Burden of Guilt

by Carter Brown

  “Why does he need a guy like Tyler around, now he’s disbarred?” I asked her.

  “A girl could go out of her mind trying to keep up, the way you conversation-hop, Al!” She shrugged easily. “Force of habit, maybe. Tyler’s been around a long time, and I guess Gerard needs him to bolster his ego after I’ve deflated it.”

  “Cordain must be paying big money for his services as an adviser. I mean, that he can still afford to keep Tyler, and all.”

  “I prefer not to think about it,” she said tartly. “When we were first married, I gave him the social background and contacts he needed to build a successful clientele, and he threw it all away by his association with Stensen!”

  “Just how long have you been married?”

  “Three years.”

  “Kingsley would be considerably older than you, Adele?”

  “He was married before.” She tilted the glass to her lips and drained the contents smoothly. “His first wife died suddenly after they had been married for fifteen years. It broke him up for a while, until I came along and put the pieces back together again.”

  “I guess that was around the time you were having your own problems.”

  “Don’t condescend to me, you self-complacent bastard!” she snarled.

  “I wasn’t,” I snarled back.

  The cold fury in her eyes vanished abruptly. “I’m sorry, Al. It would have been Cordain, of course, who told you what happened to my father.”

  “Forget it,” I said.

  “I wish I could forget him,” she said in a brooding voice. “I know goddamn well why he’s still paying Gerard big money to act as his adviser, and I get a crawling feeling up and down my spine that he sits up late nights just to gloat over it. Without him, Gerard has no place to go except straight into the gutter. Anytime now, Cordain is going to offer me the choice; either he drops Gerard, or I start being nice to him.”

  “What will you do when the time comes?” I prodded.

  “I don’t know.” She made herself a fresh drink. “I’ve thought of all the alternatives—from killing him to going along with it—and still haven’t made up my mind.” There was no amusement in her laugh. “Maybe I’ll divorce Gerard then, and marry Tyler!”

  “I don’t think he’s got the stamina for it,” I said solemnly.

  “Who knows? It could be his great virility that makes him so nervous the whole time.” There was a speculative glint in her eyes as she looked at me over the rim of her glass. “Appearances can be deceptive, you know that? I mean, you look very virile indeed, Al, but maybe it’s all a big fake.”

  “I’ll prove it, if you like,” I said determinedly. “Give me a cracker, and I’ll break it with my bare hands!”

  “There has to be a more interesting way of proving it,” she said throatily. “Like, if I took you upstairs to my room, as soon as we’ve finished this drink?”

  I shook my head regretfully. “I’m not allowed to make love to any suspect in a homicide case. It’s a rule.”

  “Suppose I could take myself off the suspect list?”

  “It would leave me with freedom of choice,” I said cautiously.

  “I’ll remember that, Al, it gives me an incentive.” The downward curve of her mouth was suddenly more pronounced. “Do you have any more personal questions?”

  “I was thinking about you, Adele,” I said slowly. “It’s six months since your husband was disbarred, and you’ve been holding out on him ever since, right?”

  “He had it coming!” she said coldly.

  “It still takes two not to tango. I figure you’re a little too hotblooded to punish yourself as well as your husband. But you’d be very discreet in your choice of a partner. It would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise if your husband found out you were cheating. It would have to be somebody he would never suspect in his wildest dreams. Some insignificant-looking little guy who always merged into the background. Like you said, appearances can be deceptive, and it could be his sense of guilt as well as his virility that makes Tyler so nervous the whole time.”

  “Why don’t you get the hell out of here and drop dead someplace real soon?” she whispered.

  “What kicked it off? When Tyler told you about your husband and Shirley Lucas being an intimate twosome while you were in Palm Springs? Taking Tyler into your bed could have appealed to you as a kind of beautifully just revenge on your husband, because he’d never suspect his loyal personal assistant of even looking sideways at his wife!”

  “It’s spooky, the way you can read my mind, Al!” She grinned defiantly. “And poor Walter Tyler isn’t that virile, exactly, but he’s an eager student!”

  “Was he under instruction last night?”

  She shook her head. “I was tired last night—both of us were—Walter went to bed before I did, even.”

  I finished my drink and put the empty glass on the bar top. “What do you know about Joe Dana?”

  “There you go, conversation-hopping again! Dana was the opposition that lost out to Cordain, when Stensen’s job was suddenly up for grabs in the union. Tyler said Cordain was too smart for him, but he should watch his step with Dana all the same.”

  “Why?”

  “Something about Dana being a dangerous man to cross. I wouldn’t take it too seriously, Walter’s always wildly exaggerating things about people. Take this Strachan man they’re making this big secret deal with right now, for example. According to Walter, it was his idea that the labor union should organize his plant in the first place! You ever hear anything wilder than that in your whole life?”

  “Walter must have given Strachan some motive for doing that.”

  “Sometimes I figure his last name should have been Mitty, not Tyler! It was some wild story about Strachan being in big personal financial trouble, and desperately needing a lot of money.”

  “How would it help him by making a deal with the union?”

  “That’s the only logical part of the whole fantasy,” she said nonchalantly, “According to Walter, the contract would be signed for say, two hundred thousand dollars a year. The union would be happy with a hundred-fifty, and kick back the other fifty straight into Strachan’s pocket.” She looked at my empty glass. “I’ll make you another drink.”

  “No, thanks,” I told her. “I’ll have to be on my way.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to make you stay a little longer, Al?” she purred.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “It’s been fun in a venom-spitting kind of way, Adele, and you stay right in there pitching until you’ve taken yourself off my list of suspects, you hear?”

  She ran her tongue slowly across her full upper lip again. “I’ll keep working at it, Al.”

  I raised my hand in a sort of half farewell, turned away from the bar, and headed across the length of the living room toward the door that led out into the front hall. I was maybe three-quarters of the way there when she called my name. She was standing in front of the bar when I turned around, and the lime-colored bikini was conspicuous by its absence. Facing me was a vision splendid, bronzed all over and with a lustful, man-eating look in her eyes. She was running her hands slowly, lasciviously over her hips and down her flanks. Her pelvis was thrust forward, and her legs were parted. I watched, fascinated, as the long, tapering fingers came in over her thighs, homing in toward her mound with its covering of fine sherry-blonde hair. They almost reached the slit, then drew back again, still moving sensually in an invitation that couldn’t have been more obvious, rode back up over her flanks to briefly cup her small but fully rounded breasts, lifting them gently so that the hard, swollen tips were thrust toward me. As I stared at her, I could feel the dryness in my throat and a gentle stirring in my loins.

  “It was just an idle thought,” she said throatily. “I was suddenly curious to see if there was anything that could make you change your mind about leaving.”

  “Well,”—I cleared my throat—“well, if you put it that way…”

 
My yard was becoming harder. The temptation was there all right, but I was undecided.

  “Come here, Al,” she whispered. “I want you to make love to me—hard and thorough. You’re just the sort of man I need right now.”

  I took a tentative step toward her, then stopped. No, no, a voice screamed at me from inside my skull, don’t do it, it’s a trap. I hesitated. The moist, pink lips of her pussy were far enough apart for me to be able to see her clit. As I thought of all the things we could do together, almost feeling her claws dig into my back, my prick twitched in eager anticipation.

  “How about, it, Al?” she whispered. “Are you changing your mind?”

  “I guess I just lost my mind,” I muttered, then cleared my throat again, sharply, as with one last, lingering look at that vibrant golden body, I shook my head. “Because I’m still leaving.”

  It took all the willpower I had right then to turn my back on her and keep on walking. A string of obscenities, including the most damaging slights on my manhood, followed me out into the front hall, and the last I heard as I closed the front door behind me was the sound of breaking glass.

  Chapter Five

  All the way back to my apartment I reflected on what I had probably missed by not giving the tiger lady the hard, thorough screw she had demanded, and that didn’t do much to steady my nerves. What I needed was a good stiff drink. When I returned to the apartment this was just what I had, then another, and that soothed my nerve ends some, and all that remained of my former turmoil was a small ache in my balls. As I fixed myself still another drink, I began to consider the greater issues at hand.

  Lavers had been right, I secretly admitted to myself. Every goddamned one of them was lying; and if they all kept building more lies on top of the original lies, it would give me only two choices. I could either hand in my tin and try to find some new line of work, or wind up doing group therapy in some nice, sunny academy.

  About a half-hour later, I was beginning to feel human again. I fixed myself steak, French fries, and some limp broccoli, then settled down to eat. The French fries had looked perfect; a glistening golden-brown crispness on the outside, soft and floury on the inside. The trouble was, the ketchup-saturated charred steak had temporarily killed off my taste buds, and it wasn’t until I was two-thirds of the way through the French fries that I suddenly realized the oil had been rancid.

  After the antacid tablets which produced some unnerving reactions inside my outraged stomach, Scotch seemed to be the only answer. I had just made a fresh drink when the doorbell rang. Not caring less who it might be, I staggered out into the front hall, yanked the door open wide, and waited for the world to fall in on me.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant.” The voice was low-pitched and pleasant. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  This time she was wearing a simple black dress, giving her an appearance of austerity that made her somehow more interesting.

  “Why shouldn’t I be disturbed by a one-time assistant D.A.?” I countered cleverly. “As a matter of fact, company is just what I need right now.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Her broad mouth curved in a smile. “May I come in?”

  I stepped back so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet. With a cool rustle of her dress, Moira Arthur walked past me into the living room, and my eyes were once again savoring the unrestricted flowing of her glorious rump. If anything, it looked even better than it had when she was wearing beige linen. I noted the way the black dress dipped in a little between her cheeks as she moved. I caught up with her in the center of the living room and asked her to sit down. Carefully, she avoided my oversized couch and sat down in an armchair.

  “Can I make you a drink?” I asked.

  “Scotch, thank you,” she said. “On the rocks—with a little soda.”

  “You’re putting me on,” I said suspiciously.

  “I don’t understand. Oh!” Her face cleared. “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the way I like it.”

  “Me, too!”

  “Now I’m not sure if you’re putting me on,” she said.

  “I swear!” I declared. “Cross my heart and hope to become a non-drinker!”

  “It’s an amazing coincidence, Lieutenant.”

  “Destiny,” I said in a hushed voice. “The meeting of twin souls!”

  “No glasses?” she asked demurely.

  I retreated into the kitchen, returned a few seconds later with both drinks, and gave her one. As she leaned forward to take it, I glimpsed the outward sweep of her breasts down the front of her dress.

  “James is in a complete panic,” she said suddenly. “He doesn’t know what to do and changes his mind every other minute, so I thought the best thing was to see you and tell you what’s happened.”

  “It was a brilliant thought,” I agreed. “This way, I can see you, too!”

  She gave me a kind of blank look, then shrugged her shoulders gently. “He had a call from Cordain early this evening. The essence was that because of the circumstances, Cordain isn’t prepared to wait any longer than tomorrow morning. He’ll come to the hotel at nine-thirty, and if James isn’t prepared to sign the contract right then and there, the whole deal is off.”

  “Strachan hasn’t heard from Dana yet?”

  “That’s the one thing that’s driving him crazy. James is naturally hoping Dana meant what he said about it being possible he won’t have to sign a contract with the union at all. But if he hasn’t heard from him before nine-thirty tomorrow morning, hell have to sign. You can imagine the trouble Cordain will make in the plant if James refuses to sign the contract at all! I thought there was just a chance you might be able to help, Lieutenant.”

  “I only hope I can.” I sat down on the couch, facing her, and tried to fix a look of dedication on my face. “Right now, I can’t see how, exactly, but I’m sure if we talk it over long enough, I’ll think of something.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said politely, but her heart wasn’t in it. She had obviously been expecting a hell of a lot more.

  “Does Strachan own the company?” I asked.

  “No. He’s the president, and he does have a minor stockholding, but that’s all.”

  “So if he makes a deal with Cordain, he needs to keep it a secret from his stockholders, just as much as Cordain needs to keep it a secret from the union members at the plant?”

  “That’s right,” she nodded.

  “Just what is Strachan to you?”

  “An old friend of my family, and a client.” Her voice was cool. “Nothing more than that, Lieutenant.”

  “Sure,” I said quickly. “I’m only curious about his background. He’s just the way he looks? The big executive wheel, with nothing else on his mind except running the plant at maximum efficiency?”

  “Yes, I think so.” She sounded vaguely bored.

  “No personal financial worries?”

  “James?” She smiled politely. “He’s been happily married for the last twenty years, and his wife inherited a sizable fortune from her father when he died. His only financial worries would be deciding which blue-chip stock his wife should get into next!”

  “That’s great,” I said in a hollow voice. “You know something? I figure the only thing we can do is wait until he gets that call from Dana.”

  “We could wait all night!” she snapped.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for,” I murmured.

  “The way you said that, with a kind of growl in your voice—” She hesitated for a moment, then laughed much too brightly. “It almost sounded as if you were planning to try and seduce me, Lieutenant!”

  “I was,” I said. “I mean, I am!”

  “I’m not sure I heard you right, Lieutenant?” she whispered.

  “You heard me right,” I told her. “So now you can scream, slap my face, or whatever you prefer. I’ve heard too many lies in one day, already, so I’m not about to start telling any of my own right now.”

  “I don’t understand!” Sh
e stared hard at me. “Why on earth would you want to seduce me, Lieutenant?”

  “Because you’re a beautiful, sexy woman, that’s why!” I yelled. “Just watching you walk in front of me this morning almost drove me clean out of my mind!”

  She looked at me steadily for a long moment. “Should I take that as a compliment?” she said at last. “You’re not just ribbing me?”

  I laid my right hand solemnly on my heart. “And hope to die. Poetry in motion, a truly stimulating, erotic effect, not to mention its aesthetic impact, if you know what I mean. Now, if it weren’t for that dress—I mean, you mustn’t stifle yourself, not when you have such an ardent admirer running off at the mouth.”

  That did it up just fine, I thought bitterly, as I watched her get up out of the armchair. Now I’ll never know how it feels to make love to an assistant D.A. The next moment, I realized I must have given her one hell of an emotional trauma, because she had lost her sense of direction and was heading straight for the couch instead of the door. Then she sat down beside me and put her hand on my arm.

  “What’s your first name, Lieutenant?”

  “Al,” I said, confused.

  “I’m Moira.” Her grip on my arm tightened savagely. “Tell me more, Al. Lots more!”

  “About what?”

  “Me.” Her gray-green eyes shone with a warm glow, and I noticed her lips were slightly parted and she seemed to be breathing hard. “Tell me more about beautiful, sexy me!”

  “Huh?” I mumbled.

  “You know, Al,” she said. “Listening to you talk that way has done wonders for my soul, even if you don’t mean a word of it. It means you’re trying to get around me with the one inevitable object in mind. You want to get me to bed, and I find that flattering. In the past I’ve been too busy making a career for myself to concern myself too greatly over such matters. I’m a practical sort of person, Al, I’ve never believed in wasting time. What I want, I want. I have my needs and I set out to satisfy them in a way that costs me next to nothing in emotional terms. You could say in a sense that I’m a modern emancipated woman with a career—self-contained, self-assured.” She smiled again. “Still, it’s nice to be flattered, even if there’s an ulterior motive behind it. It’s nice to have a man take a second look at me—for my own sake.”