The Last Temptation

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  “No, ma’yam.”

  She placed her hands on my jacket. “Lovely, lovely,” she said, rolling the lapels between her fingers. She opened the jacket and clapped her palms to my chest.

  Don’t be alarmed. Relax. Just don’t let her hands go around back.

  She cried, “Ho.”

  I lifted my chin.

  Her vivid mouth was a slit of malice as she tweaked my nipples, then kneaded them with her fingers.

  I longed to mash her in the mouth.

  She teased, “Don’t like being nipped in the bud?” I shook my head. “Too bad. I like men with mammies. Shows their feminine side.” Her half-closed eyes fastened on my nose.

  Paranoid, you’re just paranoid. Trying to smile, and sliding sideways, I said, “Well, yes.”

  Then she raised a knee and planted it between my legs. It almost took my breath away.

  Thank you, Sircher for the cloth dildo.

  She ground her knee lightly and got no response from the soft wad in my crouch because my hand was too far from the tiny bulb in my pocket to inflate the thing. She stepped back. “You have other interests?”

  I stepped back and pocketed my hands. “I have many inner-ests.”

  “You’re gay.”

  “My concern.”

  “Gays belong to the club,” she said. “But not normal gays, of course. Nor normal heteros for that matter.”

  What was normal for this club?

  She moved back into me and raised her knee to explore my crotch again. “So many other pleasures.”

  I smiled like Now you’re talking my language and pressed the bulb in my pocket.

  “Ooooo,” she muttered as the dildo slowly filled.

  What now? I wondered. Where’s the exit when I slug her in the jaw?

  Then she stepped back. “Temptation, naughty me.” She rubbed my arm, the lapel of my jacket. “What’s your credo?”

  Credo? “Ah-m just a guest.”

  She looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m not a member, of course, but I’ll put in a good word with the membership committee.”

  “When?” Weee-yen?

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  Before I knew it, she leaned into me and grabbed the back of my neck. She pressed her lips to mine. When she bit my lip. I lurched away.

  She guffawed and chided, “Pain is not your thing, then?”

  I looked offended, which I was.

  “We shall find out what is. Come,” she beckoned. I fell in step with her long strides to the theater door. Opening it, she said, “Good evening, Mr. Chapman.” A streak of light flashed on her face. She looked strangely familiar. My eyes fastened on her chin. She said, “Perhaps we’ll meet in therapy.” Her laughter soared down the long hall, punctuated by her striding heels.

  Lake was sitting alone. I weaved through a crowd of people who hadn’t been in the theater twenty minutes ago. A dozen more gossamer ladies were Swan Lake–ing to the sounds of birds on the wing. I saw Mr. Brommer sitting alone at the end of a catwalk. He was looking up, his mouth open. I felt like I’d fallen into a sewer.

  “Where’s Toga?” I asked Lake.

  “She upped and left,” he said. “Guests don’t get the full magilla.”

  “I found that out.”

  I became aware of Mr. White crossing the room, toward us. “Uh oh, I think we’re pumpkins.”

  “Gentlemen,” he said, hands entwined over his paunch like a kindly grandfather. “It’s time for a different venue, to which our guests are not privy.” He looked sad to have to tell us this news.

  Lake and I rose. Lake said, “To play, you pay, right, Mr. White?”

  Mr. White’s smile was jovial when he answered, “Indeed. Tonight was just a tiny sample of our hospitality.”

  * * * * *

  Back in my cottage, stripping off the Roman nose, I listened to the messages on my answering machine. Lake sat nearby. Whitney was at his peeved best.

  “Miss Dru. Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you? Have you forgotten me? I am your client. How is the investigation into my ex-wife and daughter proceeding? Is it too much to ask for updates when I’m paying for your services. And you have only a short time left?”

  “Testy, testy,” Lake said, going to the liquor cabinet and taking out the Blue Sapphire. He eyed the crème de menthe.

  I said, “You pollute that gin and I’ll crack the bottle over your head.”

  44

  Six in the morning, and the door bell’s ringing? Who the hell . . . ?

  Belting my robe, I padded down the hall. I could see through the stained glass. Lake. He’d left at one o’clock—just five hours ago—after we’d had a few gins and dissected the evening. I think we decided that The Cloisters was a high-class whorehouse, but I’m not sure. My brain hadn’t cleared the last hurdle of consciousness. I remember discussing ways of busting the place and how much fun it would be. We never brought up the idea of going to bed together, and he’d left. There was still a lot of rawness in me—probably in Lake, too.

  Opening the door, I expected that Lake would look his spiffy self, but he looked god-awful. “What’s . . . ?” I didn’t finish. The news was going to be bad.

  “I got a call from Dartagnan,” he said, coming into the hall.

  “Let me take a deep breath,” I said. “I think it might be my last for a while.” I inhaled and held the air in my lungs, thinking of a grave in the desert.

  “Bellan and his PI buddy, Larry, are dead.”

  “No, oh no.” Lake grabbed me as I collapsed against a small chest. He walked me into the front room and, along with me, collapsed on the sofa. He held me until I stopped shaking and raised my head off his shoulder. I managed to say, “What happened?”

  “Some Indian kids found them in a gold mine shaft in the desert. Shot.”

  “I’ve been trying—his cell . . .”

  “The details are sketchy. Dartagnan talks a lot and says nothing.”

  I looked up and wiped tears with my fingers. “I liked Bellan.”

  “I know. From all I heard, he was a good man.”

  “Is that where they were shot?”

  “They were dumped there.”

  “Who did they see last?”

  “The motel people say they saw Bellan drive off the premises Monday morning. Never saw him after that. But their guests have outside entrances, and his room was on the back side of the building.”

  “So—sometime after I talked to him . . .” My eyes fixed on Lake’s face. “They can’t do this to him and get away with it.”

  “Who?”

  “The sons-a-bitches who’ve staged this whole thing.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m going out there.”

  “No, Dru. You’re not.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m not. A man died helping me. His death won’t be for nothing.” I jumped up and look down at Lake. “Did you tell Dartagnan about the blood in Arlo’s house?”

  “A while ago, after he told me about Bellan’s death.” Lake rose. “I didn’t tell him before because I was waiting for another report from Bellan to see if he’d come up with anything else.”

  “Well?”

  “Dartagnan said Arlo’s flying in from LA tomorrow.”

  “How sweet. What’s he waiting for? His pals to get cleaning again?”

  “If there’s blood in that house, they can’t clean it all up,” Lake said. He took my arm. “Why don’t we, for now, let Dartagnan handle things.”

  “Dartagnan? Investigate Arlo?”

  Lake, also known as a devil’s advocate, said, “The crime might have nothing to do with Arlo. It may have been something Larry was working on.”

  “Dream away.”

  “I want you to take it easy for a while. Give it a day.”

  “Then what?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. See what Dartagnan comes up with.”

  “For all we know Dartagnan killed Bellan and Larry,” I said. “So you want the cat
to investigate the mice he killed?” I sunk back onto the sofa. “Poor Bellan—him and his open secret—so f-ing theatrical—worth fifteen thou to him.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks.

  “Think. Any hint who this secret related to?”

  “Arlo,” I said. “Maybe Dartagnan.”

  “Why not Eileen?”

  “She’s Bellan’s client.”

  “He could be keeping it to himself in case she wasn’t dead—for the fifteen grand.”

  “He knew she was dead. Her blood’s all over that goddamned house.”

  He took my wrists. “Stay calm.” I wanted to rip my wrists away, but, instead, drew in a whimpering breath. “There are other explanations,” he said, and up popped the devil again. “Maybe some drunken guest threw a cocktail glass at another drunken guest. Cut the guy. The gardener came in for a nooner with the maid . . .”

  I pulled my wrists away. “Don’t go on.”

  “You see what I’m getting at?”

  I pushed back hair hanging in my face. “Yeah, lame excuses.”

  “What about Kinley? Okay, she’s a kid and you love kids and you don’t want to think of her dead.”

  No, I didn’t. “She’s not,” I said. “Eileen recognized the flower man. He spooked her, but she’d already planned not to send Kinley to Atlanta. I think she put Kinley in Tess’s safekeeping, then went back to the house.”

  “But there’s no evidence of that.”

  “Sushi.”

  “Sushi?”

  “Eileen bought sushi that afternoon at Philippe’s. She takes Kinley to Tess at the skate park. She’d bought treats at Philippe’s for Kinley to take with her. Then Eileen goes home, puts the sushi in the frig, answers the door to the man with the flowers, and bam! When I was at Arlo’s house, the kitchen stunk. Arlo said the cartons hadn’t been opened, nothing in them eaten.”

  “Didn’t Heidi say she saw Eileen and Kinley late Saturday afternoon?”

  “I think she lied. She’d lie for Arlo.”

  “Seems everybody did,” Lake said. “But why did Eileen open the door to the flower man, if she feared him?”

  “She wanted to confront him, and obviously she didn’t think he was a killer.”

  “So who’s the man?”

  “Someone from either Atlanta or Palm Springs.” The man who’d followed me in both cities?

  “Why was she killed?” Lake asked.

  He was pushing me through hoops, to vocalize my thoughts, see if they made sense to me. “Maybe Arlo suspected she was having an affair—maybe with his good buddy, Dartagnan—or Whitney found out she was having him investigated.”

  “You’ve investigated Whitney. Except for lying on his résumé about where he was born and a few other minor things, what have you discovered? A lot of people lie on résumés. Betcha half the PD has.”

  I was tired of his devil’s advocate role. “The Cloisters,” I said. “His ties to The Cloisters. His ties to stripping.”

  “He made money to put himself through college. If Eileen’d cut the drugs, she’d have gotten the girl.”

  “Stop wearing me down,” I said, feeling bleary. “Come over to my side.”

  “We must look at this thing from all sides.”

  My Lake, the man of many sides. I got up. “I’m going to get dressed now. I need some time.”

  He rose and caught me around the waist. “Don’t go.”

  “I am.”

  He looked like he could cry. “My Dru. Will you ever come back to me.”

  Tears welled in my eyes, my emotions sucking at my bones. I kissed the tip of his nose. “Wish me luck.”

  45

  Palm Springs was still as hot as hell. But then, it was still August.

  Dartagnan wasn’t nearly as happy to see me as he’d been weeks ago when he’d waved a cardboard sign with my name misspelled on it. This time he didn’t even bother to come to the airport. When I called him before departing for Palm Springs, I sensed that he wanted to tell me to stay in Atlanta, but that wasn’t his way. If nothing else, he prided himself on being cavalier, like his namesake, a namesake he’d apparently given himself. One thing I knew for certain: there would be no dinner, nor jovial chit-chat, this evening.

  Dartagnan sat back in a swivel chair behind his weathered, desert wood desk. I braced for his accusations. The first question out of his mouth was about my relationship to Bellan Thomas.

  Since I had no clue what Bellan had told him, I said, “I was paying him to take up where I left off when I got—hurt.”

  “He shouldn’t of been spraying Luminol in Arlo’s house. By the way, Arlo wants to see you later. We got an appointment.”

  I’d planned on talking to Arlo, but by myself. “You tell Arlo about the Luminol?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Don’t quite know how. What your man did was illegal. You gotta have a court order.”

  “I didn’t instruct him to spray Luminol.”

  “I didn’t think a smart ol’ gal like you’d ask something stupid like that.”

  “Turns out, though, that Bellan Thomas wasn’t so stupid.”

  “I don’t like to say things bad about the dead. But—he is the one that’s dead.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  He twiddled his thumbs and looked at the ceiling. Ploys. “They were shot in Thomas’s motel room. From the blood evidence, they were each sitting in a chair, across from someone sitting on the bed. That someone fired a forty-five caliber slug into Thomas’s head while he held his whiskey and water. Larry had an instant to react, jump forward. But not in time. He got his slug in the gut.”

  “They knew their killer, or killers,” I said.

  “Just one killer, I think. One gun. The slugs are identical.”

  “Why did the killer take their bodies to the desert?”

  “My guess? Conceal the crime.”

  “Why?”

  Dartagnan sat forward and folded his hands on the desk. “When we know who the killer is, perhaps he, or she, will tell us. Could be, you know, that this doesn’t have nothing to do with your case. Maybe Larry was working on something, and your guy was an innocent bystander.”

  Another f-ing devil’s advocate. “What was Larry working on?”

  “If I knew, I don’t know I’d tell you, but I don’t know.”

  I hoped he could read the scorn on my face, and now was not the time to ask why he’d lied about his background. I needed his help, as reluctant as it was going to be. Another thing, Bellan apparently didn’t tell Dartagnan that Eileen had hired him three months ago, otherwise he’d be fishing around that hole. I said, “Let’s assume for the moment it’s my case that got them killed.”

  “You can.”

  “Who’d he talk to, besides Larry? And you?”

  “You sound accusing.”

  “Questions needing answers. Did he talk to Philippe or Tess?”

  “Why would he?”

  “Philippe told me when I got my lunch the day you met me in the skate park that Eileen seemed to recognize a man buying flowers on Saturday afternoon—the day she was last seen. She seemed frightened by this man.”

  “Yeah? You didn’t tell me this.”

  “The flower girl was vague, and I wanted Bellan to prod her memory.”

  “I talked to the Phony Frenchman a dozen times since then, he never said anything to me about Eileen being frightened in his shop.”

  It’s hard to believe a man when you know he’s lied about his entire past.

  Dartagnan fidgeted his fingers. “And why would Bellan Thomas be talking to Tess?”

  “I asked him to. Tess is lying about me.”

  “Tess ain’t been in town much since you left.”

  “Any reason you know of?”

  “Maybe it was something I said.”

  Amusing. “In Bellan’s last report, he mentioned an open secret.” Dartagnan cocked his head, looking both pleased and quizzical. I said, “Larry told Bellan a secret that isn’t so secret.”

&nb
sp; “Sounds like that buffoon, Larry,” he said. “What you don’t know is that Larry was The Springs’ biggest gossip. If he couldn’t top you with the truth, he’d make something up. Don’t put no stock in what he says.” He got up. “You ready to ride to Arlo’s?”

  Standing, I said, “Sure.”

  As we walked outside, he said, “Now you follow my lead. Arlo’s one of them funny guys. You know, arty. I can handle him. He’s gonna be pissed when I tell him about the Luminol.”

  “I’d be, too,” I said.

  * * * * *

  Dartagnan guided the white cruiser onto North Via Las Palmas. The two-story pink stucco with the mission ridge roof and white plantation shutters looked gloomy. A discreet placard with “By Appointment” scribed in gold lettering was planted in the ground next to the security sign.

  Before Dartagnan’s finger found the bell push, Arlo stood in the doorway. He grabbed Dartagnan’s shoulder with one hand, and then knuckled him in the ribs with the other. When the good ol’ boy punching was done, he planted a kiss on my cheek.

  Pure Hollywood.

  “Boy, oh boy, oh boy,” he said, shaking his head.

  Boy, oh boy, oh boy, indeed.

  I glanced around the foyer where Bellan had dropped Luminol in circumspect places. The foyer was lit by the chandelier, but Luminol doesn’t effervesce for long. Before I looked away from the crystal fixture, I thought I saw a dull red blemish on a teardrop—blood blow from Eileen’s head. This killer went for the head.

  We wound through the house toward the French doors and went out onto the covered patio. The palm fans weren’t revolving, the white wicker sofas looked faded and forlorn. There were crystal glasses and bottles of booze and ginger ale on the bar. What a difference a couple of weeks made. Cigarette and cigar butts loaded the ash trays. I guess Arlo had stopped showing the house.

  Flipping on the fans, Arlo motioned toward the sofas. “I’m having rum and ginger ale. What about you?”

  Dartagnan said, “Got a Heiny?”

  “Miss Dru?”