Bob Hunnicutt answered the phone in his easy, well-modulated voice he used when calling up prospective clients, "Hello, Bob Hunnicutt speaking."
"Mr. Hunnicutt?" a deep masculine voice asked that Bob recognized at once as the voice of Leo McKern, a voice with always just the hint of a growl in it. "Bob? Say, this is Leo McKern, Carol's employer and I was just happening through town with my wife and I stopped by at the drive-in hoping she might be working this weekend."
"No, this is her weekend off."
"I just found that out. Tell me, I wonder if I might have a word with Carol?" His voice oozed confidence and a kind of solid feeling of money to Bob's ear. Bob stayed poised and cool as he said, "I'm afraid that's impossible. Carol's mother is very ill and Carol is spending some of the weekend with her," Bob explained, trying to keep his voice non-committal. Carol's mother was always falling ill and Carol was always on the phone with her or over there, taking care of her, reading to her or feeding her broth. It was one of the many things Bob did not like about his marriage. Although they were an attractive couple in public, he felt there were many incomplete and frayed ends to their marriage and he resented them: like Carol's mother.
"Oh?" Leo said on the other end and Bob could just see him raising his eyebrows.
"I don't mind really because I've got a big presentation coming up Monday and I want this weekend to prepare myself for it."
"That's right, you're in real estate," Leo growled through the phone.
"Actually, it's insurance," Bob corrected him without an effort.
"No kidding?"
"All kinds. I'm with one of the finest brokerage houses in the west."
"How about that? Listen, I just had a fight this afternoon with ray insurance man in Fresno. See, I used to be partners and this insurance guy was a friend of my partner. Anyway, I got a lot of questions about insurance maybe you'd answer for me. I'd make it worth your while."
Bob took his time grinding his cigarette out in the ashtray as a vein in his forehead throbbed hard and he fought to keep his voice from shaking! Quickly, he realized he was in a position he had heard about and dreamed about but never really believed would come true: the big chance confronting him. Landing an account like Leo McKern could be the making of any house and the career for the agent. He looked at his watch and it was a blur and it took all of his self-control to sound calm as he said, "Oh, I could meet you, later this evening."
"Could ya?" Leo sounded pleased. "What time?"
"Oh, after dinner, about eight, eight thirty." Dinner? He knew that he wouldn't be able to eat any dinner, that he would throw up from excitement, that he would sit around biting his nails until the appointed hour then he'd go meet Leo McKern ready to scream.
"Fine," Leo said, "Me and Mona are staying at the local Holiday Inn. Why don't you come down and call at the desk?"
"Fine," Bob said with a fine film of perspiration forming on his forehead and upper lip. "I'll be there around eight or eight thirty." And he hung up and took a deep breath and held it. Could it be, before the night was through, could it be that he was going to be like some of the stories he had heard about and read about in the company magazine? Was he going to be an overnight success? If he could get all the insurance on the Leo McKern empire, he Bob Hunnicutt, would have it made at the brokerage. He'd have an office of his own, an important account and a commission big enough to choke a bull. His mind ran excitedly over the fire and theft insurance, over the liability insurance and over the fat premiums for group health and accident insurance. He savored the premium on the group life insurance and he wondered just how many key men were insured and just how much insurance the great Mr. Leo McKern himself carried?
It was a golden opportunity, the chance of a lifetime and Bob was grateful that he had the brains to recognize it for what it was worth and he bit his knuckles in anxiety, hoping he was up to the test. Leo was giving him a classic opening and he would have to develop it from there.
Bob broke into frantic activity, showering and dressing, selecting his clothes carefully, frantically trying to find where Carol kept his ironed shirts, getting completely dressed and standing in front of a mirror he decides he must shower again.
His mind runs hysterically over figures and he trembles, realizing how much money he can make if he plays his cards right. Thank God, for once, that Carol was away. For once, that mother-in-law of his did something right. With Carol out of the way, he could concentrate and wouldn't it be something to show her when she came home, a signed application from Leo McKern!
He soaped himself in the shower and fought for control. He was going to have to feel McKern out, to win his confidence. He was going to have to be cool and levelheaded. Above all, he must act the part of a young account executive and be levelheaded. He must give Leo McKern the idea that he was used to dealing in big numbers.
Getting dressed, he looked in the mirror and said, "Who am I kidding? My wife works for him. I'm such a success, why is my wife working for him?"
And he felt frightened ad paced the floor and wondered if he wasn't in way over his head and he found himself taking off his clothes and stepping into the shower for the third time, calming down, telling himself as he put the aftershave lotion that after all, the man had asked for information. He would be polite and give him all the information he could.
He stepped out of the shower, dried, dressed, inspected his image carefully in a full length mirror and was satisfied and glanced at his watch to see that it was only seven thirty and the minutes were dragging by.
He forced himself to sit and smoke a cigarette and think of something else. He thought of Carol and of their marriage and how, if he got even one-fourth of Leo's account, how different their marriage would be.
Bob was making the sad mistake of thinking that money was going to change their marriage. If the truth were to be known, all was not well in the Hunnicutt household. In public they appeared as the almost ideal couple, laughing interesting and attractive: a young couple going places.
Yet, at home, in bed, all was not right. Bob got very aggressive whenever he drank and was crude and rough. Carol had grown up with the notion that a man was crude toward women he didn't respect and gentle and considerate toward the woman, the one woman that he loved.
Carol never was too clear to Bob exactly what she did want from Bob. What it always seemed to boil down to was an awkward climbing on top of her with the lights out and Bob out of his mind with desire and almost groaning with the pent-up desire tensing his muscles until they were rock hard.
In fact, from Bob's viewpoint, the marriage was far from what he had thought marriage should be. He didn't like the way Carol out-earned him and he didn't like the skimpy costume his wife had to wear at work and he didn't like the idea of other men leering at his wife's figure and making leading remarks.
If Bob could be honest enough with himself, he would admit that watching his wife serving men in their cars only made him hot as hell, particularly when he knew they were flirting with Carol. That night, in bed, his desire would get the best of him and he would go too far and Carol would freeze up. "Bob, don't, it isn't nice to do things like that."
And he would fall away, groaning. No, in truth, marriage was far from what he expected. The insurance business wasn't what it was cracked up to be. It seemed that everybody had a cousin or relative or friend in the business and he hated having his wife out-earn him. There were some weeks when she out-earned him in tips. But now, tonight, all that might change!
Nervously, he looked at his watch and saw, with a sigh, that he had plenty of time. He lighted a cigarette and looked down at the ashtray, astonished to see that he had been chain smoking. He thought about eating but found he was too nervous to eat anything, all his appetite vanishing. He decided against having a drink on the basis that he wanted to be clear headed and have his wits about him. Too many drinks and he would be zonked and apt to say anything that came into his head. He had to be cool and careful.
Even though it was early, he drove to the Holiday Inn and parked in the parking lot, sitting in his car and smoking a cigarette as he glanced at his watch. It was still too early and one last cigarette could help to calm his nerves.
He thought that he was glad, in a way, that Carol was at her mothers. There were times when he resented Carol. She was cool and efficient and kept the apartment spotless, but she was all for Carol. Now she was with her mother being a terribly efficient good little girl. He could just see her smug face dissolve in astonishment when she came home and Bob threw bombs at her.
A long look at his watch and one long last drag on the cigarette before crushing it out and getting out of his car and walking across the lobby under the California stars, breathing in the cool air and straightening out his jacket. He was a trifle early yet felt he could stall in the lobby long enough and the fact that he was right on time, punctual, couldn't operate against him.
At precisely eight o'clock by the sweeping second hand, he was picking up the house phone and asking for Mr. Leo McKern.
"Halo? That you Bob?" The voice almost rasped in his ear and Bob could tell a few things from the tone in his voice. First of all, he had been having drinks; there was a slur and loud casualness that Bob detected from having cocktails with many a client. Also, there was music in the background.
"Yes, it's Bob Hunnicutt, sir."
"Come on up."
The ride up in the elevator and the walk down the ball with the Muzak playing all the time, seemed to take forever until he found himself ringing the doorbell of the room and have the door fly open and the huge shoulder hunched form of Leo McKern filled it. "What's this 'sir' stuff?" he bellowed, jugging a drink and cigar from one hand to the other and holding out his right band like a catcher's mitt and giving Bob a bone-breaking grip. "The name's Leo to everybody, get it?"
Bob tried not to wince and he smiled, liking Leo even if he did come on a little too strong. There are men like that, men that took life in large gulps and Leo was one of them. "Right, Leo," he said as he tried to grip back as they shook hands.
Leo laughed, the laughter rumbling up from his chest and he threw a big arm around Bob's shoulders as he stepped aside and drew Bob into the room, waving toward the couch with his glass and cigar. "Wantcha to meet my wife, Mona. Mona, this is Bob Hunnicutt. He's married to my local manager." Leo gives his wife a broad wink that makes her laugh. "You know, the one I told you about."
Bob felt as if his face was flushing a bright red as he looked at Mrs. Leo McKern on the couch. It was almost as if she were posed. She sat with her arms spread carelessly along the back, allowing her breasts to thrust out. And it was her breasts that Bob couldn't take his eyes from. She was wearing a red dress of some clinging material and it was plain to see that she wasn't wearing anything underneath the dress! Her nipples were only too clearly out-lined by the snug material that seemed too thin.
Bob took in a breath and looked into the pale violet eyes of Mona McKern and stammered, "How do you do?"
"A pleasure to meet you, Bob," Mona purred with her eyelids drooping in a giddy, seductive way.
Leo looked at the two of them eyeing one another, his arm still around Bob and said, "Don't mind Mona, she's such a camp, always coming on strong. Have a seat and what will you have to drink?"
Bob found himself behaving like a robot, stumbling into a seat and saying, "What? Hub? Oh, I'll have a Scotch," as he noticed that Mona was sitting with her legs curled underneath her and that her knees were exposed along with a long swoop of her thigh. Her knees looked good, bent that way. He sat back and smiled at Mona as Leo turned his back to the bar and he allowed his eyes to take in her body as she sat posed, never moving, seeming to say, here I am, look all you want. She smiled at him slowly and Bob felt a jerk in his pants thinking that he never had seen a woman smile more brazenly than that before. She shifted her hip and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bob."
Bob crossed his legs carefully against the painful and embarrassing swelling he felt in his penis. Mona's lovely breasts jutted out and were firm and seemed to have a thrust to them rare in a woman her age. Her face was framed by jet black hair and there was a giddy, I surrender look in her eye. Sex exuded from every pore. Bob looked at her knowing he had seen women like her before. Years ago, when he was a second lieutenant in the army, while on leave in Japan, with fellow officers, he had gone to the fanciest whorehouse in Japan and spent a months pay. While in that whorehouse, he had seen a Eurasian prostitute that was exactly like Mona. She was the star of the house and she acted like she knew it.
So it was with Mona. She knew her breasts were exposed, pressed as they were against the thin material of her dress. What's more, they were cut low, allowing plenty of firm deep cleavage to billow and thrust out.
She moved to get herself a drink and her breasts shook and the dress seemed only to be caressing her skin rather than concealing it. Mona McKern had a sensuous white skin with high cheekbones and jet black hair. She had the striking, daring kind of good looks that it takes to be a top model which is what she was before she met and married Leo McKern.
She sat, teasing puffs under her eyes, hinting at nights of dissipation. She sat, obviously flirting with Bob behind her husband's back as he mixed the drink and Bob couldn't think of anything to say.
"Here," Leo bellowed, turning and thrusting a drink at Bob. "Scotch. The best. Scotch and soda. Mona, turn that damn radio down or off, please."
Mona obliged, languidly swinging a leg as she leaned to turn off the radio while looking at Bob with her eyelids lowered.
Leo sat in a chair and took in his wife's behavior with narrowed eyes. "Okay, Mona, that's enough. God, get a few drinks in her and she's climbing the walls. Mona, baby, go in the next room so me and Mr. Hunnicutt can talk."
"It's Hunnicutt," Bob corrected, smiling at Mona, "please call me Bob."
"Okay, Bob," Mona said, pronouncing the word Bob like she was tasting something juicy and good.
She got from the couch slowly, languidly, flowing off it and showing her ample and curved buttocks as the material of her dress clung to her rounded cheeks and Leo, laughing, lunged and slapped his wife on the buttocks and Bob heard the firm wet smack that sounded warm and naked, like she didn't have underwear on under the dress.
"Go on, get out of here while I talk business." The two men watching her walk as her hips rose and fell and her buttocks wiggled free under the dress and she looked over her shoulder and gave Bob a brazen smile before she blew a kiss with her soft pulpy ups to her husband 4x1 disappeared into the bedroom.
After she left the room it was as if both the men could let their breath go and Leo could laugh, changing the torrid mood of the moment. "We've been partying it up. So seldom the two of us can get away together so I guess we've been clowning around a little. She didn't offend you did she?"
"Huh? Oh no!" Bob hastened to assure him.
"She was just kidding around. You get to know her and you know she's just clowning around. It's nothing, really."
Bob smiled and reassured Leo that his wife's actions were nothing, hinting that things like that happened to him all the time. He crossed his legs lighter against the thickening of his prick and tried hard to concentrate. "Now, Mr. McKern…"
"Leo!"
"Right. Now, Leo, you said you were having some problems with your insurance?"
Leo McKern put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward and began talking. He talked in a clear low rough voice and as he talked, Bob found himself listening close. This was no loudmouth who had too much to drink, this was a clear cold executive reeling off facts and figures like a computer. In a few minutes as Leo talked on, Bob had forgotten about Mona in the next room and was concentrating all of his attention to what Leo was saying.
What Leo was saying was staggering. He was clearly and coldly outlining the insurance needs and services of his financial empire. He knew down to the last dollar just how much he was paying in premiums each year. He knew exactly what he was covered for.
Before Bob knew it, he was copying down figures and the two of them had loosened their ties and were deep into the discussion of insurance and Leo McKern was amazing Bob with his knowledge of the insurance industry. His insights were keen and it was obvious he had taken time to study the subject. In fact, the more Bob knew of Leo, the more he found a begrudging honesty and admiration growing for Leo.
He liked Leo despite his habits and ways: Leo was big and careless with his speech and his manners weren't all they could be and he was obviously a man who had taught himself; a self-made crude type, the type generally seen and succeeding around trucking firms. In fact, Leo started as a trucker and find his imagination and energies sending him off in other directions. Now he was the president and manager of a large corporation with holdings in quite a few things and he dressed with the expensive taste of an executive but he didn't talk or act like one.
Still, Bob was smart enough to recognize a good mind when he saw one, no matter how ungrammatical it sounded. In fact, it was Leo who changed the whole tone of their talk and established what was to become a friendship by being brutally frank.
He interrupted Bob who was citing figures and companies by putting his hand on his knee, slapping him and saying, his eyes level and ironic, "Really Bob, when you get right down to it, I could get the same deal you're offering me from thousands of agents. In fact, in L.A.. where I have my offices, my secretary has a standing order to turn away any and all insurance agents. She gets as many as three a day." He leaned closer, his voice dropping down into a thick burr. "Agents, salesmen, are a dime a dozen. You got a cousin who's a lunkhead, you make, him an insurance salesman. Hell, I can get figures from you as well as anybody else, get me? I mean, really, I just don't like my insurance salesman."
Leo McKern leaned back in his chair and drank from his glass, his eyes watching Bob with a mischievous glint in them.
Bob smiled back, trying to look professional. "We can offer you service."
Leo waved a hand. "Bull. I could get on that phone and in ten minutes I could have agents up here telling me they could give me service."
Bob nodded. Leo was right. His eyes narrowed. What did he want?
"We are on call twenty-four hours a day," he ventured, thinking that might help.
Leo's stomach jerked as he laughed at that one. "The size client I am, the money I pay, you damn well better be available twenty-four hours a day three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Hell, Bob, don't give me that, I can get that kind of treatment from dozens of 'companies'." Leo pointed a finger. "What have you got that nobody else has? Why should I go with your house? What are you offering to do for me?"
At that moment, Mona sauntered into view and stood behind Leo's chair, leaning against the wall, one fist on her hip that jutted out. Slowly, with a lewd brazen quality, she let the tip of her tongue lick slowly around her luscious lips, wetting them, her eyes never leaving Bob's face. He could see through her dress, her lovely long thighs dark silhouettes from the light behind her.
"What he is looking for," Mona said, slouching around and ruffling her husband's hair as she showed her white teeth, "Is somebody he can trust, somebody who levels with him." Mona sat on the edge of the chair next to her husband and said, "Now, what have you got to offer that no other agent has?"
Bob looked at the two of them. Something was going on between the two of them, something more than he knew. He sensed he was being tested but he wasn't sure for what. Sex had to have something to do with it, it was in every look Mona gave him. How, he wondered did Leo put up with it? The whites of his knuckles showed as he gripped the arm of his chair and he decided to risk everything. "Actually, there isn't a damn thing I can do for Leo that any other guy with a license can't do."
The two of them exchanged a long look that broke into a pleasant smile. Leo turned to Bob. "Good for you, you've got guts enough to admit it. You're my kind of man!"
Bob was thunderstruck. He had gambled, trusted the truth and had won. He couldn't quite catch his breath or believe himself. He had risked everything and won! Leo was up and swatting him on the back and Mona was slowly sinking into the chair; her soft flesh seemed to flow into the chair and meet with its contours as she never took those slightly depraved eyes from Bob's face. She looked like a hungry feline creature, eager to devour its prey.
The next hour was like a dream. Leo McKern was offering Bob a chunk of his insurance and assuring him that if he did a good job, the whole insurance program was his to write and administer. Leo leveled a finger. "Your honesty got you this far, remember that." Facts and figures were thrown around and Bob had to ask for certain papers and facts of his own. An application was taken and Leo McKern signed with a strong thick swirl and a check was made out for the first year's premium and Bob sat back, a suddenly successful agent. And all the time, Mona never took her eyes from his sweating and startled face. She sat with her legs tucked underneath her, showing a lot, almost too much, of her inner thigh. All the time she was watching him and he was trying hard not to pretend or to notice.
He found himself standing in the parking lot, flush from drinks and the wild success of having made a big sale and all the time an image of Mona McKern was in his mind when he was leaving, when he got to his feet, Mona had risen sticking her pelvis out first and her dress slipped so high that he thought he caught a glimpse of the tight band of her panties. He had looked away and shook hands with Leo.
Now he stood dumbfounded. That woman had done everything but rape him with her eyes and her husband never seemed to notice or mind. And, while they talked, he kept excusing himself to go to the bathroom or make drinks or a private, long distance call and he left the two of them alone. Very little was said when Leo was out of the room, very little of any consequence as they chatted about the weather and the town and hotel. Yet torrid looks were exchanged and once, in a lazy, languid, cock teasing way, Mona leaned back in the chair so that the nipples of her breasts jutted and were perfectly formed, hard and unyielding wider the dress, and, with her breasts jutting out so that her cleavage met and moved, she slowly uncrossed her legs, spreading them slightly so that the hem of her dress barely covered her crotch and Bob felt his mouth go dry as he looked down and thought he could see the forming swelling lips of her vagina pressed against the band of her panties all slightly in the dark caused by the hem of her dress.
His hands trembled as she slowly recrossed her legs and he saw the naked flesh of her thigh, long and white and inviting.
He stood by his car and smacked himself in the forehead. Never had he seen such an attractive woman as Mona McKern. And never had a woman thrown herself at him so completely. How could it be that Leo couldn't see it. He shook his head in wonder at the whole evening. Nothing was real, everything was happening too fast and the blood was pounding through his body and his penis swelling again as he thought of the lazy brazenly bold looks and movements of Mona.
He drove home in a daze. The first thing he did was pick up the phone when he got to the house and dialed Carol. He was going to shout the news into the phone and quickly establish himself as number one bread-earner again. He was going to floor her with the exciting news. No. He hung up right in the middle of dialing. No, damn it, he wasn't going to call her when she was babysitting that bitch of a mother-in-law. No, he was not going to do that.
He paced back and forth, rubbing his palms together, savoring his moment and position. Leo was right; he had gotten the business because he was bold enough to be honest! That was what Leo was looking for! Hell, there was no telling how far he could go as a salesman if he was bold enough to speak right out! No, he thought, pouring himself a drink, a healthy belt of Scotch, I'm not going to blather all over the phone. I'll play it casual, wait until she comes home and let the facts kind of slip out, on their own. Knock her dead and act like its nothing. He chuckled to himself aloud and raised his glass in a silent toast, toasting himself and the precious secret he seemed to hold, that obvious truth that salesmen seemed to overlook: nothing succeeds like telling the truth.
He sat down to relish his drink and the possibilities from here on in. Hell, if he really went at it, it wouldn't be too long before he could expect an executive position with the company. Or, someday, his own brokerage firm in which he had salesmen working for him.
He toasted himself again and drank deep, catching his breath and enjoying the pleasant feeling the Scotch gave him as he stretched out on the couch and felt a bit rueful, left out. Carol would have to be with her mother. Hell, he wanted to celebrate. Calling up and telling her wouldn't be right, somehow. He wanted to have a few drinks and then maybe fool around with his wife, maybe putting his hands where he wasn't supposed to, where she didn't like him to.
Then the phone rang.
He jumped when it jangled next to him, dreading the silence and he looked at it with suspicion, checking the time by cocking his wrist. Automatically, he wondered who could be calling at that hour? Immediately he thought of Carol and perhaps, this time, there really was something wrong with her. The phone rang a second time, tearing a long urgent sound in the room and he put his drink down carefully and looked at the phone, wondering if he should answer it immediately. If it was bad news, how could he react to it after so much good news? The phone rang a third time and he picked it up and said, "Hello?"
The silence at the other end seemed thick and charged with electricity. It was the silence of someone taking their sweet time about answering. It was like an electric jolt and Bob knew that it was Mona before he heard her voice.
"Hello, Bob?"
"Yes. Is this Mrs. McKern."
A low husky voice came back in mocking terms that made him flush anew. "This is Mona."
"How are you, Mona?"
"Not so good." Her voice came into his ear and sounded petulant, like she was used to getting her way.
"What's the matter?"
"Leo's left me," she said, her pout a near burlesque. He could just picture her curled up on the bed, entwined like some sex-serpent.
"He's left you?" There was a note of alarm in his voice, thinking his dream world would come crashing down. Divorce and all kinds of actions and cancellation of the insurance.
A heavy sigh came into his ear and she almost seemed to purr as she said, "He got a phone call from up north. Seems some baddies held one of his drive-ins up and there was some shooting and people were hurt and Leo just had to get on his white charger and leave me in this plastic place without a thing to do until sometime tomorrow evening."
Bob couldn't say a word. He tried not controlling the breath coming through his nostrils hot and heavy. Her voice reeked of sex and invitation. Leo gone and not back until tomorrow.
Carol staying with her mother… "Gee, that's too bad."
A throaty chuckle came through the phone. "Too bad for one insurance agent if he doesn't get over here and entertain me while I'm bored."
Despite himself he couldn't help grinning as he felt a masculine sexual heat. He wasn't going to be had all that easy. "Oh, I don't know I was just getting ready for bed."
"You liar," she teased, "You've been sitting up going out of your mind. Have you told your wife yet?" The question was asked carefully, tactfully. Mona knew that she was away for the evening. He had explained that when explaining how free his evening was.
"No, I haven't called her yet. I thought I'd wait until tomorrow."
"Mmmmmm. Cold-blooded. Listen, come down here and we'll have a drink together to celebrate your success."
A last desperate moral stand took frame in his mind. He should at least make an attempt. "I don't know if I should…" he said hesitatingly.
There was a pause, a beat, before Mona said, her voice warm and pleasant. "I can tell you why you should come over here. What Leo gave you earlier tonight is just a piece of the action. A very little piece. Do you understand that?"
Bob took a deep breath. "Yes."
"Good. Now, understand something else."
"What?"
"Leo does whatever I ask him."
Bob paused, a totally new cynical smile playing around his lips. "I'll be right over!"