Free Strip by Thomas Perry Page A

contempt as she picked up the check from their table. “Come on. I’m not feeling this. Let’s go.”
    “All right,” said Carrie, and stood up. When she saw Laura start out for the door, she gave her three seconds, then said, “Remember. An hour,” turned, and hurried after her.
    Jeff considered. He had to kill time until around 2:00 A.M., and Carrie was cute. No, she was actually beautiful, but she was also young and playful. He was aware that the number of men who had waited in some public place for some girl they didn’t know and got stood up was in the billions. He decided not to mind. It gave him something to think about while he waited for closing time. But he knew that most of the women who stood men up were playful and cute in exactly the same way Carrie was, and she had already lied to him once about her friend.
    He stayed where he was and ordered a piece of pie and coffee. As he sat at his table drinking coffee, he wondered about women. There were girls who seemed to be completely sane. They wanted things a man could understand—maybe a good time she couldn’t afford but the man could, or sex. Actually, the sex they wanted was not so much sex in itself, but a nice friendship that might include sex at a future time. Or they just had an honest wish to kill a long night without being alone in a crummy apartment in a city they weren’t born in. But then there were these strange, incomprehensible women who wanted to play tricks and humiliate men they didn’t even know, who had done nothing but show interest in them. If Jeff had met a girl he wasn’t interested in, he wouldn’t have said he was giving her his number and really given her the number of the police or the YMCA or something. It was a mystery.
    After he’d had two cups of coffee, he was nearly ready to leave. He went upstairs to the men’s room, came back down the stairs, and found Carrie sitting in the seat across from his.
    “I was afraid you stood me up,” she said. “But you didn’t.”
    “Never crossed my mind.” He took out a fifty-dollar bill, tossed it on the table by his check, and took her arm to guide her up. “Come along.”
    She came. “Where are we going?”
    “I think we said ‘out for a drink.’ But since you had practically nothing but coffee for dinner, we might want to go someplace that sells food.”
    They went outside and he walked her to his Trans Am and opened the passenger door for her.
    “What’s this car?”
    “What do you mean—model? It’s a Pontiac Trans Am. It doesn’t look hip, but it’s got an engine and transmission and stuff in it that cost me more than most cars. It’s pretty fast.”
    She looked at him in wonder. “My God. You’re a throwback, aren’t you?” She cocked her head and squinted at him. “Are you a good kisser?”
    He shook his head. “Not as good as you deserve.”
    “Amazing,” she muttered, and put her hand on his chest to make him hold still while she kissed him softly on the lips.
    Jeff put his arms around her, pulled her to him, and extended the kiss a few more seconds.
    She pulled back to end it, her hands pushing off against his chest. “Oh my God.”
    “What?”
    “I felt the gun under your jacket, asshole. What did you have in mind? Were you going to bury me in the desert or the mountains?”
    “That’s crazy. I would have told you about having it, but I never expected you to kiss me like that. I have to carry it as part of my job.”
    “I thought you were a big-shot investor or something.”
    “Not a big shot. But sometimes I have to carry money or negotiable securities. And sometimes kidnapping is a concern. That’s why the police gave me a permit.”
    “Come on. The police never issue permits to anybody here. Try again.”
    He sighed and shook his head in frustration. “You win. I’m a crazed pervert who finds pretty women and shoots them. Let’s leave it at that.” He shut the passenger door and walked around the back of his car to the