Free 69 Barrow Street by Lawrence Block Page A

find Stella’s door ajar.
    She entered the apartment. The sight of it sent her head reeling as she remembered what a bad girl she had been the night before. She was always such a bad little girl, such a horrid child. That was why Larry had thrown her out, and that was why nobody ever loved her, not even her own mother. Why, she must have been bad all her life. Why else would her mother hate her so much?
    She paused at the door of Stella’s bedroom. She knew how bad it was to walk into someone’s bedroom without knocking. Why, she could remember so very clearly the time she was a very little girl and she walked into her mother’s bedroom without knocking and her mother was with her father and they were…
    Well, at the time she hadn’t the slightest idea what they were doing. But she was being very bad and her mother punished her for that. She could remember it all very clearly, every bit of it.
    But what if she knocked and Stella was sleeping? Then Stella would be very angry with her, and she didn’t want that to happen.
    She compromised with herself by knocking three times, very gently so as not to disturb Stella if she was asleep. There was no answer, so she turned the doorknob carefully and pushed the door open and walked in.
    Stella was asleep.
    Maria looked down at her, looked at her superb naked body and her full rich mouth. She remembered the first time, with all the men taking her and then with Stella holding her and petting her like a little puppy dog and telling her that everything would be all right.
    She loved Stella.
    And at the same time she hated Stella.
    It was all very confusing.
    Moments after Ralph knocked, the door opened and Susan motioned for him to come into the room. He followed her inside and glanced around her apartment, mentally contrasting the quiet nearness of it with the filth and disorder of the apartment he had just left. The furniture in Susan’s apartment was all freshly dusted and nothing was out of place.
    As an artist, Ralph naturally was convinced that an apartment, like clothing and grooming, reflected a certain facet of a person’s personality. The impression he got walking into Susan’s living room tended to reinforce this opinion.
    So did Susan.
    She had obviously been up for only a short while. Her breakfast dishes were still on the table in the kitchenette and the coffee cup was only half empty. But she was already wide awake, neatly dressed and perfectly self-possessed. Her eyes were shining and her hair was combed.
    “I’m glad to see you,” she said, helping him set up his easel and unload the rest of his equipment.
    “For a while I thought you weren’t coming,” she continued. “You had me worried.”
    “I was up late last night. Just got up.”
    “Well, I’m glad you came. You know, I’ve been pretty excited since yesterday.”
    “About what?”
    “About getting my picture done.”
    “Oh, it’s hardly anything to get excited about.”
    She sat down at the dinner table and he took a seat across from her. “I think it might be,” she said. “You’ve got to remember that this is something completely new to me. I’ll probably do everything all wrong.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “Will you let me know when I goof?”
    “I’ll probably yell at you.”
    “I wish you would,” she said, grinning. “I can take it, and I want to know what I’m doing wrong.”
    She finished her coffee and carried her dishes to the sink. Automatically he joined her and picked up a dish towel, drying the dishes as she washed them.
    “Let’s get started,” she said as soon as the dishes were all put away in the cabinet. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
    “Fine.”
    “How do you want me to pose?”
    “First you better pick out some clothes that you like. This may take a lot of sittings and it’s easy to get tired of putting on the same clothing all the time.”
    She thought for a minute. “Would you rather I posed nude?”
    “Whatever you want.”
    “Tell