FRAMED

by Lynda La Plante

  As delicately as before, she eased the spoon past Larry’s lips and let the oyster and the champagne glide onto his tongue.

  “They are also an aphrodisiac, taste being one of the main senses of the equilibrium. Now …” Lola poured Larry a glass of red wine, then one for herself. She picked up Larry’s glass and held it close to his face. “Smell. No, no, don’t drink it, smell it, tell me what it’s like … the bouquet.”

  Larry sniffed, sniffed again, then shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  Lola put her elbow on the table and leaned forward, eyes lowered confidentially.

  “My father,” she said, “can tell twenty-two different vintages just by sniffing the cork.” She paused. “He is an alcoholic.”

  They both laughed. As the sound of it died they stared at each other across the table.

  “Well, Sergeant,” Lola said, “are you going to screw me or not?”

  Larry felt his mouth drop open.

  During the next ten minutes, or it could have been twenty, Larry revisited the sweating tensions of his adolescent days, the gland-locked period of his life when just the closeness of a girl put his mind and body in such a ferment that he could neither think nor act rationally. Sex in those days had worked on him like a brain solvent, wrecking his coordination and obliterating his sense of right and wrong; when the urge struck, all that mattered was the headlong drive to penetrate and climax.

  At some point in the proceedings music had started to play, sexy music with a strident beat, flawlessly reproduced and pulsing through the scented air of the bedroom, which they had reached by a process unclear to Larry. He fell back across the bed, mildly surprised at the effect of only two glasses of champagne. He tried to stop Lola as she began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “I’ve got to go,” he protested. He hadn’t been this excited over a woman in years, and in one ludicrous respect this time was unique: he was the one resisting. “This is crazy.”

  Ignoring his protests, Lola pulled the front of his shirt wide open and began licking his nipples. As he groaned she stopped and looked up at him.

  “It isn’t crazy.” She touched his lips. “You’re not doing anything wrong. I am eighteen.”

  “What?” Larry stared at her, stricken. “Eighteen?”

  “I consent,” Lola said, kissing his neck. She began undoing his belt. “And I have banana-flavored condoms.”

  Lawrence cupped his hands around her face, drawing her close to him.

  “I can’t do this,” he said, his voice agonized.

  “Please …”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Lola whispered, easing her face from his grasp, unzipping his trousers. “Think that you can and you will. It is all in the state of mind.”

  Larry’s lips drew back in a taut rictus as the tension between lust and a sense of responsibility leveled out. Eyes wide, scarcely breathing, he watched Lola’s dark little head move down. She paused. It was a moment of almost holy intensity. Slowly, her wicked mouth encircled him. He gasped.

  f

  Two miles away, in Von Joel’s dimly lit room at the hospital, the nurse called Jackie had come in carrying a kidney dish covered with a folded cloth. She put down the dish, drew the blinds on the connecting window, then took a chair and eased the top under the door handle. Von Joel pushed himself up in the bed, smiling at her. Jackie turned to face him, undoing the buttons on her uniform dress. “Not too many,” Von Joel whispered. “I want you to keep it on.”

  “Kinky.”

  “What a lovely old-fashioned word.” He beckoned her to the bedside. She came and stood beside him. He realized she was trembling. “You’ll have to indulge an invalid, darling.”

  He put his arm up around her hips. She bent down and he kissed her softly on the mouth. His arm began drawing her forward, gently unbalancing her. She looked at him.

  “Are you sure about this?” she whispered. “I don’t have very long and I mean, you’re hurt …”

  “It’ll be a terrible day when I’m hurt that badly,” he

  said. “And it’s not as if I’m handicapped, is it? I mean,

  they took away the cage from my legs, and look”—he held up his right hand, bandaged thickly at the wrist—“no sling.”

  “You were supposed to keep that on.”

  “I’ll put it back after.”

  “After what?” Jackie said coyly.

  He squeezed her hip once, firmly, before letting his hand drop away from her. She drew back the bedclothes, looked down at him. “Jesus …”

  “I said I wasn’t handicapped, didn’t I?” He pulled her down on top of him and held her by the wrists, guiding her hands to the sides of the bed, making her grasp the security rails. She panted against his neck as he pulled up the hem of her uniform, exposing sheer black stockings and the garters she had put on for his benefit. His knees probed between hers, spreading her legs until she was astride him.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered in her ear. He kissed her mouth and shifted his body, the slightest motion of his hips. Suddenly he was inside her. She gulped. “My God …”

  “Don’t move!” he insisted. “I told you!”

  She groaned as his hips drove against her, a measured thrust, jiggling her, making her hang on tight to the rails. As he began moving faster Jackie tensed her legs, dug her knees into the mattress. His hand crept around her hip and spread out flat on her rump.

  “Okay,” he whispered as she began to moan. “You can move.”

  She didn’t need to be told twice. She began bouncing on him, drawing him to her, her neck taut as she cried out.

  “Oh, yes! Now, baby! Now!”

  Out in the corridor a night-security guard stopped near Von Joel’s room, listening, convinced he had heard a woman scream. As he listened he heard it again, softer this time, more of a dying howl. He heard it one more time, muffled, and now it seemed more like the kind of sound cats make in the dark. He stood there for another minute, straining his ears. Everything had gone quiet.

  Inside Von Joel’s room Jackie was standing by the bed tucking strands of hair under her cap. Von Joel lay back under the covers, serene, a faint smile on his lips.

  Jackie patted the cap to make sure it was centered. At the door she removed the chair from under the handle. She picked up the kidney dish she had brought, took it to the side of the bed, and whipped off the cloth with a magician’s flourish, revealing a portable telephone.

  “You know I could get into trouble for doing this,” she whispered. “You can have it until I go off shift.”

  She put the telephone on the bedside cabinet. On her way to the door she stopped.

  “While I remember, will you thank your mum for the brooch? It was very kind of her.”

  Von Joel nodded. “She’s a very sweet lady,” he said. “Sadly, she can’t get around so much lately, but if you take another little note for me tonight, I think she’ll appreciate it. Just leave it at the hotel reception.

  As Jackie opened the door he held up the phone. “Thank your sister for me!”

  f

  Faint daylight glowed on the curtains as Lola opened her eyes. She turned her head on the pillow and saw Larry bending over a chair, peering down behind it.

  He was fully dressed.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “Home. I can’t find my tie.”

  He went through to the sitting room, closing the door behind him. Lola turned and saw that the light on her telephone was blinking. She picked it up. Waiting, she noticed Larry’s wallet lying on the bedside table and flipped through the contents.

  “Hello? Senorita del Moreno, you have a message for me?” She scrabbled for a pencil and wrote down a number. “Yes? What time did the call come? Thank you. Any other messages left for me at the desk? No? Oh, gracias … Thank you, no, no, I’ll come down to the desk. Good-bye.”

  She sat up properly, wedging a pillow behind her, then dialed the number she had written down. After the second rin
g Von Joel answered.

  “Oh, my love, my love,” she whispered, snuggling down. “Dios mio, te echo de tnenos …”

  She continued to croon to Von Joel in Spanish, telling him first how she missed him, then turning to practical matters and explaining that, almost at the same time as she and Charlotte sat planning how to locate Sergeant Jackson, he had shown up at hotel reception.

  “He was here, yes, the little sergeant… . Honestly!”

  Larry walked into the bedroom, holding up his tie.

  “Found it,” he said. “Oh, sorry.” He froze in the doorway. “You on the phone?”

  “Hang on,” Lola said into the telephone, “my friend is just leaving.” She looked up at Larry. “It’s my papa—say hello.”

  Larry shook his head and backed away.

  “Oh, come on,” Lola coaxed, “he won’t mind me having someone in bed with me… . Say Buenos dtas …”

  Larry, feeling distinctly silly, leaned down over the bed and let Lola put the receiver to his mouth.

  “Buenos dias,” he said.

  ‘That’s good morning,” Lola told him as he straightened again. Into the phone she said, “You would like him muy bien, Papa.” She mouthed little kisses at Larry as he went to the door, knotting his tie. “Don’t forget your wallet, Sergeant Jackson,” she called.

  He came back, took the wallet, and squeezed her shoulder. She pouted at him and pulled the duvet over her head. When he left she tossed the duvet aside and giggled into the telephone.

  “He came all by himself, in the literal sense. No, he’s gone.” Her face became serious as she picked up her pencil and pad. “What’s the next move?” She nodded. “No problem. He said he would contact me tomorrow. Bank?”

  She lay back, nodding again, making notes, cradling the telephone as if it were Von Joel himself.

  17

  AT nine-fifteen that same morning, his head still feeling charged and imprinted with Lola, Larry faced DCI McKinnes and found himself staring down both barrels of the chief’s rage.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?” McKinnes stood like a fighter on the attack, one shoulder forward, jabbing a finger at Larry. His voice rose above the hubbub in the incident room. “If I’d thought it was necessary for you to visit Myers’s wife I would have organized it!”

  “I just reckoned it would help with my interrogation if I had—”

  “Anything you needed to know,” McKinnes yelled, “You should have discussed with me! You should have put it through the right channels!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry. Jesus. Listen. You, Sergeant”—McKinnes jabbed with his finger again—“have access to Eddie

  Myers. You’ve also got a wife and two kids. Think, man! Eddie Myers’s ex-wife is married to a bloke who’s done time! If this new husband starts yapping—who knows who he frigging knows? I said I would deal with Italy at the right time! My time, not yours!”

  DI Shrapnel sidled up to McKinnes. He was holding up a fax sheet.

  “The shooter’s the one used in the security raid, Guv. They’re bringing in George Minton. We got nothing on the portable in the Transit, it was part of a shipment that was nicked eighteen months ago. So was the van. Been sprayed recently but it was lifted from the Bake-O Bread Company.”

  McKinnes snatched the fax and turned to Larry again.

  “Myers played around with heavy bastards, Sergeant, and he’s putting even more in the frame.” This time the finger made contact, prodding Larry squarely in the chest. “You got the break of your career when you clocked Myers. You got the second one when you were put with us. But you just blew it, son. Go home. Just get out, and stay out of my sight.”

  Larry left the building in a daze, something less than shock. Today he felt insulated. Outside he walked along the street slowly, not thinking, simply letting his reactions settle into place. After a while he decided that a cup of coffee would be a good idea. He looked across the road and spotted a cafe. As he waited for the traffic to thin he tried to get a clear overview on what had happened to him. He supposed he should have been seething with resentment by now. He should have been feeling badly hurt. Gutted. Depression should have been looming just over his shoulder, ready to envelop him as the sense of failure seeped in. But he still felt untouched by what had happened in the incident room. His life, since some time early that morning, felt larger than the pygmy-sized considerations of the job. He was beyond the need for the tussle and muscle-flexing, the competing and jockeying, the arse-182 licking and all the other maneuvers necessary just to stay level.

  In body and spirit he felt immunized from life’s vexations. Lola had given him a nerve-rending shunt along the path of change, and now he felt like he was on dope. Crossing the road, he discovered he was humming something from the charts.

  Sitting at a corner table with a bacon sandwich and a mug of tea, Larry felt the lurch in his groin. The oysters, the champagne, his whole body felt on fire. He pushed the bacon sandwich aside. lie even found the hot tea difficult to swallow. It was as if the entire episode with Lola had been a dream, but it wasn’t. It was a reality, one he wanted to taste again, and it freaked him. He stared out the window. If Mac had known what he’d been up to, he would have got more than a bollocking, a lot more. He began to feel ashamed, foolish. He had never been unfaithful to Susan, maybe thought about it once or twice, but he’d never done more than just the odd bit of flirting. All the different emotions came rapidly on each other’s heels, until at last he felt angry, angry at his own stupidity. Then even that veered toward bitterness.

  He had trusted Von Joel. Christ, he had taken in all that gear to him, been almost in tears when he’d been told the story of his brother, and all the time the bastard was lying. What was he doing? Making him out to be a total arsehole?

  The swing of anger went back to the flush of Lola, Lola’s sensual lips, everywhere, kissing, biting. Larry suddenly shot up his hand to his throat. Shit, was he marked? Had she left love bites on his neck? He tried to see his reflection in the steamy cafe window, but gave up, pulling his collar tighter, feeling the knot of his tie. He gave a tight, vicious smile. Von Joel might have pulled one over on him about his brother, but he reckoned he’d never believe he’d pulled his girlfriend.

  Larry didn’t finish his tea, but decided to head back home, think about what Mac had said. He was sure Mac’d come around, sure he didn’t mean he was really off the case, but he wasn’t that sure, he knew he’d have a lot of crawling to do. He somehow made it a feasible reason why he should, instead of returning home, go back to the Hyde Park Hotel to requestion Lola. In truth, he hadn’t really asked half the questions he had intended, but then he had been otherwise occupied.

  “I was just passing,” Colin Frisby said, pointing to the new cupboard door he was carrying. He smiled at Susan, who was standing by the back kitchen door. “Larry not here?”

  “No,” she said, “he was on very late—well, all night, actually. I’ve not seen him.”

  She stepped back and Frisby brought the cupboard door inside. He knelt on the floor and began unwrapping it, his mind working as fast as his fingers: Von Joel was in hospital, so Larry was not on the job, whatever else he might be doing.

  “Tell you what,” Frisby said, “you make me a bacon sandwich, I’ll fix the door. That a deal?”

  Susan nodded and threw in a knowing little smile. As she moved past Frisby she ruffled his hair.

  “I thought Larry would be here,” he said lightly. He watched Susan get the frying pan from a cupboard. “You say he was on duty?”

  “Yes.” She closed the cupboard and put the pan on the cooker. “It’s all he ever really thinks about. I don’t mean Myers, I mean his work.”

  “Then he’s a stupid sod,” Frisby said, modulating the remark carefully, making it sound just serious enough, with no more presumption than he thought he’d get away with.

  Susan took the bacon from the fridge. As she closed the door she turned
and saw him still looking at her. Her knowing little smile expanded.

  Just as Larry was about to have an argument with the doorman at the hotel about parking, Lola walked out. It was fate.

  Looking at her, he was tempted to use the old line about scarcely recognizing her with her clothes on. It was true. In Spain he had seen her only in flimsy, abbreviated garments; last night she had worn very little to begin with, and finally nothing at all. Now she was in smart street clothes, entirely appropriate for the West End of London, and she looked like a different woman.

  She asked Larry to come with her to a bank he had never heard of. It was in the City, an opulent place furnished more like the reception area of a hotel than a banking hall. Larry stood by and watched as Lola spoke to the cashier. He almost forgot to breathe as he listened to the figures she was airily throwing about.

  “Can I have five in fifties, three in twenties, then tens and fives? Always have to have big tips,” she told Larry. “Nowadays they look as if you have spit in their hand if you give small tips.”

  He nodded, as if it were a problem he shared. “What kind of bank is this?” he said, looking around.

  “Mmm …” Lola didn’t seem sure. She opened her Gucci bag and began pulling out wads of Spanish currency, passing it to the cashier to be changed into sterling. “Papa has an account here for when he is in London. He travels. Paris, New York—I don’t know where he is now. My mama and him, they hate each other, she wouldn’t divorce him, she didn’t want him, she don’t like to travel any place. Always fighting. She has a big villa in Fuengirola, many rooms and a private beach, but”—Lola shrugged, still passing money to the cashier as she chattered—“she don’t like to sit in the sun, she don’t like lots of things… .”

  Larry watched as the cashier deftly checked the amounts and passed back wad after wad of currency, which Lola stuffed into the soft leather bag as if she were handling groceries. She paused and looked at Larry.

  “I’m not holding you up, am I?”