Walkers by Graham Masterton

washed up during the
night, anything at all, you’d be the very first person to find it.’
    Gil looked at her closely. Then he
looked away, and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his sawn-off jeans,
and made one of those faces that means hey, hold up a minute, what exactly in
hell is going on here? Paulette watched him, her soft smile never wavering
once, and Bradley watched Paulette. His face was saying, it isn’t fair.
    The nearest living thing I’ve ever
seen to a Hustler centre-spread walks
right into my life, and wants to talk to Gil, not me.
    Gil said, at last, ‘Have you been
talking to anybody?’
    ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘Have you been talking to Susan
Sczaniecka? Or that old guy who lives along the beach?’
    ‘Who’s Susan Sczaniecka when she’s
at home?’ Bradley wanted to know.
    Paulette didn’t answer Gil’s
questions, but said in the simplest of voices, ‘You’ve found one or two
interesting things washed up on the beach, haven’t you?’
    ‘I found a case full of Johnny
Walker once. My dad made me hand it over to the Coastguard. I expect they drank
it. I’m pretty damn sure they drank
it.’
    ‘And then of course you found what
you found today.’ Paulette’s mouth may have been smiling, but the expression in
her eyes was completely serious.
    ‘You talked to Lieutenant Ortega?’
asked Gil.
    ‘Gil,’ Paulette coaxed him, ‘all I
want to do is to write my article. You don’t have to be mentioned by name. All
you have to do is describe what happened to you, how you felt about it.’
    There was no doubt that Paulette was
almost irresistibly attractive. If Gil had seen her in a crowd of girls, he
would have picked her out straight away. She was exactly the type of girl that
turned him on the most. Long brunette hair, sooty-lashed eyes, and the kind of
figure that just had to be felt to be believed. She was standing even closer
now, so that her breasts were almost touching his arm, and he could see the
tiny green flecks in the irises of her eyes.
    The tip of her tongue ran lightly
across her lower lip. Gil melted inside, into white-h t liquid boy. He was
confused by Paulette, and irritated b how much she knew about him. She even
frightened him . just a little. But
he knew that whatever she suggested, he wouldn’t be able to refuse, because a
girl who looked like this would probably never walk into the Mini-Market ever
again, not in a trillion years, and what a dork he would look if he chased her
away.
    Who cared what she knew? Who cared
what she wanted? His throat was dry and his shorts were uncomfortably tight and
she was so goddamned nice, as well as sexy, as well as beautiful, and, if she
went to the second-hand bookstore and bought books with names like Day Sortie Ledgey, as well as
intelligent, too.
    ‘What exactly do I have to do?’ Gil
asked, cautiously.
    ‘You have to answer some questions,
that’s all,’ Paulette told him. ‘There’s nothing to it.’
    ‘Questions about. . .what I found on
the beach?’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘You really want to know about
that?’
    There was a look in her eyes that
warned him not to ask her any more, not in front of Bradley, at least.
    ‘We can’t do it here,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you meet me this evening? We could talk over dinner.’
    ‘Sure, if that’s what you want.
Sure.’ He tried to sound off-hand.
    ‘Okay, then,’ said Paulette. ‘Meet
me at seven at Bully’s North. You know Bully’s North?’
    ‘Well, yes, but I can’t afford to
buy you dinner there.’
    ‘That’s okay,’ Paulette smiled. ‘The
magazine will pay for the meal. Expense account.’
    Just then, Phil Miller came up to
the front of the store. He nodded to Paulette, and then said to Gil, ‘Aren’t
you going to introduce me?’
    ‘I’m sorry Dad. This is Paulette
Springer, from San Diego magazine.
She wants to write an article about some of the things that people find on the
beach. Paulette, this is my dad.’
    They shook hands.