Free At End of Day by George V. Higgins Page A

”
    She smiled when she looked up at Rascob and he grinned at her, mouthing
Terry
, and pantomiming a kiss. She shook her head, pretending to blush, and fluttered the fingers of her right hand, the long nails painted chrome green. “Well, why don’t Ijust send you a list then, what’s available, and you can look it over and make your own decision. If I could just have your address again. I know you’ve given it to me before and I must have it someplace here, but just to be on the safe side, make sure I get it right.…”
    Rascob sat down on the molded green plastic-and-chrome chair next to the reading table in front of her desk and watched her write, saying “mmm huh” twice into the phone, wondering again what magic Sexton had used to attract and capture her. She was in her midthirties, too young to have been the high school sweetheart who’d been proud of her man in uniform and pledged eternal love when he went away to fight for his country—and then’d bravely, and stupidly, stayed loyal and devoted when he came back, long afterward, doomed to a diminished life. With her assets she should not have been obliged to settle for a hopeless cripple; her face was ordinary enough, but she was tall, 5’ 9” or so, and had an excellent body.
    To Rascob the tight jeans and knitted tank tops she wore, and the way she moved, suggested at least a normal sexual appetite. Assuming that her husband satisfied her, and not daring to ask how they managed, each time he came to Canton he imagined her doing the same thing with him that he thought she must do with Tim—naked, straddling his erection and, once coupled, moving up and down on it, flexing and relaxing her leg muscles, her tits bobbing in rhythm. As usual Rascob found the image cause for arousal as well as envy, and had to adjust his position.
    The speaker broadcast a different voice, initially disturbing; metallic, distant and echoing. “Well, yeah, the idea
is
appealing. But keep in mind that was the whole argument years ago, behind the state lottery we’ve got now. Most successful in the country, what we hear is true. Hard to remember now but it was supposed to go to finance public education—solve all of our problems. A bonanza it’d be.
    “Well, I guess it has been, if you don’t count all the damage, ruined families and heartache that it’s caused. Problem gamblers it’s created, working men and women who’ve lost everything they had. The revenue’s regularly diverted to just about every other
boondoggle
our crafty politicians’ve been able to dream up—and our schools’re
still
in
crisis
.
    “Far as I can see, the only people it’s turned out to be a real bonanza
for
’re the ones who run it, run the lottery, and the people who run the ad agencies they hire to promote it. So we might want to think twice, ’fore we did something like that.”
    “Well, I’d want to think twice about doing that,” Theresa said happily into the phone, not seeming to notice that she’d echoed her husband. “We’re just a little station. Only five thousand watts, and the people who listen to us don’t move around a lot. They stay home all day, have us on in their kitchens. Not the ones you’re thinking of, people who commute back and forth to Boston. Our tower’s down by Ninety-five, so our broadcast area’s Holbrook on the east to Sharon onna west; Avon anna West Side of Brockton to the south. If they tried to listen to us when they’re driving into Boston, well, they couldn’t do it—they’d lose our signal, soon’s they got the other side of the Blue Hills.
    “And anyway, people don’t think about doing inside painting when they’re in their
cars
. They think about doin’ that when they’re
home
, with all those dingy-greasy painted
walls
in front of them. So with what you’ve got to offer, I’d think you’d be much better off promoting your Radio Paint Sale during the
first
hour, two to three. That’s the time of day I think people who’re