Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  Her other hand sought his crotch and found his cock. It stirred in her grip, growing to her touch. She undid his zipper, sucking on his finger as her hand stroked him through his boxers, her mouth and hand working him in rhythmic teasing synch.

  He whimpered as she slipped her hand inside, taking raw possession of his stiffness. Her fingers closed around the hard texture of his urge, her thumb circling the glassy wet of its head. He released her nipple with a playful pull of his teeth as he let her ease him on his back, as she slid between his knees to the floor. His feet planted either side, she dragged his boxers lower, drew herself higher up between his thighs. She took his cock, raising it in her hand. Her firm nipple skirted the gathered swelling of his balls. She teased it up the warm sleeve of his shaft, catching then cresting his cleft, playing his sticky sex around her nipple. Then she descended once more, taking him to her lips, tasting him and basting him with her warm saliva.

  Slowly, she took him completely in her mouth. Quickly he took to her, fully hardening in her. She rose and fell over him, her head nodding in urgent consumption, at first furtive, then deliberate desperate rasping pulls of her cheeks, as deep as she could take him.

  She removed her panties as she weaned him out and she climbed back onto the bed, straddling him, taking his hard wet cock in her hand and guiding him to meet her descent. He slipped inside her, fully and smoothly. She began to fuck him slowly. Rotating her hips, she started lifting up and pushing down with controlled restraint. God, he feels good. His cock obeyed the command of her motion. As she thrust, she groped her breasts for their pleasure. Her rhythm quickened.

  Scott watched Charlie’s face rising and falling above him. Her complexion was rouging. It bloomed on her neck and rose high in her cheeks. He saw how she played with her breasts, squeezing and pulling them as she fucked him. He wanted to share his own touch, to bury his fingers in their fleshy pulsing mass. But his arms were heavy. They lay limp by his side. He tried to lift his hand. It hardly twitched. His vision began to swim, his focus shifting, softening.

  Charlie watched Scott try to raise his arm. She took his hand and lifted it. It came without any resistance. She smiled. The rohypnol in his drink was kicking in. His body was slipping free. Her thrusts intensified. She let go of his hand and his arm flopped back onto the bed, flaccid. He was still anything but between her thighs, still vibrant and willing but only just. It was only her urgent need for it keeping him inside her. Her clasp of his cock within herself was all that held him to her want. She pushed against him with more frenzy. Her short breaths became a torrent of high vocal gasps. His head lolled on the mattress to her motion. Hers whipped everyway, driven by her rodeo ecstasy.

  She came, an abrupt climax, crying a single tumbling wail with it. Then she collapsed on her hands, her hair falling onto Scott’s face. Their eyes were inches apart.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said meekly.

  “Whatever are you babbling about now?” she snapped. The soft Jersey accent was gone. Lillian Charlotte Gilbert spoke to Scott now with cut-glass English sharpness. “Oh. You mean my scar?” She brushed her hair from his lips.

  He nodded. He wanted to trace it with his finger but his body was beyond command. “Yeah,” he whispered.

  “It made me the woman I am today.”

  “That’s good. Hope he never forgets.”

  “Who, Sweetheart?”

  “Dan. Hope he’s sorry.”

  She smiled. “He was. At the end, he was so very sorry.”

  Scott went fully under.

  Lillian leaned in, her lips to his ear. “All your hurts come home, Scott. Daniel never got the chance to forget me. I was his last memory.”

  She stroked his temple, drew back, and kissed him one last time.

  Lillian showered, and as she freshened up in front of the dresser, she paused and felt the scar running from her cheek to her collarbone. My true lifeline, by any and all definition, she thought, remembering how it had taken her from London to here, a path as wicked and fraught as the line she traced under her thumb. On the bed behind her, Scott lay limp, the scene reminiscent of Daniel, of the night she had repaid her violent high-class drug-dealing boyfriend for the ‘gift’ of this mark. Even as his court date loomed, Daniel had been conceited enough to think he could buy, bully, or beg his way out of the GBH charge. Lillian’s stitches were still in, the night she accepted the invitation to his Knightsbridge flat. After they got high, for old times sake, and while she fucked him, for appearances’ sake, Lillian slipped a beautifully-crafted Sabatier boning knife between Daniel’s ribs as he came.

  There was no point running. She was always suspect number one. Besides, her pride wouldn’t have it any other way. She made the English tabloids briefly, the main course on whatever plate the media was serving up their ‘Broken Britain’ tirade on that year. As the original victim, she plea-bargained, played the damaged damsel, blubbed her way to eight years and did an eventual five. It sickened her, having to make sappy for the Crown prosecutors. The Sun graced it all with the headline ‘Revenge In Knifesbridge’ but that would never sully the experience for Lillian. She was a quick learner and an exacting practitioner. The first plunge was merely to puncture Daniel’s lung. He remained conscious while she carved his face like a chessboard. He had air enough to plead while he bled out, perhaps too much; some of her early cuts weren’t as straight as she’d have liked.

  Within Her Majesty’s penal system, Lillian ditched her refined public school deportment and diction. Nice girls fared badly inside. In Holloway, posh tottie was prize concubine. Becoming Charlie Gilbert, rough Essex girl, was Lillian Gilbert’s best refuge. Ironically, Daniel’s unique keepsake sold this persona completely.

  Five years later, she emerged, forever changed and forever changeable. She could be anyone, speak any way, play any predicament. Charlie Haskell, regular gal from Mendham, New Jersey, was just another suit, but Lillian had a soft spot for her.

  Now, Lillian powered up her cell and dialed. “He’s out. I think I’ve earned my pay scale for this week. Now get your arse over here and earn yours,” she hissed at Mike Stencek and hung up.

  Chapter 31

  The Navigator pulled in beside Scott’s BMW. Stencek scanned the other rooms on the row. Satisfied no one was taking an interest, he and Larry got out just as Lillian opened her room door. She wore a bathrobe and a cigarette smoldered between her fingers as she ushered them inside. Scott was sprawled on the floor beside the bed, pants up, shirttails neatly tucked in.

  “Where’s his stuff?” Stencek asked.

  “Next door.”

  “What’s he doing in your room then?”

  Lillian snatched the garment carrier Stencek had brought with him. “You’re the detective. Detect!” she snapped and retired to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  “Ain’t that sweet. She left us a whole one,” Larry guffawed.

  “Quit chinning,” Stencek said. “Go and get the field case. I’ll get his room key.”

  While Larry returned outside, Stencek hoisted Scott onto the bed and peeled back one eyelid to check Scott’s dilated dreaming pupil. He placed his finger on Scott’s neck and felt the languid pulse. As he rifled through Scott’s pockets, Lillian reappeared in a crisp white blouse and smart pants suit.

  “No need,” she said. “His room’s open. He rushed in here in quite the state.”

  “He didn’t try nothing funny?”

  “Not at all. Gentle as a lamb. He was more upset than pissed. He’d been rowing with the missus next door. I calmed him down, made him a drink, slipped him the roofie. Easy-peasy-nobbly-kneezy.” Lillian sat on the corner of the bed to put on a pair of zip-up black leather booties.

  “What?” said Stencek. “Whatya mean, the missus?”

  “For an hour or more. I would have gone round myself to give him his nightcap but it was much too entertaining. Better than Eastenders really. Cursing. Shouting. Flinging stuff.”

  Lillian stood and held her hand o
ut. Stencek produced a holstered gun from his pocket and handed it over. She threaded her belt through it and buckled up.

  “I’d never have pegged this gig for a kook hunt,” Stencek said. “You find all those freaky photos in their house. He spends the day chasing after a kid that ain’t there. Now he’s yakking with the wife—she’s not there. Seriously fucked-up, Lil. Righteously schizoid.”

  Lillian scooped Charlie’s clothes and effects off the dresser and stuffed them into the garment carrier. “Not at all, Michael. Men are constantly in the habit of talking to their loved ones, in abstentia so to speak.” She smiled in the mirror at Stencek’s puzzled reflection. “Think about it. You speak nicely to your cars when they won’t start. You coax them with sweet ‘Please baby, please.’ You scream at your picks at the track, ‘Come on you fucking bitch!’”—Lillian delivered this line in full-on Charlie—“It’s all very revealing about the things you’d never say to your nearest and dearest but you want to.”

  “I’ll take it as a sign of this guy’s nuttiness. Nothing more,” Stencek replied.

  Lillian walked to Stencek. Her damp hair hung in that weird way she always brushed it while it dried, fully obscuring the left side of her face. Stencek called it Flock of Seagulls, though he never dared say it to her face, not even to the hidden unscarred half. She stared quietly at him as she lit another cigarette and took a long first draw, holding it in. She said, “It’s a sign of maleness, not madness”—she blew the exhale slowly into Stencek’s face—“the things you want to say, or should say, but haven’t the nerve to. Some tell it to their whores, some to their shrinks. Some just think it. Scott here is just one of the more vocal proponents. He has issues he needs to air. It’s merely talking therapy. Marital murmurs.”

  “Well, better him than me. Whack job,” Stencek snorted.

  “No Michael. Even you.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way. Sometimes I lie there, listening to you talk to her. You just don’t remember when you wake up.”

  She breezed past Stencek and out of the room. Stencek grabbed the garment carrier and followed, closing the door behind him.

  In Scott’s room, Larry trained the lens of a pro-Nikon camera where Stencek directed, taking continuity shots before they got to disturbing anything.

  Stencek arranged Scott’s things on the dresser. “Snap all these too, Larry. All angles.” He caressed the front of the gold broach. Is that worth more than I’m getting paid for this jaunt, he wondered. He tossed Scott’s cell to Lillian. “I fucking hate Blackberry’s,” he griped. “Goddamn air-tight security. What do Canadians have to be so secretive about?”

  Lillian stood over a compact aluminum briefcase which lay open on the bed. Scott’s laptop was upturned beside it, the base plate removed, showing an empty space where the hard drive normally sat. The drive itself was currently embedded in a custom-cut interface in her case. It hummed softly as the hardware in the case cloned the drive to its own memory.

  “19 gigs,” she announced, when the progress bar on the small display screen was complete. She uncoupled the drive and set it on the bed. She checked the data port on the Blackberry and removed a suitable cable from the selection pressed into foam packing grooves in the upper half of her case. Slotting one end into the Blackberry, she plugged the cable into the case and rapidly tapped options on the case’s touchscreen.

  “Everything?” she asked.

  “Everything,” Stencek confirmed. “Then upload anything date-stamped for the last two weeks. If Mark needs more, we’ll submit it on the move. Ain’t got all night here.”

  “What’s our mysterious benefactor looking for anyway?” she asked, as the touchscreen began flashing a rapid rolling inventory of files pulsing into the Cloud.

  “He dunno either,” Stencek said. “Same as us. Farts on the wind. Emails, texts, passwords. Anything that tells him where Julianna’s at. Finds her, he finds his man, so he reckons.”

  “Cherchez la femme, eh?” Lillian suggested.

  “Whatever. And no, Lil, still can’t tell you who the client or the mark is. Unless I murmur it while you’re eavesdropping.”

  “It’s nice to know that even you have to be someone else’s bitch.”

  “I’m gonna go check the fixing on the LoJack.”

  Lillian shot him a look. “Fuck off, Mike. It’s secure.”

  “I’m gonna go check anyway. Get those photos uploaded too,” he ordered Larry as he walked out.

  Larry ambled over to Lillian. As he stared at her, he cradled the camera, stroking the girth of the lenspiece suggestively with his long bony fingers.

  “So sweetheart, how’s about a few morale-boostin shots for the guys back in the Sandpit? Don’t see many English titties outside of Basra.” He smiled wolfishly down at her.

  Lillian shot an acid stare back up. “How about this, Lawrence? You give me the camera, drop your kecks, I’ll set it to full zoom and we’ll send them a view of what they’ve been missing since your discharge. The dishonorable one, I mean, not the pathetic dribble a freak like you calls an ejaculation.”

  Larry’s lips tightened to a malevolent garroted line.

  Lillian held out her hand. “What with you almost running me over out there, I’ve had just about enough of your bullshit. Card please.”

  Larry pffted. “I figured you needed a little actual peril to sell the gig.”

  “I’m sure Mike’s LoJack guy will appreciate the hole in his Subaru when he gets it back.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?”

  “Listen Chewbacca,” she spat, “Just quit pissing us about and give me the camera card.”

  Larry looked at her with burning barely-restrained fury as he removed the memory card from the camera. Holding it between his thumb and finger, he flipped his middle finger at her and pushed the card into a razor-thin slot in the case.

  Stencek returned. He looked at Larry, then Lillian, and smiled. “Teamwork, people.” He slapped Larry on the back. “See, Larry? The Special Relationship. What’s not to like?”

  20 minutes later, they departed. Everything in Scott’s room was back in its place; everything except Scott. He remained out cold next door. As the sedative began to loosen its grip, he dreamed.

  Shortly before 2am, the Navigator returned to the parking lot of the Days Inn back up on the interstate. Lillian and Larry made straight for their rooms. Stencek stayed back, checked the signal on the BMW, and confirmed the receipt of the data upload. Then he remained in the driver seat, reflecting.

  He personally expected no new insights to come from the night’s data-mining. It was the client’s call. Stencek just moved the ball as directed. This was a pooch punt. If Jameson was going in the wrong direction then any information they gained would be equally misguided.

  There was still Stencek’s own Hail-Mary. On a hunch, he had set it in motion two days ago. His people were on the ground even now. Mike Stencek might once have been a modern-age cop, but he still possessed old-school instincts and was a firm believer in ‘Tec over Tech. Satellite trackers and digital digging were no substitutes for shoe leather and good old human intelligence. The fall-back approach he had initiated was exactly that. Were he a betting man, he would have moved all his chips over to that number. Given time, he was sure it would pay off.

  He was ready to turn in. But he couldn’t stop returning to the data console on the Navigator’s dashboard. The new communication had come in while they were at the Roanoker. Its brevity was sobering, by turns exciting and deflating. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. His only thought was there might not be people left on the ground by the time he got to New Orleans. Heck, there might not even be any New Orleans left.

  Time was almost up. There was a new player on the field.

  Katrina was coming.

  Chapter 32

  Saturday August 27

  Scott swung to a seated position on the side of the bed. He held his head in his hands, struggling to dry-hack. His throat felt constricted, his mouth l
ike coal dust. He trudged to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and sucked in great gulps of it from his hands. His stomach threatened to return bile. Fighting the retching rancid rising in his chest, he came back to the bedroom.

  Momentarily dislocation seized him. None of his things was present. When he spotted the bottle and two glasses on the night table, realization sent him rushing back into the bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet, where he threw up the water in a series of short choking spasms.

  He slumped down and sat with his back to the bowl. He tried to recall the night before. What came to him was fitful, nebulous. He had no doubt about the salient fact: he had fucked her. Without the detail, abstract images—all the more salacious for their imagining—filled his mind. He slammed his fist on the tiled floor to stem them. At the cost of the jarring pain to his pinkie, it almost worked.

  He staggered back out. Where was she now? Other than the bottle, the disturbed bedclothes were the only signs of occupancy. The sheets were creased but still made. Evidently, intimacy had not been in order.

  The car!

  He opened the front door, relieved to find it, and cautiously entered his own room. His bedclothes were askew, the peeled-back chrysalis from which his maggot brain had no doubt slithered to get some. The shirt on his back felt suddenly constricting. He ripped it apart and tossed it to the bed. A dizzying spin and stumble overtook him. As he steadied himself, he snatched his hand from the bed as if its touch burned.

  He stripped fully and ran the shower. The stream of water was murderously hot but he stepped under without hesitation, grimacing as he forced himself to remain immersed. Then he switched to cold and gasped sharply as it speared shocking chills all through him. Over and over, he beat the heels of his hands against his temples. “Stupid! Stupid! Sonofabitch!” he berated himself, again and again. He forgot about the spiking cold water. He stopped hearing the mantra. There was only the pulsing in his head from his pummeling hands.