Skin Deep

by Timothy Hallinan

  After about twenty seconds, I heard somebody moan. Then she cried out. Then she cried out again, a choked, panicked, whimpering sound that made the hair on my arms stand straight up. Wishing I had the gun I'd left in Alice's glove compartment, I started down the hallway.

  Ten feet down, the corridor turned left. There were doors on either side now. In each door there was a small window, about four inches by six. All but one were dark.

  The cry turned into a scream. The scream died away into a kind of hopeless sobbing. Then I heard a smack that sounded like something hard against bare flesh, and I headed for the lighted window.

  "No," a woman's voice cried out. "No, please, no. No more, no more, no more." She coughed, or choked, and I was at the window.

  I was looking at a living room. There was a lot of ordinary furniture, most of it red: a red couch, a coffee table, red pictures on the walls. There was also one piece of extraordinary furniture, a kind of aluminum frame that looked like a cross between a sawhorse and a torture rack. On it was a small blond girl. She was strapped to it, bent over it brutally, spread-eagle and as naked as a saint's forehead. Between us stood Toby Vane, stripped to the waist with his back to me. In his hand was a whip. I surveyed the room as best I could through the little window. No Big John. Then Toby lifted the whip and brought it whistling down across the girl's spine. She cried out again and arched her slim back.

  I kicked the door in on the first try. My right foot caught Toby behind the knee before he had a chance to turn around, and he crumpled headlong toward the floor. I managed to catch his chin with my foot as he fell. The sound of his neck snapping up was deeply satisfying. He twisted and landed on his face, and I slammed his left kidney with my heel for the sheer pleasure of it. He moaned and rolled over, curling into an embryonically protective ball.

  That was when things started to go wrong.

  The first thing I registered was that it wasn't Toby. It was someone I'd never seen before, a young man with so little chin that he must have knotted his tie directly below his overbite. The second thing I registered was the voice of the girl. She didn't say, "Thank God," or, "My hero." What she said was, "What the fuck."

  Whoever was on the floor moaned. Whoever was on the rack muttered nastily. Whoever had come into the room behind me said, "Alma, language, please," and then she said, "Who the hell are you?"

  Until that moment I don't think I'd ever known what the word nonplussed meant, but now it shouldered its way through the orderly ranks of my vocabulary and leapt unfettered out of my mouth. "I'm nonplussed," I said.

  "What you just did usually costs three hundred bucks," said the woman in the doorway. She was wearing a black outfit that looked like the kind of lingerie the Spanish Inquisition might have designed—a whalebone black corset, fishnet stockings, and high-heeled boots that reached her knees. Her hair was an impossible bottle black, and her eyebrows arched higher than Lucille Ball's. "Maybe if you give it to poor William here, he won't call the cops on you."

  "He's going to call the cops? What about her?"

  "Holy Mary, mother of God," said the girl on the rack in a resigned tone. William, still on the floor, used his elbows to put a couple of yards between him and me and looked up at me with the kind of rolling eyes that up till then I'd only seen on hooked fish. I looked again at his nonexistent chin and wondered how I'd managed to catch it with my foot.

  "I thought I was helping," I said. "Is William really in a position to call the cops?" William tried to shake his head and then grabbed his throat. Obviously I hadn't hit his chin at all. The whip curled limply from his left hand.

  "In a perfect world, maybe," the lady with the lingerie said. The barest hint of a smile curled the corners of her mouth. "Since the world is manifestly imperfect, a simple apology will probably suffice."

  Etiquette classes had not prepared me for this, so I did the only thing I could think of. I reached down to William. He cringed. "Jesus, William," I said. "I'm sorry. I thought you were somebody else."

  "I'm not," he croaked. "I'm me. I'm only me."

  "Only you? You're a strong man, William," said the lady in the lingerie. "He caught you from behind. You'd have killed him if he hadn't." William attempted a nod and then rubbed his throat again. "We all know who you are, William, and we're all afraid of you. But," she said to me in a tone like a shredded tire, "who did you think he was?"

  What the hell, I figured. "Toby Vane."

  The girl on the rack turned quickly to look at me, and Miss Lingerie of 1564 gave me a sharp glance. "See, William," she said, looking at me in a speculative fashion. "He thought you were Toby Vane. It must have taken a lot of courage for him to attack you like that."

  "Not really," I said without thinking. Both women looked at me imploringly. "I mean, I was behind you," I improvised. "It wasn't fair."

  "No," the one in the lingerie said as though she were talking to a child. "It wasn't fair at all. It was dirty fighting." I managed a nod. "Now come on," she said to me, "let's leave William and Alma alone. Alma, are you sure it's all right if we leave you alone with William?"

  "I don't know, Mistress Kareema," the girl on the rack said plaintively. She had a fourth-grader's lisp. "Maybe he's mad now."

  "Of course he's mad," Mistress Kareema said, "but not at you. That's right, isn't it, William?"

  William had lifted himself cautiously to a sitting position. "No," he squeaked. "It's not her I'm mad at." Then he shifted his fish-eyes toward Mistress Kareema. "Is it?"

  "It's him," she said, indicating me. "But I don't want trouble, so I'm going to get him out of here before you take vengeance. Now, I want you to promise that you won't take it out on Alma."

  "Oh, pleeeease" Alma squealed. "Not on me, William." She twitched her bare bottom.

  "I like Alma," William said in a voice as soft as rain-water. "But keep him away from me, or I won't answer for the consequences." He gave the whip a sad little shake.

  "He's going. Now, Alma, you give William a good time, you hear? But call me if he gets too rough."

  "Oh, I will," Alma said. "Stay close, please?" She rolled her eyes at William in an approximation of terror that wouldn't have fooled a blind man. Mistress Kareema put three solid steel fingers around my wrist and tugged me toward the door. "Be sweet, William," she said, pushing me past her. "Remember, Alma's at your mercy."

  William gave a brusque macho nod, and Kareema shoved me the rest of the way through the door and closed it behind us.

  "Jesus Christ," she said. "That's a good customer, twice a week, at least. You can't fuck with their libidos like that. These are very fragile guys."

  "What about Alma? What's she made of, magnesium?"

  "Alma can take care of herself. One word from her and William will be on his knees begging for forgiveness and thankful for the opportunity. Come with me."

  She led me into one of the dark rooms and flicked on the light. It was decked out as a medieval torture chamber. False stone walls dripped real water. "Have a seat." I sat on something that passed as a ledge. She tapped her foot. "What's this shit about Toby Vane?"

  "But she's tied to that thing."

  "Relax. Alma's been at this gig for three years. She's only gotten hurt once."

  "By whom?"

  "If you hadn't said his name, I'd have brained you on the spot." She dropped something heavy onto the stone sacrificial slab in front of me. It wasn't anything fancy, just a good old-fashioned sap. "You'd have been hearing birds for weeks," she said. She was still standing.

  I was at a loss, and I attempted to compensate by getting comfortable.

  "Get your feet off the slab," Mistress Kareema said in a voice that could have sliced through a diamond. "Where do you think you are, at home? Alma's the submissive here. I like to be in charge. What are you up to, anyway?"

  "I got your number from Dixie Cohen."

  She looked like she was going to spit. "Some reference. You've got two minutes to tell me what's going on, and then out."

  I
gave it to her in ninety seconds. She nodded a couple of times and then reached into her cleavage and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She lit up without offering me one. "So you're supposed to keep him out of trouble. So what? What's that got to do with Alma and me? Don't answer that." She turned away. "Wait'll I turn off the drip. Jesus, have you looked at your water bill lately?" A moment after she left the room, the water stopped trickling down the walls.

  She came back, and I described what had happened to Amber. Her eyes narrowed, and she knocked the cigarettes over to me, pulling up a wooden stool.

  "Could be," she said, sitting. "He broke Alma's thumb. That cost him five thousand bucks. It wasn't enough. Alma almost quit, and that would have cost him a lot more. It's hard to find a real submissive these days."

  She could have been discussing housekeepers. I held up a hand, and she tossed me her lighter, hard and fast. I stalled by lighting one of her cigarettes, hoping I wasn't going to start again.

  The door opened and Alma came in wearing a violet robe with little white flowers on it. She was about twenty-four, with tousled wheat-colored hair and big blue eyes. "He's going home," she said to Mistress Kareema. "He couldn't get it going again."

  "You saw him scared," Kareema said. "Took the wind out of his sails." She gave me something halfway between a smile and a grimace and said, "You better hope he comes back."

  "He said tomorrow night," Alma said. "He tipped me two hundred."

  "Then he'll be back. By the time he gets home he'll feel like a big man again."

  "He had a nosebleed. He was worried about what his wife would say."

  "He's married?" I asked. "Does he knock his wife around, too?"

  Mistress Kareema snorted. "She turns him to tapioca. That's why he rents little Alma here, isn't it, kitten?" Alma nodded assent and sat on the edge of Kareema's stool. Kareema gave Alma's flax-colored thigh an affectionate catlike scratch with her long salmon nails.

  "They're all scared of women," Alma said. "All of them except Toby. Toby really hates us." She looked down at her right hand. Its thumb was unnaturally crooked. "You're not a friend of his, are you?"

  "If I were, I wouldn't have cold-cocked William, would I? I thought he was Toby."

  "That's right," she said gravely. "You did. I wish he had been. I would have liked to see that. The sonofabitch." Wrapped in her little-girl voice, the words were startling.

  "You still haven't really said why you're here," Mistress Kareema cut in.

  "Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I really don't think Toby murdered that girl. He's got a good alibi."

  "Murdered?" Alma said. Her eyes were huge.

  "Later, sugar," Kareema said. "What sort?"

  "Someone was with him. She swears he never got out of her sight. And someone else saw the dead girl get out of their car."

  "Shit," Kareema said. "That's what I'd really like. Murder one is what he deserves." Unconsciously she reached over and caressed Alma's right thumb.

  "I just want to know everything I can about him. I feel like I'm driving blind, and I don't like it."

  "He's a gold-plated dipstick," Mistress Kareema said. "He'll never find his own level because nobody can go that low. What happens here, someone like William, it's mostly theater. The whip is just silk. But Toby likes the blood to be real, and he likes lots of it. Alma's his type. She looks like a baby, talks like a baby. When she really gets hurt she cries. We get a lot of guys in here, they ought to be seeing a shrink. Hell, we even get shrinks. . . ."

  "Doctors are the kinkiest of all," Alma put in. "There's one doctor, a dentist, really—"

  "But Toby's the sickest," Kareema said, waving away the digression. "He's running on pure hate, and what he hates is girls."

  "He hates us something awful," Alma said. "After he broke my thumb, you know what he said? He said, 'It's okay, honey, you can pick your nose with the other hand.' And then he tried to do my other hand."

  "What did you do?" I was fascinated in a horrid sort of way.

  "I kicked him in the balls," Alma said in her ten-year-old's voice. "He didn't even feel it at first because he was having so much fun. He kept coming after me. Then he felt it, and he fell down. He was screaming that he was going to kill me. Since he was lying down I kicked him again."

  "Too bad he's only got two," I said.

  "His face got all red, and he was spitting at me. I was trying to get the door to his trailer open, but I couldn't figure out how to work it, it's not a regular doorknob, you know? And he got up and he was coming toward me, and I finally got it open. I fell down the steps into the dirt. Some man, the man who had hired me, grabbed me and pulled me away and into his car."

  "That's your reference," Kareema said. "Dixie."

  "Whoever he was, he didn't care dirt about me," Alma said. "I kept telling him about my thumb because I couldn't move it and it looked like it was on all backward, but he just told me to shut up, everything was okay now, and to stay in the car and not make trouble. Then he went into the trailer. After about ten minutes he came out and said not to worry, Toby was sorry. Then he had somebody else take me to the hospital."

  "Toby was sorry," I said.

  "Yeah, like that was supposed to make everything all right. Jeez, what a weirdo." Kareema gave Alma a pat on the wrist. "That's who you're protecting," she said.

  "Did he call here afterward? Did he seem ashamed of himself?"

  She looked surprised. "Five or six times. He kept asking for Alma, saying he wanted her to forgive him. Finally I let him talk to her. Tell the man what happened, kitten."

  "He cried," Alma said. "He really cried."

  "He always does," I put in.

  "Then, the next day I got an envelope. It had five thousand dollars in it, all in twenties and fifties. And this card, like a Valentine's card, with all these sticky things written on it."

  "And that was it?"

  "Not really," Kareema said. "He still calls once in a while. Says he'd like to take Alma out, show her he's really a nice guy. Talk about sick."

  "Does he?" I said, thinking. "That's very interesting." It was so interesting that I lighted another of Kareema's cigarettes before I realized what I was doing.

  'Two or three times he said he was going to come by," Kareema continued. "I told him I'd call the cops the minute he set foot in the place. Women don't frighten him, maybe, but cops he's afraid of."

  She beckoned for her cigarettes, and I threw them to her. She lit up. We all looked at each other for a minute.

  "When was the last time he called?"

  "Last week sometime. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday."

  "Well, well, well," I said. "Isn't that nice?"

  "What's nice about it?" Kareema demanded. The bell rang in the hallway.

  "I'll get it," Alma said. "You two just sit tight." She went to the door, looking like a teenager at a slumber party.

  "That's it?" Kareema said.

  "I guess so." I got up. "Make me a promise."

  "Depends on what it is."

  "Let me know the next time he calls." I gave her a card.

  "What for?"

  "Why not? It can't hurt, it may help. It may help put Toby on ice."

  "I don't see how. I'm not going to let him get near her. I don't care what he wants to pay. I've got a business to think about. You know, this isn't a job where you can get workers comp."

  The door opened and Alma came back in. "It's the dentist," she said.

  "Hell," Mistress Kareema said. "It's going to be a long night. Good-bye, detective. That is all, isn't it?"

  "Except for one thing."

  "What's that?" She sounded weary.

  "I'm tired of phony names. What's your real one?"

  She regarded me. "Shirley," she finally said.

  "How'd you choose Kareema?"

  "None of your business." She sounded defensive, but Alma laughed.

  "Basketball," Alma said. "She's crazy for basketball." Kareema gave her a shove, but she sidestepped. "Her idea of a gre
at time would be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar." Alma dissolved into giggles. Kareema actually blushed.

  "You can call me Shirley," she said to me. "Now get out of here. Alma and I have to get into our nurses' uniforms."

  On the way to Alice I passed the dentist's Ferrari. The wages of sin, I thought. I hoped they were high.

  17 - The Tornado

  Nana was glassy-eyed, but she was still at the bar. When I took her arm she twisted in slow-mo to see who I was, and her eyes almost crossed. Then she turned back to the bar, reeling slightly with the effort. As an afterthought, she shrugged my hand away.

  "Oh, boy," she mumbled. "The hero's hero is here. Quick, everybody, put on your tights and cape." A glass stood on the bar in front of her, next to her cigarettes. On top of the cigarettes was a pack of matches that advised the world to EAT OUT MORE OFTEN.

  I sniffed the glass. "What have you been drinking?"

  "Seven-Up. Toby's private stock. Who wants to know?" The words were slurred and sullen.

  "I think it's more like Tiny's private stock," I said. "Out of the little jars in the office."

  Pinpoints of alarm kindled in her eyes. "For chrissakes, shut up. Somebody might hear you."

  "I'll say it over the PA system if you like. How many?"

  She wiped her nose inelegantly. "How many what?"

  "Loads, stupid. How many loads?"

  "Two," she said. "Or three." She made a careless gesture with her hand. "So what? I was among friends until you came in."

  I took her arm again, harder this time. "Say good-bye to your friends. We're leaving."

  "And now," said the clown at the door, speaking into a hand mike and trying for a swinger's drawl, "here's our hot little treat from south of the border. Five feet two of pure salsa and cucarachas." He obviously didn't speak Spanish. "Let's hear it for Chili." The Hispanic girl I'd seen before climbed up onto the big stage wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a spangled red G-string that looked like leftover yardage from Dorothy's ruby slippers. Business was slow, but the girls weren't. A few customers applauded laconically.