Golden Throat

by James P. Alsphert

  “I’m always punctual, Flo—unless, of course, I’m dead.”

  A shiver ran through her. “Please….don’t even joke about that, Cable. So far you’re the only human being I can trust. I need you to believe in me. You still do, don’t you? I feel very vulnerable right now.”

  “It’s okay, Flo. Yeah, I’m with you—and you’re in safe hands. See you tonight.”

  She walked down those stairs from the landing with the kind of movement that wars could be fought over. I had a feeling, however, it was gonna be a hell of a night!

  Flo ‘Rusty’ Wilson lived off Hyperion on Rowena Avenue, between the Los Feliz area and the Silver Lake area. I took the red car out and hoofed it a few blocks over to 3228 Rowena. It was just getting good and dark by the time I reached the building. I glanced up at the second floor and then across the street where Flo had told me her duplicate husbands stood in the light under the lamppost. At 8:25 I rang her buzzer downstairs and she admitted me. I knocked on the door that read “#2.” She opened the door and if I had thought this woman to be a voluptuous babe before, what I saw now knocked me six ways from Sunday! She was dressed in a black negligée with a wonderful light-pink over-robe, matching pearl slippers. She had taken her hair down and it flowed like laced marble over her shoulders. Her skin was that tone of alabaster one sees in paintings except without much makeup, one could make out the freckles that trademarked so many redheads. “Cable,” she greeted me, “Thank you for being so punctual.”

  “I told you that’s my second name, Flo.” I entered and looked around at the very rich furniture and the thick floor-to-ceiling drapes that hung at the two large windows, one of which faced the lamppost across the street. Then I looked back at her. “Wow, lady, I—I, uh, didn’t expect such an elegant reception. You’re quite a knock-out in that evening wear.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Cable. May I offer you a drink?”

  “Got any smooth English gin?” I asked, still looking around.

  “As a matter of fact I do. I went out and bought some bootleg this afternoon since I knew that’s what we were drinking at your office earlier.”

  “Well, I’m afraid mine was half rot-gut and half raw alcohol.” She went to the wet bar and fixed us both a drink. She came over to me and handed me one. “Thanks, Flo. You have a nice place here. It just doesn’t look very lived in…no offense.”

  “It is a bit sterile, isn’t it. Todd is so fussy about things being just so. Personally, I’m a little bit more of a scatter rug person. But we make do.”

  We sat opposite each other for a few minutes. After she finished her first drink, however, she came over to the sofa where I was and sat down next to me. She was wearing an exotic perfume that was transforming some of my organs to some new land of erotic fantasy. “Your—your perfume…is it something…that affects you…the way…it affects me?”

  “How does it affect you, Cable?”

  “Affectionately, is the best way I can put it. It kind of transports a guy to some other place, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well, it is expensive, made from genuine whale oils and special herbs. It’s called Caribbean Nights.”

  “Phew! I’m betting it could get a guy hooked on a dame right here in the Los Angeles nights.”

  She laughed. “I like your humor, Cable. When I first met you, I thought you a bit gruff and undiplomatic. But now that I know you better…ummm…well, I think I like you.”

  I cleared my throat. “I—I think we’d better prepare for the business at hand, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. She took my hand and led me to her spacious bedroom. The vanity dresser had a series of four white candles lit and no other source of light. “Welcome to my bedroom, Cable,” she whispered in a rather seductive voice. My heart began to pound a little more than normal.

  “It’s not every day I’m standing in the middle of some gorgeous dame’s boudoir. By the way, before I forget it, do you have a sample of the leather-like skin stuff you found in the laundry bag downstairs?”

  “Yes, we can get some when you leave tonight.”

  “Good enough.” I was thinking all kinds of things, not the least of which was fighting off a rising penis pulsing in my pants. But I was good at doing my job and that would have to come first.

  At precisely 9:00 p.m. the phone rang. Flo played her part well and responded to her husband’s comments and questions. While she was talking I slipped quietly in front of the drape that covered the window in question. Ever so slightly, I parted the two wings. Much to my amazement, sure enough, two very tall men stood under the streetlight, dressed exactly as Flo had described, right down to the Panama hats. While she was talking, I slipped out of the apartment down into the lobby, still carefully observing the men across the street. I decided to do a gung-ho rush and came flying out of the building toward them with my .38 drawn. By the time I got across the street they had vanished into thin air!

  Immediately my instincts went to Flo’s safety and I ran to the front door of the apartment building. The damn thing was locked so I rang the buzzer. I waited to what seemed forever and then Flo buzzed back and I leapt up the stairs to #2. I entered the room just in time to have Flo run and collapse into my arms, her face as white as a ghost. I dragged her over to the sofa, got some cold water and dabbed her pretty face, freckles and all. Soon she revived. “You okay, kid? What happened?”

  She clung to me, frightened, trembling. “The minute you left the apartment, Todd knew it and warned me that I had betrayed him and he was coming back to punish me! Then he hung up.” She began to whimper like a young girl who’d fallen down and bruised her knee.

  “Well, I didn’t have the best luck, either. Just like you said there were two guys dressed alike, but by the time I rushed across the street with my gun drawn, they had somehow just—just vanished—damnedest thing I’d ever seen.”

  Rusty Wilson pulled my face down onto her mouth and kissed me like it was her last kiss in this world. Her warm, moist lips made me forget there was ever anything like danger out there in the unknown and suddenly I was floating with her, holding her in my arms with one hand fondling one of those incredible breasts of hers. She sighed and moaned and lay down on the sofa full-length, pulling me on top of her. “Please, make love to me, Cable. Now. I’ve been so cold, so lonely—I need to know I’m still a woman, still desirable.”

  “You’re still very desirable, Flo. But I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve—I’ve got this thing about truth, remember? And—and my truth is I’m engaged to be married in December. And Honey and I are kind of tight, you know. I don’t want to feel guilty tomorrow.”

  She stopped and gently pushed me over. She sat up, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to complicate your life. Nor mine. I’m—I’m just so lost now…confused…I thought I had a husband who—who was…” Then she put her head into her hands and cried some more. I got up and made us both a drink and came back, took out a cigarette and lit one for both of us. “Thanks, Cable. You’re a good man. I think you’re a rare man, too.”

  “Well, you were sure right about two things tonight. One, you weren’t kidding about triplicate husbands—and this English gin is damn good. Bottoms up,” I said and toasted her. In the melée one of her breasts had fallen out of her gown and she tucked it back in. I held her wrist. “It isn’t that I don’t want you, lady—I do. It’s just that—”

  “—I know, Cable, you told me. I’ll be a good girl. I guess we’d better go downstairs and get you that sample you requested.”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  We gulped our drinks and she put on a heavier robe. We went down a back way into a small garage. She pulled the chain on a ceiling light socket and a dim light filled the room. We edged around her green Packard until we reached a long utility table. Suddenly Flo started. “Cable—it’s gone! It was right here. See the measuring stick? Someone took it! Now, I guess, you’ll never believe me, will you?”

&nb
sp; “Why not, babe, I have so far.” I got down on my knees and felt along the concrete floor. Slightly under the table I found a small patch of something that felt like what Flo had described. I brought it up into the light. “Is this the kind of stuff you were talking about?”

  She examined it. “Yes! Only it was almost six-feet six inches long and about two feet wide.”

  “Well, someone doesn’t want you to know who they really are—and I suspect it’s good old hubby Todd. With your permission, I’m going to take this scrap to someone who might be able to help.”

  We went back upstairs and she carefully wrapped the item in some wax paper so it wouldn’t flake off any more than it had. She gave it to me and I put it gingerly in my vest pocket. “You know, Cable, I was so excited for you in that moment of danger—I don’t know what came over me—”

  “—it’s okay, Flo. Danger and desire often go hand-in-hand. You know, like one triggers the other?”

  “Yes. May I at least kiss you a gentle kiss good-night?”

  I chuckled. “You know, lady, how are we going to maintain a professional up and up relationship with all this kissin’ goin’ on?”

  She smiled and held me, pressing her cheek to mine, whispering into my ear. “I love the…up and up part…if you ever change your mind, I’m just a phone call away.” Then she moved her mouth around to mine and kissed me with those warm, inviting lips. I responded and was just about to fall over that edge again when I thought of Honey. Damn! What a conflict, this thing between morality and natural impulse, I thought. She drew her face a few inches away. “I even love the way you kiss, Mr. Detective.”

  “Well, thanks, doll. But do me a favor next time we meet, will you?”

  “If I can, of course…”

  “Don’t be packin’ that perfume! That’s a powerful weapon to be carryin’

  around in mixed company.” I said, trying to keep it light…but it didn’t work.

  “Oh, Cable, please don’t go! I feel afraid. I don’t want to stay here tonight. What if he or ‘they’ come back for me? Will they kill me?”

  “That’s a good question. I don’t know. It depends on what they’re hiding and what the stakes are. You know, life can be reduced down to two or three easy categories. Money. Sex. Power. In this case, and I can’t tell you why, I think it’s a matter of power or domination of some sort. You obviously don’t need money and you say Todd’s a little cold in the bedroom. So, get my point?”

  “Yes…so how does that figure in with my safety?”

  “He wouldn’t be after you unless you knew more than you should. Why they were so careless in enticing you to the window while another one of him was on the telephone baffles me, frankly. They have nothing to gain with you—or do they?” I was thinking of Joe Lorena and how he had used Honey’s natural mother for a breeding machine to create a new cross-species. What if the Three Todds were another species of alien wanting to do the same thing with Flo.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can you have children?”

  “As far as I know, yes. I’m thirty-three now and never really wanted children. I don’t think I’m good mother material. I’m kind of a man’s woman who also likes to shop or travel the world rather than tend kids.”

  “I see. Did you and your husband ever discuss children?”

  “When we were first married. But he said he couldn’t have children and that suited me just fine. But he did press me a couple of times more recently, asking me if I was still fertile, which I thought curious.”

  My suspicions were beginning to be confirmed. “Okay, doll, here’s what I think. I think your husband might be, as you suspected—some new brand of alien. It could be he wants to use you to breed sustainable offspring. They do it by inseminating you artificially, allowing you then to ‘grow’ the child to full term. The child born, however, is a hybrid, and cannot reproduce itself. So, once they get you where they want you, they will keep you producing like a baby factory until you die on the table.”

  “Oh, my God, Cable—how can this be? We’re living in 1929 America. Don’t you think the Government would catch these creatures?”

  “What if the Government is these creatures, Flo?”

  She fell silent and just held on to me, trembling. “Maybe I should conceive your baby, and while I’m pregnant there’s nothing they can do to me.”

  I looked at her with surprise and a sympathetic grin. “You know, lady, you’re okay for someone I just met today. But somehow it doesn’t feel right to go around having natural babies to stem the tide of other invading species.”

  “Why not? And look at all the fun we’ll have getting pregnant?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t into kids?”

  “Your baby, Cable. That’s all. One.”

  “Sorry, Flo, but I’m going to have pass on that one. We’ve had a few drinks tonight and we’re a little tight, not to mention all riled up about the three husbands haunting your abode. I am flattered, however, and I agree with you—most of the pleasure is in getting you in the family way.”

  We decided to take Flo to a hotel in Hollywood. By midnight she was tucked away and I left her car at the hotel parking. Then I took the streetcar back to Cahuenga and walked up to Franklin to Cable Denning’s new private detective hangout. I got in. I was exhausted and I just remembered the bed had no sheets or blankets on it yet. I had picked up the mattress from my old room in my mother’s house. It was a bit old and lumpy, but what the hell, it’d do for now. I fell onto the bed with all my clothes on, burdened with the thought that tomorrow I would have Joe Lorena examine the strange piece of leathery skin tucked into the waxed paper in my coat pocket.

  All night long the forlorn sound of that lonely sax played in and out of my restless dreams. I was in a very large, oblong room being chased by spider webs that kept entangling me in corners and I’d have to fight my way out by flailing my arms. Soon a very naked Rusty Wilson came running toward me, her mouth open with two viper fangs ready to sink into my neck. I took a shoe off my foot and swung wildly at the gorgeous but lethal woman whose nipples began to bleed green blood as her eyes turned red. I ran toward the far end of the oblong chamber only to come face to face with Joe Lorena in a very tight fitting costume made of some kind of green, glowing rubber, it appeared. He signaled for me to follow him and I did so. But before I could get through the doorway, Rusty’s powerful hand grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Joe came again to my rescue and pounded his fist against Rusty’s forehead and she collapsed. He then ordered me to take her arm and drag her through the door. The next thing I remember was that I was hovering over Rusty Wilson’s great body about to penetrate her. Her snake-like qualities were gone and she opened her legs and welcomed me, but I got nervous and couldn’t perform because I suddenly observed the whole room was filled with onlookers watching the curious ritual of mating, or whatever I was supposed to be doing.

  I awoke with a start, sweating, and since I had no sheets, blankets or a change of clothes, I stripped, hung my clothes out to dry and drew myself a bath. I fell asleep in the tub, this time into a restful, dreamless peace.

  By about noon the phone had rung a couple of times but I didn’t have the energy to answer it. I finally staggered out of the bathtub, let myself drip-dry and eventually got my clothes back on. I went to the phone and called Syndcorp Imports, which was Jack Dragna’s mafia cover corporation. I finally got Joe on the phone and told him I needed to see him post haste. He said he’d be taking a late lunch, but I told him I’d need a lab with a microscope. He hesitated and then told me to meet him at a house near Griffith Park at 4:00 p.m. I called the Roosevelt Hotel to check on Rusty Wilson. She said she had a terrible night and wished I had spent it with her, and when could I see her. I told her I’d come by tonight, after I’d had the you-know-what inspected under a microscope. She also complained that someone was watching her throughout breakfast in the café downstairs. That didn’t sit too well with me. />
  Punctually at 4:00 p.m. I walked to the doorway of 2561 Canyon Drive. It was a quiet neighborhood with hillsides going both east and west not far away. This part of Griffith Park was a box canyon leading into a famous movie-shoot area called Bronson Park. A nice middle-aged woman came to the door. She didn’t say a word but led me down into a basement where I found Joe Lorena standing over a microscope.

  “Ah, Cable. I was quite surprised to hear from you. But I see you have a problem maybe I can help you with?”

  “Yeah, thanks for seeing me, Joe. In a nutshell I get my very first private detective gig with this babe who goes on about her husband not being her husband and it ends up with there being three of them. Long story short, everything she said was true—plus this.” I handed him the small piece of leathery skin wrapped up in the waxed paper.

  “Well, real life is stranger than fiction, as they say.” He took the paper and carefully unwrapped the sample. “I already know what it is—but let me verify it for you.” He placed the thing under the microscope and then summoned me over. “Now focus it for your eyes. You see the scales? This is reptilian, nothing more than a snake shedding its skin. Your client has obviously married one of the lizard people, an alien race integrated into your species many hundreds of years ago. But now they’re having trouble. They seem to have developed an abnormal growth pattern somehow.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say—try about four inches growth in three years. So, are these creatures dangerous—it seems my client has been threatened.”

  “You bet, especially if they’ve been found out. They’ll eliminate her. More than likely she’s already been implanted with a tracer beam, so they can find her anywhere in the world if they want to. I’d send her to Monterrey, Mexico immediately. There’s a special clinic we have set up there that can remove the transmitter and free her from this terrible situation.”

  “Can you set the appointment up, Joe? Money’s not a big thing with her, so she can afford to get there and back.”