's room, and now she really needed a line or two to hold her steady. She was really on edge; she only had two days left before Webb made her move. Harper had to do something, but the waiting was killing her. She wouldn't be able to hold it together unless she could get just a little coke to tide her over.
"You never said anything about money," he drawled, and his smile made cold shivers go over her again. Nervously she looked around. She didn't like this place. She met Harper at a different place every time, but always before, the locations had been public: a truck stop, a bar, places like that. After the first time, they'd always met out of town, too.
This time he'd given her directions to a ratty little trailer out in the middle of nowhere. There were junk cars in the yard and discarded carcasses of old chairs and box springs piled haphazardly against the trailer, as if they'd just been tossed outside and never thought of again. The trailer was tiny, consisting of a cramped little kitchen with a cramped little table and two chairs as the dining area, a cracked Naugahyde couch and a nineteen-inch television sitting on a rickety end table, and beyond that she could see a closet sized bathroom and a bedroom in which the double bed took up most of the floor space. Dirty dishes, beer bottles, crumpled cigarette packs, overflowing ashtrays, and dirty clothes littered every surface.
This wasn't where Harper lived. There had been a different name, crudely lettered, on the mailbox, but she couldn't remember what it was. He'd said the trailer belonged to a friend. Now she wondered if the "friend" had ever heard of Harper Neeley.
"I've got to have money," she blurted.
"That was the deal."
"Nope. The deal was you'd pass along information about Tallant, and I'd take care of your problem for you."
"Well, you've done a piss-poor job of it!" she snapped. He blinked slowly, his cold blue gaze growing even colder, and belatedly she wished she'd kept her mouth shut..
"It's taking longer than I expected," she said, moderating her tone to a plea.
"I'm broke, and I need things. You know how girls are-" "I know how coke heads are," he said indifferently.
"I'm not a cokehead!" she flared.
"I just use a little every now and then to settle my nerves."
"Sure, and your shit don't stink either."
She flushed, but something in the way he was looking at her made her afraid to push him any further. Nervously she got up from the couch, peeling her thighs from the Naugahyde where sweat had made her stick to the damn thing. She saw his gaze drop down to her legs, and she wished she hadn't worn shorts. It was just so damn hot, and she hadn't expected to be sitting on Naugahyde, for God's sake. She wished she hadn't worn these shorts especially, but they were her favorites because they were so short and tight, and they were white besides, which really showed off her tan.
"I got to go," she said, trying to hide her agitation. Harper had never tried anything with her, but then they'd never been in a place where he could. It wasn't that he was ugly, far from it, for an old dude, but he scared the living shit out of her. Maybe if they'd been someplace where she wasn't so alone, like a motel, where someone would hear if she screamed, because Harper looked like a man who made women scream.
"You ain't wearing any panties," he observed, never moving from his balanced position on the back legs of the chair.
"I can see your pussy hair through your shorts."
She knew that; that was one reason she liked the shorts so much. She loved the way men glanced at her, then did a double take and looked again, with their eyes all bugged out and their tongues all but flapping like a dog's. It made her feel sexy, hot. But when Harper looked at her, she didn't feel hot, she felt scared.
He tilted even further back in the chair and reached into the right pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a Baggie filled with about an ounce of white powder, twisted into a little pouch and secured with red yarn tied around the neck of the pouch. The yarn drew her gaze, held it. She'd never seen a cocaine bag tied up with red yarn before. It looked exotic, unreal.
He swung the little bag back and forth.
"Would you rather have this, or money?"
Money, she tried to say, but her lips wouldn't form the words. Back and forth the little bag went, back and forth. She stared at it, hypnotized, fascinated. There was snow in that little bag, a Christmas present all tied up with red yarn.
I'M-maybe just a taste," she whispered. Just a taste. That was all she needed. A little snort to chase away the edginess. Carelessly he turned and swiped everything off the surface of the dirty little table, knocking newspapers and ashtrays and dirty dishes to the floor where it joined the rest of the litter and looked right at home. The owner of the trailer might not even notice. Then he untied the red yarn and carefully poured a portion of the white powder onto the table. Eagerly Corliss started forward, but he gave her a cold look that stopped her in her tracks.
"Just wait," he said.
"It's not ready for you yet."