====================== Bad Girls by Michael Bracken ====================== Copyright (c)2000 Michael Bracken. All rights reserved. Wildside http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm Mystery --------------------------------- NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. --------------------------------- *BAD GIRLS* One Dozen Dangerous Dames Who Lie, Cheat, Steal, and Kill -------- _Other books by Michael Bracken_ Fiction _Deadly Campaign_ _Even Roses Bleed_ _In the Town of Dreams Unborn and Memories Dying_ _Just in Time for Love_ _Psi Cops_ _Tequila Sunrise_ -------- BAD GIRLS One Dozen Dangerous Dames Who Lie, Cheat, Steal, and Kill Michael Bracken WILDSIDE PRESS Berkeley Heights, New Jersey -------- Copyright (C) 2000 Michael Bracken. All rights reserved. "With Extreme Prejudice" first appeared in the August, 1984 issue of _Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine._ Copyright (C) 1984 by Michael Bracken. "The Only Good Red" first appeared in the February, 1985, issue of _Espionage Magazine._ Copyright (C) 1985 by Michael Bracken. "Bed of Roses" first appeared in the May, 1996, issue of _Gent._ Copyright (C) 1996 by Michael Bracken. It has been modified for inclusion in this volume. "Con Job" is original to this volume. Copyright (C) 2000 by Michael Bracken. "First Blonde on the Left" first appeared in _Bust Out!_ Copyright (C) 1995 by Michael Bracken. It has been modified for inclusion in this volume. "A Price to Pay" first appeared in the September, 1995, issue of _Score._ Copyright (C) 1995 by Michael Bracken. It has been modified for inclusion in this volume. "Husks" is original to this volume. Copyright (C) 2000 by Michael Bracken. "A Matter of Policy" first appeared in the February, 1985, issue of _Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine._ Copyright (C) 1985 by Michael Bracken. "Rock and a Hard Place" first appeared in the April, 1996, issue of _Juggs._ Copyright (C) 1996 by Michael Bracken. It has been modified for inclusion in this volume. "Three's a Shroud" first appeared in the February, 1991, issue of _Gent._ Copyright (C) 1991 by Michael Bracken. It has been modified for inclusion in this volume. "Vengeance to Show in the Third" first appeared in the October, 1983, issue of _Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine._ Copyright (C) 1983 by Michael Bracken. "Glass Houses" first appeared in _Even Roses Bleed,_ published by Books In Motion in 1995. Copyright (C) 1995 by Michael Bracken. Cover art copyright (C) 2000 by Michelangelo Flores. -------- _Bad Girls_ A publication of Wildside Press P.O. Box 45 Gillette, NJ 07933-0045 www.wildsidepress.com FIRST EDITION -------- _to _SHARON _with love always_ -------- *CONTENTS* NOTE: Each section is preceded by a line of the pattern CH000, CH001, etc. You may use your reader's search function to locate section. CH000 With Extreme Prejudice CH001 The Only Good Red CH002 Bed of Roses CH003 Con Job CH004 First Blonde on the Left CH005 A Price to Pay CH006 Husks CH007 A Matter of Policy CH008 Rock and a Hard Place CH009 Three's a Shroud CH010 Friday CH011 Saturday CH012 Sunday CH013 Glass Houses CH014 About the Author -------- -------- CH000 *With Extreme Prejudice* Lt. Col. Eduard Paroldi, a senior operative with the French secret service, sat in his Peugot 305, nervously tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He had been parked on the shoulder of the lonely Alpine highway for almost three hours and his stomach was growling. Eduard dug in the pocket of his heavy overcoat for the last bite of a chocolate bar he'd been slowly nibbling at during his wait. When he heard the crunch of tires on the cold gravel behind him, Eduard glanced up into the rearview mirror and saw the nondescript blue sedan pull to a halt behind his Peugot. Quickly climbing from his car, Eduard tossed his empty chocolate bar wrapper on the ground. It fluttered away in the breeze. "It's about time you got here," he said in heavily-accented English. "I've been waiting half the day." The double-agent in the other car carefully stepped from the warmth into the cold mountain breeze, raised a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, and squeezed the trigger three times. Blood spattered across the hood of the Peugot 305 as Eduard's body jerked convulsively and crumpled to the ground. * * * * Christian Gunn was sitting at the bar sipping a gin and tonic and watching a light, powdery snow fall outside the massive plate glass window at the end of the room when a petite brunette slipped onto the bar stool next to him. "You know," she said, a soft British accent carrying her words, "you look just like James Bond." Christian turned to face her. "Which one, Sean Connery or Roger Moore?" "Neither. David Niven in _Casino Royale."_ He recognized the code immediately, but he didn't change his expression. "Would you care for a drink?" When the brunette accepted his offer, Christian motioned for the bartender, then ordered a refill for himself and a fresh drink for his contact. While they waited for the drinks, Christian studied her. He'd been expecting the broad-shouldered Frenchman he'd worked with the last time he was in Europe, not the dainty slip of a woman he found sitting on the stool beside him. Christian had never been one to judge a fellow agent's abilities on the first impression, but the brunette beside him was hardly what he had expected MI6 to send after the double-agent who'd assassinated Paroldi. "My name's Kelly." She brushed her long hair away from her face and reached for the glass the bartender had left before her. "Kelly Francis." She took a slow sip from her drink before asking, "Have you been here long?" "Since yesterday morning," Christian said. He'd spent the first day scouting out the ski lodge and the modest-sized town a half dozen kilometers down the mountain. Kelly took another sip from her glass. "I just came in myself," she said. "Do you come here often? I come up quite frequently. The skiing's great." She was jabbering. Anyone watching the two agents at the end of the bar would have thought the attractive British woman was in the process of picking up the handsome, muscular American. Before long, they left the bar, arm-in-arm, and made their way laughing and joking up the staircase to her room. "Okay," Kelly said as soon as she'd locked the door behind them. "I'm sure you were filled in on everything back in the states. Is there anything I can add?" Christian sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. He studied the English woman standing on the far side of the room, admiring the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips, before asking, "Do you ever mix business with pleasure?" She smiled. "Not often." Christian took another drag from his cigarette and shrugged. The CIA hadn't sent him halfway around the world just to put the make on a British agent. "So what do you have?" Kelly moved to a small desk a few feet from the door and quickly rifled through a brown briefcase. She threw an 8"x10" photograph on the bed beside Christian. "That's Gunter Schmidt of West Germany." Christian studied the photo carefully while she spoke. "He's been working both sides of the street for quite some time. Until recently his only contact with our side was Paroldi. Now Paroldi's dead." "Why don't the French handle it?" She snorted. It was an indelicate sound of derision. "The French are fools." Christian had worked with Lt. Col. Paroldi and the Alpine Affairs Bureau many times in the past and he knew better. Still, he let her comment pass. The petite British agent paced the room. "The French say that it was a crime of passion. They do not know Gunter Schmidt like I do." After stubbing out the last of his cigarette, Christian unthreaded his tie from his shirt collar and loosened the top few buttons of his shirt. "I'm sure the French have their reasons," he said. Kelly stopped pacing when she noticed that Christian's suit jacket and his shoulder holster were casually thrown over the back of the chair next to her bed. "What are you doing?" "It looks like this is going to be a long night," he said. "I'm getting comfortable." Christian could easily image the lithe form under Kelly's dress. "You might want to do the same." "MI6 warned me about you," she said. "Yes?" Kelly shook her head. Her long hair flew in tiny wisps about her bone-china face. "You Americans are all alike." "I have a job to do," Christian said. "When the time comes, I'll do it. Until then. . . ." "Have you no compassion?" Kelly asked. "Paroldi's dead and you're coming on like a bull in heat." "Paroldi was a good agent," Christian said as he removed his shirt to reveal the thick mat of hair on his chest and the powerful muscles of his shoulders, "but he made a mistake. I won't make the same one." "Don't bet on it," the British agent said. "Men are fools." "And you aren't?" Kelly stared him straight in the eye. "And I'm not." Christian kicked off his shoes, then reached down to pull his socks off. Once he had accomplished that, he leaned back against the headboard and stretched out his legs. He was wearing only his slacks. Kelly continued filling in the background on Gunter Schmidt, finally winding up with, "I expect him here within twenty-four hours. He has to make a drop. The KGB is expecting Schmidt to deliver some microfilm to their agent stationed here." "How do you know all this?" Christian asked. "I have a job to do," Kelly said, repeating Christian's comment of a few minutes earlier. "I do it well." The room was silent for a moment, then she said, "You are a persistent man, Mr. Gunn. Do you always get what you want?" Christian smiled. "Always." He sat up and took Kelly's hand, pulling her across the bed. * * * * Later she asked, "Are all American agents as good as you?" It was a double-entendre and Christian knew it. "Not many," he answered. "That's why they sent me." Kelly Francis rolled onto her side, facing away from the American agent. She still had a smile on her face as she fell asleep. She was snoring lightly as Christian pulled on his clothes. After slipping quietly out of the room, Christian made his way down the hall, up the staircase, and down another hall to his own room. He slid his key into the lock, twisted the knob, and swung the door open. As he stepped into his room and searched for the light switch, a voice said, "Do not turn the light on, Mr. Gunn." The voice came from the far side of the room, but Christian could not pinpoint its source immediately. "Come inside and close the door, please." Christian followed directions. He could feel the weight of his sidearm under his left armpit and he carefully weighed the odds of reaching for it. "Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Gunn." The voice was harsh and guttural. "Yes?" Slowly Christian's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness of the room. He could just barely define the silhouette of a man sitting in the chair next to his bed. Then the light snapped on and Christian blinked at the sudden brightness. "The problem with you Americans," said the man in the chair, "is that you do not know who your friends are." "And who are they?" Christian asked. As he became accustomed to the light he recognized the face of Gunter Schmidt. Schmidt smiled slowly. "We could play games all night, could we not?" Christian agreed. "But there is no need, is there?" The German agent had no visible weapons, but Christian knew better than to underestimate an opponent. He was at a disadvantage, but he knew there would be plenty of time to take care of Schmidt. "Many agents have died," Schmidt said evenly. "Agents on all sides." Christian nodded. Eduard Paroldi hadn't been the first. And if Christian did his job properly, Paroldi wouldn't be the last. "This could go on for many months," Schmidt said, "with many more senseless killings. Or it could stop right here, right now." "Are you trying to make a deal with me?" Christian asked. "Because I don't make deals." Schmidt held up a hand to placate the American. "No deals. Just this: After I leave here tonight, it will be every man for himself." Christian nodded cautiously. "Now, slowly draw your weapon from the holster under your arm and toss it gently on the bed between us." After Christian had followed Schmidt's directions, the German agent unloaded the .9mm Luger. Then he tossed the empty weapon on the bed, and said, "Go into the bathroom and close the door. Lock it. I will be gone before you can get out." Christian followed the German agent's orders, waited until he heard the hotel room door open and close, and then he came back out of the bathroom. As he reloaded his Luger, he considered the German's comments and realized that if Schmidt had had a weapon trained on him, he would have already been dead. The thought tickled his curiosity, but it didn't prevent him from getting a good night's sleep after he'd braced the door closed and double-checked the window locks. * * * * When he awoke the next morning, it was because Kelly Francis was tapping lightly at his door. Christian opened it for her and she stepped into his room. "How soon will you be ready?" she asked. "I think I know where to find Gunter Schmidt." "Not long," Christian told her. What he didn't tell her was that Schmidt had visited him the night before. He took a quick shower, rinsing off the night's accumulation of dried sweat. When he stepped from the bathroom, he was wearing a fresh suit and looked every bit the well-kept American businessman out on a business trip. Kelly took his arm and led him down through the lobby to the parking lot where her car was waiting. Kelly drove, handling the narrow, twisting streets of the Alpine village with the ease of one who has spent many years driving through them. Before long, they had crossed town and were parked in a dingy neighborhood, where the cobblestone streets were rough and uneven, filled with potholes. Christian saw no one. The British agent pointed toward a building at the far end of the street. "He's meeting the Russian in there." Christian scanned the building and the street approaching it. "We can go around the block," Kelly continued. "Then we'll separate. I'll cover the front entrance while you slip in the back. Try to flush him into the open." Christian considered what she was saying, saw no reason not to go along with her plan, and agreed to it. As they walked down the sidewalk and around the block, Christian held Kelly under his arm, feeling how neatly she fit in the crook of it. At the end of the street they separated. Leaving Kelly to watch the front door, Christian continued around to the back, carefully making his way through the debris filling the alley. He began to hear sounds as he moved, the sounds of people in the buildings around him, perhaps only now awakening. At the back door, Christian carefully tried the handle. The door was locked as he had expected. He considered kicking it in, then thought better of the unnecessary dramatics. Instead, he bent and carefully picked the lock with one of the tools from his inside jacket pocket. As soon as the lock snapped open, he replaced the tool in his pocket and drew his Luger from the holster under his left arm. Then he eased the door open and stepped into darkness. A beefy fist slammed against Christian's wrist, knocking the Luger away from him. Then the snout of a revolver was jammed into his gut, motioning him backward. A dozen words in Russian followed, but Christian recognized none of them. The man behind the revolver was short, with a thick torso and broad shoulders. A half dozen more words followed, this time in heavily-accented French. When Christian Gunn responded it was with action, not words. He shoved his right hand down between himself and the other man, grabbing the revolver and twisting it. The Russian squeezed the trigger and the hammer snapped shut, catching the tender web of skin between Christian's thumb and forefinger. Christian swore, jerked the revolver out of the Russian's hand, and used the butt of it to slam into the Russian's face. The thick-set Russian staggered backward, blood spurting from his broken nose. Christian slammed his fist into the Russian's solid jaw and forced him back another step. When the Russian came at him, he held a long, thin-bladed knife in his hand, the point of it held so that it could be thrust upward at Christian. Cautiously, Christian stepped back, pulling the revolver's hammer off of his hand. The Russian stepped in close, planted a heavy boot on Christian's arch, and brought the blade within inches of Christian's hip. Christian spun away, tried to bring the revolver up to fire, but lost his grip on it when the Russian swung a heavy left hand into his face. Christian's concentration never faltered, his eyes wearily following the path of the knife blade while trying to determine the Russian's next move. The Russian stepped in close again, brought the blade sharply upward. Christian caught the Russian's wrist, spun the stocky man around, and planted a glancing blow to the Russian's kidneys. He tried to follow that with a solid blow to the back of the Russian's neck, but missed the chance as the Russian stepped out and away from him. They stood a few feet apart, their attention on one another, and they didn't notice as Kelly Francis slipped through the other doors into the room with them. "A stand-off?" Christian said. "Da," the Russian replied. Then he thrust again, the blade slicing through Christian's jacket sleeve, drawing a long line of blood down the length of his forearm. When he spun away from the Russian, Christian stumbled backward over a low stool, and fell onto his back. As the Russian advanced on Christian, Kelly stepped from the shadows with a heavy revolver in her hands, the long nose pointed at the Russian. A look of surprise swept over the Russian's face and he spat out a few words in his native tongue, a look of relief passing over his features before a trio of lead mosquitoes buzzed from Kelly's revolver and drilled through his chest. The Russian crumpled to the floor in a pool of his own blood. Christian scrambled to his feet, retrieved his Luger, and followed the sexy British agent out the door. "Schmidt wasn't there," she told him as they hurried down the street to the parked car. "I checked the other rooms." In the car, Christian wrapped his arm as best he could with a handkerchief, stemming the flow of blood until Kelly could get him to a doctor. "How did you know he was supposed to be there?" Christian asked. "I have connections around the city. I keep my ears open." "What about the Russian? How did he know we were coming?" She shrugged and glanced at him as she negotiated the twisting streets. "He did not expect us," she said. "He was supposed to meet Gunter Schmidt there to receive the microfilm." "But we arrived too early and broke up the party?" "Yes," she said. "That's it. We should have waited." After a doctor had wrapped Christian's arm in bandages, and had given him a shot of medication, they headed back toward the resort hotel. "What will Schmidt do now that his contact is dead?" Christian asked. Kelly shook her head. "I don't know. I can only guess." "And?" "He'll leave town as soon as he discovers the Russian is dead. He's got no reason to stay, no one to pass the microfilm on to." "So you don't think anything will happen tonight?" "No. Nothing. He knows we've caught on to him." Christian slumped back in the seat of the car and rode in silence. Finally he broke it off by saying, "I do not like to play games." She laughed it off. "Americans!" * * * * The rest of the day was quiet, the two agents spending most of it in the bar sipping at drinks and watching the skiers through the massive plate glass window at the end of the room. When Christian finally excused himself and made his way up to his room, he was sure of only one thing: someone was trying to set him up. He carefully let himself into his room when he noticed that the paper match he'd left in the door frame was missing, discovering that his only visitor had been a maid. As he began undressing for the night, Christian remembered the previous night, with Kelly's British body pressed tightly against his, and her offer in the bar just before he'd come upstairs. Then Christian pulled his jacket back on and made his way down the hall, down one flight of stairs, then down another hall. As Christian approached Kelly's room, he heard the faint sounds of fighting. He drew his .9mm Luger from his shoulder holster and kicked the door open. Gunter Schmidt had the petite British agent backed up against the wall, a knife at her throat. Her dress had been ripped half off, a thin line of blood across her chest. Gunter looked no better; his face was bleeding where her nails had torn away the skin. Christian leveled his Luger and shouted. The two combatants froze, then Gunter stepped back away from the British agent. Gunter dropped the bloody knife to the carpet and eyed the bed. Only inches from the two of them lay a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. The three agents stood in a wary triangle. Christian Gunn was the apex and he knew that any moment he would have to make a decision. He had been given orders to find Paroldi's killer and to terminate with extreme prejudice. "Kill him," Kelly Francis said harshly. Christian squeezed the trigger of his Luger. Blood spattered the wall as the British agent dropped to the floor, dead. Her long brown hair fluttered into place around her lifeless bone-china face. Christian had never killed a woman before, but as he thought of the way Eduard Paroldi had died by her hand, he understood why the gendarmes had thought it as crime of passion. Gunter Schmidt stood where he was. "Perhaps you Americans are not so stupid," the German agent said. "How did you know it was her?" Christian returned the Luger to the holster under his left arm. "The Russian," he said. "She had us all playing against each other. She double-crossed the Russian, hoping to secure her connection to me to better get you. It didn't work -- I saw his eyes when he recognized the double-cross." -------- CH001 *The Only Good Red* Dmitri Sakharov, a low-level member of the KGB, sat on the upper deck of the McDonald's paddle steamboat and stared out at the swollen Mississippi River. On the table before him was a half-eaten Quarterpounder and an untouched bag of fries. A small Coke was securely captured in one slender fist. He turned his head, glanced up the hill toward the Gateway Arch, then scanned the faces of the people boarding the boat, saw nothing to catch his eye, and returned his attention to the river. Before long the Coke was gone, ice rattling in the bottom of the cup as Dmitri shook it, but the Quarterpounder and the fries remained. On another day Dmitri would have finished his lunch -- he'd come to like American fast food in the six years he'd been in St. Louis -- but today he had a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was afraid it was the flu. Fifteen minutes later, Dmitri glanced at his watch. His contact was late. Dmitri sucked down the melted ice, then began gathering the remains of his lunch onto the brown plastic tray he'd been given. "I'm sorry I'm late." His contact, out of breath, dropped into the seat opposite Dmitri. "I've been . . . busy." Dmitri nodded, his brown eyes carefully guarding his irritation. "It wasn't as easy as I thought." Dmitri nodded again. Then they began talking quietly. "It's all here," Dmitri's contact said. He opened his jacket to display the thick envelope stuck in the inside pocket. Dmitri opened his own jacket, withdrew a white #10 envelope, and placed it on the table between them. It was snatched up before it could blow away. "And now mine," Dmitri said. The other envelope was placed between them, too heavy to be moved by the breeze. Dmitri reached for it. As he wrapped his hand around the envelope, the other man grabbed his wrist. Dmitri felt a sharp pin-prick in the underside of his arm. He sucked in a deep breath of air, looked questioningly at his contact, and died. The contact left with both envelopes. Twenty minutes later, Dmitri's body fell face-forward into his half-eaten Quarterpounder, alarming the elderly woman sitting to his left. * * * * Christian Gunn had never been to the Midwest; he was usually given assignments in Europe and the Middle East. He sat in a bar in St. Louis' Central West End, watching all the fashionable people crowd around him. He was sipping his second drink when a young man approached him. "My bother collects falcons," the young man said. Christian eyed the other agent carefully before answering. "I hear the Maltese are very expensive." "Only in San Francisco." The younger man smiled and extended his hand. "I'm Ed Clark." Christian finished the last of his drink and stood to follow his contact outside. Once on the sidewalk, they headed slowly toward Kingshighway. To others on the street, they looked like businessmen heading home after a drink and a long day at the office. While walking, the two men discussed the state of the economy and its effect on world trade. Once inside Christian's hotel room, the topic quickly changed. "The KGB thinks we killed Dmitri Sakharov," Ed said. "Officially, we didn't even know he was here." "Unofficially?" "We've had a man on him for the past year. Carlyle Smith." Christian removed his jacket, revealing the .9mm Luger in the holster under his arm. "We can't locate him," Ed Clark said. "We've tried." "Has Smith ever disappeared before?" Christian splashed water on his face, then quickly wiped his hands dry with the tiny hotel hand towel. He'd flown in from London, stopping in New York for only a few hours. Ed shook his head. "Never. He's been reliable -- due for a promotion, actually. Until this." "What about Sakharov? What was he doing here?" "McDonnell Douglas. Monsanto Chemical Corp. Both big employers in this area," Ed Clark said. He settled his slim body in one of the hotel room chairs. "He could have been trying to pick up loose gossip." "What do the reports from Smith say?" Christian kicked off his shoes and lay back against the bed, his hands folded under his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all. According to the reports Smith submitted, Sakharov was clean as a whistle. Didn't even jaywalk." Christian yawned despite his best effort not to. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's been a long day." The younger agent took the hint. "I'll be back in the morning with the files for you to look over." Ed stood. "At nine sharp." Christian pushed himself off the bed and saw his contact to the door, watching the younger man's back recede down the hallway toward the elevator. Then Christian closed the door and prepared himself for bed. Before long, he was asleep. * * * * It didn't last long. A few minutes past midnight, he was awakened by the sound of someone tapping lightly on his door. Christian glanced quickly at his digital watch. It was too late for maids and he hadn't ordered room service. Christian pulled his Luger from the holster hanging on the chair next to his bed and carefully made his way to the door. The tapping resumed, light and tentative. Christian carefully examined the closed door and the short hallway leading to it. Dim light filtering through the curtains from the street lights outside showed him the hall was too narrow to open the door from anywhere except directly behind it. The tapping halted for a moment. Christian heard steps in the hall as someone heavy passed by outside, then the tapping resumed. Christian held the .9mm Luger at the ready, quietly reached for the door handle, and quickly jerked the door open. A buxom brunette standing in the hallway gasped as she looked up the barrel of the Luger at Christian's naked body. He grabbed her wrist, jerked her off-balance into his room, and quickly closed the door. She collapsed into one of the chairs, stared momentarily at Christian then turned her head slightly so that she was staring at the curtains, her cheeks stained with the red of embarrassment. Christian didn't flinch, even though all he wore was the digital watch on his left wrist. "I'm Andrea Smith," she said. "Carlyle Smith's sister. I . . ." She glanced at Christian again, the red stain on her cheeks slowly disappearing. Christian slid back away from her, relaxing his grip on the pistol. He bent to retrieve his slacks from the seat of the other chair in the room. He slid one leg into them. "Don't," Andrea protested. Christian stopped, one muscular leg already inside the dark brown slacks. "I mean, I'm a grown woman," Andrea continued. She licked her lips nervously. Christian stuffed his other leg into the pants, pulled them up to his waist, and quickly buttoned them closed. "How did you know I was here?" he asked as he sat in the chair recently vacated by his empty pants. "My brother sent me," Andrea explained. The buttons on her beige blouse strained as she took a deep breath. She touched nervously at her soft brown curls. "He said to find you. He knew what flight you were coming in on. I had to talk to you." "Where is he now? Why hasn't he reported in?" Andrea shook her head. The curls floated gently around her face, then fell slowly back into place around her shoulders. "I don't know. He didn't tell me." "How did he know I was coming?" Andrea shook her head again. "He just told me to find you. You're the only one who can help him." Christian returned his Luger to the holster slung over the back of the chair. Andrea Smith was too easy to believe: she was too nervous to be lying. "Carlyle hasn't reported into the agency since Sahka . . . Saka . . ." "Sakharov," Christian pronounced carefully. "Since he was killed. My brother thinks he's being set up to take the fall." KGB officials had been screaming for blood ever since news of Dmitri Sakharov's death had reached Moscow. If the CIA didn't hand over Sakharov's killer within the month, the KGB would retaliate. A minor agent working in Ecuador had already been named as their target of choice. Christian reached for his shirt. "Will you take me to him?" "I can't. He won't tell me where he is," Andrea said. "He called last night, told me what flight you'd be coming in on, and said to tell you the things I've already told you." "What will you do now?" Christian asked. "Go home, I guess. That's all I can do, isn't it?" Outside the room, someone heavy strode down the hall. The rhythm of the steps caught Christian's attention. "When you were standing in the hall," he asked, "who passed by?" Andrea described a large man, barrel-chested with a thick torso and thick arms. "He looked like he'd been drinking, but he carried himself well, as if he was more muscle than fat." They listened as the footsteps disappeared. "You won't be leaving tonight," Christian said. "My room's being watched by somebody. They saw you come in here. You can't leave alone and I can't leave with you." "So what do we do?" she asked. "Get some rest," Christian responded. "I think we're going to need it." Andrea slipped off her low-heeled shoes and began unbuttoning her blouse. Christian watched with interest. "There's no use being uncomfortable if I'm going to be here all night," she said. * * * * Andrea was breathing lightly when Christian slipped out of bed the next morning to take his shower. He pulled the covers back over her, trying not to disturb the sleeping beauty. When he returned from the shower, toweling himself dry and smelling of soap, Christian found Andrea sitting up in bed. "I heard the shower," she said. Before Christian could respond, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Christian glanced at his watch, then pulled on his clothes. Andrea gathered her clothes and stepped into the bathroom. When Christian pulled open the door to his hotel room, Ed Clark stepped inside. In one hand was a black leather briefcase. Ed quickly crossed the room, laid the briefcase on the small table, and popped it open. Inside were a bulging pair of file folders. Ed pulled them out and opened the first. "Here're the reports Carlyle turned in," Ed said. "The other folder contains background on Sakharov. He was a nobody. Bottom-line agent. Barely more than a pencil-pusher." Ed rubbed at his eyes; they were bloodshot. He explained: "I've been up all night reading." The bathroom door opened then, and Ed Clark spun around to stare at Andrea Smith. "Who's she?" he asked suspiciously. Then a sly smile slowly crossed his face. He said, "Your reputation seems well-deserved, Christian." "This is Andrea," Christian said. When Ed Clark still showed no signs of recognition, he said, "Andrea, this is Ed." Ed Clark nodded at the attractive young woman, said "Pleased to meet you," and half-turned away from her to close the file folder. "Maybe we'd better talk later," the younger agent said. "Why don't we all go to breakfast," Christian suggested. He slung his holster over his shoulder, fastened it into place, then pulled on his jacket. Ed Clark laid the file folders back in the briefcase and snapped it shut. Andrea Smith stepped into her shoes. The three of them headed out of the hotel room and down the hall to the elevator. In the lobby, a heavyset man looked over the top of that day's _Wall Street Journal,_ and watched as the three of them crossed the lobby. Out of the corner of his eye, Christian watched the large man fold up the newspaper, push himself to his feet, and fall into step quite a distance behind them. The big man followed the trio out of the hotel and around the corner. Christian nudged Andrea lightly. She looked at Christian, followed his quick glance toward their heavyset shadow, and said, "That's him." Ed looked over. "Excuse me?" "Nothing," Christian said. "Just saying how nice it is outside." Breakfast went slowly, the two CIA agents and the woman seated around a small table in the back of a fashionable Central West End restaurant, only a few doors away from the bar where Christian and Ed Clark had first met. Throughout the meal, Ed nervously eyed Andrea and Christian warily watched the big man who had followed them into the restaurant. At the end of the meal, Christian excused himself, leaving Andrea and Ed Clark alone at the table. When Christian stood at the men's room sink washing his hands, the heavyweight stepped into the men's room. Christian had expected to be followed. He swung around sharply, planting a heavy fist in his shadow's gut. As the big man doubled over, Christian grabbed his shirt collar and forced him back against the bathroom wall. The big man gasped for air. "Look, buddy, if you want my wallet, it's in my pocket." He took another deep breath. "I'll get it for you." He began to reach for his back pocket. Christian grabbed the big man's wrist, twisted him around, and shoved his face into the pink tiled wall. Then Christian carefully pulled the .38 from the big man's waistband at the small of his back. Cocking the trigger, Christian held the snub nose of the .38 against the base of his shadow's skull. "No games," Christian ordered. "It's time to talk. You've been watching my room all night." "Anderson, CIA," the big man said. "Identification's in my jacket pocket." Christian reached into the big man's pocket with his free hand, pulled out a slim wallet, and examined the I.D. "What is this, a convention?" Anderson didn't laugh. "Why were you following me?" "Orders." "Whose?" "Home office," Anderson said. "I'm in from Chicago. I wasn't supposed to interfere, just observe. Cover your backside." "Doesn't look like you can cover your own," Christian said. He uncocked the .38 and slowly lowered it. When he stepped back away from Anderson, the big man slowly turned around. Christian unloaded the revolver and dropped it in the open toilet bowl. "Don't bother following me out. If I see you again, I'll break one of your kneecaps." When Christian returned to the table, Ed Clark asked, "When will we be able to talk privately?" Christian glanced at Andrea, then picked up the bill for breakfast. "You won't have any more trouble," he said, as he left a trio of crumpled fives on the table and motioned for the others to follow him out. "I've taken care of it." Andrea murmured her thanks. "I'll walk you to your car," Christian said, still ignoring Ed's question. Andrea shook her head. "I'll be all right. Just remember what I told you last night." She stared into Christian's eyes for a moment, then turned and walked down the block toward the hotel's parking garage. Christian watched her go. Then Ed Clark steered him into a small Ford parked at the curb up the block from the restaurant. "Read these," he said as he handed the briefcase to Christian. "We're going to Carlyle's apartment." While Ed Clark maneuvered the Ford through the crowded streets of the Central West End, then downtown toward Soulard, Christian scanned the paperwork. He found nothing he needed to know and lots of things he didn't care about. His job was only to answer two questions -- who killed Dmitri Sakharov and why. He wasn't any closer to the answers than when he'd arrived on the plane. * * * * Carlyle Smith's apartment was comfortable, but bland. There was a nice CD collection, some paperback books and magazines, and a comfortable-looking assortment of Sears and JC Penny furniture. The bed had been made before Carlyle had disappeared, and the dishes had been washed. Only one thing struck Christian oddly: there were no photos in Carlyle Smith's apartment. "What were we supposed to find?" Christian asked. "You tell me," Ed Clark countered. Christian shrugged, looked around the living room one last time, and preceded Ed Clark downstairs to the car. They returned to Christian's hotel in silence. As Ed pulled the small Ford to a stop, he said, "It's a big city. Smith could still be here, or he could be out of the country by now." "I have a feeling he's still around," Christian said. "Keep looking. Call me when you find him. I'm going to study these files a bit more." Christian climbed out of the car, Ed Clark's briefcase in one hand. In his room, he spread Carlyle Smith's reports on Dmitri Sakharov across his table top. As he read them, Christian discovered they were as bland as they had seemed when he'd scanned them earlier. They told him nothing of interest about Sakharov, but he did notice that Carlyle had changed typewriters about mid-way through his year-long surveillance of the soviet spy, and the typing on the reports grew increasingly sloppy. After two hours, Christian stood and stretched. Paperwork had never been his strong point. He walked over to the phone, intending to call room service to order a sandwich. Instead, he found Andrea Smith's name and phone number penciled lightly on a pad of paper next to the phone. He dialed her number and, when she answered after the third ring, he invited her to dinner, agreeing to meet in the hotel restaurant at six. Then Christian pulled on his jacket and went for a walk, confirming that his former shadow had completely disappeared. Christian spent the afternoon alone, walking the paths in Forest Park and thinking, then freshened up in his room. He met Andrea at the restaurant, exchanged pleasantries while they examined the menu, and sipped at the wine he had ordered. Ed Clark interrupted them. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked Christian in a low, rigid voice. "I've been trying to reach you for the past hour." Christian looked up at the younger agent. He didn't respond. "I've pinned down Smith. He's holed up in an apartment about a mile from here." Christian finished his drink, stood, and held out his hand to help Andrea to her feet. To Ed Clark, he said, "Let's go." Ed glared at Andrea. "She's with me," Christian said. "There's no time to discuss it." Ed quickly drove them to a small apartment building on the city's near-north side. He pointed to a ground-floor apartment with a door opening onto the parking lot. "There's no back door," he said. "I checked." Christian stepped away from the car, carefully surveyed the situation, then made his way across the parking lot toward the door. "What do you think you're doing?" Ed asked, angrily. Christian half-turned to face him. "Taking the direct approach." The younger agent hurried after Christian. Andrea climbed out of the car to watch. Christian rapped sharply on the apartment door. "I ain't buyin' no Girl Scout cookies," said a gravely voice from inside the apartment. "Go away." Ed Clark nodded. Softly, he said, "That's him." Christian stood with his back to the wall of the building. To his right was the door. To his left was a massive window. The curtains were drawn shut, but Christian could see the faint outline of a man inside the room. "We're not selling cookies," Christian yelled back. He motioned to Ed Clark. They both drew their weapons. Ed Clark stepped back and kicked the front door open. Christian dove through the window, shattering glass and landing on top of a sturdy coffee table. He was behind an unarmed young man who matched the photo of Carlyle Smith he'd seen in the files. Ed rushed through the door, spotted Carlyle Smith, and opened fire with his revolver. Christian lashed out with his foot, catching Carlyle behind the knee and knocking him to the floor. Christian fired once and Ed Clark sank back against the door frame. Ed tried to raise his revolver to fire again, then fell out the open apartment door onto the concrete walkway. Carlyle Smith lay on the floor breathing heavily. Christian bent over him. "He ordered me to wait here," Carlyle said between gasps of air. Christian helped Carlyle to his feet. Then he said, "Your sister's outside. You want to talk to her?" Carlyle looked up into Christian's eyes. "I haven't got a sister." Andrea Smith stepped over Ed Clark's body into the apartment, the automatic in her hands aimed at Carlyle. "Nice work," she said to Christian. Then she squeezed the trigger of the automatic and drilled a hole through Carlyle Smith's chest. Christian brought the barrel of his Luger upward in one swift movement, but before he could fire, a gun roared and Andrea Smith pitched forward onto the carpeting. "She's KGB," Anderson said. He was standing outside the broken window. Police sirens cut sharply through the night air, their sounds growing increasingly closer. Anderson motioned to Christian. "It's time to leave." * * * * The next afternoon, Anderson sat in one of the hotel room chairs and watched as Christian Gunn packed his suitcase. "When I introduced Ed Clark to Andrea Smith, they obviously didn't know each other," Christian said. "That bothered me. Then I got a good look at Carlyle Smith's reports. The last half-year or so were forged -- that's why we went to Ed Clark's house this morning, to find the matching typewriter. Clark told me he'd stayed up all night rereading the reports. Actually, he spent the night writing them." "Why would he do that?" Anderson asked. "Because Smith's reports revealed that Sakharov was getting close to somebody on our side; that he was buying information from somebody. Only Smith didn't realize it was his immediate supervisor, Ed Clark. Clark knew about the reports and knew he had to do something before he was caught. So he killed Sakharov and tried to pin the blame on Smith. It was a good enough set-up to fool Andrea." Christian finished packing the suitcase and closed the top. "It happens that way sometimes." The two agents headed downstairs. Christian hailed a taxi to take him to the airport. Anderson watched as Christian climbed into the back seat. As the cab was about to pull away from the curb, Christian leaned out the open window and said, "Take good care of your knees." -------- CH002 *Bed of Roses* Gravel crunched under my boots as I walked the last half mile home from Big Hooters Bar and Grill. My Chevy had committed suicide just the other side of Miller's Creek and I'd had to push it off the road, out of the way of the tractors and pickups that would be traveling past my place near about sunrise. I had not planned on leaving Big Hooters alone, but Jay-Lynne had chosen that evening to inform me of the demise of our relationship. She took particular delight in informing me of her new boyfriend's superior financial situation, and she suggested that the size of a man's wallet was a superior indication of a man's prowess in bed. I took issue with that statement, of course, but I singularly failed to convince her of my point of view. She left me with a five-beer tab that I promptly ran right up to an even dozen. The living room light in my three-room shack cast an eerie glow through the drawn shade and it wasn't until I had pushed open the front door that I remembered I'd left all the lights switched off when I'd left for Big Hooters. "About time you got back," he said. Whoever he was, he'd made himself comfortable in my best easy chair. Blue tendrils of smoke drifted up from the business end of a fat cigar he had captured between two fingers. I closed the door behind me. "I don't allow smoking in my house." My uninvited guest made no effort to extinguish his cigar. Instead, he held up a water glass into which he'd been flicking ashes. "That explains why I had to find this." "I locked the door when I left," I said. "How'd you get in?" "I got the key from your girlfriend. I suspect she no longer needs it." "Jay-Lynne?" My guest shrugged. "Cute brunette, large breasts, inch-long scar under her left nipple, shaves her pubic hair in the shape of an arrow pointing down?" "That's her," I said. "How'd she get the scar?" "Disagreement with a paring knife when she was thirteen," I said. I eased onto the couch, across from my visitor. "You haven't introduced yourself." "That's right, I haven't." He raised the cigar to his lips, took a long draw, held the smoke for a moment, and then slowly released it. "Are you Jay-Lynne's new boyfriend?" I asked. My visitor laughed so hard he started to choke. "That dork?" "You've obviously seen her naked." "She leaves her shade up when she undresses." "So you haven't slept with her?" He shook his head. "Not that I wouldn't, mind you, just that I haven't been presented with the opportunity." The entire time we'd been talking, I'd been taking my measure of the man. He appeared to be my height, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. He wore his long black hair pushed behind his ears and his face looked like it had been hit with the flat side of a shovel one too many times. Excess belly pushed over the top of his belt buckle and stretched his black t-shirt. He wore his faded blue jeans tight as sausage casings, with the legs tucked into the tops of his snakeskin boots. I had seen no evidence of a weapon, yet he sat comfortably unafraid of what I might do. I thought I could take him. I decided not to try. My visitor flicked ashes from the end of his cigar into the water glass, then said, "You haven't asked why I've come." "I figured you'd tell me when the time was right." He smiled. "We have similar desires." "How's that?" "You want your girlfriend and I want her new boyfriend." "How do you know about him?" "Watch." My visitor reached for the universal remote on the end table next to where he sat, switched on the television and then the VCR. Static and snow filled the screen for a moment, then I found myself staring through the sliding glass door into Jay-Lynne's bedroom while she undressed. "She lives on the second floor," I said. "Where were you?" "Roof of the feed store." "That's nearly a block away." "Telephoto lens," my visitor explained. I returned my attention to the television screen. Jay-Lynne had removed everything except her white cotton panties. Before she could remove them, a man stepped into the bedroom with her and gathered her into his arms. He stood a good head taller than her, with wavy brown hair thinning on top and a face near-enough to handsome that I doubted if he ever lacked for female companionship. He smothered Jay-Lynne with kisses and she melted against him. "Her new boyfriend," said my visitor, unnecessarily. "His name's Chester Wilson." She pushed open the sliding glass door and stepped onto the balcony outside her apartment. He followed her outside and peeled off the last of her clothes. I didn't need to see any more so I reached out and switched off the television. I turned to my guest. "Why do you want him?" "Chester took a great deal of money from my employer," he said. "And it's taken me a year to find him." "Why'd he come here?" "Damned if I know." He flicked more ashes into the water glass. "What do you need from me?" "I need to know what happened to the money." "Why don't you just ask him?" "I tried that once. That's why he ran." "What do I get out of this?" "You might get your girl back," he explained. "At the least, you'll get Chester out of the picture." "Tell me how." * * * * The next morning I had my Chevy towed into town and I rode in with it. While the mechanic at Cracker Brothers tried to resurrect the heap, I strolled over to the diner where Jay-Lynne waitressed. "I told you I didn't want to see you again," Jay-Lynne said when I slipped onto an empty stool at the counter. "A guy's got to eat," I told her. I ordered without consulting the menu. "Give me the patty melt, large fries, and coffee." She glared at me for a moment before turning on her heel and calling the order back to the cook. Then she stalked to the other end of the counter and spoke quietly to the blue-haired spinster who works behind the counter at the five-and-dime. Then they both glared at me. A few minutes later, the cook smacked the bell with the flat of his spatula and called out, "Order up!" Jay-Lynne retrieved my order, carried it to where I sat, and slammed it on the counter in front of me. "So eat." "I was thinking about what you said last night," I said. "Oh, not now," she said. "I'm working." "So stand still and listen to me for a few minutes," I said. "Or I'll make a big scene." Jay-Lynne glanced around the diner. The blue-haired spinster continued to glare at me, a teenaged couple were self-absorbed in one of the back booths, two retired gentlemen stared at a chess board in one of the booths, and the town's only female police officer, a buxom blonde named Cheryl Myers, sat near the door nursing a bottomless cup of coffee and a powdered doughnut. "Two minutes." "I've seen Chester Wilson," I said. "He must have quite a wad in his pocket." "The clock's running; make your point." "What's going to happen when you discover Chester doesn't have the money you think he has?" "He's got it," Jay-Lynne said. "You've seen it?" She leaned over the counter and nearly pressed her nose against mine. "I've seen it, I've touched it, I've made love in it." I swallowed hard. "Do you know _where_ he got it?" "Does it matter?" she asked. "He's got it and you don't." "And money makes him a big man?" "Bigger than you." Jay-Lynne straightened up and glanced at her watch. "Your time's up." As she walked to the other end of the counter to refill the cop's coffee, I began eating. As I ate, I eyed the cop, admiring how well she filled out her uniform and wondering what it would be like to have her strip search me. The thought must have made me smile because she caught me staring at her and she smiled back. When I finished, I walked down the block to the Cracker Brothers and listened while the mechanic told me I'd thrown a rod. After I authorized the repair, I dropped a quarter into the pay phone and dialed a number I'd written on a scrap of paper the previous night. "Is this  --  ?" I said when I heard a voice on the other end of the line. I realized I still didn't know his name. "Yes." "He must have the money with him," I said, but I didn't tell him how I knew. "I've already searched his place." "Then maybe we should search it again," I suggested. "This time I'll go with you." He picked me up fifteen minutes later and drove me to an apartment building on the south side of town. The building had twelve apartments, six on each floor, and Wilson had rented an end unit on the top floor. My escort carried a pocket-sized leather tool kit. After clamping his omnipresent cigar between his lips, he unzipped the kit, selected something from inside, and had the door unlocked within thirty seconds of our arrival. Once inside, we began the search. "I went easy on Chester last time," he said. "I didn't leave behind any evidence of my visit." My companion didn't seem inclined to do the same this time. He tore pictures off the wall, pulled drawers out of the kitchen cabinets, and tore open the cushions on the sofa. I did the same. We'd worked our way through the living room, kitchen, and dining area, and had just started on the bedroom when Chester Wilson barged in. "What the hell are you doing?" Wilson demanded as he launched himself at my companion, knocking the cigar from his mouth and onto the bed. I tried to pull Wilson away but he turned and clocked me in the side of the head, dropping me to my knees. My companion shoved Wilson over the top of me and down to the carpet, where he rolled over and quickly came to his feet. He held a revolver in his hand. "I want the two of you out of that room." He motioned with the barrel of the gun. "Keep your hands where I can see them and step slowly and carefully into the living room." "You won't get away with this," my companion said. "I think I already have," Wilson said. "I've got the money and you haven't got squat." I followed their conversation like a tennis match, turning my head from one to the other as they spoke. "If you leave, I'll find you again." "That's the problem with partners," Wilson said. "They never want to part company. Well, this time  -- " Wilson never got the chance to finish what he'd started to say. Smoke began billowing from the bedroom, distracting him. I stepped forward and buried my fist into his abdomen, doubling him over. Then I grabbed his arm and slammed his wrist against my knee, loosening his grip on the revolver long enough for me to wrest it from his hand. While I fought with Wilson, my companion stuck his head into the bedroom and came right back out. "The bed's on fire." "No, damn it, no!" Wilson moaned from the floor. I ordered my companion to drag Wilson out of the building and once outside, I kept the revolver trained on both of them. Someone had seen smoke billowing from the building and had called the fire department while we'd been scuffling inside. As the first fire truck slid to a halt in the parking lot, a police car wheeled into the lot behind it. Cheryl dove from the car and came up with her police revolver securely gripped in both hands. She had it trained on me. "Drop the weapon!" she commanded and I did as she instructed. A second police car wheeled into the parking lot, and then a third. Soon Cheryl had me spread across the hood of her car and was patting me down for weapons. When she got to my crotch, I felt myself react. "It's a six-shooter," I joked, but she didn't laugh. It took the rest of the afternoon to straighten everything out. I explained to Cheryl how Butch Kaplan -- the man whose name I didn't learn until Cheryl told it to me -- had convinced me to help him find the money Chester Wilson had stolen. Then I explained what had happened in Wilson's apartment and how something Wilson had said during the scuffle convinced me that neither man could be trusted. "You're right," Cheryl said. "They're both wanted in connection with an armored car robbery fourteen months ago. You're lucky you weren't hurt." I didn't learn the rest of the story until the next evening. Once I'd been cleared, I'd asked Cheryl to dinner and she'd accepted. Over steaks at Cubby's Grill, she filled in the details. It turns out that Wilson and Kaplan had been employees of the armored car company and they'd made off with more than $700,000 in cash. Wilson had double-crossed his partner, leaving Kaplan with barely a hundred thousand when he skipped town. Kaplan had used the money to finance his search for his double-crossing partner, finally locating him in our town. He knew Wilson would have the money with him, especially since Wilson had repeatedly expressed his apparently sincere distrust of banks. "Did he have the money?" I asked. By then we were finishing dessert. "We didn't find it." "Stuffed in his mattress," Cheryl said. "Most of it burned." I smiled. Jay-Lynne's bed of money had been no bed of roses. It had gone up in smoke and her new boyfriend was on his way to federal prison. I had turned over the video tape of her doing it with Wilson on her balcony and the police were considering charging her as an accomplice after the fact. The armored car company's insurance carrier had posted a ten percent reward for the arrest and indictment of the person or persons responsible for the heist. I had already received confirmation that $70,000 was on my way and just before coming to dinner I had special-ordered a new Corvette from the Chevy dealer. I thought my life couldn't get any better. Then Cheryl asked if I wanted to go back to her place and try out my six-shooter. -------- CH003 *Con Job* Staying celibate behind prison walls was a miracle on par with the parting of the Red Sea, but Marcus Mallone had managed. Now, after three years in Stateville, he faced the prospect of parole and pussy. It made his loins ache. Laying on his bunk with his hands cupped behind his head, Marcus remembered the last time he'd played hide-the-sausage. The night before the armored car heist went sour, he'd slipped it to his partner's wife. She'd been -- and probably still was -- a hell of a good looking dame, with thighs to die for and breasts like ripe watermelons. He still wasn't sure how they'd wound up alone in his apartment that night, but he remembered Tasha pulling a pale blue sweater over her head, revealing a pair of unencumbered tits that swayed back and forth as she finished pulling off the sweater. Static electricity made strands of her long blonde hair float around her head, creating a halo effect as the light from the lamp behind her filtered through her hair. "I've wanted you ever since Tony introduced us," Tasha said. Marcus forgot about the job scheduled for the next day, forgot about his partner, and forgot about everything except her. They spent the night together and he barely managed four hours of sleep before meeting Tony the next morning. Everything went smoothly until the end. They'd caught the guards coming out of the bank, surprised them and used the muzzle of a gun pressed against the base of one's skull to encourage the guard inside the armored car to open the door. Then Marcus began throwing sacks of cash into the back seat of their getaway car as Tony slid behind the wheel and slipped the Monte Carlo into gear. After tossing the last sack of money into the car, Marcus had started to climb in. Behind the wheel, his partner twitched nervously. When sirens began wailing around them, Tony punched the accelerator, dragging Marcus for nearly two blocks before the big man finally released his grip on the door handle. Marcus struggled to his feet and was limping away when the first cop drew down on him. He was still limping when he stood before the judge and accepted his sentence. Still, all the scars had healed during his three years inside. He'd spent hours each day pumping iron in the gym, killing time so time wouldn't kill him. "Mallone." Marcus sat up and stared at the pug-faced guard standing in the open door of his cell. "Yeah?" "You got a visitor." Marcus stood and pulled on his shirt, buttoning it across his wide chest. He hadn't had a visitor in nearly two and a half years, not since his mother had ridden the bus up from St. Louis to chastise him for missing his sister's wedding. Her grasp of reality had never been particularly strong and she somehow equated his time in stir to a vacation he could return home from any time he chose. No one had visited him since. An attractive redhead wearing too much make-up waited for Marcus in the visitor's room and he approached the empty seat across from her. She stood to hug him, pressing her ample breasts against his muscular chest and not pulling away until the guard across the room motioned them apart. Drugs and other contraband were too easily transmitted between visitors and prisoners and physical contact was severely limited. They sat facing each other and when she spoke, Marcus finally recognized his partner's wife under the wig. Tasha said, "You're looking good." "I see the shrink tomorrow," Marcus said. "I'm out the day after." "I know," she said. "I heard." "Why come to see me now?" "I've been thinking about you ever since you went down." "I stood up," Marcus said. He'd never rolled over on his partner and he never would. "I know. I respect that." She glanced around the room, then lowered her voice. "Not like Tony." "He was scared. He took off. Shit happens." She shook her head. "He left you behind on purpose." "Why?" "He knew about us." Marcus leaned forward. The wooden chair squealed in complaint and a few heads turned at the sound. She continued. "I tried to set aside your half for when you got out. Tony wouldn't let me." "The news said we got a quarter of a mill." "Close. Two hundred seventeen thousand and change." "Why tell me all this now?" "Tony's being transferred in here tomorrow." She told him of a bank job that had soured, leaving Tony holding. "He tried to roll over on his partner, but it backfired. His partner got out from under." When Marcus returned to his cell twenty minutes later, he did it with the knowledge that Tasha would be waiting for him when he was released. Parole and pussy. The two thoughts went together well and he considered all the things he wanted to do upon release. He'd walk out those gates wearing a new suit, with $412 dollars in his pocket -- the $250 every prisoner gets upon release and his outstanding commissary cash of $162. Tasha would be waiting for him and he doubted they would make it as far as the nearest motel. He imagined taking her right there in the car and he hoped she brought a Cadillac or something else with a roomy back seat. Marcus smiled at the thought and it took a while for him to concentrate on the present. Before he would have a chance to do Tasha, he had a more pressing problem to resolve. His former partner had reamed him and the following day would be his only opportunity to set things right before his release. He pushed himself out of his bunk and began making arrangements, calling in all of his debts and spending the last of his cigarettes for favors. The next afternoon, when Tony was released into the yard after being shown his cell and his cell mate, Marcus Mallone silently slid up beside him, a shank hidden in his massive hand. "Marcus," Tony said, a smile bisecting his face and revealing a set of tobacco-stained teeth. He didn't see the shank. "I figured you were still here." "Been waiting for you," Marcus said quietly. In the towers above them, the guards watched the yard, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. "I stood up and you double-crossed me," Marcus said as he slipped the shank in just below Tony's ribs. "You owe me." Tony's eyes widened in surprise. "I had two hundred grand waiting for you when you got out," Tony said. "Your piece of the armored car and a piece of every job I've pulled since." Marcus pulled the shank back. "Tasha has it," Tony said as he slumped to the ground, his body hidden by more than a dozen inmates who'd gathered in a loose knot around them to shield the activity from the sight of the guards. As Marcus turned away, a trio of guards pushed their way through the crowd of inmates. When they saw Tony already on the ground, his last breath already spent, one of them swore. By then, Marcus had dropped the shank next to the body, but they grabbed him anyway. Later -- much later -- he asked how they'd known. "Anonymous tip," one of them said. "A woman." Marcus shook his head sadly. After three years inside, he'd finally gotten fucked by a woman. He hadn't enjoyed it. -------- CH004 *First Blonde on the Left* She walked into the room as if she owned it, her hips swaying seductively, her heavy breasts bouncing under her tight-fitting red sweater, strands of her long blonde hair trailing behind as if unable to keep pace with the rest of her. By the time she finally stopped in front of my desk, every man in the bank had interrupted what he had been doing to stare at her. Karla Myerson introduced herself and I offered her a seat. She settled into the hard-backed wooden chair on the far side of my desk and crossed her long, evenly-tanned legs. Her short skirt grew even shorter, but I didn't gawk. Instead, I stared at her moist red lips, her delicate nose, her emerald-green eyes. She had captivated me and she knew it. She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and I imagined every man in the room panting. Perhaps I only heard my own breath coming in heavy gasps. "I've come to speak to you about a loan," she said. Her voice reminded me of gentle summer breezes laced with jasmine. It couldn't have been any sexier. My wedding band felt leaden and constricting. I swallowed before speaking. "How may I help?" She uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them the other way. I thought I caught a glimpse of red silk at the juncture of her thighs. "I plan to purchase a new car." "Yes?" "A bright red Miata." She laid out the sales brochure and I easily imagined her behind the wheel, her hair blowing in the breeze. She laid out the sales contract with the bottom-line price clearly identified. I examined the details and quickly realized that she'd negotiated a good bargain. "This appears to be in order," I said. I retrieved a loan application from my desk drawer and squared it on the green blotter covering my desk. Usually I handed the paperwork to the loan applicants to complete, but I wanted Karla to remain close. I asked her the questions, filling in the blanks as she responded. "This shouldn't take long," I told her when we'd finished completing the application and she'd signed it in two places. "How long?" "Call around lunch time tomorrow." "That long?" She appeared disappointed. I had to check her credit, her references, her work history. I could do it all with one phone call and have the answer within minutes if I wanted to. Karla licked her lips and switched legs again. "I was really hoping to pick up the car today." "Uh." I nervously tugged at the knot of my tie. "Maybe I can do something to speed things up." I pushed myself away from my desk and stood. Then I walked to an empty desk near the back, picked up the phone, and dialed. As I spoke to the woman who answered my call, I smiled at Karla. Before long I returned to my desk with a check in my hand. Karla signed more papers, and then left with the check after telling me how much she appreciated my speeding up the process. I watched her leave the bank. So did every other man in the place. * * * * Thursday was my evening to close and I left the bank at a quarter past seven. Only three cars occupied the parking lot -- the night watchman's aging Chevy Impala, my year-old Cadillac, and the blonde's red Miata. She pulled the Miata to the curb beside me. "Get in." Karla smiled seductively. "Excuse me?" "I'll bet you've never ridden in a car like this. Get in." She reached across the interior and pushed open the passenger door. I dropped my briefcase behind the seat and slid in beside her, my left leg bumping against a Thermos. Before I even had my door closed, she had dropped the little car into first gear and we sped away from the curb and out of the bank's parking lot. Above the sound of the rushing wind, she called out, "You always work late?" "Just Thursdays," I called back. She sped through an intersection just as a yellow light turned red, then she hung a sharp left turn at the next corner, cutting off a fat man in a Mercedes who had to slam on the brakes to avoid us. "I wouldn't have been able to buy this car without you," she shouted. "I just wanted to thank you." Thank me or kill me, I couldn't tell which from the way she drove. My heart pounded against the inside of my chest as she whipped around one car after another, weaving through traffic like she was weaving an automotive tapestry. "Open the Thermos," she shouted. "I made Martinis." I unscrewed the cup from the top, then unscrewed the stopper. "They're shaken, not stirred," she shouted. I needed a drink, so I poured three fingers into the plastic cup, downed them, and poured another three fingers. She took the cup from my hand and took a sip. "I shouldn't drink and drive," she chided herself as she handed the cup back. It couldn't have made her any more dangerous. "You ever do anything like this with your wife?" "No," I shouted back. My wife's concept of excitement included credit cards and half-price sales. "Never." Karla pulled the Miata into the parking lot of a little motel I'd never seen before. By then I'd downed half the Thermos of Martinis. She stopped the car in front of a private bungalow near the rear. As she placed one hand on my knee, she stared deep into my eyes. She said, "I want to thank you properly." Karla led me inside and I didn't resist. Once inside, she pushed the door shut and bolted the lock, pulled the curtains closed and snapped on the light, turned toward me and said, "I want you." At that moment I forgot about everything else in the world. I wanted her like I had never wanted anyone else. I couldn't strip fast enough, strewing clothes all over the room. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. There'd been a few adolescent fumblings in the back seat of my father's car during high school, a few reasonably successful encounters with co-eds during college, and the nearly-weekly graplings with my wife, but never, ever, had a woman come on to me like Karla had. I'd never had a customer so grateful for a loan and it took her nearly two hours to finish showing me how grateful she was. Finally I dressed and caught a cab back to the bank for my car, wondering how I would explain to my wife what had kept me so late. * * * * "There's a woman waiting for you," Stu said, pointing toward my desk. "She's been here for ten minutes already." I looked. A heavy woman with a bad complexion, fly-away henna-rise hair, and two squirming children overflowed the hard-backed chair on the far side of my desk. "What in hell's this?" she demanded as soon as I walked up and identified myself. She threw a crumpled past-due notice on my desk. I removed it from the envelope and smoothed it against the green blotter on the top of my desk. Karla Myerson hadn't made a payment on her Miata since the day the loan had been taken out three months earlier. "It's the second one I've received," she said. "I thought the first one was a mistake." "And you are?" "Karla Myerson, you twit." I looked at the past due notice again and thought about the blonde. "I ain't got no new car and I don't owe no money." One of the children escaped from her grasp and ran across the marble floor toward the revolving door. She called out its name in a screech that made me wince. "I'm sure we can take care of this," I said. As soon as the irate woman confirmed her identity with her driver's license and other paperwork she'd brought from home, I began the process of canceling her debt and notifying the police of a possible fraud. A detective arrived later that day to take my statement, and he assured me that they would do everything within their powers to catch the blonde who had defrauded the bank. I didn't believe him. * * * * The following Monday, I opened the plain brown envelope mixed in with other mail on my desk and stared at the single photo it contained. Although the blonde had her head turned away from the camera, I had been caught grinning like a Cheshire cat. I shoved the photo back in the envelope and glanced around to see if anyone else had seen it. I knew what the photo meant and I suspected there were dozens of others waiting to be sent to my wife. I stuffed it in my briefcase, behind some papers that I hadn't touched in months. * * * * The next afternoon, I stood in the police station and stared at five blondes through one-way glass. They were lined up in no particular order, their heights easily determined by the horizontal lines painted on the wall behind them. The woman who had identified herself as Karla Myerson was the first blonde on the left, but as I examined the women and thought about the single photo I'd received the day before, I became increasingly less sure of myself. A police detective with thick lips and bulging eyes prodded me with his elbow. "You see her in there?" I shook my head tentatively. "You sure?" I became more confident. "I don't see her. She's not in there." He looked me over as if he knew I knew which one she was, then he shook his head. "It's guys like you what make my job hard." I shrugged. "She's not in there." When I turned to go, no one stopped me. I haven't seen her again, not in person, but every month or so I pull the photo out of my briefcase to remind myself that blonde hair and big tits aren't collateral. -------- CH005 *A Price to Pay* "You will meet a woman  -- " "I meet women every day," I told the fortune teller. I wasn't paying the old crone fifty bucks to learn things I already knew. "This will be a special woman." "How so?" I asked, and she told me. The following evening I nursed a light beer at Tupperman's -- a fern bar near my office -- and told Jerry all about my encounter with the gypsy fortune teller. Jerry had been my roommate in college and we'd both taken the same career path, though for different agencies. We still got together at Tupperman's two or three times a week to compare notes and I knew his career had gone into a stall. "What'd I tell you?" Jerry asked. "Isn't she a hoot?" "For fifty bucks she should be." "If it wasn't for her, I never would have bought the townhouse." "Didn't you tell me the foundation's cracked?" "Yet, but it's in a great location." I shook my head. Jerry's the type of guy who reads his horoscope every morning and thinks it was written just for him. When I'd complained one evening about the pathetic state of my love life, he'd suggested I visit Madame Rose. He said she'd know if I had any hope at all. I finished my beer and slid off the stool. "Where you going?" Jerry asked. "The night is young." "But I'm not," I told him, "and I have an important presentation to make in the morning." "The Chesterton account?" he asked. "That's the one." I threaded my way through the mostly-occupied chairs, then pushed through the door and stepped outside. I'd gone barely half-a-block when a buxom brunette walking with her head down as she rummaged through her purse barreled right into me, nearly knocking me off my feet. She looked up, startled. "I . . . I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I wasn't paying any attention at all." "I'd say not." "I really am sorry," she insisted. She had a voice as soft as silk. "Let me make it up to you. Let me buy you a drink." "I just had one." "Oh," she said. "Oh, well then, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" I had a few thoughts, most of them explicit and involving nudity. I shook my head. "It's okay. No harm done." She shrugged, apologized again, then walked away in the same direction she'd been heading before we'd collided. I watched her backside until she turned the corner at the end of the block. * * * * The presentation went fine even though I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. I'd spent most of the night tossing and turning, chastising myself for not accepting the woman's offer of a drink. I was in no position to pass on the only opportunity to come my way in quite a while, especially since I hadn't had a date in six months and hadn't gotten laid in nine. "Good job," Ellerby said when he stuck his head in my office an hour after the presentation ended. Ellerby's been my boss for the two years I've been with the firm. "I think you nailed the client." The client wasn't what I'd been thinking of nailing, but I mumbled my thanks anyway. "We expect to have signed contracts in the morning," Ellerby continued. "Big things are in store for you, but you better not get a swelled head." I mumbled my thanks. "Stop by my office after lunch, and we'll see what else we can run up Chesterton's flagpole." When he finally disappeared down the hall, I glanced at my watch and saw the hands pointing straight up at noon. I swept a couple of pencils into my desk drawer, closed the folder I had open on the green blotter, and headed out of the office to find something to eat. I rode the elevator twenty-seven floors down, crossed the expansive lobby of the building, and stepped outside into a warm summer breeze. I slipped my jacket off and folded it over my arm. I had two decent choices within walking distance -- Eddie's two blocks south and Charmagne's a block and a half north. I chose the closer of the two and turned left. People were lined up outside when I arrived at Charmagne's and the petite blonde at the door told me about the twenty minute wait for a table. As I was about to tell her to forget it, a silken voice said, "He's with me." I turned and saw the buxom brunette I'd run into the night before. She wore a dark-colored, conservative-style business suit and a low-cut white blouse. "Reservation for two under the name Cornell." The brunette threaded her arm in mine. The petite blonde glanced at her reservation sheet. "Yes," she said. "You're right on time." Then she had us follow a different young blonde to a booth in the rear of the restaurant, where we settled in and accepted the proffered menus. "Dave will be your waiter today," she said. "He'll be right with you." When we were finally alone, I told the brunette, "I never expected to see you again." She smiled coyly. She said, "It must be fate." I introduced myself. "It's nice to meet you, Steve," she said as she took my hand. "I'm Angelica." "How'd you happen to have reservations here today?" I asked. "And where's your companion?" She told me she worked in the neighborhood and that one of her co-workers had canceled out of their luncheon appointment at the last minute. "Her morning meeting was running long." "I know how that goes," I told her. By then Dave had finally arrived, introduced himself as if we really cared who he was, and took our drink orders. We still hadn't looked at the menus. "What do you think you want?" she asked as I opened the menu. "Melons," I said. "They have very nice melon cups." She smiled, then licked her lips with just the tip of her tongue, wetting her lipstick so it glistened. "I was thinking of something long, and hard, and filling," she whispered. The room had suddenly gotten very warm. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, her hot breath exciting me even more. "How long do you have for lunch?" I swallowed hard. "As long as we need." Dave returned with our drinks. As he placed them on the table before us, he asked, "You know what you want?" "We know what we want," Angelica said. She pulled a twenty from her purse and dropped it on the table. Then she stood, took my hand, and led me out of the restaurant. Once on the sidewalk, she hailed a cab. "Where are we going?" I asked as we climbed inside. She gave the driver an address only ten blocks from where we'd started. As the cab lurched away from the curb and began darting in and out of traffic, Angelica pressed herself up against me, the curves of her body molding against mine. In almost no time at all, the cab pulled to the curb and jerked to a halt. Angelica paid the driver with a twenty, told him to keep the change, then ushered me out of the cab and into a high-rise apartment building. Alone in the elevator, she pressed herself against me, mashing herself against me. Her lips covered mine and we kissed a deep penetrating kiss that took my breath away. The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Angelica led me down the hallway to her apartment. As soon as she unlocked the door and pushed it open, she pulled me inside. The door closed slowly all by itself as she unthreaded my tie and pulled it off. By then any thoughts of resistance I'd had were gone. I helped her take off my clothes, then I helped her remove hers. Later, after we'd dressed and were waiting outside for a cab, I asked, "When can I see you again?" "Soon," she said. A cab pulled to the curb and I slid in, expecting her to slide in beside me. Instead she closed the door and told the driver the address of my office. "But  -- " I protested as the cab pulled away. I spun in my seat to look back at Angelica. She blew me a kiss. * * * * I made it back to the office without anyone realizing I'd taken extra time away for lunch, finished out the day with no other unusual events, then met Jerry at Tupperman's. I told him about my lunch time encounter. "What did I tell you about Madame Rose?" he said. "Isn't she just the greatest?" "How's that?" "She told you you'd meet a special woman, and you did, didn't you?" I had to admit that he was right. "Have you seen your horoscope for today?" he asked. I shook my head. Jerry reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded square of newspaper. After unfolding it, he handed it to me and I read my horoscope aloud. "Beware of chance encounters," it said. "They may prove costly." "Ah, they're not always right," Jerry said when I'd finished reading. He took the paper back and slid it into his pocket. "You going to see her again?" "If I can." "You know her name," he said. "You know where she lives. You should be able to call her." He motioned for the bartender and had a telephone and a telephone directory brought to our table. I thumbed though the directory but could not find a listing for Angelica Cornell, nor could I find a listing for any variation of the name. Jerry made me call information, but they also had no listings under her name. Jerry shrugged it off. "If she liked it as much as you did, she'll find you again. Trust me." After that our discussion turned to sports, money, and the actual difference between "less filling" and "tastes great." After two hours of shooting the bull, certain that the bull was finally dead, we each headed for home. I arrived back in my apartment to find the red light on my answering machine blinking, letting me know I'd received one or more calls during the day. I hit the play button and listened my way through two sales pitches, a hang-up, and my mother asking why I never phoned. Then Angelica's voice said, "Call me," and gave me the number. I hit the replay button immediately, then scrambled for a pencil and a piece of paper. As soon as I'd copied the number down, I lifted the phone and dialed. She answered on the third ring. "I want to see you again," she whispered. "Yes," I said. "Tonight." "Yes," I said. "Where?" "I know where you live," she said. "I'll see you soon." I rushed through the apartment, straightening things up as best I could in what I perceived to be a limited amount of time. I stuffed dirty clothes into the closet, piled dirty dishes into the sink, and did my best to make my bachelor's quarters look appealing. I answered the door promptly when Angelica knocked. She wore a black sheath dress, red high-heels, and the strand of pearls. A moment later, after she'd unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor, I discovered that she'd worn nothing else. "I've been thinking about you all afternoon," she whispered into my ear as I gathered her in my arms. "There's been nothing else on my mind," I told her. Again and again throughout the night, Angelica found new ways to please me. Every time I thought I'd had enough she proved me wrong. By the time dawn peeked through the window shades I thought I had died and gone to heaven. That's when she sprang it on me. The conditions. I lay flat on my back. She leaned on one elbow beside me. She had one breast pressed against my side, the other laying on my chest. She'd draped one leg across my legs, and she used the tip of her index finger to trace the outline of my lips. "You like this?" she asked in that silken voice of hers. "Mmm," I responded. "You want to do this forever, don't you?" "Mmm." "What's it worth to you?" she asked. "Mmm?" "How about the Chesterton account?" I pushed her finger away from my lips. "We just signed that account today." "The ink isn't even on the papers yet," she said. "We can change all that." I struggled to sit up, pushing her weight off of me. "I worked for nearly a year to capture the Chesterton account. How do you know about it?" "We have a mutual friend," she said. "Can't be much of a friend if he wants me to give up the account." Angelica smiled. "He'll make it worth your while." "How?" She reached between my legs. "That's not enough," I said, but I didn't push her hand away. "There's money." "How much?" She named a figure. "That's not enough." She named another figure. I didn't respond. I closed my eyes. I felt her hot breath trail down my body and then she slid out of bed and stood up. "Better hurry," she said. "You don't want to be late for work." She pulled on her sheath dress, slipped into her heels, and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she was out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, and gone. I still sat in bed, stunned. * * * * It took me nearly an hour to get ready for work and I arrived later than usual. Ellerby stopped by to talk to me, but excused himself when I told him I had a busy day ahead of me. After my success with the Chesterton account, he felt more than willing to give me a little leeway. At the end of the day I met Jerry at Tupperman's and told him I'd seen the girl again. "You did?" he asked. "How'd it go?" "Better than I ever could have expected," I said. I told him about her offer and all the conditions that went with it. He seemed shocked. "What are you going to do about it?" "I'm going to take the money," I told him, "but I'm not giving up the account." He stopped with his beer halfway to his lips. "How's that?" "You're going to give me the money just to keep your ass out of jail," I told him. "Me? What  --  ?" "It took all day," I said, "but I've got your ass in this sling so tight it'll never get out." "But -- I  -- " "Look," I explained, "you're the one who sent me to Madam Rose. You gave her a hundred dollars to feed me the story about meeting a special woman. For two hundred she ratted you out." "It isn't true," he protested. "Angelica doesn't exist," I said. "Her real name is Brenda Dickson and she works in your office. She's a real go-getter, from what I hear. You brought her into your scheme by promising her one-third of the commission if you snagged the Chesterton account. I knew there was another agency after the account, I just didn't know it was yours." "But -- but  -- " He'd begun to sputter. "You can't prove a thing." "The apartment she took me to yesterday had been leased by you. The building superintendent even showed me a copy of the receipt." "So what does that prove? It doesn't prove a thing." "There's one other thing," I told him. I lifted my arm like I was motioning for a waiter. Angelica-nee-Brenda slid into the booth beside me. I wrapped my arm around her and told Jerry, "I'd like you to meet my new assistant. She's already turned in her resignation at your agency and starts working for me on Monday." Jerry nearly gagged. "I'll expect the money you promised in cash, small bills, by Saturday." I smiled. "Otherwise, we go to the police." -------- CH006 *Husks* Crinkled cellophane husks littered the coffee table, the hard candy they once enveloped having long since disappeared. A chipped white mug half-filled with stagnant coffee and curdled cream remained untouched in a glass coaster amid the wrappers. The bright red smear of lipstick on the mug's rim left an indistinct impression of the drinker's lower lip. A two-week-old copy of _TV Guide_ had been folded open to Wednesday evening with a bottle of crimson red nail polish holding down the pages. No particular program had been indicated. "Anything?" My partner stood in the doorway between the living room and the foyer. I had squatted next to the coffee table and I looked up to talk to him. When I shook my head, Bill crossed the room and stood beside me. "He sat here eating hard candy, drinking coffee, and doing his nails," I said. "He may have been watching television." A neighbor had been the one to notice Marvin Wilson's body when the weather had finally warmed enough for the odor of decomposition to blow over the redwood fence separating their yards. What he had mistakenly identified as a septic problem had soon resulted in a 911 call and our arrival. "Why did he go outside?" I shrugged. In the back yard, Marvin Wilson lay sprawled on a carpet of dead grass, still clothed in a tight-fitting black dress and red pumps, padded bra, silk panties, and pantyhose. His naturally long blond hair had been pulled up into a tight braid. The nails on his left hand had been painted, but not on his right. Only the bullet hole in his chest and the corresponding exit wound in his back marred the ensemble. "He stopped what he was doing -- may even have turned the television off -- then he went into the back yard in the dead of winter without first pulling on a coat," I said. "Go figure," Bill said. Bill had been my partner for nearly five years, replacing Kowski after his retirement. What he lacked in verbal skills he made up for in dogged determination. "I'm thinking he may have been expecting someone." I stood, my knees creaking in the process. I'd been playing a losing game with age and my legs had been the first thing to go. "A date?" "He certainly dressed well enough," I said. "And this nail polish isn't cheap. It's the same brand my first wife used." I let the Crime Scene Unit into the room. They would take photographs, dust for prints, collect potential evidence. My partner and I walked into the kitchen and I stood at the sink looking out the window. In the back yard, Wilson's body had been neatly slipped into a body bag and two men in white uniforms lifted it onto a stretcher while I watched. The first time I'd seen a man dressed in women's clothing, I'd come home early from Vacation Bible School to discover my uncle Phil prancing around the house in my Aunt Margaret's bra and panties. He'd given me ten dollars not to tell anyone what I'd seen. He and Aunt Margaret cut their vacation short by three days. "A romantic evening," my partner said. Bill stood by the kitchen table staring down at a pair of dust-covered wine glasses and a warm bottle of Chardonnay. A row of crackers had been fanned out on a silver serving tray. "I'll bet there's a cheese ball in the fridge," Bill said. Since I stood nearest, I carefully opened the refrigerator and confirmed his suspicion. A nut-covered cheese ball spotted with mold lay on a serving tray next to a second bottle of wine, various condiments, and a selection of leftovers all carefully preserved in Tupperware containers. From the kitchen, we moved down the hall and poked our heads into the first open door. The odor of Lysol disinfectant lingered in the bathroom and the chrome faucet still gleamed from its last cleaning. No water spots or rust stains marred the sink. The glass shower door and the pale blue tile inside the stall had been scrubbed free of soap scum. "Hell of a housekeeper," Bill said. "Wish my wife did half as good." "Think she'd like this?" I asked. The toilet seat had been left up. "No," Bill said, laughing at his own joke before he even finished it. "But my dog doesn't seem to mind." A cigarette butt floated in the bowl, one end stained with pale pink lipstick, the other burned nearly to the filter. Bill made a note to have one of the guys from the Crime Scene Unit fish it out. The second and third doors hid a neatly organized linen closet and the furnace. The last door in the hall opened into the only bedroom. Furnished in oak, the room was decorated mostly in white -- white drapes, white comforter and a white dust ruffle on a king-sized bed. A white overstuffed chair positioned in the corner of the room had a black lace teddy draped across it. The comforter on the bed had been pulled back to reveal red silk sheets. On one of the night stands someone had placed a set of handcuffs and small wicker basket filled with a multitude of square foil condom packages. A cinnamon-scented candle had burned itself out on the other night stand. "Who do you think the teddy was for?" Bill asked. "It could be his size," I said cautiously after examining the label. "Go figure," Bill said. * * * * "When was this?" "Two weeks ago Wednesday," I explained. My partner and I had been canvassing the neighborhood separately, but neither of us had encountered any witnesses to events that night until the balding little gentleman seated before me had invited me into his living room. "I always take out the trash on Wednesday," Graham Spaulding said. He slipped off his black-framed glasses and furrowed his brow in concentration. "That night I heard a car backfire, but I didn't think anything about it until I saw a man running down the alley a few minutes later." "Why does that night stand out?" "Because he ran funny." "Funny how?" Spaulding shrugged. "Not like a jogger," he said. "And I think he was wearing a uniform. A dark-colored uniform, maybe blue or black." "Would you recognize this man if you saw him again?" "Not likely. I'd left my glasses inside." Still, after I prompted him Spaulding described a man of average height, with short, dark hair and a diamond-shaped figure. I gave Spaulding my card and asked him to contact me if he thought of anything else. I jotted a reminder to myself about having him meet with the department's sketch artist. Bill and I compared notes that afternoon. I told him about my conversation with Spaulding and he told me about the elderly woman whose overweight Corgi had barked incessantly all through her favorite situation comedy that Wednesday night. "You know, the one with all those cute kids," he said. "The dog ruined it for her, so she didn't give him his treat before bed." "What time's the show on?" "Seven-thirty." "Spaulding's runner went down the alley just before eight." * * * * "A .357," Bill said the next day when I arrived. He'd already been in the squad room for nearly an hour, killing time before our shift actually began. I suspected he'd had another argument with his wife and she'd made him sleep on the couch. He always came to work early the morning after they'd fought. "They dug the slug out of a fence post, near the back gate," Bill said. "No brass?" "Nothing. Either the shooter used a revolver or he took the time to recover the spent shell." Bill had spent the morning reviewing his notes on the case and reading over the preliminary reports from the Crime Scene Unit and the Coroner. He'd also made a few early morning phone calls and he gave me the run down. Despite a thorough examination, there were no cigarettes nor any cigarette packages found in the house, and Wilson's lipstick didn't match the residue on the butt. Hundreds of fingerprints had been lifted, but none had yet been matched due to a manpower shortage at the lab. The coroner believed the single bullet had killed Wilson, but speculated that hypothermia and severe blood loss would have done him in even if the bullet hadn't. Bill looked up from the report and said, "The poor bastard didn't have a chance, but he did get hold of the perp. There's tissue under three fingernails, and it ain't his." An examination of two weeks worth of accumulated mail -- consisting primarily of women's clothing catalogs -- revealed the reason no co-workers had filed a missing person's report: Wilson had been receiving unemployment benefits. A call to the Employment Commission revealed that the check found in Wilson's mailbox had been his nineteenth and that he had previously been employed as an auto mechanic at a large dealership on the south side. A close inspection of his monthly bank statement, also found in the mailbox, revealed payments to various utility companies, the cable company, and two grocery stores. However, a check made out to a florist and six checks made out to cash in amounts ranging from $200 to $600 caught our attention. He'd endorsed two of them himself; the other four signatures appeared to be illegible but identical. * * * * We made Eddie's Flowers our first stop of the day and met with Eddie himself. We explained what we needed and the florist examined his records. "Mr. Wilson had a dozen roses sent to a Pat Montgomery." He pushed the card across the counter to us so Bill could copy the address into his notebook. "It's not the first time he's sent flowers, either." "How's that?" I asked. "See here," the florist said as he pointed at the neatly penned notations on the card. "He sent six bouquets to the same person in the past four months." "All roses?" "No, just the last," the florist said. "The others were cut flowers, various combinations, always in the thirty dollar range . . . until the roses." "This address," Bill asked, tapping at his notebook with the end of his pen, "is it a home or a business?" "Business," the florist replied. "That's Binks, the security people. We make a lot of deliveries to that location. They must have three or four hundred people working out there." We thanked Eddie for his assistance. He assured us that we were welcome back anytime and that he would be happy to extend a professional discount if we ever wanted to send flowers to our significant others. As we headed toward the door, Bill hesitated, then turned back and had the florist send his wife an inexpensive floral arrangement. Once outside, Bill said, "Wilson had a lover named Pat, works as some kind of security guard. Pansy like him must like the rough trade. Go figure." I slid behind the wheel of our unmarked car as Bill walked around to the passenger side. * * * * "Where's Montgomery now?" I asked the Binks dispatcher. We were surrounded by men and women in dark blue uniforms clocking in and out as the shift changed. The dispatcher, a fat man with sour breath, scanned his log sheet looking for Montgomery's name. Finally, he said, "Home." He gave us the address without prompting. * * * * We knocked on the apartment door, identifying ourselves to the woman who answered. Her black hair had been cropped close; much shorter and it would have been a crew cut. She wore black bicycle shorts and a black sports bra. The outfit accentuated her slim shoulders, small breasts, and the flare of her hips. Behind her I could see a living room decorated in black leather. A cigarette dangled from her lips and she spoke without removing it, "So?" "We're looking for Pat Montgomery," Bill said. "He here?" As she pulled the door open for us, I noticed three inch-long, partially-healed scars on the inside of her left forearm. * * * * "I told Marvin it was over but he refused to believe me. He chased me out the back." Pale blue smoke drifted from the ashtray where a cigarette matching the brand we'd retrieved from Wilson's toilet burned. We'd taken Montgomery back to the station and the three of us sat around a scarred wooden table in one of the institutional grey interrogation rooms. "So you shot him?" "I warned him first," she said, as though that should have been enough. "I told him to go back in the house. He knew it was over, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He grabbed me." Montgomery plucked the smoke from the ashtray, drew one last drag, then crushed it out in the ashtray. I leaned back in my chair and let Bill continue the questions. "Where's the gun now?" "Bottom of the Trinity. I reported it stolen the next day." "Why'd you run?" "No car," Montgomery said. "Mine's in the shop . . . still." "How'd you get to Wilson's house that night?" "Had one of the guys drop me off." "At Wilson's?" "A block away. No one at work knew I'd been seeing him. I walked the rest of the way." "How far'd you run after you shot him?" "Two blocks, maybe three, then I walked another mile or so," Montgomery said. "I called a cab from a service station on Fifth." "Must have been cold." "I froze my ass off." Montgomery had understood her rights and had refused legal representation, so we spent the next few hours interrogating her, then waited for her confession to be typed and for her to sign it. Her illegible signature matched the endorsements on four of Wilson's checks. "Think she pees standing up?" Bill asked as a uniform escorted Montgomery to a cell. Montgomery and Wilson had been lovers, a relationship Bill later said he couldn't understand at all. When Wilson suspected she'd found another bed mate, he began giving her money and sending her flowers, doing anything he could to maintain their relationship. The night he died, he'd planned an evening of passion and romance, but Montgomery had had a different itinerary. She'd gone to his house that evening to terminate their relationship. When she saw all that he'd done, she'd stood in his bathroom smoking a cigarette before she confronted him. He hadn't taken it well. They'd argued and he'd threatened her. He was bigger and stronger. She'd gone out the back, intending to leave. He chased her into the yard, standing between her and the gate. She drew her gun and cautioned him. He grabbed her arm as she tried to step past him and she fired. When she saw what she'd done, she ran. With her uniform, her muscular build, and her closely cropped hair, Spaulding had easily mistaken her for a man. "No one is ever what they seem," Bill said after we'd finished our paperwork and had signed out for the night. "Husks," I told him. "You can work with somebody for years and never see inside their husk." He looked a question at me but didn't ask it. Instead, he said, "Go figure." After it was over, I went home and showered, scrubbing my skin raw until the hot water finally grew cold. Then I stood naked in my bedroom, an open beer can in one hand, and reached into the top drawer of my dresser. I fingered my collection of silk panties, all that remained of my short-lived first marriage, and finally selected a pale blue pair. -------- CH007 *A Matter of Policy* I slipped the drugged slab of rump roast through the small opening I'd made in the kitchen window, waited ten minutes in silence, then quietly slid the window upward, swung my leg over the sill, and dropped cautiously to the yellow linoleum. I waited, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness surrounding me. I heard the beagle before I saw him -- he was snoring under the dining room table, the rump roast completely devoured. I made my way past him to the bedroom where Mrs. Jan Edelman, a 32-year-old widow, snored delicately under a thick layer of covers. I pulled open the top left dresser drawer and rooted carefully through her pastel-colored panties, then opened the drawer on the right. It protested, the wood squealing as I pulled. I hesitated and looked into the mirror as Mrs. Edelman moved restlessly. She rolled over and kicked away her covers. I watched her for a moment longer before continuing my gentle pulling on the drawer. It didn't protest again and inside, tucked behind a wool sweater, inside a small jewelry case, I found the treasure I was expecting -- two diamond rings and an emerald brooch -- and something I hadn't been expecting -- a small roll of bills. I pocketed it all quietly, carefully closed the drawer without protest, then returned to the kitchen. The beagle was still snoring and wheezing as I exited the house and pulled the window closed. I dropped to the well-manicured lawn, then ran bent half-over down the length of the chest-high hedge to the alley at the rear of her property. I checked the alley twice, then removed the black ski mask and the leather gloves, stuffing them into my empty jacket pocket. I found my car two blocks away where I'd left it, released the parking brake, shifted into neutral, and coasted silently downhill for another two blocks before starting the engine. Within a few days I'd be back at her house. Anytime a client lost more than $20,000 in a burglary, the insurance company sent me out to investigate the circumstances. I wasn't supposed to find the thief -- that was a job for the police -- just to make sure the client wasn't trying to swindle the company, make sure a reasonable amount of precaution had been taken to avoid the incident, and lecture the client on the value of silent alarms and other home protection devices, all of which I did remarkably well. * * * * The next morning I tucked the jewels away in a safe deposit box I kept under an assumed name on the far side of the city and retrieved a pair of diamond earrings and a stickpin from a job I'd pulled three months earlier. That afternoon I visited Carneghi's on my way back to the office from a safety lecture I'd given to a 67-year-old matron who insisted on keeping her deceased husband's coin collection on display in the library of her mansion until some scoundrel had made off with the bulk of it. The scent of cherry incense hung thick in the air and the strains of Led Zeppelin filtered through two pairs of mismatched stereo speakers when I stepped through the doors of the southside furniture restoration shop. It was like taking a step back into the sixties, and I was greeted by a dark Italian man in his early thirties. He had thick black hair tumbling down to his shoulders and a pair of gold John Lennon glasses perched on his sharp nose. He wore a faded green fatigue jacket over his blue work shirt even though it was hot and sticky inside the building. Carneghi inspected the jewelry carefully. Despite his appearance, Carneghi was the best jewel fence in the city ever since D'Angelo's boys had offed ferret-faced Freddie the Fence over some drug deal. "Not bad," Carneghi said quietly. "Not bad at all." "How much?" I asked. I had an alimony payment due and my bank balance read zero. "Fifteen hundred," he said. He brushed back a black tangle of hair. "Maybe sixteen." "Sixteen," I agreed. I knew the earrings were worth more, but I was in no position to haggle. If I didn't get my ex-wife's alimony payment in the mail soon she'd have her lawyer on my back. The last time I'd tangled with him he'd won a fifty dollar a month increase in payments from a sympathetic female judge. Carneghi counted out sixteen one-hundred-dollar bills from a thick wad in his jacket pocket and laid them on the glass counter top. "Come and see me again sometime," he said. "Maybe I can make you a good deal on a nice Queen Anne." I shook my head. Antique furniture wasn't my style. * * * * After I made the alimony payment, caught up on the car payments, treated myself to a pair of surf-and-turf dinners, and lost a bundle to my bookie, I was back where I started from and it was much too soon to fence Mrs. Edelman's jewels. I tugged at the tight knot of my silk tie and undid the collar button of my pale blue Christian Dior shirt. It was hot in the office as I thumbed through a stack of client files. I had two lectures to make that afternoon: Mr. Joe Zibigski had lost a valuable stamp collection and Mrs. Jan Edelman was due for her lecture on home protection. Mr. Zibigski's case would be easy -- the police had already apprehended the punk who had kicked in his window and most of the stamp collection had been discovered intact. It was a simple matter of determining the value of the damaged stamps and another department would handle that chore. I gave Mr. Zibigski the standard lecture over the phone, then called Mrs. Edelman to make an appointment for after lunch. When she met me at her door, I handed her my embossed business card. I felt a tingle of excitement surge through my hand when her fingers brushed against mine. She read the name on the face of the card, but she didn't ask for any further identification. "Come in, Mr. Niven," she said as she stepped aside to usher me into the foyer. Her beagle came rushing around the corner of the living room where it opened upon the foyer, his deep bark startling me. I stooped and offered the chunky dog the back of my hand to sniff, sure that he would remember my scent from the rump roast. I scratched behind his floppy ears and looked up at Mrs. Edelman. "Has he got a name?" "Yours," she said. "Mine?" I didn't understand and I said so. "Yours," she repeated. "As in 'Up Yours.' He was my husband's dog." I smiled, not sure if she was being serious. After one last healthy rub, I stood and faced her. "We might as well get down to business," I said. "Tell me about the burglary." There was nothing she told me on our tour of the kitchen, the hall, and the bedroom, that I didn't already know and know more intimately than she could possibly suspect. Finally, after she offered me a seat in the living room and filled my hand with a scotch and soda, I asked, "Why did you keep such valuable jewels in the house, Mrs. Edelman?" "I never really thought about it," she said. "Most of my jewelry is in a safe deposit box downtown. I take a piece out now and then to wear to parties, theatre openings, and the like, but the two rings held a certain sentimental value for me. One was my engagement ring, the other was one of the presents my husband gave me on our tenth anniversary. "And the brooch?" I prompted. "That was left over from a dinner party I gave a few weeks ago. I just hadn't gotten it back to the bank yet." I nodded. "It's carelessness like that that causes a lot of people to lose their valuables." I paused, glanced at her as she crossed her firm legs at the knees, her dark brown slacks edging upward to expose her well-turned ankle. Then I glanced down at the dog panting at my feet. "Didn't Yours make any sort of commotion?" "I wondered about that myself," she admitted. "But he apparently slept through the whole thing." I nodded as if filing the information away in my memory. Actually I was nodding because that's exactly what the dog had done. Then I gave her standard lecture number four, pointing out all the advantages of a properly installed security system, ending with the note that I could recommend at least three different companies who had done exceptional work for our clients in the past. I finished the scotch and soda and stood. "I don't see anything wrong with your claim, Mrs. Edelman  -- " "Jan," she interrupted. Smiling, I continued. "I'll do all the necessary paperwork when I get back to the office. If you'd like, I could come by tomorrow with everything ready for you to sign. Everything has to go through accounting, but you should get your insurance check by mail within a week." She considered me for a moment as I stood before the couch, the panting beagle at my side. I knew what she saw, and I was rather proud of the condition I'd kept myself in -- unlike the other two adjusters working out of my office. The three-piece blue pinstripe was European cut, fitting my muscular body almost like a glove. Only a few years older than her, I surely looked younger than my birthdays should have allowed. "If you finish all the paperwork this afternoon," she said carefully, "perhaps you could bring it by this evening. I could have dinner ready by six . . ." Her voice trailed off slowly and I knew the option was mine. "Very well, then," I said, still smiling, most of the business tone gone from my voice. I had never become involved with one of my targets before and against my better judgment, I found myself saying, "Tonight at six." * * * * I rushed through the final few hours of the afternoon, efficiently hustling through all the paperwork before the office secretary shut down her personal computer for the night. With all the duplicate and triplicate forms tucked into a new file folder, I washed my face in the men's room and combed my dark hair back into place. In the glove compartment of my LTD was a small bottle of cologne and I splashed some on before returning to Jan Edelman's west county home. She was wearing a pale green evening gown that delicately hugged the gentle curves of her body, with a neckline that plunged dangerously low. Her long blonde hair tumbled gracefully around the soft curves of her exposed shoulders and a thin gold necklace swung between her breasts. She ushered me into the den and offered me my second scotch and soda of the day. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes." She handed me the drink, then left me in the den with Yours. The overweight beagle sat on a chair across the room from me and wheezed twice before laying down. "Cheers," I said as I raised the glass toward him. He wheezed again. I walked slowly around the room, my glance quickly examining the spines of a few hundred books in the built-in bookcase, seeing nothing of interest. I brushed a fingertip across the heavy oak fireplace mantle and my finger came away clean. Stooping to read the signature on a giant oil painting of the city skyline, I saw a familiar name and whistled softly when I realized the painting was an original. Before I had finished my circumnavigation of the room, Jan was back to escort me into the dining room. I carried my half-empty glass with me, but left the file folder on the end table where I'd placed it earlier. Dinner began with shrimp cocktail and was followed by a thick steak, baked potatoes smothered in butter and sour cream, snow peas and pearl onions, thick slices of French bread soaked with butter and garlic salt, all accompanied by a bottle of imported red wine that probably cost as much as my suit. Jan smiled a lot through dinner, and we made small talk about a half dozen unimportant things. She told me about her husband's heart attack and I told her about my ex-wife's niggling lawyer. We both talked about dogs we had owned and we fed our scraps to Yours in his own Fitz & Floyd dinner bowl. I helped her clear the table and offered to dry dishes while she washed. "Leave them," she said, her soft voice thickened by the wine. "I'll have the maid do them tomorrow when she comes in." I hadn't seen anyone else in the house earlier that day and I asked about it. "Day off," Jan said. She took my elbow in the palm of her hand and led me out of the kitchen towards the den. "Sundays and Tuesdays. Does the shopping Monday afternoon, so she doesn't really bother me much." In the den Jan fixed a third scotch and soda. After handing it to me, she pressed a button and a large-screen TV rose from a cabinet against the far wall. "Pick out a movie," Jan said as she opened a cabinet under the bookcase. Inside were nearly a hundred video cassettes. I picked out an innocuous R-rated movie and she inserted the cassette, touched a few buttons, dimmed the lights, and moved to sit beside me on the couch. She fit neatly into the crook of my arm and I let my fingertips stroll easily up and down her exposed arm and shoulder. It was almost nine by the time the movie ended. Jan had made no effort to do anything more than snuggle during the movie. She was slow to peel herself away from me to switch the light back on. I cleared my throat and reached for the file folder while she lowered the television screen. "It's getting late," I told her. "Maybe we'd better get these signed before we forget." The effects of the wine had worn off and she spoke clearly. "Maybe we'd better." I laid the forms on the coffee table for her, explaining what each was for. She read a few of them, scanned most of the others, then took the ball-point pen from my hand and quickly signed them all. I stood, straightened my jacket, gathered up all the papers and made my way to the front door with her at my elbow. I reached out to open the heavy wooden door and she pressed her palm against it to stop me. "When will I see you again?" she asked. "How soon would you like to?" "Dinner again," she said. "The day after tomorrow." She reached up and took my square chin in her hand. Then she pressed her soft lips against mine, her body molding itself to my firm lines. I felt her ample breasts pressing against my chest and I felt the fire in my loins begin to spread. Then she broke the kiss and took a small step backward. "Dinner's on me this time," I said. "I'll pick you up at six." Then, reluctantly, I left. The beagle followed me out the door to make use of a tree. * * * * I saw Jan a half dozen more times during the following three weeks, occasionally dining at her house; other times I took her out. We had oriental food at Shanghai's one night, drove across the river to Ricci's another, and twice went to the hill for Italian food. One Friday, after an especially well-prepared Italian dinner, we stopped at the Wolfe Theatre to watch Maxwell, a grossly overweight standup comic who'd rocketed to stardom on the basis of his wife jokes. I soon learned that Jan Edelman's tastes ran far higher than my ex-wife's and I began to have problems stretching my paycheck to cover the dinners we'd been eating together. Even my bookie was complaining that I wasn't doing enough betting to keep him supplied with the finer things in life. Although I hadn't waited as long as I liked to, but because I knew that Jan had already received her check from the insurance company, I pulled the two diamond rings and the emerald brooch from my safe deposit box, found a small diamond necklace from a job almost a year old, and took the lot to Carneghi's southside furniture repair shop. The dark Italian relic from the sixties was bent over a hutch haggling with an elderly black woman when I entered the shop, so I roamed around among the antique furniture until they'd reached a suitable price and he'd promised her delivery first thing the following Tuesday. When the old woman finally shuffled out of the shop, I approached Carneghi with the jewels. "I can give you six hundred for this," he said, holding up the diamond necklace, "and another two for the brooch." He dismissed the rings with a wave of his hand. "Those are junk." I stared down at the rings. One was a diamond solitaire, the other a diamond encrusted dinner ring. "They were insured for $22,000," I told him. He shook his head, greasy black hair swinging behind him. "Don't matter," he said. "They're not worth $22 to me. They're junk." I took the eight hundred for the necklace and the brooch and pocketed the two rings. Carneghi had never steered me wrong from the time I first started dealing with him and I had no reason to begin doubting his word. Back at the office, I pulled the Edelman file and read it carefully. There was nothing I could do about the check Jan had already cashed, even though I knew the company had been ripped off for $22,000. If I said anything about it I was sure to implicate myself. Still, I was ashamed to have gone to so much effort for a mere $200 -- hardly enough for dinner, a show, and a dozen long-stemmed roses. Nothing in the file seemed out of order -- if it had been I never would have singled her out. I had always been careful to pick only well-insured targets who could afford to lose a few valuables. I shook my head and closed the folder, then sent it out to the secretary to be refiled, along with a handful of others I'd finished with earlier in the day. Leaning back in my chair, I slid my hand into my jacket pocket and toyed with the two worthless rings, mentally sorting through a variety of thoughts. * * * * After we returned from the theatre that evening, Jan invited me into her house. Yours met us at the door and followed us into the den, wheezing and grunting the entire distance. Jan prepared drinks for both of us without asking, took a sip from hers and handed my glass to me. "I've enjoyed these past few weeks," she said. I had, too, and I told her so. "In fact," she said as she set her glass on the end table after taking a second sip, "I haven't felt like this since my husband died." I ignored the comparison to a dead man, sure that she meant it as a compliment. Jan pressed herself up against me, tilted her head back. The kiss was deep, penetrating. When our lips parted, I stepped back for a moment to set my scotch and soda on the table next to her drink. Then I reached into my jacket pocket for the dinner ring. I dropped it on the table before her. Jan blanched, the flush quickly disappearing from her cheeks. "Where'd you get that?" she whispered hoarsely. "I have my sources," I said, not prepared to admit anything. "But I thought it was gone for good." "Something like that usually is." I reached into my jacket pocket for the other ring and I dropped it beside the first. She couldn't have paled any more but she seemed to try. "They're trash jewelry," I told her. "Do I  -- " She paused, gulped down a quick swallow from her drink, and spoke again. "Do I have to give the insurance money back?" "I haven't decided," I said. "Tell me about the rest of your jewelry. Is it all fake, too?" "Most of it," she admitted. "I have a friend who duplicates what I have and sells the originals for me. When these were stolen it was, well  -- " She stopped nervously and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she took a deep breath and blurted out the rest of the story. "My husband didn't leave me with much cash. I've had to sell the jewelry to pay the bills. I didn't want to change my lifestyle. My friend said nobody but an expert could tell they were fakes. And when they were stolen, I figured I wouldn't have to say anything -- just take the insurance money and keep my mouth shut." "That's fraud," I told her, still not mentioning my own part in the whole affair. "I don't have the money anymore," she said quietly. "I couldn't pay it back even if I had it." I spent the next few hours convincing her that I could have her thrown in jail for what she had done, and by the time I was finished with her I thought I had her ready to do anything I said. Then I began to outline a sophisticated plan I'd developed earlier in the afternoon to defraud the company out of another quarter of a million dollars using her over-insured fake jewelry as the stepping stone toward wealth. At half past one I left her alone with the wheezing beagle and drove home smiling. * * * * When I arrived at the office the next morning I was still smiling. That is, until I opened my office door and saw Jan Edelman sitting behind my desk waiting for my arrival. I glanced quickly around and saw the two overweight adjusters who worked alongside me, and a pair of unfamiliar faces. Jan smiled broadly and invited me into my own office. "You know, Niven," she said. "It all sounded pretty good last night and the tape captured every word." She tossed a plastic-coated I.D. card across my desk toward me. "I'm not a wealthy widow, I'm an investigator from the home office. These two gentlemen," she indicated my fellow adjusters, "tipped us off earlier this year. These other two gentlemen are from the police department and I think they want to talk to you." The only thing I could think about then was my ex-wife. Boy was she going to have a hard time collecting the alimony. -------- CH008 *Rock and a Hard Place* I could tell from the way her pendulous breasts swayed as Laura strutted across the room toward us that there couldn't be anything fake about them. I detest silicone and saline; Marty doesn't care one way or the other. "Hey, I'm up here asshole," Laura said when she finally stopped about three feet from us. I reluctantly tore my gaze away from her tautly-stretched blouse and spent a moment admiring the loose curls of her chestnut-brown hair as it tumbled to her softly rounded shoulders, the single dark mole above the left corner of her ruby-red lips, the way her hazel eyes seemed to bore holes through us. "I want you two to do something for me." Marty would sit up and beg, roll over and play dead, or fetch Laura's slippers if she asked him to. I'm not so easily taken in. "I need you to deliver a package." "Do we look like Federal Express?" I asked. "You look like Federal Pen," she responded. I shrugged. Three years inside will do that to a guy. "Where's the package?" "My place. You can pick it up tonight, after the last show." "Where's it going?" "Across town. I'll give you the address when you pick it up." "What's in it for us?" She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. Marty drooled on himself. I just shook my head. "Two hundred," she finally said. When I didn't respond, she added, "Each." * * * * We arrived at Laura's apartment building twenty minutes after the last show ended and she buzzed us inside after only a moment's hesitation. She lived on the third floor of a four-floor walk-up and she met us at the door of her apartment. She didn't invite us in. "Where's the package?" I asked. Marty had trouble catching his breath after climbing the steps, so he didn't say anything. Laura handed us a ring box and I flipped the top up to reveal a diamond solitaire in the 1.5- to 2-caret range. "Wrong size?" I asked. "Wrong man." I looked her a question. "Eddie Garbino gave it to me. I want you to give it back." "Eddie the Welsher?" I asked. I tried to shove the box back at Laura but she wouldn't accept it. "You afraid of Eddie?" She'd just questioned my manhood and I took a moment to ponder the answer. Finally, I drew my hand back, my fingers closing around the ring box. "Good," Laura said. "When you give that to him, you tell him I don't want to see him or his stinking gifts ever again." * * * * Marty and I stopped at One-Eyed-Jack's, a hole-in-the-wall dive midway between Laura's apartment and Eddie the Welsher's favorite hangout. We ordered shots and beers and carried them to a secluded booth near the back. "What're we gonna do?" Marty asked. "We're going to give Eddie the ring back, just like she wants us to." "How're we gonna do that, huh?" Marty asked. "He'll have us knee-capped." I glared at Marty and he shrank back. "Who do you want mad at us, Eddie or Laura?" I asked. "I don't want nobody mad at us," he said. "Nobody." "Then here's what we have to do," I said. Marty leaned forward and listened carefully for the next five minutes. * * * * Twenty minutes later I walked into Salvatore's, a restaurant and bar known to be Eddie the Welsher's favorite hangout. Eddie sat at a booth in the rear, surrounded by muscle. As I approached, one of them stood and blocked my path. "I want to see Eddie," I said. "You seen him," he said. "If you used both your eyes." "I would like to speak to him for a moment, if I may." Eddie the Welsher told the human mountain to step aside. To me, he said, "So talk." "I'm here to return a gift." As I reached into my inside jacket pocket, the human mountain wrapped his meaty hand around mine. He said, "It ain't a gun." I slowly withdrew the ring box and tossed it on the table in front of Eddie. I'd miscalculated and it bounced into his half-eaten spaghetti. He used his fork to push the ring box off the plate, then he held it in a napkin and opened it. He looked at the ring, then looked at me. He demanded, "Where'd you get this?" It was a rhetorical question that didn't require an answer; he knew from where the ring had come. I stood silent. "It takes some set of _cajones_ to bring this to me," he finally said. "And I'd like to keep mine," I told him. The human mountain beside me started to laugh but a withering glance from Eddie silenced him. "You think you can diddle my girl and get away with it?" Eddie asked. "She's not your girl." "She's not yours either, pal," Eddie told me. To the human mountain, he said, "Take this little pus ball for a ride." The human mountain grabbed my shoulder and encouraged me to walk toward the kitchen. I could have made a fuss there in Salvatore's, but I knew better. We walked through the kitchen and none of the employees even pretended to notice us. Soon the human mountain pushed open the back door and we stepped into the alley where a black Cadillac had been parked. "You drive," the human mountain said. He opened the doors, then pushed me into the driver's seat and handed me the keys. As he climbed in beside me, I heard the reassuring click of a revolver's hammer being pulled back into place. The human mountain heard it, too, and it must have seemed especially loud behind his right ear. I slipped out of the car and walked around to where Marty stood with a .38 we'd borrowed from the bartender at One-Eyed-Jack's. The human mountain hadn't moved. "Tell Eddie I decided to walk," I told him. Then Marty and I walked slowly out of the alley and hailed a cab. After we slid into the cab and before the driver had a chance to slip the car into gear, I pitched the Cadillac's keys into an open sewer grate. Marty and I laughed all the way to One-Eyed-Jack's. We found a pair of empty stools in the back and leaned up against the bar. The bartender pulled the dirty bar towel out of his belt and began wiping off the bar in front of us. "What'll you two have?" "Red Dog," said Marty. He slipped the revolver out of his belt and a moment later it disappeared into the bartender's towel. "Bud Light," I said. Marty looked over at me. "You on a diet?" "It's as good a time as any to start one," I said. "You don't stand a chance," Marty said. "Not with Laura." I glared at Marty. Sometimes he was downright precognitive. "What makes you say that?" The bartender slid our beers across the worn wood of the bar and I slapped a twenty down for him. He made change and I let it sit on the bar while Marty and I drank. "I saw the look in your eye," he said. "Now you think you're some kinda hero, spitting in Eddie's face like you did." I smiled and saw my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I did look a little cockier than I had earlier that evening. * * * * The next day I caught Laura in the dressing room between shows. She was helping one of the strippers safety pin a broken tassel into place. Laura didn't strip; she owned the joint. As soon as the stripper vacated the room, I told Laura, "I delivered the ring like you asked." "Already?" She eyed me carefully, new respect in her gaze. "And Eddie let you live?" "He didn't give me no trouble." "And Marty?" "Marty waited outside while I made the delivery." I didn't plan on telling her the whole story. Why should I make Marty look good when I was the one who took the biggest risk? We heard the music starting up in the bar, a country western tune favored by a dancer named "Wild Billie Hickok." I turned to leave, knowing Marty might be needing some help with the patrons. Wild Billie always whipped them into a frenzy. Laura placed one hand on my shoulder and stopped me. She said, "Why don't you stop by my place tonight, after the last show?" Without turning, I asked, "And Marty?" "He can fend for himself for one night, can't he?" I smiled. "I'll be there." * * * * I had the cab driver drop Marty off at the door to the apartment we shared over the deli on Kensington and as I rode the rest of the way to Laura's place, I wondered if maybe Marty and me needed to spend more time apart. We'd done time together, we shared an apartment in violation of our parole, and we worked as bouncers for the same strip joint, putting Laura's liquor license in jeopardy. Still, I'd made a promise to Marty's brother-in-law that I'd take care of him inside the joint and out. The driver pulled the cab to a halt at the curb. I shoved a crumpled pair of fives in his hand and told him to keep the change. Two bits was nothing to write home about and as I climbed out of the cab he mentioned my mother and a camel in the same sentence, thinking to insult me. I knew my mother; I think he insulted the camel. I straightened my jacket, ran my fingers through my hair, then retrieved a roll of breath mints from my pocket and popped two into my mouth. A moment later I leaned into the button and Laura buzzed me inside. I took my time climbing the stairs to her third-floor apartment so I wouldn't be sweating or out of breath. Laura met me at the door. She'd changed from her work clothes into a loose-fitting silk robe that only hinted at the voluptuous curves it enveloped. She ushered me inside, offered me a drink, then settled onto the couch next to me after she'd fixed me a boilermaker. "You're either the bravest man I've ever met," Laura said, "or the stupidest." She sipped from her wine glass, leaving a lipstick ghost along the rim. I could feel the heat radiating from her body and I could see the twinkle in her hazel eyes. Her robe had parted, revealing smooth skin all the way to the tie around her waist. I wanted to slip my hand inside that robe and cup her massive breasts in my palms. I wanted to, but I didn't. I sipped from my boilermaker. "Eddie doesn't take rejection lightly," she continued. She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and her lipstick glistened with moisture. "He thinks he can buy anybody, but I'm not for sale. No cheap diamond is going to buy my affection. I want a real man." She threw her wine glass against the far wall, startling me. Then she swung around, throwing one leg over my lap as she sat on my knees facing me. I dropped my boilermaker on the carpet when she pulled open her rob. "I want a man who knows how to stand up to scum like Eddie and who knows how to treat a woman like a woman." I buried my face between Laura's breasts, nearly suffocating in the damp warmth that enveloped me. She smelled of perfume too expensive for the women I usually dated and I could tell that she'd applied it liberally. A moment later, Laura sat up, took my hand, and led me into the bedroom. * * * * Dawn had already broken across the morning sky before I returned to my apartment on Kensington and I crept up the stairs so as not to waken Marty. I needn't have bothered. When I opened the apartment door I discovered that our living room had been trashed and Marty lay in the middle of everything, bruised and bloody. I rushed to him and knelt down at his side. He opened his eyes and looked up at me. "You have a good time?" he asked. Then he spit out a tooth. "Yeah," I said. "You okay?" "I'll live," Marty mumbled. "What happened?" "Eddie's boys were here waiting when I got home. They were after you, but when you didn't show they took it out on me." "Jesus, Marty, I'm sorry." "Don't be sorry," Marty said, smiling. "I give as good as I got. One guy had to carry the other guy out of here." "You need a doctor?" "Dentist," Marty said after he spat out another tooth. "They broke my bridge." I helped him to his feet and sat him on the couch. Then I ran some warm water over a washcloth and handed it to him. Marty began cleaning his face. "You have a good time last night?" he asked. I smiled. He didn't need any more answer than that. He said, "I hope she's worth it." "She is," I said. "'Cause I ain't gonna take another beating for you. Next time I tell them where you are." "There won't be a next time," I assured Marty. "We're going to eliminate Eddie the Welsher." "I ain't killin' nobody for you." "You won't have to," I said. "Eddie's going to take himself out of the picture." * * * * After Marty cleaned up and changed clothes we visited a dentist who informed us that replacing Marty's bridge would cost most of the $400 we'd earned delivering the ring to Eddie the Welsher. "Easy come, easy go," I said as we walked out of the dentist's office. We'd made an appointment for the following week. "That's easy for you to say," Marty told me. He mumbled a bit without the bridge so I had to strain to hear him. "I got to go a week without half my damn teeth." From the dentist's office we took a cab to Laura's strip joint and found her already in her office, the previous evening's receipts spread across her desk. She looked up when we entered, then smiled when she realized it was me. Marty and I sat on the ratty couch that had been in Laura's office since the Vietnam War and I told her about Marty's experience the previous evening. She looked at him with new-found respect. "One of them had to be carried out?" "Mmm-hmm," he mumbled. I didn't want Laura getting no ideas about Marty, so I told her, "I guess we ain't done with Eddie the Welsher. He wasn't happy when I gave him the ring, and I'll bet he's even less happy now." Laura took a deep breath, carefully looked each of us over, then said, "Eddie doesn't really want me. He wants this place. You know how much money you can launder through a place like this and not have anybody blink an eye?" I could imagine, so I nodded. "And he thinks he can have every one of these girls as his private playthings." I could imagine that, too, so I nodded again. "But he isn't getting any of this -- not me, not my place, not my girls." "Then we have to remove him from the picture," I said. "How?" "Everything is relative," I told them. It took a while to explain the set-up to both of them, and then a while longer to contact a man to whom I'd once made a promise. By late evening, I had everything in place. * * * * Eddie the Welsher sat in his usual booth at Salvatore's and as I approached him, the human mountain stood to block my path. "It's him, Mr. Garbino." The human mountain had a black eye and a busted lip. The other guy with Eddie appeared to be in much worse shape, with one eye nearly swollen shut, a patch of hair shaved off the side of his head where he'd had stitches, and bandages on both hands. Eddie said, "Why'd you come back?" I stepped past the human mountain, daring him to do anything to me in a place as public as Salvatore's. I pulled a chair over from a nearby table, straddled it backward and rested my arms on the back. "Dominic Carvellini doesn't like you messing with his friends." Eddie's eyes narrowed to slits. "How's a puke like you know The Weasel?" Word on the street had it that Dominic "The Weasel" Carvellini had been personally responsible for the disappearance of fourteen men, none of whom had ever resurfaced. Word on the street also had it that the people around The Weasel always got what they deserved. Good or bad. I stared into Eddie's eyes. "Ask around," I said. "But if you or your boys here ever come sniffing around Laura again, or if anything happens to any of us, you'll have to answer to Dominic." Eddie leaned over and whispered something into the ear of the guy next to him. The guy with the swollen-shut eye slid out of the booth, walked to the back where the telephones were, and then returned a few minutes later. After he whispered into Eddie's ear, Eddie said, "A mutual friend has explained the situation and I understand your concern for the welfare of your friends. You have my word that nothing else will happen." Eddie reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and removed an eelskin wallet. From the wallet he counted out twenty crisp one hundred dollar bills and placed them on the table. "I understand your friend needs some dental work," he said, "and from what I hear of your apartment, redecorating might be in order." I slipped the money off the table, folded it in half, and stuffed it into my pants pocket as I stood. Before I turned, Eddie stopped me, "You know, it pays to have friends in high places." I smiled, then turned and walked out of the restaurant. Seven years earlier, the day after Marty had been assigned to my cell, I had received a visit from his brother-in-law. After a very brief conversation I had made a promise to Dominic Carvellini that I had never broken, and I'd kept Marty out of trouble both inside the joint and out. Marty and Laura waited outside in Laura's car. Marty sat behind the wheel, the engine running. I slid in beside Laura, squeezing her between us, and gave her a sloppy kiss. Marty slipped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. Everything had turned out just the way we wanted it to. For seven years I'd kept my promise -- first out of fear of Dominic and then because I actually took a liking to Marty -- so Dominic had been more than happy to let me use his name. After all, when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, sometimes you just need to weasel out. -------- CH009 *Three's a Shroud* The phone rang twice before I answered it. "I'm here," said the voice. It was the same voice I'd heard half a dozen times before. "I'm at Eddie's. Meet me in twenty minutes." Bach hung up the phone before I could reply. I dropped the handset back into place and ran my hands through what little hair I had left. I mopped sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, not realizing how badly I'd been sweating until that moment. I yelled out the door to my wife. "I'm going into town." "Did you get your call already?" Alice was standing at the lake shore less than forty feet from the front door of our summer home. I smiled. * * * * As soon as I stepped through the door of the air-conditioned bar, Bach greeted me and ushered me into a booth by the front window. I'd seen him in the bar before, talking with the other fathers, but I hadn't realized who he was. Until he'd greeted me at the door, Bach had been just a telephone voice. "Do you have the money?" he asked. "Not here," I whispered. Twenty thousand dollars in small bills was too much to flash in a small-town bar. A leggy blonde waitress with "Julie" printed on the nameplate above her ample left breast came to take my order. She was new to Eddie's and I eyed her appreciatively while I ordered my beer. I appreciated a good set of tits and I knew hers were bigger and better than any I'd seen lately. "Refill this," Bach said as he handed her an empty glass. "It's on my friend here." "Yeah," I said slowly. "It's on me. Whatever he's drinking." She turned and left us alone at the window. I stared at Bach across the Formica table. He was quite average, with dark brown hair cut fashionably long and blown dry, a neatly clipped moustache, and deep-set blue eyes. He could have passed for almost any of Eddie's regular customers, but he wasn't one of us. He wasn't another bored father on vacation with a carload of screaming tax-deductions. I couldn't remember where I'd first heard of Bach's spouse removal service. Someone, somewhere, had mentioned it. A phone call here, a careful question there, had finally brought him to me. I offered him a contract on my wife and he accepted. From then on he made the rules and I followed them. We didn't speak again until our drinks had arrived and the blonde had left us again. I watched her walk away, the sexy swing of her hips keeping my attention until Bach spoke. "I'll have to see it first," he said. I took a quick swallow of my beer. I was sweating again. "It's at the house," I explained. It had taken a long time to gather the cash without my wife suspecting I was skimming it from the family business. "When do you want it?" "We'll see." He finished his Screwdriver. "Just continue doing what you've been doing. I'll let you know." "When?" I was anxious to be rid of Alice. "You're sweating," Bach said, avoiding my question. "Do you sweat a lot?" "Only when I'm nervous," I said. "And I'm nervous as hell." I watched Julie bend over the next table to wipe away the spilled beer, her large breasts hanging so low they almost skimmed the table top. "I'll decide when," Bach finally said. He stood. "You owe for three drinks. I've been here quite a while." Bach left. I stayed in the booth and watched him go. He climbed into a nondescript station wagon and pulled away. When Julie returned, I ordered a second mug of beer. She brushed lightly across my shoulder while she reached for my empty mug; her long blonde hair tickled the back of my neck. "And bring the bill," I said. Before I'd finished the beer, the phone rang for me. While Alice droned on, I felt a light, feathery fingertip trace a circular path down my side to my crotch. A delicate hand stroked me through the thin material of my slacks. I caught my breath. "What's wrong?" my wife asked. "Nothing," I said. By then Julie had moved to the other side of the bar. No one seemed to have noticed her teasing me. "Milk and bread. Is that all?" Alice agreed and hung up. I settled the bar tab with Joey, the day bartender and, as I left, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the blonde lick her delicate red lips with just the tip of her tongue. It was an erotic gesture meant just for me. * * * * Alice was standing in the doorway when I arrived home. "Lefkowitz called a few minutes ago," she said. "I told him to go ahead and sell the options before they expire." I grunted a response. Alice's father had made a modest amount of money with a sheet metal company and he'd left it all to her. The company was in her name. So were our stocks and bonds, our C.D.s, our life insurance policies, and both our houses. Financially, I existed only as one of Alice's tax deductions. Two nerve-wracking days later I met Bach at a lonely lookout point eighteen miles up the twisting mountain road from our cabin. He was already standing with one polished brown Gucci hiked up on the stone wall when I pulled up. Strains of classical music filtered softly though his open station wagon windows. I placed a green nylon knapsack on the stone wall as I moved to stand next to him. "Do you want to count it?" I asked. "If it's wrong, you'll hear about it." I nodded. All the money was there: I'd counted it more than a dozen times during the previous few months. "Tell me one thing," Bach asked. "Why do you want her killed?" I couldn't see his eyes through the reflective sunglasses, but I felt as if he was studying my face, waiting for my response. "Money," I said, carefully judging the words before I spoke. "And power. Divorce is out of the question -- six years ago her father died and left everything to Alice. Our relationship hasn't been the same since." Our sex life hadn't been much before then; it hadn't been anything since then. If blue balls was a real disease, I'd have caught it long ago. Bach smiled slowly and silently scanned the horizon. "How much longer will I have to wait?" "Today. Tomorrow. Does it really matter? It'll happen soon enough." * * * * After dinner that night, as we were clearing away the dishes, Alice asked, "Will you be going into town this evening?" I nodded. Every night she asked and every night I went. Bach had told me never to vary my routine. Continuity was the key to everything. Eddie's was always crowded in the evenings. After all the kiddies were bedded down, the fathers broke free of their marital bonds and drove into town. Bach was there when I arrived, mingling with the crowd, but he said nothing to me. And Julie was there, too. She took my order with a slow wink. I finally found an empty booth in the rear of the long barroom. It was back in the dark under the Budweiser mirror and the broken paneling. I stared at the paneling for a long time before I realized I'd drained my beer mug. "Don't get up." It was Julie with another mug of beer in her hand. As she slid in next to me, I glanced up at the wall again. "I'm off now," Julie said as she followed my gaze. "What's wrong? Trouble with your wife?" It sounded like a bad movie script, but while we spoke, I felt her hand on mine, massaging the back of it, squeezing my fingers. Then she gently placed my hand on her thigh under the table, sliding it slowly up her leg, under the hem of her skirt. I said all the things you always hear: all the things about the wife who doesn't understand, the wife whose money had paid for everything we owned. They were banal, too, but they were somehow expected. I drank my mug of beer with my left hand. My right continued its slow crawl up Julie's firm leg until I was sure she wore no panties. We continued talking, and Julie continued to refill my beer mug. Before I realized how late it had become, the bartender was walking through the bar announcing last call. Julie slid out of the booth and I pushed myself up to leave. "I'd better take you home," she whispered in my ear as she took hold of my arm. I nodded, not knowing whose home she meant. Julie knew the roads and soon we pulled to a halt before her half of a duplex cabin. She helped me from the car and led me up the steps. Once inside, she pulled the shade and turned on the overhead light. There wasn't much to the place: one large room with a bath along the common wall. Without a word, Julie unbuttoned her blouse. Then she unbuttoned my shirt with her thin, delicate fingers, pulled it down from my broad shoulders, and let it drop to the shag carpet. She unbuckled my belt, tugged my zipper open and let my slacks fall to the floor with my shirt. I stepped out of them. Later, nearly three hours after we'd left the bar, Julie drove me back to Eddie's where I picked up my car and drove slowly back to my wife's cabin. Bach was sitting in the living room with Alice when I entered the cabin. I considered the two of them through a faint alcoholic haze. Soft strains of classical music filtered through the house and made my head throb. "We've got photos of you," Alice said. "She's an awfully pretty girl." She dropped a handful of Polaroids on the coffee table and I realized that someone had been in the other half of the duplex. While stooping to pick them up, I saw how clear the photos were, how clear my face was and how Julie's was always hidden. "I think a divorce would be rather messy," Alice said. "After all, you wouldn't get anything out of it, would you?" I nodded. "There is an alternative, though." Alice smiled a wicked little smile. "You're very well insured." Bach slipped a revolver from under his lightweight jacket and pointed it in my direction. Alice looked up at me from the couch. "Why don't you go for a little ride with him?" Alice still wore the wicked little grin, and I realized, in those few moments, where I'd first heard of Bach's services. And I realized then just how sneaky Alice really was. -------- *Vengeance to Show in the Third* CH010 *Friday* The bullet struck Fallon O'Conner's chest, then clattered to the sidewalk at his feet. He glanced around quickly to see who'd thrown it, saw nothing unusual, then stooped to retrieve the slug before it could be kicked away by the throngs of people pushing their way around him. Fallon held the .38 slug tightly in his small fist as he quickly limped the last few blocks to his second-floor apartment on the city's near-north side. He'd spent the afternoon collecting his unemployment check, explaining to a thick-headed counselor that the job opportunities for a washed-up, heavy-drinking, ex-jockey with a limp were few and far between. And despite the counselor's rose-tinted view of the world, they wouldn't get any better even if the economy _did_ turn around. Fallon placed the .38 slug on the kitchen table next to a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's, unknotted his paisley tie, and pulled off his jacket. He picked up the wall phone's handset and quickly punched in seven digits. "Jackie?" Fallon said when a thick voice answered. "One of Stern's boys gave me a message a few minutes ago." On the other end of the line Jack Gurnsey, Fallon's former employer, swore. "You haven't been near the track in a year." "Forty-eight weeks," Fallon said. He'd counted every one of them. "I was riding one of Stern's mounts when I fell." Jack swore again. "The Commission's onto Stern. Somebody's accused him of fixing the races at Eastside Downs." "It wasn't me, Jackie. I wouldn't do anything that stupid." The front door of Fallon's apartment opened and he tensed. He'd forgotten to lock the door behind him in his rush to the phone. "Fallon?" He recognized Erin White's voice immediately. Into the phone Fallon said, "I can't talk now, Jackie. Can I meet you someplace?" "The Watering Hole after the last race." Fallon replaced the handset and quickly snatched up the .38 slug. He dropped it into his pants pocket just as Erin stepped into the kitchen. "Any luck today?" she asked. He'd met Erin at the track a year before his accident when she had been running a single two-year-old. Since then her brother had left a job with the state to help her build the business into a promising four-horse stable. Fallon shook his head. "Always the same. How about you?" "Admiral Eddie placed last night. Still no winners." "Who rode?" "Del Smith." Fallon nodded. "He's good." "He was holding back." Fallon had touched a nerve and he could sense the anger behind her words. He tried to calm her even though he knew she was probably right. Erin's horses hadn't won a race yet because Gavin Stern didn't want her horses to win. At Eastside Downs, Gavin Stern wrote the game rules. Some people played by them. Some people stopped playing. Fallon gathered up the Jack Daniel's bottle from the butcher-block table and considered pouring himself a drink. A moment later he decided against it and poured the remains of the whiskey down the sink. It had been one thing to drink heavily when he'd looked at the future and seen only failure; it was another to drink when he'd been threatened with death and didn't know why. Erin watched the whiskey disappear into the sink. She'd never mentioned the accident to him and had never seemed to notice the resultant limp. "Will you ride again?" "I can't," Fallon said, slapping his left thigh. For the first time since his girth had broken in the first turn and sent him under two dozen thundering hooves, he accepted the leg for what it was, not for what it had done to his career. He might never ride professionally again, but he was ready to return to the track. "Do you have any horses in tonight's race?" "Bobbie's running Captain Cosmic in the third. He's got Del as jockey again. I told him not to hire that little shit but Bobbie doesn't listen to me any more." "Dinner first," Fallon said as he glanced down at his gold wrist watch. He'd held back a lot of horses on Stern's orders, and the extra cash had built up a tidy nest egg. Even when the unemployment ran out, it would be a long time before he'd have to hock the little luxuries he'd picked up. "After dinner we're going down to watch the horses." * * * * Dinner at Shanghai's passed quickly, and the oriental food settled comfortably into the pit in Fallon's stomach. They passed a lot of small talk about the track, a subject Fallon had carefully avoided during his self-imposed exile. Soon they stood in a stall with Captain Cosmic, an unassuming black thoroughbred with a white star in the middle of his forehead and a pair of white socks on his hind legs. Captain Cosmic stood 16 hands and could win in a slow field, given the chance. Fallon had ridden the stallion in half a dozen races when Captain Cosmic had been the Whites' only horse, and had placed once and showed in three other races. "Del's running a mare for Jack Gurnsey in the first so we won't see him for awhile," Bob White said to his sister as soon as he stepped into the stall with them. "Otherwise it looks good tonight. It's a good field, all small owners like us. Stern's not running any of his horses in the third." Fallon knew better. Stern didn't have to run one of his own horses to control the outcome of a race: he had the jockeys in his pocket. Fallon kept his mouth shut. If the brother and sister hadn't discovered that yet, he didn't want to be the one to shatter their naivete. Fallon excused himself and left Erin with her stocky brother to discuss race strategy. He limped slowly down the row of stables, mentally noting how many of the horses he'd ridden and how many were new to him. At the last stall he caught a glimpse of Del Smith talking to a pair of skinny black grooms, and he stopped at the stall door. Del looked up at him as the two grooms turned to leave and his already pale complexion turned another shade whiter. "What in the hell are you doing here?" It wasn't the reaction Fallon had been expecting, but he concealed his surprise at the fear in the jockey's eyes. "Just looking around," Fallon said. "I haven't smelled the straw in a long time." Del tried to brush past him. "I can't talk now." Fallon grabbed Del's arm tightly and looked down into his eyes. Fallon had always raced at a higher weight than Del and had gained an extra ten pounds since they'd last met. For a jockey, that was a lot of extra weight to push around. He told the younger jockey, "You don't leave this stall until you answer a question." Del looked at the hand gripping his silks. "I can't, Fallon," he said in a harsh whisper. "I can't even be seen with you." Fallon loosened his grip. He knew fear when he met it face to face, and Del was shaking in his silks from it. "I'm sorry," Del said as he rushed out of the stall. Fallon nodded to a few other familiar faces as he continued his walk around the stables, noticing out of the corner of his eye that most refused to acknowledge him. Even Erin's brother had avoided speaking directly to him when he'd entered Captain Cosmic's stall. Fallon was beginning to suspect that Bob White wasn't nearly as naive as his sister. Before the racing began, Fallon gathered up Erin and they found a window seat in the Saddle Lounge, high above the grandstands. A half dozen tables away sat Gavin Stern, a large, burly man with a penchant for dumb blondes and dumber brunettes, surrounded by his most recent stable of two-legged fillies. Fallon exchanged thoughtful glances with Stern, then turned his attention to the races. Whatever Stern wanted done to Fallon, the Saddle Lounge didn't seem the place for it to happen. "Who's your pick in the first?" Erin asked. "Time's Fool going away," Fallon said. "Bloodwind and Nightthing will fight it out for place and show." To himself Fallon amended his prediction: if Del wasn't too shook up from seeing him to ride Time's Fool properly, and if the fix wasn't in. "How about the second?" Erin asked. She was born of good Irish stock; her parents had emigrated to the U.S. only a few years after her birth. She had wavy auburn hair tending more to the red than the brown, and a shock of freckles across the bridge of her pert nose. She was slender, attractive, and fit nicely in Fallon's arm despite her height advantage. Mostly, though, Fallon savored her winning smile: it had carried him a long way when he'd been at the worst point in his life. Fallon scanned the racing form before he spoke. "Too many new horses," he said. "I couldn't begin to predict." They sat and watched the track. After the first race, with Time's Fool the clear winner and an undecided photo-finish between Bloodwind and Nightthing, a pleasant young waiter brought an opened bottle of Jack Daniel's to the table. "Compliments of Mr. Stern," the waiter said as he politely placed the bottle on the table between Fallon's cola and Erin's white wine. Fallon glanced in Stern's direction and nodded his thanks, even though he didn't intended to pour himself a drink. Stern's face split in a wide, gap-toothed grin and Fallon thought nothing of it. Stern had bought him many bottles before and Fallon considered this one a farewell toast; they both knew what the bullet in Fallon's pocket meant. Captain Cosmic showed in the third with Del astride the stallion, and Fallon could tell, even at this distance, that Del had been holding the horse back. It was one of those things only another jockey who'd ridden the horse could be sure of. * * * * The balance of the evening was uneventful and when Fallon left the track late that night with the bottle of Jack Daniel's tucked into his jacket pocket, he convinced Erin to head home with her brother. As much as Fallon wanted her to return to his apartment with him, he still had an appointment to attend to. Jack Gurnsey, a statuesque black man in his early sixties, was waiting in a rear booth at The Watering Hole when Fallon arrived. "Look, Fallon," Jack said before Fallon could slide into the booth. "I shouldn't even be here. You're poison." "I got that impression," Fallon said. "I almost didn't come." Jack had drunk quite a bit and some of his words were beginning to slur. "But I wasn't thinking this morning when you called." Jack took another quick gulp of his whiskey. He was drinking a cheap bar brand. "Stern wants you dead. The Commission's hot on his ass and he wants your mouth shut." "My mouth has been sealed since the accident. Why'd he wait so long?" Jack waved a boney hand at Fallon's chest. "You didn't get that limp in no accident," he said. "Those two Argentine jockeys Stern brought up last summer were supposed to kill you on the track. Your girth didn't break when you went into the first turn, it was cut." Fallon stared at the other man. Jack Gurnsey had been his friend for a long time, had taught him to ride, and had put him in his first race. Jack owned a lot of winners and had a lot of friends, but he hadn't gotten as far as he had by antagonizing Gavin Stern. "You waited this long to tell me?" "And if you'd stayed the hell away I never would have," Jack said. He punctuated his sentence with another gulp of booze. "You'd gotten too cocky. You wanted too big a slice. Other jockeys were easier to buy and less likely to mouth off. You brought it on yourself." "All I got was this limp." "Stern was happy with that," Jack said. "It got you off the track. But you kept seeing Erin White. Then somebody squealed to the Commission and Stern thinks it was you. You got reason. You got a mouth. That's all it takes." Jack finished his whiskey and slid from the booth. Fallon followed his former employer to the gravel parking lot where their cars sat beside each other. Fallon reached through his open car window and pulled out Stern's gift bottle of Jack Daniel's. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't drink anymore, but now his nerves demanded a quick pull. He twisted open the cap and took it. Then he handed the bottle over to Jack. Jack took a long pull. "You're on your own now, Fallon. I've told you everything I know and I can't help you no more. From now on just stay the hell away from me." He tried to pass the bottle back. "Keep it, Jackie," Fallon said. "You need it more than I do." CH011 *Saturday* Fallon woke in the middle of the night with a cramp in his stomach and spent two painful hours huddled over the toilet bowl while he heaved his guts out. At first he blamed the nightmares -- another slow motion replay of horses trampling over him -- and the Oriental dinner, but when Erin forced her way into the apartment that morning, he discovered the truth. "Jack Gurnsey is dead," she told him as they sat on his overstuffed couch. "Someone poisoned him last night." Fallon considered the bottle of Jack Daniel's and Stern's broad grin when it was delivered to his table and put the pieces together. A slow-acting poison was difficult to trace back to the source, and Stern had expected him to finish the bottle before he left the Saddle Lounge that night. If he'd gotten the bottle a week earlier, he probably would have. Fallon kept his conclusions to himself. "What's going on?" Erin demanded. She had lost control of her voice and it crept into the higher pitches. "My own brother won't hardly talk to me and Jack's dead and that little shit Del won't run our horses the way I tell him to." Fallon took her in his arms and pressed her face against his shoulder, his powder-blue robe absorbing her salty tears. When she seemed to have regained control of herself, Fallon lifted her face with a finger under her chin and lightly kissed her. Then he explained his sudden decision to return to the track and filled her in on the subsequent events: Del's reaction to him, the Jack Daniel's bottle and Stern's grin, his night over the toilet bowl. She put the pieces together herself. "I heard about the investigation," Erin said cautiously. "Nobody's going to talk," Fallon responded. "They can investigate all they want, there's nobody going to give his life so Stern can spend a few years in the pen." "Why not?" Fallon studied Erin for a moment before he answered. "That bullet was sent as a warning to keep my mouth shut. Stern doesn't know what I've said or who I've said it to. I'm sure dozens of others were delivered the same way. The next time Stern sends me a bullet, it'll come from the barrel of a gun." Fallon stood and paced. Then he said, "Let me get dressed. We're going to the track." * * * * An hour later they parked Erin's Chevy at a Burgerbarn. When Fallon climbed out of the car, Erin carefully pulled a service revolver from her purse and tucked it into her waistband at the small of her back. Then she climbed out of the car and they walked through a small patch of woods to the back of the Eastside Downs stables. They found an empty stall and hid inside. They could hear grooms and trainers crossing in front of the open stall door, and horses whinnying in nearby stalls. Fallon was listening for errant conversation about the investigation, hoping to catch a line on what had been happening. What he heard wasn't what he'd been expecting. "Mr. Stern?" Fallon didn't recognize the voice, but it was deep and had a rough edge. "We've got White up at the house." "Is he ready to talk?" "He says he doesn't know anything. Grant worked him over a bit but he still won't tell us anything. He's pretty tough." "I'll be up in a few minutes," Stern said. "Tell the boys to pick up his sister and that cripple -- that's where he's been getting all his information." Erin started to speak and Fallon quickly clamped a hand over her mouth. When he was sure that the two men had left, Fallon released his grip on her face. "What now?" she asked. "I don't know. But if they want us, the best place to be is the last place they'd expect to find us," Fallon said. "We're going up to the house." * * * * Stern's mansion sat at the top of the Mississippi bluff overlooking the track. Erin and Fallon climbed up to the Stern's place under the cover of early summer foliage. They found an open basement window at the rear of the mansion and dropped silently through it. They followed the stairs to the main floor, then went down the hall to Stern's office at the front of the house, just off the foyer. They could hear Stern's voice through the crack of the open doorway. "I don't know anything about it," Bob White said. "I've told you that." Stern replied, harshly. "I've got a friend on the Commission. He says the information comes out of your stable. The agent's name is White." Bob protested and they heard the solid sound of a fist striking a jaw. White mumbled something from floor level. "Let's try this again," Stern said. White mumbled. "The game's over, White. You're dog meat whether you talk or not." "But I told you  -- " His answer was punctuated by a grunt. Erin pulled the service revolver from the small of her back and motioned to Fallon. He hadn't seen her take the revolver from her purse at the Burgerbarn, but he followed her when she kicked open the office doors. "Police," Erin shouted. "You're under arrest, chauvinist pigs." Stern stood behind a massive oak desk. Bob White, bruised and bloody, stood opposite him, with two over-sized goons to either side. Del Smith sat in a wooden-backed chair nearby. They responded with stunned silence. Then White yelled, "You used me," and dove at his sister. The gun wavered as Bob White crossed in front of its barrel. Fallon dove at the larger man and knocked him off his feet before he could get caught in the cross-fire. Del Smith pulled a .45 from under his summer jacket and brought it up to fire. Before his could squeeze the trigger, Erin blew a hole in his forearm. In the moment Del had distracted her, Stern ducked through a side door and one of the hoods dove through an open window. Fallon untangled himself from Erin's brother, then snatched up Del's .45 and ran out the door after Stern. By the time he reached the front door, Stern's blue Lincoln was spitting gravel behind it on its way down the long drive. Fallon raced across the carefully sculptured lawn diagonally, his limp lost in his haste. He jumped a low brick wall at the end of the lawn, rolled into a drainage ditch, pulled himself upright, brought the .45 up at arm's length, and squeezed off three quick shots. The Lincoln swung erratically across the road and landed nose down in the drainage ditch on the other side. Fallon stood with the gun aimed toward the car, waiting for Stern to crawl out. A blue and white squad car squealed to a halt behind him. Two uniformed officers dove from it and trained their weapons on him. Fallon slowly dropped the .45 to the roadway and waited for Erin. CH012 *Sunday* Erin sat across the table from Fallon. Shanghai's had seemed the best place to go the following night after Erin had straightened everything out and filed her arrest report. "You used your brother," Fallon said. "I told him not to get involved, but I couldn't tell him why," Erin said. "Still, he's damn good with horses." "You used me, too, but you never gave me a choice." "I had to . . . at first. I didn't need you after the accident." Fallon thought about it for a moment. "But you kept seeing me because you wanted to." "I still want to," she said. They ate in silence for a while, then she said, "The track's going to be a lot safer place when you go back." "What makes you think I'm going back?" "You miss the horses and the excitement," Erin said. "You'll go back." "Maybe I will," Fallon said, cautiously. "My brother's going to need a partner with his stable. The state's selling him the horses," Erin said. "I've already told him you'd take the job." -------- CH013 *Glass Houses* The naked blonde pressed her heavy breasts against the glass, and I stood on the far side of the swimming pool near the roses, watching her through the sliding glass patio door and paying no attention to where I aimed the garden hose. Water sprayed everywhere. A moment later, she straightened up and walked away, disappearing into the darkened recesses of the house. I swallowed hard. The other guys told stories about being flashed by clients, but in the two years I'd worked for my former brother-in-law at the landscaping company I'd never seen anything. I continued staring at the patio door as I picked my t-shirt up from the lawn and used it to wipe sweat from my forehead. Because I'd never met any of my clients and knew them only by their street addresses, I didn't know the blonde's name and didn't know if she lived in the house. I only knew that the sight of her had destroyed my desire to work. I could go after her, entering the house if I wanted. I'd examined the alarm system more than once during the months I'd been assigned to the property, and I toyed with the thought briefly. About the time I decided to leave it alone, I heard a car engine roar to life somewhere on the far side of the house. Within moments, a red convertible Miata sped down the circular driveway to the road, the driver's long straw-blonde hair fluttering in the wind. An hour later I finished work for the day. I returned the company's truck, cleaned all my equipment, then clocked out. Manny stood outside his office, stabbing at the air with the unlit stub of a cigar as he debated the relative merits of Bermuda grass with one of the gardeners. When I waved to him on my way out, he stopped his conversation long enough to yell, "You saved up enough money for a car yet?" Manny had been the only person to offer me a job after my parole from Stateville, and he'd done it only because he'd once been married to my oldest sister. I called back, "I'm still using the chauffeur." We laughed, then he returned to his conversation and I walked to the bus stop at the corner. I thought about the blonde all the way home, not managing to drive her from my mind until I switched on the portable black-and-white television Manny had given me and -- with the help of a six-pack of Bud -- lost myself in a really bad television movie about life inside a penitentiary. The year I'd spent inside had straightened me up. I'd completed high school, kicked my addiction to nose candy, and fought hard to avoid becoming some lifer's girlfriend. The one lesson I'd learned -- and learned fast -- was to keep things to myself so I didn't lose them. That's why I said nothing about my experience with the blonde to my co-workers. Manny cut me no slack and I feared that some gardener with more seniority would claim the Briarcliffe job. The following Thursday morning, I parked the company truck in the circular drive behind the red Miata, unloaded the riding mower from the trailer, and began work. The Antebellum home at the end of Briarcliffe Lane rose from a flat expanse of carefully manicured lawn, surrounded on two sides by undeveloped woodland and on the third by an impenetrable hedge separating it from the neighbor's property. The owners had opted for a minimalist approach to landscaping and only the shrubs along the front of the house and the well-maintained rose garden near the swimming pool in back prevented it from being a simple cut and water job. Like the other four properties I maintained, it was the type of place that one man working alone could handle. The morning passed slowly, as if time moved one second backward for every two seconds it crawled forward. I mowed the yard, trimmed the walks, and carefully weeded between the shrubs in front. Heat and hard work made me sweat and by mid-afternoon I had stripped off my t-shirt and stood in the rose garden removing dead and dying blooms. I didn't hear the patio door slide open and didn't notice the Briarcliffe blonde until she stepped up onto the diving board about a dozen yards behind me. I turned when I heard the sound. She had paused as if waiting for my attention and when she had it, she quickly strode to the end of the board, sprang, and arced up into the still summer air. She neatly sliced into the water a moment later and surfaced halfway down the pool, covering the remaining distance to the end nearest the house with only a few powerful strokes. Water glistened on her nude body as she strode up the concrete steps, rising out of the pool like a modern-day Aphrodite. Without looking back at me, she pulled her wet hair into a ponytail and used both hands to wring it dry. Then she returned to the house and disappeared inside. Although clearly uncomfortable, I finished work on the rose garden, loaded my equipment into the truck, and returned to the shop. The next few days were hell because every time I closed my eyes I saw the blonde standing before me. * * * * Monday morning I talked to Manny. "The house on Briarcliffe," I asked as I leaned on his desk and inhaled residue smoke from his cheap cigar. "Who's the client?" He thumbed through a well-worn Rolodex. "Witherspoon," he said. "Elias and Missy Witherspoon." "You ever meet them?" Manny shook his head. His jowls flapped. "He hired us by phone, we bill his American Express card once a month. I only talked to him the one time." He jabbed his cigar at me. "You don't get your ass out of here soon, Kelso, you'll be late for Dupont Circle." I gave the boss a half salute and walked out of his office, a cloud of smoke following me through the door when I opened it. I returned to his office the next evening. "When did you lose it?" Manny asked after I told him about the missing Phillips screwdriver. I'd had problems with the gasoline-powered edger and had attempted to make adjustments myself, nearly stripping three screw heads when I'd tried to use a No. 2 in place of the missing No. 1. "Don't know," I said. "I'm sure I had it last Thursday morning, but I didn't realize it was gone until I needed it this afternoon." "You lose anything else?" "Nothing. Just the No. 1 Phillips." "You'll have to replace it." "No problem, Manny." While insurance covered the big ticket items like the trucks, the trailers, and the riding lawn mowers, employees accepted responsibility for their own tools. "Take it out of next week's check." He nodded and scribbled a note to himself on a yellow Post-It Note. "Get a new one from the storeroom." * * * * A shadow fell across me and I looked up. "You've been watching me." I rose to my feet, brushing dirt from the knees of my tight-fitting jeans. "It's been hard not to." Except for the massive diamond solitaire on her left ring finger, the Briarcliffe blonde stood before me naked as the day of her birth. I saw everything and then, because I didn't know where else to look, I focused on her eyes. They were the blue of glacial ice and I felt myself being drawn in. She stepped closer, so close that I could feel the heat radiating from her body. I knew that if I wanted to, I could reach out and draw her to me. I knew that I could cover her full lips with mine, thrust my tongue into her throat, and make her suck on it. I knew that I could take her there in the rose garden next to the pool behind her house, and that I could make her claw at my back and scream out my name. "You want me, don't you?" she whispered. I wanted her more than I had ever wanted a woman in my life. I reached toward her, but she stopped me. "If you touch me," she said, her voice as cold as the ice in her eyes, "if you so much as bat an eyelash  -- " The blonde reached out and touched one sharp fingernail to the base of my throat. Then she drew a line down my bare chest to my belt buckle. "Jesus," I whispered hoarsely as she turned her back on me and walked away. * * * * The next morning, Manny invited me into his office. "I got a call about you yesterday." I sat when Manny pointed the chewed end of an unlit cigar stub at the only empty chair. "Mrs. Witherspoon said you messed her roses yesterday. Did you mess her roses yesterday?" "I  -- " I didn't know what to tell Manny. I felt certain he wouldn't believe the truth. "I told her I'd talk to you about it. I said it wouldn't happen again," he explained. He glared at me with his porcine little eyes. "It won't happen again." "A mistake is all," I said. "You're lucky you have a job." "I know." We'd never discussed it but we both knew he thought he owed a karmic debt to my sister. It didn't matter why he'd hired me; I'd worked hard to keep my nose clean and I'd been a model employee -- never late, staying overtime when asked, never complaining about the working conditions. "I just made a mistake." "Fine. Fine. No more mistakes." I stood to leave when he reached for a lighter. He waved me out. I did the yard at 411 Fairlawn that day, stopped to check in with my parole officer after I finished, then returned to the shop late that afternoon. * * * * "It's cooler inside," she said the next week. "You want to come in?" The Briarcliffe blonde had caught me trimming around one of the two central air-conditioning units at the back of the house. She'd opened the patio door and motioned me away from the interminable sound so I could hear her, and she leaned against the open door as we spoke. Her hair hung in damp waves as if she'd recently stepped from the shower, and goose bumps covered her smooth skin. A cold breeze leaked around her and through the open door, enticing me inside and out of the summer heat. Somehow I knew it would be hotter inside. "I haven't finished," I told her. I indicated the rose garden with a sweep of my arm but I didn't take my gaze from her. "The yard can wait," she said. "I can't." I dropped the trimmer to the lawn and stepped inside past the temporarily disabled alarm system. The cold grabbed me and my skin tightened. "I've been in meat lockers that were warmer," I said. I'd worked in the prison kitchen until I'd discovered the frozen body of one of the short-eyes hanging from a hook in the meat locker and decided I didn't want to work with food. Prison authorities had been unable to determine the time of the corpse's death and no murder charges were ever filed. Immediately after discovering the body I transferred to an outside job, working the last eight months of my stay as a groundskeeper. The blonde didn't laugh at my joke. Instead, she slid the patio door closed and turned toward me. I covered her lips with mine and our tongues met in a hard, wet, wild kiss, passionate to the point of pain and, as we kissed, her finger traced the ridge of my ear, sending erotic shivers through my entire body. Our hands explored one another's bodies and when she pulled my shirt tail from my jeans, she slid her hands underneath it and up my back, leaving long painful scratches with her sharp fingernails. I pulled my lips from hers and caught my breath. "What about your husband?" "I've taken care of him," she said. "He won't bother us." She took my hands in hers and guided them where she wanted them. Then she jerked away from me, laughing as she turned her back to me. I reached around her, grabbing her hips and pulling her to me. I kissed her shoulders and the base of her neck. She arched her head backward and I bit at one ear lobe. She moaned, then pulled away again, leading me by steps and half-steps through the formal dining room, through the formal living room, through the foyer, and up the grand staircase. Along the way we overturned two chairs and sent a crystal decanter crashing to the floor where it shattered. The house had an odd smell, like a sewer line had backed up and someone had tried to mask the odor with a heavy dose of expensive perfume. I didn't say anything about it as we romped through each room and up the stairs because the farther we traveled, the less annoying the smell became. She led me to a massive peach and white room housing a canopy bed, a vanity, and nothing else. In a pool on the shag carpet next to the bed lay a white silk blouse, a blood-red skirt, white cotton panties, and an underwire bra. "If you want it," she said, "you're going to have to take it." She slammed the door closed between us, leaving me in the hall as she snapped the lock. I lifted one foot and kicked the sole of my work boot just above the gold-plated knob. The jamb splintered and the door swung open. I stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door closed behind me. The blonde lunged at me, tearing at my clothes. She pulled my t-shirt up and off, then raked at my abdomen with her nails as she unfastened the snap of my jeans and tugged at the zipper. I helped her -- unlaced and pulled off my work boots, peeled off my socks, my jeans, and my briefs -- and when I stood naked, she pulled away and dropped back on the bed. "Hit me." I hesitated. I'd decked a few faggots in prison but I'd never hit a woman. "Hit me," she demanded, "hit me!" I backhanded the blonde and her head snapped to the side. Her hair swept around and slapped at me. Blood trickled from the corner of her lip. She touched the tip of her tongue to the cut, then licked her lips seductively. "Now, kiss me." Without waiting for my response, she grabbed my head and pulled my face down. My lips covered hers, our tongues met, and I tasted her blood. It excited me. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, noticing for the first time the needle marks on the inside of her wrist and the crook of her elbow. As I hesitated, she caught my forearm in her mouth and bit. I swore and pulled away, but not before her teeth punctured my skin. As I shook the pain out of my arm, a fine spray of blood spattered across the quilt. "Tie me up." I glanced around. "With what?" "Use your imagination, you idiot." I shredded her silk blouse into four long strips of cloth and as she struggled against me, I used them to bind her wrists and her ankles to the four posts of the canopy bed. Our sex was hard and fast and violent and when it was over, she bit my shoulder and I quickly rolled away, swearing with pain. "You finished?" I untied her wrists. She sat up and rubbed them as I untied her ankles. I examined her from the foot of the bed. "Won't your husband notice the bruises?" She'd struggled against her silken bonds, leaving marks on her wrists and ankles, and I'd left clear imprints of my fingers on her body where I'd squeezed. The side of her face where I'd hit her repeatedly had already turned an odd shade of purple. "He won't notice a thing." I stared at her. Even bruised, her body still held an erotic fascination for me. "Don't you have work to do?" "Yeah, but  -- " I didn't bother expressing my desire when I realized what I wanted didn't matter. I pulled on my clothes, sitting on the bed just long enough to lace my work boots. A moment later I opened the door and stepped into the hall. I turned and looked back at her. "Go!" I let myself out. * * * * Someone pounded on my apartment door and I pushed myself up from the couch and stumbled toward it. I'd fallen asleep watching the late show and I remained fully clothed. "Police! Open up!" I'd done nothing and I knew it. I opened the door. Two cops burst into my living room while a third remained in the hall outside my apartment, his gun drawn. A sergeant with a gut so large it strained the buttons of his uniform grabbed my forearm and spun me around, slamming my face against the wall. He had my right wrist in a vise grip and he pulled my arm up into the middle of my back as he kicked my feet apart. "You're one sick bastard," the sergeant said. "The old man didn't have a chance." "What are you talking about?" "Elias Witherspoon," he said as he held my arms behind my back and snapped handcuffs onto my wrists. He told me how the old man had been stabbed to death. "You think I did it?" "The wife I.D.ed you. Said you'd been coming on to her. Said she'd refused you more than once," he explained. "You didn't take no for an answer." He patted me down while a patrolman Mirandized me. Assured that I carried no weapons, the sergeant jerked me away from the wall and pushed me toward the apartment door and down the hall. Since I'd offered no resistance, the third cop holstered his revolver. Wheezing from exertion, the sergeant led us down two flights of stairs and then outside. He pushed me toward one of the two waiting squad cars, then waddled toward his own. One patrolman opened the rear door and held it while the other placed his hand on the back of my head to bend me forward and push me inside. I didn't want to go. Firmly convinced of my own innocence, doubtful that anyone would believe an ex-con, and knowing that my public defender would be some bottom-of-the-class night school graduate, I realized that resisting arrest offered my only hope of salvation. I snapped my right leg up and back, planting the heel of my work boot in the scrotum of the cop behind me. As he doubled over, I lunged forward, driving my head into the abdomen of the other cop and pinning him back against the squad car. He slid to the ground, grasping at me and trying to pull me down with him. The sergeant heard us and spun toward me, fumbling to draw his revolver as I stumbled away. The mouth of an alley opened only twenty feet from where I stood and I ran toward it. I had trouble maintaining my balance with my hands trapped behind my back, but I ducked into the alley before the sergeant could level his .38. I heard the first shot, then the second ricocheted off the brick wall to my left as the sergeant followed me into the darkness. I knew my neighborhood well and I ran, darting from one alley to the next, between buildings and through abandoned warehouses. The sergeant couldn't keep up and soon I knew I'd lost him. I dropped to the ground and struggled to slip my shackled hands under my backside. Then I pulled my legs free. I pushed myself off the ground and walked six blocks to a pay phone I'd used a couple of times before. I fumbled a quarter out of my pocket and slid it into the phone, then stabbed in seven digits. When Manny answered, I said, "I'm in trouble. The cops think I killed Witherspoon." Sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer. "Who's he?" "Briarcliffe, Thursdays." "You do it?" "No." He thought for a moment, then asked, "So where are you?" I didn't like waiting out in the open so I named a boarded-up porno theater about two blocks from where I stood. "I'll be there soon as I can." I hid in the shadows for twenty minutes before a dark blue Eldorado pulled to the curb and I saw Manny's fat face peering out at me. He leaned across and pushed open the passenger door. I slipped from the shadows and into the car, nearly gagging on the cloud of cigar smoke that met me. "There're cops all over the place," he said. "They must want you bad." "They had me," I said. I held up my manacled wrists. Manny pulled away from the curb and threaded his car through the back streets, slowly leaving the wail of sirens behind. While he drove, I told him what had happened. He stopped at the shop long enough to use bolt cutters to snap the chain between my wrists, and while he drove us to his two-bedroom bungalow I used a pair of pliers and a bit of wire to unlock the remaining stainless steel bracelets. I'd let my skills grow rusty and it took nearly five minutes to undo the first lock, another three to undo the second. Manny's house had the same unkempt appearance as his office, but the spare bed featured a firm mattress and clean sheets and I found myself in no position to complain about my former brother-in-law's hospitality. I slept fitfully, twisting the sheets around me and waking repeatedly to find myself bathed in cold sweat. * * * * Manny left home before I woke the next morning, leaving me to prepare my own breakfast and wonder how the hell I'd get myself out of the mess I'd gotten myself into. If cancer hadn't claimed Irene, she would have scrambled eggs and fried bacon; I just poured corn flakes, then switched on the television while I ate. Local stations made Elias Witherspoon's murder their lead story on the early morning, noon, and early evening news. Each time they reported the story, they identified the deceased with photos of a man old enough to be the Briarcliffe blonde's grandfather and they identified me with five-year-old photos of me with numbers tucked under my chin. I wondered how long it would be before my face showed up on _America's Most Wanted._ Channel 5 had an exclusive interview with Eleanore Witherspoon, the blonde I'd had relations with while her dead husband's body lay somewhere in the house with us. She'd been beat up pretty bad and I wondered how hard it had been for her to blacken her own eyes. Manny returned after the evening news, a sack of burgers under his arm. "The cops came to the shop this afternoon and went through your truck." "What'd you tell them?" "You think you'd still be here if I'd told them anything?" I shook my head. "They said you killed him and roughed up the wife pretty bad. They found your fingerprints in the house, and they found a blood-covered Phillips screwdriver in your truck, said it might be the murder weapon." I swore as I paced the small room. "It don't look good," Manny said as he unwrapped one of the burgers. "After the cops left, I went through your stuff and found the other screwdriver, the new one." "The blonde set me up, Manny." I rubbed at my wrists where the handcuffs had chafed my skin and continued pacing. "I have to figure out why." I told Manny what I wanted to do and he agreed to help. "They'll be watching her place." "I'll risk it." My education inside prison hadn't been limited to intellectual pursuits; I had spent a great deal of time learning how to avoid the mistake that had found me trapped inside a Southcrest mansion when the silent alarm summoned the police. I spent time in the library sharing my experiences with two older convicts, and they shared their knowledge with me. * * * * I stopped at the edge of the lawn, still hidden in the shadow of the undeveloped woodland behind the house on Briarcliffe. If I crossed the massive expanse of lawn I could be seen from any window along the back of the house, but not from the neighbor's property. I had to trust that the house remained empty, despite the lights we'd seen burning in the upstairs windows when Manny had cruised slowly down Briarcliffe Lane half an hour earlier. Manny waited for me nearly a mile away, his Eldorado parked on a service road between the woodland and the seventeenth hole of a private country club's golf course. He would leave at the first sign of trouble and I would be on my own. I'd made him agree. I took a deep breath and headed across the lawn. I wore black Reeboks, black Levi's, a long-sleeved black pullover shirt, and black leather driving gloves. If anyone did see me from the house, they would easily mistake me for a shadow. Yellow tape surrounding the house identified it as a crime scene, and someone had remembered to switch on the alarm. I walked the back of the house, looking into every window I passed. When I saw no movement inside, I climbed on top of one of the air-conditioning units and carefully jumpered the alarm on a bathroom window. After I slipped a slim jim into the window crack and worked the manual lock open, I pushed the window up, then levered myself through the opening. I landed in a Jacuzzi tub, my sneakers squeaking against the dry Fiberglas. It had been more than three years since I'd stood uninvited in another man's home. I felt a familiar exhilaration nearly sexual in its intensity, followed quickly by the deadening weight of fear. I turned and slid the window closed. Someone had adjusted the thermostat and the interior of the house had warmed to a near-normal temperature in the high 60s. Overdressed in my long-sleeved shirt, I felt sweat gather in my armpits. As I stepped out of the Jacuzzi, by elbow bumped a wicker basket and knocked it to the floor, spilling pale blue washcloths and more than a dozen pill bottles. I gathered everything quickly, using my penlight to ferret out the bottles that had rolled behind the toilet and under the cabinet. Every prescription had been issued by the same doctor to E. Witherspoon. I didn't have time to read pill bottles so as soon as I had arranged everything the way I hoped it had been, I stepped from the bathroom into the main hall. My clothing smelled of Manny's cheap cigars. Even so, I could almost taste the foul odor still lingering in the house. I followed the smell, carefully picking my way through the house using my penlight intermittently to guide my way. When I entered the den, I found blood-stained carpet and the taped outline of Witherspoon's body. I stepped carefully around the outline and searched the room until I found a safe embedded in the floor under the deceased's desk. A cheap model that an experienced safe man could open by snapping his fingers, it took me nearly an hour to find the combination. Once inside, I discovered bearer bonds with a two-hundred-and-forty-seven thousand dollar face value, two insurance policies totaling five million dollars, a will leaving everything to the Mrs., a pre-nuptial agreement and other paperwork filled with legal mumbo-jumbo that I failed to understand, and miscellaneous personal belongings including diamond cuff links and a series of explicit snapshots of the Briarcliffe blonde which made what we did seem like the fumbling of teenagers. I pocketed a few of the most interesting items, then sealed the remainder in the safe, closed the floor panel, and replaced the carpet. From the den I worked my way through the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. Then I walked to the foyer and headed for the second floor. I climbed the stairs slowly, remembering how she'd sucked my index finger into her mouth on the third step and how she'd fondled me when we reached the landing. The bedroom door stood open and light spilled into the darkened hall. I stepped into the bedroom and stopped; any positive memories the room might have held had been removed by the police. The quilt, the shredded silk blouse, a section of the shag carpet, and even part of the door jamb, had all disappeared. Whatever I'd hoped to find in the room, the police had already taken. Lights flashed outside the bedroom window and I stepped back, into the hall. A car had pulled into the drive. A searchlight scanned the front of the house, sending a strobe of light into the hall as it passed each window. I could not see the car from where I stood, but the only people likely to use searchlights were the police and the private security firms some of the home owners hired. Having either one find me inside the Witherspoon's home did not promise well for my future. The last time I'd been caught in another man's home I'd spent a year in prison; this time I would spend the rest of my life there. I returned to the bathroom downstairs, double-checked to ensure that the jumper remained in place on the window frame, then slid the window up, slipped through it, and landed heavily on the air-conditioner outside. I silently cursed myself as I closed the window and unhooked the jumper, sure that even Manny sitting in his car nearly a mile away heard the sound of me landing on the air-conditioner. Then I ran across the back lawn and through the woods, not slowing until I'd put nearly a quarter mile between me and the house and I was sure no one had followed me into the woods. When I finally opened the passenger door of Manny's Eldorado, he asked, "Did you get anything?" "Nothing," I told Manny as he slipped the Eldorado into gear and pulled away. He chewed on his cigar without speaking until we returned to his house. Then we sat at the kitchen table and over a six-pack of Budweiser I told him everything I'd seen and everything I'd done inside the house. The only thing I didn't tell him is what I'd taken. I saved the stupidest thing for last. "I knocked over a bunch of pill bottles in the bathroom," I said. "Witherspoon had enough drugs to start his own pharmacy." "What were they?" I shrugged my shoulders. "I didn't pay much attention and probably wouldn't have recognized them anyhow." "Too bad." Manny finished his beer, then tore another can from the plastic ring. "It might have meant something." "They were all prescribed by the same doctor," I said, then told Manny the doctor's name. "He's an oncologist." I didn't understand so I made Manny explain. "A cancer doctor," he said. He popped open the second beer and downed half of it. "He works in the same clinic as the guy Irene saw." "No shit?" "I should have been there for her," Manny said. I thought I saw his eyes moistening as he remembered that last year with my sister. "I wasn't." I hadn't been there, either. My sister had been diagnosed the day after my arraignment and had died during my incarceration. "I was too worried about the business." He finished the second beer and reached for a third. Between swallows he told me about Irene's last year, about the initial diagnosis and the biopsy that confirmed it; about all the x-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs; about the radiation and the chemotherapy. I didn't want to listen to what Manny had to say about my sister's degeneration into an incontinent, incoherent, insurance drain, but I didn't stop him. "She had pills to get up and pills to go to sleep, pills to go to the bathroom and pills to stop going to the bathroom, and it seemed like they were always poking her with needles, putting something in her or taking blood out of her." Manny fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigar, discovering a brand new one with the band still intact. He slid off the band, bit off and spit out one end of the cigar, and stuffed the other end in his mouth. "I couldn't take care of her. I had to run the business. If I lost it, I'd lose the insurance that paid so many of her medical bills." I took a cold six-pack of Budweiser from the fridge, located an unopened bottle of Wild Turkey, and we began downing shots and beers. Manny smoked, and drank, and talked until the night ran out of darkness and he ran out of stories to tell me about my sister. I'd been only half-listening to Manny and when he finally wound down, the morning sun glared through the kitchen window. I told him to call the widow Witherspoon. "Tell her you'll be sending someone new over to take care of her yard." Manny snorted, nearly spitting out the wet stub of his cigar. "I figured I'd kiss this one good-bye." "Try to find out where she's staying." I'd been thinking all night and I thought I understood what had happened. I wanted to see the blonde. Talk to her. Do to her metaphorically what she'd done to me literally. * * * * Late that evening, Manny dropped me off a half block from the Wiltshire and I walked the remaining distance to the hotel's entrance. I wore an old double-breasted suit that had fit Manny a hundred pounds earlier and it hung loosely from my shoulders. The doorman wore a uniform stolen from a bottle of Beefeater's Gin and he held the door for me as I approached. I walked past him, ignoring his presence the way people with money ignore the rest of us, and walked directly to the elevator. At my request, the elevator attendant took me to the ninth floor and I walked down to the seventh from there. On the way to the hotel, Manny had stopped long enough for me to violate another one of the terms of my parole, and as I walked down the hall to the blonde's suite, I assured myself that everything still worked. I quickly jimmied the lock on her door, then slipped inside. When I entered the bedroom and switched on the light, she sat up, pulling the sheet up with her and holding it to her chest. She did not appear frightened, only surprised. "What are you doing here?" I moved to the side of the bed and when she reached for the phone, I covered her hand with mine. "I want my life back," I told her. "And you can give it to me." "How?" She'd lied to the police and we both knew it. I said, "Tell the truth." She laughed. "Why should I? You're a two-bit punk and I gave you your fifteen minutes of fame." "I didn't ask for it and I don't want it." "You know nothing and can prove even less." I told her how I saw things, how I knew about her husband's cancer, how suicide would negate his life insurance policies, how she'd killed Elias to put him out of his misery, and how she'd tried to pin the blame on me. I said, "You're no Dr. Kavorkian." "You're so pathetic," the blonde said. "You were such a good lay, it's too bad your brains are between your legs." I looked her a question, my confusion clearly evident. "The medicine wasn't for Elias," she said. "It was for me." She let the sheet drop from her hand. It slid down and pooled around her waist. "He didn't even know I was taking it." "Then why'd you kill him?" "I didn't kill him because he was sick; I killed him because I'm sick." "Why?" "He would have divorced me. I'm damaged goods and he couldn't be seen with damaged goods. It would have destroyed his image," she explained. She'd been nothing more than a pretty flower in his vase, disposable when wilted and easily replaced by a new flower. "I signed a pre-nuptial agreement. I would have gotten nothing if we divorced. This way I get it all." "You could have had any man you wanted," I said. She'd had me. "You didn't need his money." "I haven't lost my hair yet, but I will." She laughed. "I'll look like Sinead O'Conner or Yul Brenner. Will you want me then? Will any man?" She threw back the covers. "Do you want me now?" I wanted her, wanted her just as much then as when I'd first seen her, but I knew better. I'd heard everything I needed to hear and I backed away, letting myself out of her suite while I could still resist temptation. The next morning Manny used every dollar in his savings account to hire the best criminal lawyer in town. A felon I shouldn't have consorted with had wired me for sound the night before and I played the tape for my lawyer. I knew I was innocent, Manny knew I was innocent, and the lawyer had been paid to believe us. With the lawyer on one side and Manny on the other, I turned myself in. Resisting arrest turned out to be the only charge the District Attorney had any hope of making stick. With the tape as my only bargaining chip, I turned state's evidence, copped a lesser, and received a year's extension on my parole. Eleanore "Missy" Witherspoon threw herself on the mercy of the court. It didn't work. * * * * I visited Missy Witherspoon once after her conviction. She spent most of her time in the prison infirmary, receiving the best treatment tax dollars could buy, but it couldn't have been much. A few wisps of her remaining hair hung limply to her shoulders, her eyelashes and eyebrows had disappeared completely, and she had the skeletal features of an anorexic. Haggard, gaunt, and nearly hairless, she stared blankly at me from the other side of the protective glass in the prison visitor's room. She pressed the phone to her ear so she could hear my voice. "Why me?" I demanded. "Why?" She didn't answer. Instead, she dropped the phone and turned to the guard standing behind her. A moment later he escorted her through the doorway and she disappeared into the steel-and-concrete warrens of the women's penitentiary. Later, sitting in the red convertible Miata I'd purchased with money received from selling the Witherspoon's bearer bonds, I stared at the two snapshots of Missy that I carried in my wallet. I wanted to remember her the way she'd been the first time I'd seen her. -------- CH014 *About the Author* Michael Bracken is the author of _Bad Girls,_ _Deadly Campaign,_ _Even Roses Bleed,_ _In the Town of Dreams Unborn and Memories Dying,_ _Just in Time for Love,_ _Psi Cops,_ _Tequila Sunrise,_ and nearly 700 shorter works published in Australia, Canada, China, England, Ireland, and the United States. He was born in Canton, Ohio, has traveled extensively throughout the U.S., and currently resides in Waco, Texas, with his wife, Sharon, and his son, Ian. He has three other children -- Ryan, Courtney, and Nigel -- from a previous marriage. ----------------------- Visit http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm for information on additional titles by this and other authors.