Way out of state.
She was smiling again. “Then you’re handling this job?”
“That’s right.”
She shook her head, the red locks bouncing nicely, and said, “I feel so foolish. Here we were yesterday, sitting and talking and even...flirting, and...now I hardly know what to say.”
“Say ‘small world,’ and let’s take it from there.”
The lounge was about half full now. Seemed to be young working people, in their later twenties and early thirties, on the prowl.
“This can be a real meat market,” she said, casting her eyes around and frowning. “Could get fairly crowded. Is there somewhere else we could talk?”
“My room’s a kind of mini-suite. There’s a sitting area with a couch. We could send for some room service, if you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry, but I wouldn’t mind the privacy. Maybe you could buy us a couple of beers, at the bar?”
I bought four cans of Pabst and then escorted Mrs. Byron out of the lounge and over to the elevators. She was a head-turner in that yellow sweater; she wore an old-fashioned brassiere, unusual in these bra-burning times, but I kind of dug its twin rocket style. Made me think of Mamie Van Doren and my first orgasm; probably was more memorable for me than Mamie, since Mamie wasn’t there.
Now, I admit I did something stupid. I believe I was a little thrown by running into my whirlpool fantasy and having her turn out to be my target’s missus. Right before I’d gone down to the lounge, I tossed my nine millimeter on the bed, and it was sitting there on the made bed against a pillow like the worst mint any maid ever left.
I’d spaced out about the damn thing, and still hadn’t remembered the gun when I opened the door and she went on in ahead of me. But she saw it right away.
She turned and smiled, her eyes alive. “So private eyes do carry guns? Just like on TV!”
“We need protection,” I said lamely. “But the management frowns on it when you carry one into a cocktail lounge.”
I put the four beers on the coffee table by the couch, switched on the lamp (the overhead light was off, the bedroom nightstand lamp also on), and sat down. She deposited herself next to me, perhaps a little closer than most good-looking clients sit to their PI. Except on TV. She smelled very good. Perfume, but not too much. She was doing fine, Penthouse Forum-wise.
“So fill me in about the creep I’m married to,” she said.
“There’ve been several girls go around to see him,” I said, “but I think some are legitimately students. Couple guys have stopped by the cottage, too. He is an advisor, after all.”
The upper lip of her full mouth curled upward. “He’s been ‘advising’ for a very long time. I was one of his first. I was going to be a hell of a writer, myself, you know. The next Sylvia Plath.”
I didn’t know who that was, either, but I said, “I won’t lie to you. I don’t want to give you false hope—he is cheating.”
She sat there with her fists clenched and her chin quivering and she stared at the wall across the way, which wasn’t worth staring at really, having a nondescript winterscape framed there (screwed into the wall, to keep me from sticking it in my suitcase). Her eyes were hard but they were also wet, glistening with emotion, hate, love, the works.
I asked, “You didn’t have any doubt, did you?”
She shook her head, red curls bouncing. “No. No. This is typical.”
“Isn’t this just about getting the goods on the guy? So you can finally pull the plug on this marriage and come out smelling like a rose on the financial end?”
She nodded.
I got up and went over to the cans of beer. I pulled the ring top on a Pabst and handed her the can and she sipped at it delicately. I pulled a ring top on another and returned to my place on the couch. I took a drink and set it on the floor. Wasn’t that thirsty, but she was greedily consuming hers now, gone from sipping to gulping.
I said, “You don’t have any kids, do you?”
“No. Didn’t I tell you that? No.”
She put the beer back on the end table, then got up and went over to the bed. She took the gun from the pillow and she turned around and the nine millimeter was huge in her orange-nailed hand. Her expression was a little crazy. But crazy enough.
She said, “You know I could just kill the son of a bitch.”
“Not a good idea. Give me that.”
“Or maybe you could. Would you kill him for me?” She seemed a little drunk. Maybe that hadn’t been her first beer.
“No. That’s not a toy.”
She handed it to me, with a babyish pout that, oddly, was the first thing that had made her look her age. I took the weapon and held it in both hands; I’d never felt the metal so cold.
She plopped down next to me again. “One of us should kill that miserable prick.”
“Yeah, well, not tonight.”
Then she started crying, and I slipped an arm around her and she sobbed into my chest. Now and then she would say, “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?”
So I told her there was nothing wrong with her.
This went on a while.
Then she got up, suddenly, and ran to the bath-room, taking her little purse along. I thought maybe she was going to throw up, and I did hear the toilet flush, but when she came back, she’d redone her makeup, the mascara having run all to hell.
And she looked good again. Very good. Damn good. And weirdly together, her face devoid of emotion, devoid of anything but those attractive features, the kind of blank prettiness you see in advertising.
She positioned herself in front of me.
“How old are you?” she asked.
I told her.
“I was in junior high when you were born,” she said.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Would you believe grade school?”
The Get Smart reference made me laugh.
She took off her sweater, yanked it over her head with magnificent casualness. She stared down at me; so did the bullet bra.
“Would you believe,” she said, overtly Maxwell Smart now, “kindergarten?”
Her hands went behind her to undo the bra. I looked away, the gun still in my hands. This was wrong. Fucking the target’s wife was wrong. I could get in ten kinds of trouble. A hundred. She was a beautiful, sad, troubled woman and she was taking her bra off and I was about to get fucked several ways, not all of them good.
Her breasts had needed no help from the bullet bra. Sure, they drooped just a little, but that was what my hands were for. I reached up and caressed them, globes that overflowed my fingers, her aureoles large and puffy, and then I suckled them and the nipples grew hard and long, and I was hard and long, too, so I pulled her down on the couch and I climbed on her and we kissed or mostly I kissed her, nuzzling her neck and worshiping those breasts....
She slipped out from under me and had a naughty-child look as she stood there and wriggled out of the skin-tight slacks and revealed a healthy reddish pubic patch and when she half-turned to toss the slacks away, I saw how incredible and full her ass was, dimples so deep you could drink champagne out of them. If you had champagne.
Then she was on her knees and unbuttoning my pants and she gave the porno girls a real run for the money, sucking the tip, then sliding her mouth down, then up and down and licking around and making me wonder what the fuck that dipshit husband of hers was thinking. I almost came in her mouth, but she knew just when to stop and she smiled up at me, those eyes incredibly blue, and got to her feet and walked to the bed, hip-swaying till I was drunk with it, and it was only about six steps.
She grabbed a pillow out from under the covers and put it under her hips and lifted herself to me and opened herself like a pink flower in a red bush, eyes glistening, pussy too, and she asked, “I’m not so bad, am I? Not so bad.”
“No,” I said. “Just enough.”
The rest you probably read in Penthouse Forum.
SEVEN<
br />
We finished the four beers, though Dorrie had three of them, and had another enthusiastic fuck, this time on the couch with the curvy gal sitting on my lap facing me, and she was pretty drunk at that point and her face wasn’t looking so hot, no make-up and kind of saggy, but her body held up fine and anyway I hadn’t been laid in a couple months.
She gathered her clothes and padded into the bathroom to freshen up. I heard the shower going and thought about joining her, but my dick was as red as a radish and I thought the better part of valor was just to get my own clothes on and call myself lucky.
Her purse had been in there, so when she emerged she was fairly put together, and I suggested we go downstairs for a nightcap. I had an ulterior motive, which was to make sure she didn’t spend the night in my room—I needed more freedom than that—and I was pleased when she accepted my invitation.
She had a Vodka Collins and I had a gimlet while we sat in a booth and played PI and client. The “band”—a guy with a guitar and a gal with a keyboard doing horrific soft rock with drum-machine backing—was at least not very loud. The guitarist was perched on a stool and wore a velour jumpsuit and pink shirt; he smiled and sang back-up. The girl, in a gypsy-pattern peasant dress and seated behind her keyboard, did the lead vocals in a whispery folky voice just perfect for “Which Way You Goin’, Billy?” Perfect in the sense that “Which Way You Goin’, Billy?” would make great background music for driving off a bridge.
The tiny dance floor, however, was packed with couples in upright copulation mode, and they soaked up some of the sound, at least.
Dorrie was sucking on the orange slice from her Tom Collins glass. If I hadn’t just been fucked royal, twice, that might have been provocative.
I sipped my gimlet. “I’ll send you the photos.”
She shook the reddish tower of curls. “No. I want to see them. I want you to talk me through them.”
“Huh?”
“Tell what else you saw, you know, in relation to the photos.”
I frowned. “I really think it would be better if you went back to Connecticut and let me send you the photos and report to you over the—”
“I want to see those photos.” She stretched out a palm, like a child demanding candy. “I want to see them...right here.”
I thought about it. “Okay, that’s not a problem. They’ll be developed by noon tomorrow. We can meet in the coffee shop for lunch, and then you can check out and go home.”
The blue eyes, though a little bleary, tightened and grew hard. “No. I want to see that bastard. I want to rub the evidence in his goddamn face.”
“Not such a good idea. Listen, I’m experienced at this, or anyway Mr. Koenig is. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that having contact with your husband, harassing him and so on, will only hurt your cause in court.”
Her chin crinkled—she wasn’t was about to cry or anything, this was more like a pout, and not as fetching as ones she’d given me earlier, back when she was stripping for me.
“If you want simple revenge,” I said, “you could throw the photos in his face, kick him in the nuts, do whatever you like. But if you hired our agency because you want to build a divorce case against this cheater, then let me do the job I’m being paid for. And as delightful as spending time with you is, you need to get out of my way.”
She frowned. “You’re not finished with the job?”
I shook my head. “I may not be. I haven’t seen the developed photos yet. I took some through the window catching your husband in flagrante delicto.”
“That’s French for fucking some whore, right?”
“More or less. But I’m frankly not as good with a camera as Mr. Koenig, and it was at night, and I didn’t have a flash, going through hazy curtains—we need to see what I got. I may have to go back for more.”
“And I’m...I’m in your way.”
The couple on stage was doing a version of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” Try to imagine how wretched it was. Nice try, but no.
“Iowa City is a small town,” I said. “If your husband even sees you around here, you may blow it for me. Please let me do my job.”
That was a genuine plea: please let me do my job.
“Okay,” she said, and shrugged helplessly. “Listen, I, uh...I’m going up to my own room to spend the night. That doesn’t offend you or anything?”
“No.”
“It’s just...I’ve kind of gotten used to sleeping alone.”
“Fine.”
“You’re not hurt?”
I gave her my best smile. “No. I had a wonderful time. This is a night I’ll never forget.”
Her smile was rumpled, but she really was very pretty. Not that blank, advertisement pretty I’d seen earlier, but a woman with lovely features and an intelligence that the beers and the vodka hadn’t completely diminished.
She asked, “Really? Even though I have a few miles on me?”
“I’d be glad to help you rack up a few more, any time.”
That made her laugh a little, and she slid out of the booth and so did I. The duo was slaughtering “Fire and Rain.” Really should be a law.
I walked her to the elevators and up to her room. She gave me a nice kiss, soft and sweet, and unlocked her door and hip-swayed in, at least a little drunk.
Back in my room, I collected the nine millimeter and stuffed it in my waistband. This goddamn job was getting out of hand. From what I’d overheard, Annette would have gone over to the prof’s around six this evening. If she did not stay the night, I might be able to get this turkey shot.
So within an hour, I was back at my window in the split-level, with the only change the addition of the little portable TV, its rabbit-ears adjusted to bring in Johnny Carson as best as possible. I kept the volume pretty low. The show had just started and Johnny and Ed and Doc were just fooling around, no guests yet.
Surprisingly, I was fairly alert. I’d slept most of the afternoon, starting when I got back from lunch at Bushnell’s Turtle up till my phone call to Broker, so I was ready to put in a night shift. Annette’s white Corvette was at the curb, meaning she was still in there, getting tutored in one way or another.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, while Johnny Carson was interviewing Charles Nelson Reilly, I thought for a second I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, and not in a good way. A car had just pulled up behind the Corvette, a Plymouth Barracuda with a rental sticker in the back window. I hadn’t seen this vehicle, among the several thousand that seemed to have shown up at the cobblestone cottage, but I sure knew the driver who got out and strode up the sidewalk: Dorrie Byron herself, the lovely woman who had so recently fucked my dick raw.
Hadn’t she had enough fun for one night?
She was dressed as before, the orange of her toreador pants flashing under a white fur coat, possibly a mink, meaning she’d already got at least some money out of the prof. My mouth had dropped and it was all I could do not to yell out the window at her, What the hell do you think you’re doing, lady?
Johnny was laughing at Charles, and I turned the little portable down so I could make out what was coming. Already I could hear her fist pounding on the front door. She paused and then pounded some more.
Finally the door opened and yellow light poured out around the tall figure of her husband, in his maroon terrycloth bathrobe.
As before, voices carried in the crisp, cold air as if from a stage to a theater’s audience.
“Darling!” he said. “What a wonderful surprise!”
“It was terrible spending Christmas without you,” his wife said. “I can stay till New Year’s if you like!”
“That would be wonderful!”
He sort of seemed to be shouting, and of course I knew why. Anyway, the prof was now enfolding his wife in his arms and they were kissing, fairly passionately considering he was a philandering prick and she was the wronged wife seeking a divorce, not to mention solace by having sex with innocent young boys like myself.
> With an arm around her, and considerable concern, he ushered her into the house and shut the door. He’d hardly done that when Annette, naked flesh and a dark pubic thatch flashing under her unbuttoned white leather coat, a pile of clothing in her arms, went running in her bare feet on the snowy ground along the side of the house just at the edge of the gravel driveway. She scrambled around to the driver’s side of the Corvette and fumbled unlocking the door, but then was in and behind the wheel and taking off quickly though not peeling out or anything, no burned rubber to attract the attention of the professor’s new house guest.
Now I might have found this amusing if I hadn’t noticed something beside clothing in her arms as she scurried out from around back in French farce fashion. She also had a box, the kind of box a ream of typing paper comes in, and this she held as preciously as the items that would cover the pale flesh under the white leather.
Was that the book? The book?
My job here wasn’t just eliminating the professor, after all, but getting rid of the non-fiction novel that would embarrass and expose Annette’s father back in Chicago.
I quickly exited the split-level and ran down to the garage next door and got in the Maverick and took off after Annette. I admit to having no plan. The last thing I wanted to do, or for that matter that our client would want me to do, was harm this girl. But the possibility of me dealing with Professor Byron tonight, with his loving wife around, was nil; and maybe I could find some way to pry that manuscript away from Annette without blowing my cover or having to kill her lovely ass.
Confused as hell, feeling like I was in way over my head, I made sure at least one car was between me and the brunette’s Corvette as I tailed her. Hell, it was no secret where she was going. And, sure enough, before long she was pulling into her slot at the little apartment building in Coralville. She had taken time to button the white leather coat, so no major flashes of skin or bush were on display as she got out of the vehicle and trotted up the stairs to the second level and sealed herself in her apartment.
I pulled into the Sambo’s lot again.
Christ, I had no idea what to do. Would I really be reduced into breaking into that girl’s apartment, subduing her somehow, and stealing that manuscript? What, wearing a ski mask like the Broker suggested? What was I, a second-story man now? A burglar? Didn’t I have some goddamn dignity?
The First Quarry (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback)) Page 9
