by Greg Barth
“You’re done when I say you’re done,” Harvey said. “And this is a two-girl job. Somebody’s gotta hold the camera.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t work for me. Emily is out.”
Harvey laughed. “You’ve got no position to say that. Maybe we just take your friend here back out to the shed, and let her see what her options are. Wayne told me he took you on a little field trip last night. How’d you like our justice center?”
“I’ll do it,” Emily said with a small voice. “I’ll help out.”
“See. Now that’s settled.”
“We’re done after this job,” I said.
“Do we have to go over this again?” he said. “Not until I say you’re done.”
“That doesn’t work for me. You want me to do this job for you, then I need a definite end point. I’m not dragging this on forever. Once you’ve got what you want from me, you’re going to sell me out to this Faranacci guy. We both know that. You’ve got an edge on me, sure. I can’t get out of town without Wayne pulling me over. You have my shotgun. You have Faranacci’s number. And you’ve got threats of violence. But if we’re really going to do this, and you’re truly going to get what you want, then we need to establish some trust.”
He considered this. “What do you want?”
“Don’t bullshit me. Let’s treat each other professionally. You’re a professional, corrupt prick trying to edge out the competition. And I’m a professional at what I do.”
“Whore, you mean,” he said.
I smiled. “Sounds like we know each others’ talents. If we’re going to work together, then let’s work. Together.”
“Again, what do you want?”
“Just shoot straight with me.”
He looked up at his brother. They nodded at each other. “Okay,” Harvey said. “Two jobs. That’s it. You do two jobs for me, then we’re done.”
“What’s the second job?” I said.
“Let’s just say it’s a lot like the first. But the second, I’ll let you do solo. How’s that sound?”
“And you don’t sell me out to Faranacci?”
“You give me a whole-hearted effort on these two jobs, and I say fuck Faranacci.” He extended his hand.
I shook it.
“But where’s the catch?” I said. “There’s more to this with Jack Jefferson than you’re saying. It’s too easy.”
“No catch. And I agree, this is an easy job. Hell, you’ll work less hard than you did at your gigs over the last couple of weeks. This’ll be nothing.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “This guy’s just going to lay there and let us film him the whole time? He won’t go for it. We won’t get out of there.”
“Oh, you’ll get out just fine. Wayne, show them what you’ve got in the sack there.”
Wayne pulled a brown, paper sack out from under the computer desk and pulled out some bundles of clothing. He placed them on the table.
“You’ve got to do exactly what I tell you,” Harvey said. “And this will be the easiest job you’ve ever had. Now, let me break it down.”
When I saw what he had unpacked, I understood how it could work. We would be convincing. We could get in, do the job, and Jefferson would be far too humiliated to run for office.
It was ingenious.
I have a tendency to underestimate people. I get it honestly. For the most part, the human race has done little to impress me so far. But in hindsight, it should have occurred to me then just how strategic Harvey thought, how far ahead of the rest of us he was. It should have, but it didn’t.
If only I had known.
If only.
TEN
It was night. We stood on Jack Jefferson’s front porch, and I pressed the doorbell.
His place sat at the end of a cul-de-sac in a wooded, residential suburb.
Harvey sat in the car. He would wait for us until we gave the agreed upon signal.
Emily and I were dressed in matching, spike-heeled pumps, blue stockings, short navy blue skirts, and deputy-uniform shirts cut low on top showing off cleavage and tied off at the bottom, revealing everything from navel to hip bones.
We both wore police belts. The belts each held a holstered pistol, handcuffs and, where the police baton should hang, long vibrators. The pistols were both Taurus .357 magnums that had been confiscated from criminals.
“These guns are both unloaded and have been fixed so that they are non-working. They’re just props, so don’t get no ideas,” Harvey had told us.
We both wore sunglasses and police caps.
My blonde hair hung to my shoulders. Emily had hers in an up-do that showed off the close-cropped sides of her head above her ears.
She had a digital camera in a pouch on her belt.
After a moment, the porch light came on. The curtain over the window by the door parted. The sound of someone working the lock mechanism came from inside.
The door opened and a heavy, middle-aged man dressed in a black bathrobe and slippers stood in the gap. He had salt and pepper hair that was thin on top. His large gut pushed against the knot that he had tied in the belt of the robe.
“Well, what do we have here?” He had an unusually high-pitched voice for a man.
I’m not much for role play, but I managed to keep a straight face as I delivered the line that Harvey had given me. “Mr. Jefferson, we’ve been sent here to check out a complaint of naughtiness filed by one Mr. Bernard ‘Bernie’ Hawkins from The Champagne Lounge.”
“Naughtiness?”
“Yes sir.” I pulled out my long dildo and touched it against the front of his robe where his crotch was. “We hear you’ve been fucking a lot of girls in this house, and we’ve been sent to check it out.” I pushed harder with the dildo. “Do not make me use this.”
“Well. Do come in ladies...er, officers.” He moved out of the way so we could enter his home.
We walked inside and he closed the door behind us. I noticed that he didn’t lock it.
Dumbass, I thought.
The front room had hardwood flooring and old-style, classy furniture. Prints of Post-Impressionist artwork hung on the wall. I gathered that he was a Picasso fan. Very nice.
He walked around behind us and looked at us from that view. “My, my, my,” he said.
Emily turned to him. “Take us now to the scene of the crime,” she said.
“Did you bring the blow?” he said.
Harvey had prepared us in advance for this. Whoever was supplying him with information told him that Jack had a coke dick. He liked to get high before going to bed.
I handed him the vial. He unscrewed the cap and scooped some out on the spoon that was attached with a delicate silver chain. He snorted the powder up one nostril and repeated it with the other. We had hoped to get his drug usage on video too, but that probably wasn’t going to be possible unless I could coax him into a bump later, maybe spread a line across my thigh or something. Guys like that shit.
I put my dildo back in its place. And by that, I mean I holstered it back in my belt.
He sneezed savagely twice. He sniffed deeply. He rubbed at his face with his hands. “Okay, let’s go. Scene of the crime.”
We approached a circular staircase. He stepped to the side. “After you,” he said and gestured to the staircase with his hand.
Emily and I walked up the steps, while he came up behind. Presumably he was looking at our behinds from a lower angle so he could see our backsides under our skirts. I swished mine a bit and made sure my ass was doing all it could to keep him coming up those stairs.
A lot was riding on him making some major mistakes in the next few minutes. The only way that would happen would be if he was thinking with his dick.
Once we were at the top of the stairs, he told us how to get to the bedroom. It was laid out exactly as Harvey had described. A large, king-sized bed with a brass-frame headboard sat against one wall; a wardrobe, dresser, and wide-screen TV all faced the bed from the opposite wall.
A wet bar ran along one wall beside the bed and a balcony entrance was on the other side of the bed.
Emily and I had worked together long enough to know how to work a man as a team. You have to start slow. We both stepped up to him. We both put our hands on his chest and touched him through the robe. He put his arms over our shoulders, ran his fingers through our hair and pulled each of our heads toward him. Our mouths touched and we stood there engaging in a three-way kiss for several seconds.
I reached down and loosened the robe belt so the front would open. We touched his bare chest with our fingers.
One of his hands made its way down to my behind. He gripped one ass cheek through my skirt.
I backed away from him.
“We’re going to need to conduct a thorough search of you, Mister Jefferson.” I reached my hand down and felt the front of his boxers. “You have something suspicious here that may be linked to the complaint.”
“Hey, you’re in charge, officer.”
I gestured to the bed. “Lay there. On your back. Hands above your head. Now.” I grabbed a set of cuffs from my belt.
I couldn’t believe it when he complied. He lay on the bed, his head propped on two pillows. This was too easy. He almost deserved what was coming.
I approached the bed, climbed up, and straddled him. I untied the bottom of my shirt and unbuttoned the one button between my breasts that held the shirt closed in front. I parted the shirt, exposing my breasts, and pulled it off of me from behind. I tossed the shirt over to the side and unbuttoned the sides of my skirt. I slipped it off. I was dressed only in my panties and the gun belt. I teased my nipples with my fingers until they were firm. I leaned forward until his face was pressed against my chest. I took his hands, pushed them up behind him and slipped a cuff around one wrist. I pushed that hand up to the bed frame and then brought his other hand up. While he nuzzled at my chest, I fastened his other hand. I raised back up away from him.
I looked down at him and smiled. “I need to take a look,” I said, pretending that I didn’t know what he liked.
I turned myself around on top of him so that my back was to him. I slid myself up his chest until my ass was inches from his face.
While he was preoccupied with my backside, I nodded to Emily. She took out the camera and began recording us.
“Oh, what do we have here?” I said. I slid down his boxers until his cock was free. I took a condom out of a pouch on my belt. I put the tip of the condom between my tongue and the roof of my mouth and kept the round roll of it firm against my lips.
I stroked his cock until it was firm. I leaned in and pressed the condom against the tip with my lips. At the same time I pressed my ass into his face. I felt his nose between my butt cheeks and his lips against my panties crotch.
Slowly I worked the condom down over his penis with my mouth until it was completely unrolled to the base of his shaft, his entire cock in my mouth. I worked him like this for several minutes while he kissed my panties.
I pulled away from him and sat beside him on the bed.
“Bernie wants you to have something to remember tonight by,” I said and pointed at Emily, who was holding the camera. “Smile.”
I climbed back on him, this time facing him. I looked down at him and smiled.
“You are so hot,” he said.
I put my fingers in my mouth and moistened them. I then moved my panties to the side with the other hand. I used my fingers, dripping wet with saliva, to moisten myself and ready my opening for him. Experience told me that most guys liked that kind of thing, so I made a bit of a show of it.
I reached around behind me and took his cock in hand, positioning it so I could back onto it. I pushed back with my behind and took him slowly inside me. I pulled forward, freeing most of him, then pushed back. I rode him slowly back and forth.
Emily came around to the side of us to get a better view of his face.
“I think you’re guilty,” I said. “But I have to know for sure.”
I took the vibrator from my belt and pressed it against myself from the front. I turned it on high. I grinded against the tip of it as I rode him.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s good.”
I looked over at Emily and raised my eyebrows. She nodded her head. She turned the camera off and closed it up. She put it back into her belt.
“Okay,” I said. I got off of him. In one slick motion, his latex-covered member was free from me. I got up and stood by the bed. I re-positioned my panties and picked up my skirt and shirt.
“What now?” Jack said. “Tag team?”
“I’m real sorry, Mr. Jefferson,” I said. “You seem like a nice guy and all, but the fun is over. This is the part where you get screwed.”
His brow wrinkled. He tried to sit up. The cuffs held firm. “What do you mean?” he said.
Emily walked over to the light switch and flicked the light off and on three times, the agreed upon signal.
A minute later Harvey stood at the bedroom door, hands behind his back. “Camera off?” he said.
I nodded.
Harvey stepped into the room. “Oh, hi Jack,” he said. “No, no. Don’t get up.” He glanced down and grinned. “Looks like everything that was up is going down.”
“What the fuck is this?” Jack demanded.
“The end, Jack. It’s the end.”
He looked at Emily and said, “Let me see.” He held his hand out, and she handed him the camera. He played a few seconds of footage. He looked up at me and nodded his head. “Nice, Selena. Real, real nice. You’ve got a real talent there. You ever think about…ah, never mind. Let me see that.” He gestured to the pistol on my belt.
Without thinking I handed him the pistol. As I reached it out to him, I noticed that he wore gloves.
“Thank you,” he said. He turned the camera off and slid it into his jacket pocket. His hand came back out of the pocket with a speed loader. He flipped open the cylinder of the .357 and fed the bullets into it. He slapped the cylinder closed with the palm of his hand.
“Harvey,” Jack said. “Don’t do this!”
Harvey raised the pistol and fired a bullet into Jack’s chest. Jack jerked against the handcuffs then was still.
The sound of the blast was deafening in the small room.
Emily screamed.
Harvey turned to me and pointed the pistol at me.
“This wasn’t the deal, Harvey,” I said. “We established trust, remember? We had an agreement.”
“Fuck the deal,” he said. “You know what this is?” He held up the weapon. “The murder weapon used to kill a respected member of this community. A murder weapon with your fingerprints on it. Your DNA is on Jack’s dick.” He tapped at his jacket pocket. “And this is footage of you at the scene of the crime. You, Selena. A cold-blooded killer already. Seems you’ve struck again.”
Emily kept screaming.
“Now shut her the fuck up,” Harvey said. “Or else you’re going to shoot her too. And that would be a horrible thing even for a goddamned murderer like you.”
ELEVEN
There was a stack of romance novels on the motel room table. I flung them across the room and clenched my fist tight, the swastika tattoo on my forearm misshapen from the veins and muscles in my arm.
“Fucker!” I said.
Emily was still in shock. “Did you see him? The look on his face? It was like, I don’t know, surprised or something.” She was in tears.
A half-empty bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon sat on the table. I twisted the corked cap out of the neck of the bottle and drank it straight.
“Fucking stupid,” I said. “So fucking stupid. He played me. All the time I was worried about how we would dupe Jefferson, and really the play was against me. Goddamn it.”
“It was like he just froze,” Emily said. “One second he was there, and then the spark was … gone.”
She broke down into hysterical sobs. I held her in my arms. She shook against me as she cried. “Hey,”
I said. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. He’s dead. That guy. Harvey just shot him.”
I got it. We had worked so many men over the last couple of weeks. It always ended the right way. This one had ended as wrong as it could.
“Hey,” I said. “We know that Harvey is a bad man. We know that. We’ll figure this out. Now come with me to the table. Sit and have a drink with me.”
I held her like that for a few minutes. “Girl,” I said finally. “You’re getting snot on my deputy shirt. That’s no respect for the law.”
Emily laughed.
I took her over to the table and poured her a Styrofoam cup of bourbon. “It’s Buffalo Trace,” I said. “One of the finest on the Kentucky bourbon trail.”
“Fuck Kentucky,” she said.
“Hey, now,” I said. “Careful.”
“Tell me about those cupcakes.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Those special cupcakes or whatever it was your mom used to make.”
I lit up a Winston and let the memories come flooding back. I blew out my smoke. “My mom was the best baker. She could make bread, cookies, cakes, hell, anything from nothing. She was amazing. We would put our aprons on and spend hours in the kitchen. She had this box of recipe cards that we would go through. I wish I could tell you everything we made together. We made pumpkin loaf, oatmeal cookies, Christmas cookies, sourdough bread, even zucchini bread.”
Emily snarled her nose.
“Honey, I shit you not. Zucchini bread. Don’t knock it. We made rhubarb pie from rhubarb that we grew in the back yard. We would cut the stalks up, boil them, put sugar in. Mmmmm.”
“She sounds like a nice lady,” Emily said.
“She was,” I said. “Tell me about your mom. Did she bake with you?”
She took a drink and lit up a cigarette. “Remember that fucked up childhood I mentioned?”
I nodded.
“No mother,” she said. “Foster care.”
“Ah. So the state paid somebody to fuck you up, huh?”
She laughed. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Emily.”
