by Thomas Laird
*
We’re on the couch, and I have the compelling urge to take hold of her and kiss her. She moves at me before I can reach her, however, and she plants a firm one right on my lips.
Then she backs away from me.
“I hope you understand, Jimmy, that this is where the train stops on romance, tonight.”
“Sure. I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I wanted to kiss you as much as you wanted to, but I can’t let it happen too quickly. I mean, I’d like to, but that was what began my first marriage. I let impulse take over, and I got knocked up on the first date. Billy was charming, though he wasn’t as good looking as you are. That’s why you scare me a little.”
“I never got the stop sign because I was too good looking before. You’re blowing my ego all to hell, Jackie.”
She laughs.
“Billy and I never laughed. It always ran hot with passion or cold with fights. I can’t hack another relationship like that. I tend to go with my heart and not my head. I can’t let it happen again. I got a son who grew up without a father because I did. Do you miss Erin?”
“Every minute. Every day. But she told me before she died that she didn’t want me to be alone. In fact, she made me promise I wouldn’t go off into a hole when she was gone.”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m here because I like you and I think you’re very pretty.”
“Why’d you want to know about Skotadi’s schedule?”
I look at her blue, piercing eyes, and I bend over and kiss her again. She presses up against me, then, with her head on my chest. I’m looking down at her crazy beautiful platinum hair. I can’t see any dark roots.
She is what she is, I’m thinking, and that hasn’t happened to me in a very long time.
Then she looks up at me.
“I think he murdered his wife, Jennifer,” I tell her.
Chapter 4
I always liked the redheads. We went our separate ways a few years ago, but Carrie is still as lush as I remembered her. She’s hesitant to see me, but she meets me at Kelly’s Bar on the southwest side. At least it’s a step up from the dump where I saw her last, in Berwyn, at the Garvin Inn.
We take a booth. The fare’s good here, too, and at least you don’t have to sweat food poisoning. The burgers and steaks are pretty good, in fact. I figure go whole hog with her since she sounded a little unsure about seeing me again.
Her green eyes are worth the price of admission, but the body is dynamic. Even better than my currently missing wife’s.
“You’re still married,” she says before the seat cushions have settled underneath us.
“We were in the process of a divorce, like I told you over the phone, Carrie.”
“But you’re still legally married to her.”
“That’s a technicality. When she finally decides to show up again and screw me for alimony, I’ll make it official. Why would I be lying to you?”
“Same reason all guys lie. Sex.”
But she has a faint smirk on her face when she says it. I see an opening, now.
“I’ve wanted to call you ever since we broke up. But I thought you’d be snatched up by now. You’re too good looking to last on the market.”
She smiles openly. The bait is dangling in front of her, and she’s ready to lunge.
“How come you’re not married yourself, Carrie?”
“I’ve had my share of offers, Derek.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I’m still not sure about your situation.”
“I’m separated, and the divorce is on deck.”
“What if I said there’s no sex until you’re legal?”
“You’re worth the wait.”
She’s swallowed the hook, and it’s headed down inside her. I only have to reel her in, but I have to be casual about it. I have to make her think it’s her idea about getting back with me.
“You’re still with the police?”
“Vice.”
“That’s kinda dangerous, isn’t it?”
“All police work is kinda dangerous. But then that makes me the bad boy you girls are looking for, right?”
The smile is bright and wide. She has those lips that babes get from drugs. I have an idea where those fleshy parts will be in a few hours.
“What do you want, Derek?”
“You. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but I mean what kind of relationship do you really want?”
The waitress comes with the menus. I order two beers for us and two filet mignons—twelve-ouncers, each. Carrie looks impressed, and so does the waitress, who’s middle- aged but still do-able.
The cougar takes off for the bar, and I look over at Carrie.
“I want to take this wherever you want it to go. And I hope you packed a bag for a long trip.”
She laughs, and then the brunette waitress with the excellent caboose drops off our draughts.
*
I thought she might play it coy and put me off, but she’s naked in my bedroom before I am. And then she starts tearing at my pants as if my dick’s on fire, and before I can breathe out, she’s got those lips, thick and delicious, on me.
I want to get rid of her around two in the morning. I have to work days’, and I’m not planning on any sleep-overs soon. But I don’t want to make her think I’m dumping her, either, because I think there’s more mileage with this body. It won’t last, of course, but she doesn’t need to know any of that.
She saves me the trouble when she starts to get dressed and when she asks me to take her home.
“You can stay until the morning, if you want to.”
“Are you sure?” she asks with a thin smile.
I just fucked myself. I had to be polite with her.
“Of course I’m sure.”
She begins to undress again, and when she gets down to the overhanging cleavage and the g-string black panties, I know we’re not going to get any sleep tonight, after all.
*
The calls start coming two days later. She even calls me at work. If I tell her to knock it off, it signals that I’m not serious about her, and I’m doing whatever it takes to continue the lust that we’re sharing. She thinks it’s love, and she’s already told me she fell for me three years ago and that it was my fault that we broke up.
Of course it was my fault that we split. Jennifer knew there was something going on with another broad, but I didn’t want her to get her back up before our last little trip to Louisiana. I wanted her completely relaxed, sure of herself and of me. That’s the way the Outfit handles whacks. You get them all calm and confident, and then you come up from behind.
So I talk to her on the phone, and I see her three or four times a week.
And then I find out, after all this time, that Carrie has a very rich daddy. He’s a bigshot in Oakbrook who used to own his own polo ponies. He lives in California, now. The whole nine yards. I know Carrie works downtown for some fag designer guy who does women’s clothes, and I know she makes good money, and she drives a ’73 Vette. Now I realize how she could afford a classic ride like the blood red Corvette.
Shit, I need to spend more time with Carrie. But I can’t legally marry her until the statute expires on Jennifer. I could still get her to live common law and find my way into her will—
But I’m ahead of myself. Maybe I’m getting greedy. We could have a lot of fun on daddy’s money, however. I’ve never been to Europe. I hear Thailand is a delight. Maybe I could talk her into threesomes in Asia. All the possibilities.
The sex gets like the heat, now, in early September. Carrie has some tricks that she gradually unveils as the days progress. She likes oral and anal and any way you can think of. She brought over a copy of the kama sutra or whatever, and she has me pick a new position every night. It’s making me sore in the all the muscles I’ve never used before.
Every encounter she gets more intent on hearing the words from me: I l
ove you.
I said them to Jennifer a few times to make her happy, but I’ve only let loose a few times with Carrie because it seems to get her hot. When she finishes, it’s lucky I live in a well-insulated house, and it’s also fortunate that I don’t dwell in a top apartment because the guy underneath us would think the Flying Wallendas were performing above him.
I’ll say what I have to say. There might be a new sports car for me at the end of this rainbow, or maybe even one of those sex tours of Southeast Asia. I should have paid attention to the details with her, three years ago. The way she dresses, the Vette, the jewellery. A cop should have noticed, but I was too busy sizing up her tits and ass. Mea culpa, man. Mea culpa.
Then I get the scent of Parisi and Gibron following me. Parisi thinks he’s slick by using his personal vehicle to tail me, but I picked him up behind me about a week ago. I never thought those two would extend their personal vendettas toward me about this Jennifer thing, but there it is. Parisi has this rep of being a bulldog, and it’s what hoisted him into Homicide a lot earlier than most detectives get that promotion.
Now they’ve got their sights on me, and I can only surmise that someone’s been talking to them, and that someone could only be that idiot sister of Jennifer’s. Had to be Irene.
I’ll have to have a talk with her.
She loves taking that poodle for long walks at night. She feels secure in her neighborhood, but she’s also as predictable as clockwork. Jennifer talked about Irene’s anal thing with schedule all the time. The way she got up in the morning at the same exact hour—seven—and how she had to eat at five in the evening on the button without fail. The dog-walking fell into her neurotic pattern, as well.
I’m behind her on a torrid night in late summer, about a week before the official start to fall. It’s like mid-July, though, and the air is sultry and there’s a hint of a thunderstorm brewing. I can hear rumbling out of the west. She’s walking south on Dexter Street, about a block from where she lives. It’s 10:06, and she’s right on time. I’m behind her, but the wind is coming at me, so the poodle hasn’t picked up my scent.
But when I get about three yards from Irene, the Frenchie mutt turns and snarls at me.
“Hello, Irene.”
“Jesus Christ! Where’d you come from?”
“I had a call not far from here, and since it’s such a nice night, I thought I’d take a walk.”
I come a little closer. There’s no one else on the sidewalk. They’ve retreated behind their air conditioning if they’ve got any smarts at all.
“You get away from me. I’ll call the police.”
“I am the police, remember? Why are you frightened of me?”
“This dog doesn’t like you.”
On cue, the poodle growls louder.
“You don’t want me to shoot the pooch, do you?”
“You wouldn’t—“
“Self-defense, Irene. But no, I don’t want to shoot your lap dog. I know how much comfort he must give you, in every imaginable way.”
“You are a filthy man.”
“You have no idea, Irene. Have you had any conversations with the Chicago Police Department lately?”
“Yes. And I told them what I thought. Jennifer hasn’t disappeared unless you made her.”
“I did not harm your sister. You really ought to see a counselor about your paranoia, Irene. Your fears are completely unfounded. I would never hurt Jennifer, but Jennifer would hurt herself. She was very depressed before she went away, but she wouldn’t see anyone for help, no matter how hard I tried.”
The rumbling has increased, and now there are electrical flashes above us that light our faces to daylight illumination.
I can see the fear on her face, and the dog is now just whimpering.
“You’re going to get wet, soon,” I tell Irene.
“Why did you hurt my sister?”
“You’re delusional, Irene. You’re fucking nuts. You always were goofy, but now it’s just sad.”
“I want to go home.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“You’re standing in the way.”
I take a step to the side and wave her on.
When she tries to advance past me, the dog snaps at me.
“I guess the mutt doesn’t like me,” I smile warmly at Irene.
She yanks on the poodle and has to drag it down the sidewalk before the animal decides to walk on its own.
“Oh, Irene?”
She turns, and the latest heat flash of electricity lights up our faces again.
“Remember me.”
She bolts back in the other direction.
*
I thrust at her until I see the wince arrive on her face.
Then it’s finished.
“You never tell me anything about yourself,” she says to me.
“What do you want to know?”
“What you think. What you feel.”
“About what?” I ask, with a laugh.
“I don’t want it to be just about the bed, Derek.”
“We talk, right? I take you places.”
“Okay. Then why do you take a shower when we’re done making love every time?”
“Because you’re a very dirty little girl.”
“That’s not funny, Derek.”
I roll toward her.
“No. I want us to just talk, for a change.”
“You sound like you’re stuck in the sixties, Carrie. What’s next? We move out to a cabin in the woods and eat tree bark?”
“Like Thoreau.”
“Like who?” I laugh.
“The guy who lived in Walden.”
“I think the problem, here, is that you’re a lot more romantic than I am.”
“I think you’re hiding that part of yourself, Derek.”
“Now why would I hide anything from you?”
“You aren’t, are you, sweetie?”
“I’m an opened book, Carrie. I’m transparent. Like Saran Wrap.”
“Don’t you like just talking to me?”
I look at her, and then I touch her left cheek.
“Now what do you think?” I ask her.
*
She has moved in. I invited her, and she quickly accepted. It took a full day to move all her shit in.
I’m certain the neighbors will think it odd that I’m having a woman cohabit with me so soon after Jennifer has gone away, but most of the people in this hood mind their own damned business. It’s a quiet, residential area, not many kids. Lots of senior citizens, which is what I wanted when I bought the house, eight years ago.
They like having a policeman on the block. It makes them feel safe. It makes them feel as if they can walk the sidewalks anytime they like. But most of them are out like a light after the ten o’clock news.
I park the Crown Vic police ride in my driveway, sometimes. It makes the neighbors feel at ease.
Secure.
Chapter 5
Doc and I sometimes walk the shore of Lake Michigan on our lunch break when we’re on days’ shift. We normally frequent Oak Street Beach because that’s where the better looking women gather on the sands of the Lake, especially on a hot day in the dregs of September. The weather still hasn’t broken, and it’ll be in the low 90s again. Fall is making a very slow advance toward Chicago, this year.
The lifeguards no longer work these waters because it’s after Labor Day, the official end of the summer season, but the weather is so warm that people flock here because it’s “cooler by da Lake.” It isn’t all that much less torrid here, but the blue expanse in front of us gives you a psychological bit of relief.
We walk the sidewalk up at the top of the sand. Doc likes the Vienna Franks they serve at the carts. I get an extra-large Coke, and he persists with his coffee on a broiling afternoon like today. We sit down on a bench a few feet from the food cart, and suddenly we’ve got a suit standing in front of us. He’s squinting at the sun; he’s not wearing shades, like Doc and
me.
“Detective Parisi? Detective Gibron?”
He’s about a shade over six feet tall, and he’s beginning to lose the hair on top of his head, but he looks like the type who might do Hollywood if he were wearing a suitable rug on his pate.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
Then he flashes the ID.
“Mike Andrews. Internal Affairs.”
“Uh oh,” Doc smiles at him.
“You two aren’t on the hook—as far as I know.”
But he’s not laughing. Here we have a very humorless man, it appears.
“Why don’t you sit with us?” Doc offers.
“I’ll stand. Been sitting all day.”
“To what do we owe your personal appearance?” I ask.
Still nothing. Not even a sickly grin.
Several people pass by us on the sidewalk, and the hot dog guy is doing landmark business.
“You’ve been following Detective Derek Skotadi,” he states, in a stone cold fashion.
“Yeah. Why?” I throw back at him.
“Because we’re investigating him and because he’s made you two and because you’re screwing up our investigation because now he’s looking over his shoulder because he knows someone’s behind him.”
He looks over at the cart.
“Shit, I’m thirsty.”
Finally, there’s a grimace on his face.
“On me,” I say as I rise. “What’ll it be?”
“Just a Coke.”
“My man,” I grin.
He looks as if he doesn’t get it, but I go over to the cart and buy him the supersized Coke. We walk back to Doc and the bench. There’s some reasonable female sights to behold out there, and it’s worth the walk. Luckily Erin’s not here to slap me for ogling. But she knew I’d only look, not touch.
“So?” Doc asks him.
“He’s being looked at for a few things I can’t discuss, but they’re serious allegations.”
He takes a long draw at the drink.
“You’re telling us he’s dirty. You’re preaching to the choir, Detective Andrews,” Doc laughs.
“I’m here to ask you to back off from the surveillance. That’s all.”
“Can’t do it,” I retort.
“Why’s that?”
