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
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?
I sat for maybe fifteen minutes trying to think, but when my stomach began to growl-all I’d had for supper was a bowl of soup-I thought, Fuck it, and went on in to the Sambo’s.
This was still winter break, and fairly late at night, so the garish, brightly illuminated orange-and-white restaurant was underpopulated, enough miserable kids in orange caps and orange-and-white uniforms for every customer to have a personal waiter or waitress.
I damn near laughed, though, when I saw two big black guys, who looked like they’d wandered off the set of Cotton Comes to Harlem, sitting at the endless counter. One wore a green hat with a gold band, tilted rakishly, and a green long-sleeve shirt and green-and-brown plaid bell bottoms. The other wore a similar hat, but black with a leather band and a red feather, and a red shirt with pointy collars and deep-brown corduroy bells. Both had major Afros and Groucho-wide mustaches, and each had folded a leather (one black, one brown) topcoat carefully over the free stool next to him. They were drinking coffee and having pancakes and every side you can imagine. Tiger butter and all.
Call me a racist if you like, but this urban pair sitting in a Sambo’s made a wonderful sight gag.
Anyway, I found a booth and ordered my own big breakfast, and I sat by myself, thinking about how fucked-up this job had become and seriously considering risking the wrath of the Broker and bailing. Every time I turned around, some new wrinkle, some new conflict, presented itself. Whatever happened to Wait till he’s alone, go in and pop him and leave?
Of course this had never been that kind of job. It had always had that little extra “challenge” (as the Broker put it) of destroying a certain manuscript, and wondering what to do next had my head swimming.
I was well into my late-night breakfast when Annette came into Sambo’s, a green pants suit and ruffly blouse taking the place of naked skin under her white leather coat. She saw me at once, and smiled, and came over.
“Nice to see a friendly face, Jack,” she said, and slid in across from me. “Mind if I join you?”
Kind of hard to say no when she already had, so I said, “Sure,” and asked, “Rough day?”
“Don’t ask! Horrible. Simply horrible.”
I touched a napkin to my lips, then asked, “Want to order something?”
“Oh yes, I’m starved.”
A waitress came over, and the “starved” girl ordered a dinner salad with oil and vinegar, and a cup of coffee.
I was almost done with my food, so I shoved it to one side and asked, “Trouble with your book?”
“Kind of.” She shook her head and dark brown hair danced on her shoulders. “It’s tough, collaborating.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Collaborating?”
“…Not exactly.”
“Your book, your non-fiction novel-is Professor Byron co-writing it?”
Again she shook her head. “Not really. I think of it as a collaboration because he’s given me so much advice, so much support. We’ve become very close.”
“Really. Doesn’t he have a kind of reputation for…if I’m out of line, just say so, but…”
Her salad came.
She said, “I’m not in love with Professor Byron or anything. We’re just good friends.”
I could use a good friend who looked like her who would blow me.
“But I won’t deny,” she said, “that he’s something of a satyr.”
“A what?”
She smiled, more to herself than at me. “He is known to hit on his female students.”
“A letch, you mean. Dirty old man.”
She smiled, maybe a tad embarrassed; she forked some salad. “He’s a wonderful, talented writer, and I’m glad to have a relationship with him. He’s mature but young at heart. Anyway, I’m not looking for a…a husband, or any kind of serious relationship. He’s a virile, charismatic man, and I’m single right now, and we are very close, very, very close friends, so…what’s the harm?”
“Nothing, I’d say. You have your eyes open, anyway.”
“Yeah, but…” She shook her head yet again, and those big brown eyes really were open-wide. “…tonight, out of nowhere, his wife showed up. God, she’s a crazy person. A shrew. Just a horrible monster.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Oh, we’ve never met. But K.J. has told me about her.”
“Oh.” I sipped iced tea. “Listen, I’m interested in this non-fiction novel concept. I’ve fooled with writing since I was in grade school. I mean, I know I’m not in your league, but I am interested in pursuing it.”
She shrugged. “Glad to help, if I can.” Another bite of salad. Her lips were very full and quite beautiful; female lips that stay beautiful while chewing food are to be treasured. “What can I tell you?”
“You’re writing your own story-of your own life.”
Eager nod. “Yes.”
“And the professor isn’t doing any of the writing. He’s just guiding you.”
“That’s right.”
“Well…how old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Okay. Isn’t twenty-two a little young to have a life story to write? I mean, don’t people do their memoirs right before they croak, generally?”
She laughed and it was musical, contrasting with faint Mu
zak piped in. “I had an unusual childhood. An unusual life all the way around.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “My father is someone…famous. Or infamous.”
“Oh. So it’s a celebrity story. What it’s like to be the kid of a celebrity. Cool.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Not so cool. My father…you’ve heard of Lou Girardelli?”
“You mean…Sinatra’s pal?”
That caught her off-guard and she laughed again. “Yes. Yes, Sinatra’s pal.”
“You mean you’ve met Sinatra?”
“Oh yes. He’s charming, most of the time. The nicest manic depressive I know.”
I thought, I bet he’s mature but young at heart, too…
I asked, “Isn’t that a dangerous story to write?”
She leaned forward, her eyes earnest. “You mean, wouldn’t my father be displeased? Yes, he will. But I’m his daughter. He’ll dismiss my story, in public, as a drug-addled fantasy from an estranged daughter, trying to make a fast buck by writing a ‘tell-all.’ You see, I don’t know any of the criminal details of his life. I only know the home life. But that’s enough. Really enough.”
“You said ‘drug-addled.’…You don’t seem very drug-addled to me.”
Her eyebrows lifted and she looked down at her mostly eaten salad. “I was into pot and pills in high school. It did get bad, I won’t deny it, and I had to be hospitalized for a while. But I’m fine now.”
“You seem awfully well-adjusted, for all you’ve been through.”
She brightened. “Thanks. And K.J., Professor Byron, he’s helping me throw off the…the final shackles of my past.”
I nodded. “Write about it, and get it out of your system, you mean?”
“Exactly. Exorcize the demons. Everyone has them. I just happened to have one as a father.”
I had a drink of tea, then I asked, “So now that Mrs. Professor has shown up, what’s your plan?”
She sighed. “I guess I’ll burrow into my little apartment and work by myself till I hear from K.J. In any event, I won’t work any more tonight. I can use some sleep.”
The first quarry q-7 Page 9
