No one that he recognized from the force was around so he scurried inside. His guilty expression and body language screamed “perp.” It annoyed him that the wrangler who stood out front, tempting sex starved perverts like himself with promises of the world’s most exotic erotic dancers, knew him by name. It annoyed him to think about how much money he’d wasted in these types of places since the divorce. It annoyed him that the scandalous hoes that worked there charging twenty dollars a lap dance knew he was an easy mark.
The moment he walked in, his eyes zeroed in on an average looking young blonde with a remarkably above average ass. In fact, it was the most perfect ass he could ever recall seeing. A Prince song was playing as she dry humped the air. The Purple One wailed out “Irresistible Bitch” to an infectious driving bass beat and the blonde bent over and did that little booty shake thing then went into the butterfly. James loved T&A but he was particularly partial to A. He found himself irresistibly sprung. James went straight to the ATM machine by the coat check, withdrew two hundred dollars, and immediately asked the cocktail waitress for a hundred one-dollar bills. He plopped down in a chair by the stage, still transfixed by the bounce and wiggle of that most perfect ass.
It annoyed him how easy it was to access and be parted from your money in these places. He hadn’t had one sip of alcohol and he was already stuffing fifty one-dollar bills in the dancer’s g-string. It was starting to look like a grass skirt. But she was smiling and bouncing that ass in his face and for once the Family Man murder case was the furthest thing from his mind.
The more he looked at her, the more pedestrian her appearance became to him. She would never be called beautiful, but there was an aura of raw animalistic sexuality around her . . . or maybe it was just the ass. The song ended and she stepped down from the stage. She suddenly looked shy and self-conscious. She was new at this. James waved her over.
“Hi, you . . . uh . . . you want a dance?”
He wondered if the shy, innocent thing was just an act. If it was, it was working.
“Certainly.”
She slid onto his lap and straddled his growing erection. A hip-hop song featuring a rap artist named DMX came on and she began to gyrate her hips to the beat.
“What’s your name, gorgeous?”
“Candy . . . um . . . CC. My friends call me CC.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“I just started on Monday. Whoa, you’ve got some serious muscle under there.” She ran her hands over his arms and chest, nodding and smiling her approval.
“I used to box. I still hit the gym every now and then.” Actually, he spent about two hours every morning lifting weights, skipping rope, and pounding the heavy bag.
“What do you do now?”
Now it was his turn to hesitate. “I . . . uh . . . I’m a Homicide Detective.”
He waited for the awkward pause in the conversation, the sudden chill in her mood. Being a policeman to most people was like being a wife beater or a child abuser. It brought to mind images of cops in riot gear siccing attack dogs and fire-hoses on peaceful demonstrators or, more recently, of racist assholes clubbing black motorists half to death. Being a homicide detective was like being a mortician or worse, a grave robber. To the average citizen, he was some kind of sadistic necrophile. But CC seemed different.
“That’s cool! You ever kill anyone?”
“I haven’t pulled my gun in almost twenty years.”
“Oh yeah, and what about twenty years ago?”
“I shot a guy once. He had his wife and kid held hostage in this rat infested little shack on Columbia Avenue. He’d already stabbed his mother-in-law to death. It was like a hundred degrees outside and you could smell the blood beginning to rot. All of a sudden, he tries to sneak out the back door. All the other cops were parked out front with their guns pointed at the front door and he comes creepin’ out the back. It was just me and this other rookie in the backyard and he comes out holding that knife with that old lady’s blood still dripping from the blade.”
“Did he attack you?”
“No. He didn’t get a chance. I was so freaked out scared, I shot him as soon as he stepped into the yard.”
This time she did pause. She looked deep into his eyes, nodded and smiled. Then she did something that completely shocked him. She reached down between his legs and started to stroke him.
“I like you.”
“I like you, too. You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in this place,” he lied.
“You’re a pretty handsome man yourself.” The song ended, the next song began, and she was still working his lap. He pulled her closer to him and hugged her, nuzzling his face in her neck and then rubbing his cheek over her bare nipples. He then kissed her lightly on the cheek. CC seemed shaken up by it. She stopped dancing and stared at him curiously. The detective reached out and stroked her cheek with his fingertips. CC caught his hand. She rubbed the back of his hand softly against her cheek as she continued to stare at him. Then she kissed his hand and lowered it between her breasts, holding it against her heart.
“You are beautiful,” James told her, and this time he meant it. She was gentle, tender, innocent, and vulnerable. He wondered what would drive such a woman to play whore for a living.
“You are so different. The other guys who come in here just paw and grope at me. But you . . . you cuddle and caress. You’re almost loving.” She was still looking at him like she was waiting for an explanation. James shrugged. He wanted this woman, not just sexually, though that was definitely the largest part of what he was feeling, but he wanted to hold her in his arms, fall asleep with her head on his chest. He wanted to wake up and see her smiling up at him, and then make love to her all over again.
“You want to spend a little time with me?” He spoke from his heart and immediately regretted it. He had pushed too hard, too fast. He was afraid he would frighten her away.
“Well . . . see I’m married but . . .”
“But?”
“But I think you’re sweet.”
“What time do you get off?” He couldn’t help himself. He wanted her; had to have her.
James didn’t normally mess with married women, but he figured that any man who would let his wife work in a place like that wasn’t worthy of his respect or consideration.
“I don’t get off until two.”
“I’ll be back for you.”
The detective stood up and handed her $40 for the two dances. He kissed her forehead and walked out feeling superhuman. He didn’t care if someone from the force saw him walking out of the Star Bar. He was thinking about CC . . . and the Family Man. Malcolm Davis had somehow leapt back into his head the instant he left the bar. By the time he got back to the Intrepid, he was no longer thinking about CC at all.
The 12th precinct was only about a mile away, and he figured that it would still be buzzing with the excitement of the latest murder. They were very close to closing the most horrible murder case in Philadelphia. When he entered the station, he was surprised and relieved to find that Tight Ass was still out at the crime scene. First thing, James checked the files to see if Malcolm had a criminal record. It took longer than he expected but the search came up negative. Just as he suspected, the man had been careful. Knowing it was probably a waste of time, he went to work scanning the prints lifted from the murder weapon into the AFIS computer searching for a match.
The system they used for tracking fingerprints was still fairly new and less than one-fourth of the fingerprints they had on file had been entered into the computer. He wished he had access to the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which contained not only the fingerprints of every person ever arrested in the United States but also everyone who had ever served in the military. As tedious as it was to search through Philadelphia’s fingerprint records, he quickly realized that searching the files of every felon in the U.S. would be one hell of a chore, high-tech computer system or not. The AFIS could suggest pos
sible fingerprint matches, but the human eye, his human eye, had to make the final call. The computer narrowed it down by weeding out the fingerprints that didn’t match at all, but he still had to check each of the computer’s suggestions and that sometimes took hours.
The detective bit the tip off another White Owl cigar and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. He quit smoking years ago, but he still enjoyed the taste of tobacco and he still had that damn oral fixation. His coffee was bitter and tepid. His shoulders ached. He could barely keep his eyes open and his mind kept wandering back to the Star Club. He considered calling the guys at the Bureau and asking them to run the print through the VICAP computer, but he knew how stingy they could be with their technology when they weren’t actually in on a case. Thanks to his stubborn ass, glory hog of a partner, the FBI was not a part of this one, not even as consultants.
He knew they were monitoring the case. The captain recruited them to help with a profile after the second killing, but that was the limit of their involvement. Since the killer apparently hadn’t crossed state lines it was still a PPD case, it was still his case. He might call the feds in on this one just to get some feedback from the big heads at their Behavioral Science Department. Maybe he could get them to work up another profile of the Family Man to see if he could really be responsible for all those other murders, to see if he could really be Malcolm Davis. After a few hours of sifting through fingerprints, he gave up and called it a night. When he left the station there was no question where he was headed. He made a beeline for the Star Bar, a beeline for CC.
She was just counting out her tips when he walked in. She had already changed out of her dance costume and was wearing a gray sweat suit with Reebok tennis shoes and no socks. All her makeup had been washed off and her blonde hair hung limply to her shoulders. CC looked like she had just left an aerobics class. She was sexy as hell, even sexier than she’d been when dancing. When she saw him, CC beamed and then blushed.
“I’ve been waiting for you. I thought you weren’t going to show. I . . . I was almost wishing you didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew that if you did, I wouldn’t be able to say no to you.” She blushed again and stared at her shoes.
“Let’s go.” He draped an arm around her, hugging her close, and started to walk toward the door.
“Uh . . . I’ll meet you out back. I can’t let the manager see me leave with a customer. It’s against the rules. I could get fired. You know, some of the girls have been caught turning tricks so they had to make it a rule or else the place could get shut down.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I’m in the white Dodge.”
“I’ll be out in about five minutes. I don’t want it to look too obvious.” She had that shy embarrassed look again.
James smiled and walked out. He was in his car, gnawing on another White Owl cigar, when she came out looking nervous, excited and still embarrassed. James stuck the cigar in the ashtray and popped half-a-dozen wintergreen Tic-Tacs into his mouth, chewing them up before CC reached the car. When CC slid into the passenger seat, he pulled her close and kissed her. He wasn’t sure if the Tic-Tacs had covered the taste of the cigar, but she didn’t seem to mind.
He took his time that night. He made love with his heart, his soul, his lips, tongue, hands, his entire body. He wanted her to be thinking of him when she went home to her husband. He knew he would be thinking of her.
XI.
Malcolm knew Paul was angry, but he held his tongue. The sidekick’s anger hadn’t yet made him stupid enough to be disobedient, which was good. Malcolm didn’t want him to have to die before the fun was over. But he could see that something was bugging him.
“Why didn’t you let me kill Reed? You promised! Now the cops’ll be all over us. We’re going to get caught and sentenced to death. We had that bastard on his knees, crying and begging, and you spared him. Why?”
“None of your fucking business, white boy. You think I owe your ass an explanation?”
“When are we going back for Reed?” Paul asked.
Malcolm was deep in thought. He wasn’t about to answer Paul’s question and, if the white boy opened his mouth again, he would hurt him. Malcolm was thinking about Reed. He was reliving Reed’s terror, his pain. It had been perfect and he wanted more.
Didn’t Paul understand that if he killed Reed he wouldn't be able to hurt him again, that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the sweet ecstasy of vengeance?
Reed’s pain would be over and so would Malcolm’s whole reason for living. The hate that drove him would have no target, no focus. Reed had to live so that Malcolm could keep hurting him. The game was just beginning. Malcolm had made the first move. Now it was Reed’s turn. Malcolm couldn’t end the game, only Reed could.
Never leave an enemy behind . . .
Don’t worry, Reed I haven’t left you. I’ll be coming back.
Malcolm was smiling again. The memory of having Reed cornered in the bathroom fifteen years ago slipped into his mind, what he’d done, what he hadn’t done, how that experience had affected him. He found himself getting aroused and angry at the same time. That would have been the perfect time to kill Reed. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He’d found himself homicidally impotent, but another stronger impulse rose up in its place.
XII.
James was surprised to find CC still beside him in the morning. She woke him up by kissing her way down his body and then taking his morning erection down her throat. By the time he was fully awake he was already approaching orgasm. She took that down her throat as well. He promptly reciprocated, then they both stepped into the shower to wash the evening from their pleasantly fatigued bodies and greet the day.
“I’m surprised you’re still here. What about your husband?”
“I normally don’t get off work until four o’clock anyway. I’ll just tell him I stopped at my sister’s house. He leaves to play golf at six in the morning on Saturdays, so he probably didn’t even miss me.”
“I’m glad you stayed. Do you want breakfast?”
“Sure.” She lathered her body and, as James watched, he found himself growing another painful erection. His penis had been overworked and it ached as it swelled larger than he ever remembered it being before last night. It looked like a club. He stepped from the shower and dried himself off before he was tempted to do something that might rupture a blood vessel and leave his tender organ swollen for the next two weeks.
He slipped into his Calvin Klein boxers and stepped back into the bedroom. CC was humming softly as she shampooed her hair. James slid down on the carpet to begin the first of three hundred abdominal crunches. As he sweated through his first set of one hundred he listened to her offbeat version of “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” turn into Lauren Hill’s “Doo Wop.” He smiled to himself as he ran last night over in his head. CC was the most giving, most unselfish, unselfconscious, uninhibited, sensitive lover he’d ever had. Sex with her was flawless. Nothing to add and nothing to take away. He felt like he was in love, but he knew he had a sucker’s heart and was smart enough not to let it lead him.
James had been with well over two hundred women in his forty-five years on this earth and he had probably fallen in love with one hundred fifty of them. Still, 90 percent of them he’d dumped within two weeks. All he had to do was imagine a woman raising his kids, and that usually sobered him right up. He didn’t have any kids yet, but when he did, he didn’t want it to be with some silly ho whose only notable asset was that she swallowed and didn’t mind occasionally taking a load in the face. The mother of his children would have to be special, someone strong who could raise the kids without him if he should ever be killed on the job. He knew it was a morbid thought, but it was a realistic one.
After he finished his crunches and around one hundred pushups, James went into the kitchen to make breakfast. CC was done with her shower and was searching the bed for her bra and panties. He had to catch his breath as he watched her be
nd over to check under the bed.
“Man, that ass is incredible,” he marveled under his breath. She heard him and smiled.
“So, what’s for breakfast, Detective?”
“Please, just call me James.”
“You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I just realized I’d never asked you your name. I feel like such a slut.” She found her underwear and slipped them on along with her sweat pants. She kind of looked like a Madonna wanna-be in her black lacy bra, like Roseanna Arquette in “Desperately Seeking Susan”.
“No. You feel like heaven,” James said, as he chopped up the onions and bell peppers for an omelet.
CC smiled and blushed.
“So, what are you making?”
“It’s my own recipe. A cream cheese omelet. You chop up some onions, garlic, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Mix it with a few eggs, some basil and oregano. Then you cook it up and just before you fold the omelet in half you place about two tablespoons of cream cheese and some grated Monterey Jack cheese in the center.”
“Mmmmm, sounds delicious. I guess after last night I can’t really call anything decadent, but it seems like a lot of effort and a lot of calories.”
“Trust me, it’s worth it. In a world like this, where everything is all fucked up, even something as trivial as making the perfect omelet can take on an almost Zen-like quality. That and the fact that the weekends are the only days that I eat fatty foods.”
By the time James and CC finished breakfast, it was already past eight o’clock. James drove her home, figuring that if her husband was at home pissed-off because she’d been out all night, he could flash his badge and make up a story about her being attacked or something. They took Lincoln Drive, doing forty-five miles an hour through those ridiculously tight turns with the signs that announced a twenty-five mile per hour speed limit and doing seventy on the straights as they left Mount Airy, speeding down to South Philly. James found it chillingly ominous that CC’s home was right in the middle of one of Malcolm’s favorite hunting grounds.
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