Love Me or Kill Me (The Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 2)

by James P. Alsphert

  “Swim…Lexie and I swim…swim fast together…”

  I chuckled. “That’s impossible, kid—you’d have to swim the length of the Americas to Panama, then take the canal into the Caribbean until you reached the Bahamas. That’d take months…and you probably would be eaten by sharks or killer whales along the way—they love seals and dolphins particularly well, I hear, not to mention lovely young women.”

  “Perhaps we can place ‘Lexie’ in a tank and ship him with us when we embark in Florida,” Crickle suggested, humoring Zephyr.

  “Well, we gotta figure this thing quick, whatever you decide. I’ve got to go now, but I’ll be back in a few days with specific info and some tickets. I suggest you two get ready to depart, Mr. Crickle.”

  I got up to go. Zephyr stood up as well and followed me to the door. I shook Crickle’s hand and started for my car. Just then, Zephyr darted over to me, grabbed my hand and pulled on it. “Lexie—see Lexie!” she insisted. The fog had come in and I stumbled down the embankment with her in the darkness, her hand firmly in mine, pulling me along. We reached the sea and dashed for the shoreline. She dragged me into the very cold water, shoes and all. I was up to my chest, fighting off small breakers when she stopped and uttered, “Stay!” to me. I just wanted to go home to Adora and get out of these damn wet clothes!

  Then I saw something that I never imagined I’d ever see. In the semi-light of a half-moon peaking in and out of the fog bank, a chattering little creature came up out of the sea with Zephyr. “Lexie…Denning…” she said with a happy smile. “My child, Denning…Lexie, my child…”

  I don’t know why, but I was fighting to hold back tears and trying like hell not to whimper like a baby. Something deep in me had been touched and I couldn’t figure it. “Well, I’ll be—I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’ll never doubt you again, Zephyr.” I glanced at the sea creature who seemed to be about five feet long, maybe two feet wide and chattered incessantly. I put my hand out. He came up and I petted his head gently. “Hello, there, little guy. I’m…I’m pleased to meet you,” I said, still trying to control my emotions. Lexie cuddled up against my leg and his energy felt good. Then another unexpected thing happened. Zephyr approached me, and with her palm gently touched the cheek she had struck earlier. Then she bent her head toward my face and kissed my cheek just as a larger wave engulfed us and we lost our footing and under the wave we went. Suddenly I felt her lips clinging to mine, holding me with all her womanly passion and strength, her body pressing into my cold and numb chest. She pulled me up for air. Lexie was still jumping and chattering away. “Love…”she whispered in my ear against the sound of the sea. She hugged Lexie and he disappeared under the waves. Then she took my hand and pulled me to the shore.

  Should I live to be an ancient storyteller, this one had me puzzled. Yet there it was before me, real as earth and somehow as right as rain. I told Zephyr I had to go home to Adora and get out of these wet clothes. “Adora?” she asked me.

  “Yeah, Adora’s my partner, my love…someone who lives with me.”

  “Zephyr lives with Fiona? Zephyr like Fiona. Maybe meet Adora? Maybe like Adora.”

  “Yeah, why not, if you like. I’ll bring her before we ship you out with Lexie. You had better ask Lexie if it’s okay if he’s stuck in a tank for a few days. First, we gotta ship him by rail to Florida. Then we’ll load him aboard the freighter. Zephyr, does your family know about Lexie? I mean, not even Mr. Crickle has seen Lexie, right?”

  “You believe…no one else believes.” She reached up and touched my face again. “Love…face…love…Denning. she said hesitantly, as if I wouldn’t approve.

  “Yeah…now I believe, Zephyr…and so will everyone else when they see your beautiful sea-child. I can feel it…Lexie’s a pretty unique fellow and he’ll be a big hit.”

  She smiled and hugged me good-bye. I struggled up the trail in my wet clothes and knocked on the cottage door. A sleepy Mr. Crickle answered. “Yes. Oh…I thought you’d gone, Mr. Denning…” Then he saw my sopping wet clothes. “Oh my, come in…” He went to a closet and fetched me some dry clothes. “I’m certain Mr. Royce wouldn’t mind.”

  When I had changed into other duds and stood there in the middle of the room looking like a damn clown with clothes much too big for me…wearing no shoes—Crickle, trying to stifle a smile, said, “I take it Zephyr wasn’t through with you.”

  “Lexie exists, Crickle,” I said. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Indeed? That is a sight yet to be experienced by my person, Mr. Denning. Are you sure you haven’t fallen victim to Zephyr’s fertile imagination?”

  “Yep. She’s on the level. You just have to believe, she tells me.”

  “Hmmm…well, we’ll see…we’ll see…”

  I thanked him for the clothes and I left. As the Packard roared along Highway One, I was recalling the crazy day and evening. By the time I reached my office and tip toed in, Adora was already asleep. When I put the bathroom light on and she saw my very strange costume, she started. “Cable! Qué pasa aquí?”

  “Well, babe, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But I’ll tell you anyhow…I met Zephyr Royce today. First she was a bit distant, even a little hostile…and slapped my face. Then when Mr. Crickle, her overseer, informed me she was really odd, we arrived at a better place—especially when she led me to the beach below her seashell house, dragged me into the freezing Pacific Ocean for a gander at her ‘child’, a playful little dolphin named Lexie. There…now that was my day—how has yours been?”

  She sat up in bed, the sheet falling off her nude body, exposing those wonderful breasts I loved so well. “Extraño, Cable—do you drink gin with strange girl? Ay, loco, señor, loco!…you are always in crazy things.” She lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “Este día es por mí? I go to Todo el Mundo, read ads for rent places. I find one, Cable. Will you come look with me, por favor? I am happy to be in new casa with you, mi amor.”

  Obviously my strange day’s events were of little interest to Adora. But I think the busy little woman in her was planning on that honeymoon house we’d share together. After all, it was fair. Most women needed domestic roots, not a business office with the phone ringing and weird people popping in to dump their marital problems all over the desk. I showered and got into bed with my beautiful lover. We were both tired and soon were asleep, contented, in each other’s arms.

  CHAPTER 4

  WRAPPING TROUBLES IN DREAMS

  After we found the perfect little house on Argyle off of Franklin Avenue for $35 a month, we decided to really celebrate and go dancing. My little Latin lover was decked out for the evening and looked like a million. I had bought her a red satin outfit with white shoes and gloves. The blouse was a little too low-cut for my taste, but Adora had nothing to hide and I let it go at that.

  I’d heard about a huge dance hall at the very end of the Santa Monica pier…sometimes referred to as the Pleasure Pier, called the La Monica Ballroom…a pretty popular place for dancing with great dance bands, but had never been there. I read that it was the largest on the west coast and at its opening in 1924, 25,000 people converged on it and were accommodated. Now that I had a little extra dough, I thought I’d take my lady to dinner and dancing in style. We took the Pacific Electric red car through Beverly Hills right to the pier. We walked by the now famous carousel and arcades and a wooden roller coaster and we could see the massive La Monica with its Spanish-Moorish palace look with 3 towers at each corner topped with minarets with the façade walls molded into decorative curves. As we approached the entrance there was a bill with the names of that night’s entertainment…but only one name jumped out at me. “Well, I’ll be damned…look who’s singing here at the end of the Santa Monica pier…if it isn’t Misty Sheridan! Whatta ya know about that?”

  Adora looked at me in surprise. “You know esta mujer…esta Misty?”

  “Yeah, she was singing in a club I was in a while ago. She’s pretty good, too.”
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br />   We walked into a lavish ballroom…very ornate with the look of French renaissance. The biggest dance floor I had ever seen. All wood and lit up with a brilliant chandelier. The orchestra was playing and folks were already kicking up their heels. We were seated near the dance floor. It wasn’t as crowded as I had expected. Maybe the Depression having its effect.

  Our dinner was good, my lady and I danced some of the evening, but it wasn’t until Misty Sheridan launched into Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams that I remembered how much I was in love with Adora Moreno. ‘When skies are cloudy and gray, they're only gray for a day', the song said, ‘so wrap your troubles in dreams and dream your troubles away’. Even rich people couldn’t compete with love when you’re lucky enough to have it—and life can get mighty lonely if you don’t have someone to keep you warm on those nights when memory and regret haunt you like an looming specter.

  So I told my Latin princess how much I adored her that night and she cooed and purred all over me while we danced, ate or sat in a booth drinking and simply enjoying each other’s company. I had met Misty Sheridan when she worked at the Café Montmartre on Hollywood Boulevard a year or so ago and I liked her voice and style. Her personality was smooth …professional. You just knew she smoldered inside with a certain brand of sexuality. Her hair was reddish, her skin white and eyes a friendly blue. She had a great figure and wore her gowns as tight as the law would allow.

  Misty had just begun a song called After You’ve Gone and suddenly I realized I became trapped in an emotion that kept pounding me to bits as if I were a piece of abalone on a cutting board. Suddenly, Honey had invaded our amorous time and was saying, 'How could you, Cable—come see another singer! Aren’t I the love of your life? Cable, I’m not gone. I’m right here, right here…can’t you feel me?' The lyrics to the tune, ‘After you’ve gone and left me crying, after you’ve gone, there’s no denying, you’ll feel lonesome, you’ll feel sad—you’ll miss the best friend you ever had…there’ll come a time, now don’t forget it, there’ll come a time when you’ll regret it…your heart will break like mine and you’ll want me only…after you’ve gone, after you’ve gone away…’ I turned away from Adora, fighting off tears. She picked up on it. “Mi amor, qué pasó?” Then she put two and two together. “Ay, qué lástima, querido. La canción sin sonrisa—pero triste. It is Honey, huh? Tu recuerdos…I am sorry, Cable.” She took my arm and cuddled her cheek to my shoulder.

  “I’m—I’m sorry, babe. I wanted us to have a good time. I—I didn’t see that one coming. Memory can be such a crappy return trip—let’s pay the check and go home. Make love to me, doll, tonight…so I can forget.”

  “I will always make love with you, señor—but not because I help you forget. Pero, porque t’amo.”

  I left Adora by the hatcheck girl and went to put a fiver in Misty Sheridan’s tip jar. She saw me and approached. “Thank you…say, don’t I know you? You…you came in one time at the last place I sang—”

  “—yeah, good memory…Cable Denning.” I extended my hand. “We did meet several months ago when you were singing at The Café Montmartre. I told you I’d come see you again someday.”

  “Are you alone?” she asked, checking me out in an approving manner. “I could stand a drink with someone I can talk to.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Misty—but I am with a lady and we’re on our way home. Maybe some other time we can have that drink.”

  She looked around the room, scanning the women, I suspected. “I would say the most attractive woman in the room—besides me—is that beautiful dark-haired Latino gal over there…”

  “You just won a kewpie doll, lady. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you…I’m just not so sure who’s the luckiest—you for having her to take home with you—or is she damn lucky to have you to take her home? I see a lot of people. One always wonders about things like that—how two people come together and what attracts them.”

  “If I recall right, you warned me off that night I came in to hear you. Weren’t you the one who said you weren’t into men?”

  She smiled at me, her warm green sequined gown revealing in all the right places. “Yes. It’s true, I did tell you that. In fact, I still have a female lover—the same one. But I’ve been wanting to be, uh, more adventuresome lately. Trouble is most men are boring. But I saw something in you that night I never forgot.”

  “It’s a big front…women like my patter because I’ve got a big mouth and fair vocabulary.”

  “That might be part of it, Mr. Denning—”

  “—Cable, remember, Cable…”

  “Cable…but I’m guessing you’ve done some things or seen some things in your life that set you apart. Am I getting warm?”

  “Just chalk it up to mysterious, doll. And maybe a little living on the edge kind of lifestyle that private dicks do—like walking a tightrope in the dark with no pole.”

  She laughed. “Private what? Did I hear you right?”

  “It’s an old joke I pull on dames all the time. It’s short for private detective, that’s all. Any other intimation is censored,” I joked.

  “Damn, I’d sure like to get to know you better.” She looked back over to where Adora stood, patiently waiting. “Are you serious with the little Mexican number?”

  “Yeah, just about as serious as someone like me can get, I guess.”

  “Then I’m glad for you. Not too many couples are happy these days. Depression and all, I guess. Even the business here is really down.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “Well…if things change—or you ever change your mind, I’ll be singing around somewhere…maybe we can have that drink…”

  I said goodnight to Misty Sheridan and Adora and I headed out for the streetcar stop. “You like that sexy red-hair lady? You make love to her—she knew you, Cable, I can tell…”

  “No, babe. Like I said, she was singing in a Hollywood club about a year ago and I came in one night. She remembered. That’s all.”

  “Oh,” she said, a little tentative about my answer.

  “You know, sweetheart, I’m glad you’re a little jealous now and then. It makes me feel wanted. I feel the same when other men look at you in that way. I guess people are rather territorial, aren’t they?”

  “Terri…who? Oh…sí…I think I know what you say—exclusivo.”

  “Yeah, babe.” I stopped and took Adora Moreno in my arms. “I never want you to think again that I’ll be anything but true to you, kid. You’re my woman, and I’m your guy—and that’s all there is to it—comprendo, señorita?”

  There in the middle of the sidewalk she grabbed me and held my head until her lips were smashing into mine, back and forth, wet and warm and I could feel her temperature rise and when we finally got back to the cottage, I had this feeling I had the most sensual girl in town in my arms. Love like this could never be bested in this crazy world, I thought at that moment. Count every minute as precious, Cable, I told myself. Love her, be true to her and never let her go!

  The next day I was back at Royce Cove Cottage with the train and steamer tickets needed for Zephyr and Mr. Crickle, along with a hefty allowance for Lexie, the dolphin also known as Zephyr’s “sea-child.” It was early afternoon and when Crickle opened the door, it was a glum face that greeted me. “I have sad tidings, Mr. Denning…. I’m—I’m afraid I didn’t tell you all, the other night. Zephyr has a disorder known as split personality. My beautiful mermaid of the Pacific has gone away—Lord knows for how long—and Fiona has taken possession. I suggest you do not go to the seashell house. It will be in vain.”

  “I don’t know about you, Crickle, but I have a job to do here—and I’m doing it! So, if you’re not packed, do so immediately. When I return I’m gonna have Zephyr in tow, toss you both into my car and whisk you off to Neptunia for a final meeting with Mom and Pop Royce. Is that clear? Let me put it another way, if you’re not coming, you’re dead. Plain and simple. I leave that final decision up to you.”

  I left old Crickle shaking
in his boots and made my way down the trail. I trudged across the sands until I stood underneath the seashell house. “Are you there, Zephyr?" I called, "It’s Cable…Cable Denning…I’ve come for you and your things.”

  A very pretty facsimile of Zephyr Royce appeared about thirty feet above me. “Miss Royce isn’t in today, but come on up, whoever you are.”

  Damn—that’s all I needed—some crazy babe who jumps in and out of her personality skins! I climbed up the rope ladder. She was dressed in a fine yellow robe with nothing underneath. Her face had changed so that a rather erotic smile fell across it. Or maybe it was some kind of impertinence, like her sister, Eden. “Hello, again, Zephyr. I sure as hell hope you’re ready. I got winded just climbing this damn thing.”

  “Have we met?” she asked, checking me out like it was the first time she’d ever seen me. “I informed you that Zephyr Royce is not in today—and I have no idea when she might return.”

  “What about her dolphin buddy, Lexie?”

  “Oh, that’s it. She’s probably out swimming with him. It’s okay to have a pet, but I told her all that salt water simply isn’t good for the skin. She’ll grow old before her time.”

  Now I thought I was going nuts. If the two women were twins, they couldn’t be any more different in their personalities. I looked her over. She had the same nicely tanned body, the same nice green eyes and her nipples stuck out through her yellow robe. Yep, same girl I saw walk nude out of the ocean. “So what’s your name—if not Zephyr?”

  “I’m Fiona—the only sensible one—and the only reason I let you up here is to be able to push you down if you get fresh or something.”

  “Look, lady, I’m in no mood to play your little psychological games—I have tickets here for your departure on a midnight train to Florida three days from now. If I have to hog-tie you kicking and screaming, I will get you back to your folks at Neptunia. So what’s it gonna be?”