“You have been working out,” she replied. At six feet tall and around one hundred and eighty pounds, Colt towered over her.
Suddenly, she leaped forward and threw her hands around his neck, giving him a big hug. Colt responded with a quick kiss on her smooth forehead. She immediately retreated and pensively studied the ground.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Colt could tell that she had something on her mind, but she would never bring up a subject without prompting.
“What, can’t I come to visit an old friend? I haven’t seen you in over six months. I haven’t talked to you since what’s-her-name left you and took off with the pool boy. That was a long time ago.”
“He wasn’t a pool boy. He was her ‘soul mate’ from the old country. You can’t compete with soul mates, you know.”
The quick tug on his heart must have registered in his eyes, as she immediately responded. “Soul mates are overrated.”
“I think we should go inside and have a visit,” Colt replied, realizing that she wanted to talk.
They entered the house through the front door, which Colt rarely used. He usually used the garage door that was off of the kitchen. The foyer was large and square with rooms leading off in three directions.
“Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something?”
“Maybe you can show me how to prepare some food. I can only make a mess,” she replied.
Colt knew that this was her way of accepting his invitation. She believed that no one would ever do anything for her just because he wanted to, but teaching her something was permitted. He turned and headed for the kitchen. He could hear her shoes tapping on the marble floor as she followed.
He poured her a glass of white wine and they had a toast to friendship. He then began the process of ferretting out what was on her complicated mind. She stood right next to him as he cut lettuce and vegetables for a salad. She was completely silent and this was unnerving to Colt. She usually chattered up a storm, asking impossible questions and commenting on every point, however minute. He expected her to ask why he was using lettuce, it had no value, she would say. But she remained quiet, sipping her wine and occasionally shifting her weight from one small hip to the other.
“Is everything kosher at the police department?” Colt inquired, running a list of possible topics through his head.
“The streets have never been safer for the good people of Streamwood,” was the half-hearted answer.
“The agency seems to be doing alright. I got a check from you a couple of weeks ago. You have already paid me back over half my investment.”
“I’ve been spending good quality time with our clients,” Loni said.
Colt was in the process of putting shrimp into a saucepan when his head snapped up. He knew she didn’t talk like that. “How is Carl?”
“That bastard,” she hissed. The floodgates were now open. “He’s been seeing another woman. He thinks that I don’t know. What an asshole. He claims to work late and comes home and just goes to bed. He doesn’t look at me anymore. I’ve gotten too old. I nag him. I have to dye my hair now. What next, dentures?”
Colt quickly turned off the stove, refilled her wine glass, and led her to a sofa in the large family room. She walked as if she were in a trance, bumping into the end table and letting out a chorus of expletives.
Loni was highly competitive and often saw any other woman as an adversary to be crushed and eliminated. Colt had seen it firsthand. He had seen it when they set up a sting at a local hotel to obtain information about the white supremacy group. The representative from the supremacy group was a willowy blonde who clearly used her female charms to try to seduce Colt. Loni was posing as Colt’s assistant, and was there for protection. As the blonde raised her skirt to intrigue Colt, Loni also raised her skirt. When the woman left her seat, plopped down next to Colt and tried to provide a little hands-on seduction, Loni lost it, and a major fight broke out. Both women provided an undignified show that all the men in the lobby would remember for quite some time. Colt saved her from being disciplined by claiming the woman was taking advantage of him, and Loni was just protecting him. That small lie was the basis for the strong bond of friendship which now existed between them. Loni could not believe that anyone would stick up for her, but Colt had.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Colt asked in a soft tone.
“I ought to move out, teach him a lesson. But I have nowhere to go. Who would take in a has-been like me?” she cried.
Red lights, sirens, and a host of early warning devices were going off in Colt’s head. She wants to live here, he thought. “Loni, if you are in trouble, you know you can come here. Are you in trouble? Or, is this just a little tiff between you and Carl?”
“He doesn’t understand me like you do. He has told me nothing. He wants to hide his affair. He is probably having sex with her right now.”
“Have you asked him about the other woman?”
“No, why should I?”
“Are you and Carl getting along in bed?”
“Of course,” she said. Then she looked away. “Well, at least until I found out about the bimbo. I won’t have sex with him now.” Her voice was defiant.
“I bet he started working late when you refused to have sex with him. Am I right?”
“Maybe. How could you know that?”
“Loni, he thinks you are mad at him,” Colt said. “You won’t sleep with him, so he thinks that something is wrong with him, that you don’t care about him anymore. He is probably just as upset as you are.”
Colt noticed that Loni suddenly had several tissues in her hand, although she didn’t have a purse with her and Colt couldn’t see where she’d secreted them on her petite body. What she really needed, Colt concluded, was some tender loving care.
“Look sweetie,” he said, “you are one of the most desirable women I have ever met. You are smart, sexy, and a good companion. I would go anywhere with you and be proud to have you on my arm and I’m sure that Carl would too.”
Their conversation lasted for several more hours. Colt kept trying to rebuild her confidence and she kept making belligerent remarks about cutting off body parts. The whole problem had started when Loni had come to the police station to have lunch with Carl. She noticed an attractive woman standing in Carl’s office. As she crept closer, she heard Carl refer to “that old hag,” and Loni instantly knew they were talking about her. She turned rushed from the office crying. That evening, Loni had “closed the doors” and started obsessing about Carl’s affair.
At that point in the conversation, Colt excused himself to use the bathroom and called Carl Heinz on his cell from the toilet.
Carl told him that the woman in his office that day was his sister’s daughter. “The old hag” was Carl’s ex-wife. They’d been discussing some family history. The niece had flown into Chicago on business and showed up at the stationhouse unannounced. Carl went to find Loni but was told she had come into the station, but had left almost immediately.
“Loni is a wacko,” Carl said gruffly. “I don’t mind telling you, I’m getting a little tired of her mood swings.”
Her impulsiveness had gotten her in hot water before. She did have a tendency to jump first then ask how deep the water was. Colt started to develop a strategy to put his friends back together. He knew that Loni would have gathered information about the woman. Once he settled on a course, he left the bathroom.
“So, Loni,” he began. “Who is this bimbo that Heinz is bedding? I mean, do you know her name?”
“I checked for her name on the sign-in sheet by the front desk at the station. Her name is Sarah Louden. I’ll get her someday,” Loni slammed her drink on the coffee table.
Colt smiled. “Isn’t Carl’s sister a Louden?” Colt replied, his voice calm.
“Yes, but…”
“And hasn’t he referred to his last wife as ‘the old hag’?”
“Yes, but…” A light bulb seemed to appear above her head.
Su
ddenly, a cell phone appeared in her hand and she pressed a number. After a short eternity, she spoke into the phone. “Is this Sarah Louden? Well, this is Detective Loni Chen with the Streamwood Police Department, she lied. I have been reviewing last week’s sign-in sheet and noticed that you came to the station to see Capt. Carl Heinz, but you never signed out. Can you explain that?”
Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was suddenly relaxed and slumped down on the couch. “I see, your’ Uncle Carl took you to lunch and you just forgot to sign out. No, he is not in trouble. Not anymore. Thank you for helping me out.”
Colt waited for a large smile to cross her face. Instead, he got tears, lots of sobbing, and a wailing that she was useless, stupid, and unfit to be in the company of any man. She followed that up with, “I don’t know if I forgive him yet.” Colt went back to work on managing the damage.
By five o’clock Colt was pretty sure that the old Loni was back. They returned to the kitchen and he began cooking again. Loni said, “Why are you using lettuce? There is no nutritional value in it.”
She was all round the chopping block, looking, touching, and making remarks about how good Carl was going to feel that night when she got home. Now Colt was the one who was jealous. She was bouncing off the walls. At one point, she started to dance, twirling and thrusting her pelvis like a teenager to the music that was piped throughout the house. Her movements were unmistakable; she was horny.
***
Colt was just putting the finishing touches on the scampi when the phone rang. He had been watching Loni move about the kitchen. He remembered how she had protected him from that Aryan asshole Michael Dean. She had moved with the same fluid motion when she literally kicked his ass. He suddenly wondered about Walter Pierce. Pierce was there in the house that night. Did Pierce really die in the fire?
He picked up the cordless. “Colton Banyon.”
The voice that replied sent a shiver down his spine. “Two will come with a book to find the one that is left.”
“Who is this?” Colt he said, looking at the ID pad for the number. There was no phone number listed. A dial tone buzzed into his ear. Colt stood there in shock. “No, it can’t be,” he reasoned aloud. “You are dead.”
Loni came rushing over and grabbed his arm. “Colt, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Banyon did not speak.
“Colt, you’re scaring me again,” stated a visibly shaken Loni. “The last time you looked like this was when we were in that tunnel and you kept talking to someone I couldn’t see.”
“I know, Loni. Believe me, I was there remember,” Colt said. “You didn’t hear the phone, did you?”
“Colt the phone didn’t ring. I thought you were making a phone call when you walked over to it.” She grabbed onto Colt as if he was going to fly away and buried her head in the crook of his arm. Mentally, she was back in the old tunnel on Long Island with Colt when he started talking to someone that she could not see. The unseen voice gave Colt directions to a hidden room where they discovered the body of a man who had died many years earlier. She had been shaken by the experience and was deeply troubled by Colt’s apparent ability to see and hear the dead.
“Loni, it is not over.”
“What is not over?”
“The curse from Walter Pierce is not over. He has found me, again. That phone call was from him. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that ‘two will come with a book to find the one that is left.
“Oh, my God,” Loni replied. “He wants us to go on another adventure, and I know why.”
Chapter Two
“What’re you talking about?” Colt asked, staring at the phone as if willing it to reveal more information.
“Colt, don’t you watch the news?” Loni was beaming with excitement.
“What news?”
“Two Japanese soldiers have been found in the Philippines. They are real soldiers from World War II. Isn’t it amazing? They have returned to Tokyo and are considered national heroes.”
“So what?”
“There are varying reports, but one story says they were told to surrender by a ghost that just appeared to them one day. The only thing they brought out of the jungle was some gold and a copy of Mein Kampf.”
“How’d a couple of Japanese soldiers get their hands on a copy of Mein Kampf,” Banyon asked himself?
“And who does it belong too? That’s the mystery. Colt isn’t it so exciting.” Loni vibrated like an alarm clock.
“When did this story break?” Colt asked, as his interest piqued.
“It just came out this morning. Didn’t you hear about it? I’m so ready for some action. Colt, why don’t I stay here tonight so we can make plans? I could run home, give Carl a quick toss, pick up some guns, and be back here by nine o’clock.”
Ignoring her question, a suddenly calculating Banyon replied, “I wonder if the ghost was the father of Walter Pierce, or Walter Pierce himself? I think he may want us to use the book to find someone. But why? I need to think about this for a while, Loni. Why don’t you go home and makeup with Carl? You owe him, you know. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“Oh, all right. But don’t start on this adventure without me. Do you promise?” she pleaded with him.
“Fine, I won’t start any investigation without you,” was all that he could muster, as Loni headed for the front door, tapping on the marble floor with her shoes and swaying her little bottom at Banyon
Chapter Three
Banyon mixed himself a Stoli and tonic and sat down to think. Can this be happening again? Is Walter Pierce really involved? Was that his voice in my ear? How can I find some answers? He reluctantly decided that he needed to call India.
“Hello,” a distinctly female voice came through the speakerphone. It sounded like she was next door. Her cultured British accent opened locked doors in Colt’s past. He could see her lips pout as she spoke in precise English.
“Previne, Colton Banyon here,” he said.
“A long-awaited call from America,” she purred. Colt could feel her sexuality creeping across the phone line. “When are you coming?”
“No, Previne, I am not coming to visit. At least, not soon, anyway. You all but wore me out the last time.”
“Pity,” was her charmed reply.
“Previne, I need some answers about Walter Pierce.”
“What kind of answers?” Previne was clearly reluctant to respond. But Colt suspected that she knew more than she was acknowledging.
“Answers like what really happened to Walter Pierce. You owe me, Previne. Your family owes me for all that you put me through.” Previne and her twin sister, Pramilla, had moved in next door to Banyon a couple of years ago and used their considerable sexual powers to guide him to his old house, where he made his discoveries. Then they whisked the ancient tablet found in the house to India, leaving Banyon standing on the lawn, watching the house burn to the ground. They had been protégés of Pierce.
“Walter Pierce is dead,” Previne said with resignation clear in her voice.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“His real name was Wolfgang Becker. His father was the ghost who built your house in the nineteenth century. Wolfgang is buried in a cemetery in Streamwood.”
“What? Pierce is buried here in Illinois? I don’t understand?”
“Colt, Wolfgang didn’t die in the fire. He was very much alive when the house burned down.”
“But he disappeared in the basement. How did he do that?”
“Wolfgang studied magic. He was quite talented, really. He used an illusion to make himself appear to disappear,” she said. “He used black silk cloth to cover himself. It was dark, remember? He was still in the basement after you left. He then made his way to our car and came to India with us.”
“This makes no sense. Why did he go to India? What about the fortune he left for me?”
Colt remembered them as sexual predators. They had used their heavenly bodies to distract, motivate, and generally keep him off balance during the whole affair. At the time, Colt was fifty-four years old and was amazed that the two young women were eager to satisfy his every sexual desire, and more. The word that best described their power over him was “cuckold.”
“About the curse,” Colt said. “The curse ended when the tablet was returned to your grandfather, right?”
“That’s true, Colt. What is going on today has nothing to do with that curse.”
“So, you do know what is going on.”
“We only know what Grandfather told us before he died.”
“So, tell me already, for God’s sake.”
“Colt, I could catch a plane and come and comfort you. You are stressed. Perhaps a backrub from the two of us would release your tension, and don’t forget about Myra, our younger sister.”
“Stop. Stop it, Previne. Just tell me what you know.”
“Alright, I’ll tell you. But you won’t like it.” There was obvious frustration in her voice, as she was not used to men turning down her invitations. “Wolfgang came to India on purpose. Wolfgang wanted to talk to our grandfather about another curse. Both men were dying and wanted to help make the world a better place even after they were gone. Our grandfather, Abu Patel, was a shaman. Do you know what a shaman can do?”
“He was a magician?”
“No, Colt, a shaman is many things. They are trained in healing and viewing things through spirits. Grandfather was the last of the great shamans. He had the ability to influence the spirit world and use spirits to do his bidding.”
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