Sex and Death: The Movie: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 6)

by J. J. Henderson

“The people there—the regulars I mean—are kind of like, into, um…”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is pain.”

  Carole crossed and uncrossed her legs. Lucy kept her eyes on Carole’s face. “That’s part of it. But…look, have you ever heard of auto-erotic asphyxiation?”

  “Yes. A big fad among certain fucked-up teenage boys, is what I heard.”

  “And some men too.”

  “Like Wadsworth?”

  “Yeah. He liked it. Uh-huh.”

  “What about Paul?”

  “Paul? Wittgenstein? No way. He liked his wife to spank his bottom and maybe pinch his little man-titties too hard, but he was a lightweight. I don’t think he ever went to Moan.”

  “But you and Wadsworth did?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “The last time being the other night?”

  “That’s right. We went there and Christopher and I did his thing, you know, the doggie bit, and then he disappeared for a few moments. I had a drink, and then he came back looking pretty crazed.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like stoned on coke. Crack? Or maybe it was meth, I don’t know. I stay away from stuff that gets you wired.”

  “You prefer to get down?”

  “I like ecstasy OK, but I really dig valium, xanax, that sort of stuff. Mix it with vodka it’s a great low plateau.”

  “A low plateau. Good phrase. So he went off and got wasted—wired—on something, you had a cocktail—this was after you’d played bad mistress to his bad dog routine again…”

  “We did that some more, and he kept asking me to hit him harder, and yank his choke chain, and he was slobbering all over my boots. Tell the truth it was creepy. I mean I ain’t no nun, and the guy’s entitled to his kinky thing but he was really out of it. I mean next thing I know he wanted me to…” she looked down, embarrassed.

  “To what?”

  “Pee on him. I’d never done that but by then we were in this private space at Moan, with an actual drain in the floor so I figured it was meant just for that kind of thing.” She shrugged. “I had had a few drinks so it wasn’t that hard. Kind of gross, but I had had a valium and cocktails so I was like ultra-relaxed, plus it made him really happy, if you know what I mean.” She gave Lucy a look.

  “What, aroused?”

  “Yeah. You might say. That’s when he told me he wanted to, you know, do the auto-erotic thing. The guy was scary big, a donkey man, to tell the truth, so I have to say I was happy that he wanted to do it himself instead of in me, which is what I thought I’d signed up for.”

  “So then…”

  “We left, after he disappeared for another five minutes. Probably did more speed or crack or whatever. He went into the bathroom with this guy I didn’t know but thought I’d seen before, and when he came out we went outside, grabbed a taxi, and headed for his place. Only it wasn’t just us two; this guy he’d gone into the men’s room with came with us. Chris told me his name was Mark. Short muscular white dude, thick wavy black hair, dressed in black leather pants and a sleeveless black leather t-shirt, but then half the people at that place wore black leather if they wore anything at all so that’s no big deal. On the way I took another xanax and gave each of them one. Chris was so wired and crazed, hands all over me and himself, eyeballs buggy, I thought he was kind of flipping out. I figured the xanax would calm him at least a little bit. And this Mark just sat there, never said a word. He was wearing sunglasses, you know the type of guy wears sunglasses in the middle of the night.”

  “Yeah, I’ve known a few.”

  “Anyways a few minutes later we were at Chris’s place…Moan this month is in Hell’s Kitchen, so it didn’t take long to get from there down to Chris’s place since it was like three in the morning and there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic. So we went in to his loft—have you seen it, down in Tribeca?—it’s a huge place, really cool. Anyways he got out a couple of bottles of wine from this whole big roomful of wine bottles in racks and opened them, and then while we drank one bottle and then the other, and the xanax kicked in, he got out his ropes, and blindfolds, and handcuffs—me and this Mark just watching—and set up his auto-erotic deal. I was…well, I guess I don’t know what I was feeling or thinking because that is the last thing I remember before I woke up. Him getting the stuff out.”

  “You passed out?”

  “I had two or three cocktails, a valium, two xanax, and then a couple of glasses of wine. Yeah, I passed out. I woke up. I was alone. It was dark. I got my shit and got out of there.”

  “Did you see Wadsworth’s body when you left? I heard it was right outside his building.”

  She hesitated, looked down. “Yeah, I mighta seen him. I mean yes I did see him. But I was scared, Lucy. I was really scared. I walked all the way to Chelsea, where Manny lives, because I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t dare go home to my house, not with that guy Mark already knowing who I was and shit, and then Manny couldn’t let me in because of his bitch wife so Manny called Jack and I came here in a cab. I haven’t even been outside since.”

  “Pretty strange tale, I must say,” Lucy said. “So what about Paul?”

  Carole stared at her, calculating. “What about him?”

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “Yeah…in fact he was just here a few minutes before you, Lucy,” she said, eyes giving away nothing except that she knew Lucy had tried and failed to trap her in a lie.

  “What was that about?”

  “The movie. We were talking about the script changes you’re doing, actually. Paul said it looked like I was going to have to, you know, have some kind of ‘thing’ with Manny.”

  “That’s what they asked me to write so I wrote it. Yeah. I haven’t really written a love scene for you two yet, and if I can I’ll avoid anything really, you know, intense, but Manny wants to be your lover boy…lover man I guess would be more appropriate. And apparently what Manny wants, Manny gets.”

  “Hey, I’m an actress, I can kiss the guy on cue.”

  “You seemed kind of irritated by the whole idea the other night.”

  She shrugged. “Only because I don’t believe it,” she said.

  “What, that Delia and her quote unquote dad would suddenly become intimate?”

  “Exactly. It is complete psycho bullshit and we all know it except Manny—and his pill-powered dick.”

  Lucy laughed, surprised at Carole’s candid insight, and surprised that she found herself liking her. After a few seconds she said, “You’re right. I’ve known it all along too. Paul knows it. But I’ve written it so that…it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.”

  “Fuck a duck,” Carole laughed. “All we can do is shoot it and see how it plays.”

  “Here are the pages,” Lucy said, handing them over. “I’d try to get Manny and your Italian friend over here for a run-through later today if possible. This is some tricky shit and I think Paul wants to try and shoot it tomorrow.” She stood. “Break a leg.”

  “See you on location?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ll be there. In case we have to throw the whole scene out and start over one more time.” She stood. “Hey, Carole, how’d you come up with Wainwright?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Carolina Belinskowicz to Carole Wainwright.”

  “God, are you a writer or a detective, Lucy?”

  “A little of this, a little of that. Keeps my life interesting. Or at least moving.”

  “When I was in tenth grade there was this girl in my drama class named Veronica Wainwright, and she was the most perfect, well-groomed Wasp in the entire school. You know how you admired or envied to the point of obsession certain girls in high school? Veronica Wainwright was all of that and more. I wanted to be her, you know?”

  Lucy did. Her dream girl had been Rachel Corrigan, a blueblood goddess. Last Lucy heard Rachel had two ex-husbands, three dicey kids, and a gallon a week vodka habit. “I guess, although I can’t imagine a girl who
looks like you do wanting to be anyone else.”

  “I was a late bloomer, Lucy. An ugly duckling. But the point is, when it came time to take a stage name, she came to mind.”

  “That makes sense.” Lucy collected her things. “So what happened to her?”

  “Who?”

  “Veronica Wainwright.”

  “She died of an overdose of heroin when she was 20 years old. They found her body in Tompkins Square.” She shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

  “C’est la mort,” Lucy replied. “See you later, Carole.”

  “Ciao Lucy.”

  There were many mysteries still, Lucy thought, as she and Claud headed home. She intended to take a nap, write some more, and then seriously bite the bullet—with a visit to the dreaded Moan to see if she could find this guy Mark, find out what he had to say.

  An hour later, as she lay in daylight failing to fall asleep in spite of her exhaustion, it occurred to her that she had absolutely no logical reason on earth to be pursuing these questions. They had nothing to do with anything, really, except that she figured maybe something might end up being useful in the movie. Besides, she was a curious kind of girl.

  Curious enough to find herself, hours later, standing in front of her closet at eleven pm, wondering what constituted appropriate attire for a scary-serious SMBD club. Exhausted from two endless days and six more hours of rewrite, Lucy was nevertheless determined to get to the bottom of the story, if there was one, and this trip to Moan felt necessary. After all, who was this Mark guy Carole had been talking up? Lucy had called Maggie—Dezira—at three pm, and talked her into escort duty on this nightlife visit to the dark side of town. Lucy offered cab fare, cover charges, and all the cocktails the underage teenager could possibly drink if only she would please accompany Lucy on this mission. She had agreed to do so.

  Dezira had managed to come by a cell phone, so Lucy felt free to call her one more time.“OK, kid, so here I am looking in my closet and I don’t see any black leather underwear, whips, chains, corsets, or thigh high boots with six inch heels. What should I…”

  “Black and red, more black than red, skintight if you dare, show some skin, paint your nails. Blood red would be good.” Spoken blithely, expertly. “As long as your pants hurt you’ll be fine, Lucy. Hey,” her voice dropped. “I’m getting ready to climb out the window. Hope you’re almost ready.”

  “I’ve got enough make-up on to please the most demanding vampire,” Lucy said, looking at herself in the mirror. “Soon as I’m dressed I’m out of here.”

  “See you at the Empire at midnight, right?”

  “Right. 39th and 10th. We can walk from there.” Good job, Luce, she thought, staring out of the taxi headed uptown half an hour later. Not only are you going to a nightclub that opens at midnight and caters to people who like to inflict pain, or possibly get theirs asses whipped—by you!—you’re doing it in the company of a minor.

  She’d sold her soul to the devil, one more time, for a paltry ten grand. And a chance at the truth.

  The Empire 24/7 on opening a dozen years back quickly had established itself as the lone outpost of sane wining and dining, all night long, in a neighborhood with a history that ran with sex, blood, and rage: Irish gangsters followed by Italian gangsters followed by Caribbean gangsters, shooting it out for dope and money, all the while hosting a motley assortment of transsexual, homosexual, and heterosexual hookers patrolling the avenues, doing their dirty work on the side streets and in the passages to Jersey and Queens, where regardless of gender they earned the nickname of Tunnel Suckers. Now the zone had gone upscale with the rest of Manhattan, and the shabby old loft buildings housed chic, high-style residences as well as art galleries and studios for the rich and famous; half a dozen pricey restaurants and a shifting variety of hot spot bars marked the midnight blocks.

  In spite of this ongoing upscaling, sleaze persisted in its inimitable charming way, and so Lucy, upon climbing out of her cab across Tenth Ave from the Empire 24/7, stepped right into the path of a pair of six-foot four-inch African-American transvestite hookers in major Hollywood make-up and long, sleek wigs—one red, one blonde—and terrifyingly high heels and invitingly short skirts and large proud boobs that could have come off the rack or possibly off the budget surgeon’s shelf. In any case they were both hot hot hot and one said to Lucy, “Honey, get your sweet white ass out of my way or I will crush you like a bug, bitch.” Spoken with a smile.

  “I love your shoes,” Lucy said as she stepped aside.

  “Kiss my ass and I’ll let you lick them,” the lady said warmly.

  “Hey mister, wanna party,” the other lady said to a guy in a late model Chrysler cruising by in slowdown-and-check-her-out mode. Lucy took that as a sign and headed across Tenth, dodging a pair of racing cabs to arrive breathlessly at the door of the diner. From the entry she spotted the 17-year old Dezira aka Maggie at the bar, with a martini comfortably perched like a bird in her hand. She wore a long black overcoat, a ton of make-up, and the usual stuff piercing her face in the usual places. She looked at least 27 going on 37. Faced with this particular date and destination, Lucy herself felt 16, and for a panic-stricken second she was sure she’d forgotten her ID and they wouldn’t let her in. No, Lucy, she’s the underage one. You’re almost 35, fool.

  “Excuse me?” the hostess said.

  “What? Oh, nothing,” Lucy said. God, she had just called herself a fool out loud in a public place. The writer’s life was turning her into a babbling idiot. Time to dust off the cameras and start shooting again, get your ass out there.

  She got her ass over to the bar and sat next to Dezira. “Hey kid,” she said. “What are you drinking?”

  “A very, very dry martini, Lucy. Hey, you’re looking….hot,” she said, a little frisson of lust in her voice.

  “Thanks,” Lucy said flatly. “But bear in mind you don’t get to beat me tonight, señorita.” She grinned. “I’ll have a glass of that pinot noir,” she said, pointing at a bottle on the bar back.

  “Yeah, yeah, Lucy, I know,” Dezira said. “And you know I don’t like to hit girls. But you do look good.” She sipped her drink like a pro. “Now listen, before we go any further I need to say this one more time, and clearly: don’t forget I told you this place is scary and weird, and it really, really is, Lucy. People there like pain, giving it or getting it, so just remember when you tell anyone there you’re not into it, be super insistent, because they might not believe you. The assumption is that if you weren’t into it you wouldn’t be there.”

  “Might not believe me? Jesus, what the…”

  “Hey, saying no is like part of the game for some people.”

  “So what if they don’t believe me? Shit.”

  “Punch ‘em in the mouth, kick ‘em in the balls, do what you have to. Become the aggressor.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She gave Lucy a look. “Hey, this was your idea. And don’t say I didn’t tell you it was a weird place, Lucy. I told you I only went once, right?”

  “Damn.” She grabbed her wine on arrival. “I guess I’d better tank up here in case I have to clock somebody.” She took a large sip. “Aah. Not bad,” she said to the bartender. “Oak barrel, cornflowers, goat shit, perhaps a hint of adder venom.” He nodded. “So,” she went on, turning back to Dezira. “Hopefully we won’t have to punch anybody out since we don’t have to stay long. We’re looking for a guy named Mark. Carole described him as kinda stocky-muscular, thick, wavy black hair, black leather pants and sleeveless t-shirt, wears sunglasses in the dark.”

  “Right. I could name seven guys that hang at Fetish and fit that description exactly.”

  “Whatever.” She guzzled her wine, and looked at her watch. “It’s 12:30. Shall we go?”

  Fifteen minutes later, near the corner of 11th Avenue and 44th Street, Dezira announced, “This is it.” She pointed at a black metal double door about six steps down from street level. The block was dark but for one flickering s
treetlamp. There was not a soul in sight. Trash swirled by on a cold east wind, winter oncoming.

  “It smells like piss around here,” Lucy said.

  “Piss ain’t the least of it, Lucy,” Dezira said. “Are you ready to Moan?”

  “I guess.” For a seasoned raconteur of the weird and unpredictable, Lucy felt oddly fearful. This was a little out of the ordinary, she had to admit. Put on the armor, girl.

  Dezira punched a number into her cell phone, waited for a response, then hung up. “The door will unlock for us in exactly ten seconds.” They descended the stairs together, and a few seconds later Dezira grabbed the metal door-handle and pulled it open. Bass throbbed out, as did a scary mixed smell, and faint bloody light. They stepped into near-darkness. Lucy couldn’t see a thing until the door closed, when somebody abruptly appeared in front of them.

  An apparition in sudden light from a flaring candle; only it was a flashlight designed to look like a candle, clutched in the taloned hand of a man, a Pan, a little guy about five and a half feet tall with short pointed horns and pointed ears with lobes stretched long by heavy jewels; he had long hair on top and hair from the waist down, and blood from fresh nipple-piercings artfully dripped down his chest. He had pale skin, a perfect gym-worked torso marked with weird symbolic tattoos, multiple fresh piercings and decorative scarrings, and surprisingly, an absolutely lovely man’s face, but for the very bad, blackish teeth revealed by the evil grin, and the large gold ring in his nose. The costume was quite convincing, Lucy thought, although she could have done without the exposed, bejeweled genitalia sparkling down below, surrounded by what looked like some sort of goat hair chaps. He was actually pretty much naked but for the jewels and the chap thingies. He looked kind of like the way she’d pictured Dionysus, Bacchus, or Pan, one of those pagan forest god types, with a bit of the devil thrown in. But just a little guy, which fortunately diminished his satanic scariness.

  All this she took in in a few seconds, while he gazed at them, pondering, grinning. Finally he spoke. “Good evening, ladies,” he said. “Welcome to Moan.” His voice rasped and he was trying to sound—ferocious? Scary? Whatever. As if on cue, Lucy heard moans in the depths beyond the goat-man character. She gripped Dezira’s hand a little harder, slightly fearstruck in spite of herself.