Hex: A Ruby Murphy Mystery

by Maggie Estep

  “How on earth do you know that?”

  “I dated this girl a few years ago, Eliza, little blond girl that rode jumpers.”

  “Christ.”

  “What?”

  “Is there any type of girl you haven’t gone out with?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m open to the possibilities.” Oliver beams, then his face turns serious again: “What you’re doing is dangerous, Ruby.”

  “I can handle more than you think.”

  “You’re not a cop.” He pronounces cop the way only a person who’s had run-ins with them can. “You’re just a lovely and somewhat innocent woman,” he says, shocking me completely because I don’t think anyone has ever called me innocent.

  “It’s okay. I can take care of myself,” I insist.

  “Life is important.”

  I can’t say anything to that. Life can’t possibly be as important to me as it is to him right now.

  We’re silent for a few moments. Lulu comes and jumps up onto Oliver’s chest. He grimaces from the weight of her.

  “Oh,” he says then, “some guy called for you, wanted to get down your pants.”

  “Ned?” I say hopefully.

  “No, Mark something. Piano teacher.”

  “My piano teacher wants to get down my pants?” I say, incredulous.

  “Apparently. He grilled me. Asked if I was your boyfriend. Guy sounded insane. And in love.”

  “I doubt that. He’s a bit weird. But I don’t think he wants me. He’s just possessive of his students.”

  “No, he wants you,” Oliver assures me.

  “No he doesn’t. He has a girlfriend. He’s young. Twenty or something.”

  “Is he hot?”

  “Hot?”

  “Do you want him?”

  “No. He’s twenty. He’s nice-looking but he’s a weirdo. No. I don’t want him. However, I am going to cheat on you tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Ned, the assistant trainer guy, asked me out. I’m having dinner with him over in Brighton.”

  “You shouldn’t be dating those horse people. What if he’s killing horses? How would you feel fucking a horse assassin?”

  “I don’t think Ned is a horse assassin. I’m not going to fuck him, anyway.”

  “Such crass language,” Oliver scolds.

  “You started it.”

  We glower at each other for a minute and then Oliver laughs. “Well, you look nice. He’s a lucky horse assassin.”

  “Is it okay that I’m abandoning you for the night?”

  “No, of course not. But don’t let that stop you. I realize you have needs.”

  We spar for a few more minutes, then I go to the bathroom and brush my hair one more time.

  I kiss Oliver good-bye and head out.

  It’s a beautiful night.

  Ned Ward

  22 / She Is Exquisite

  I’ve been home for all of two minutes and I’m just picking up the kitten to inspect her wound when there’s a knock at my door. I sigh, knowing I’m in for a dose of Lena the émigré. I scratch the kitten’s chin and stare at the door, trying to will the woman away. The knock comes again, louder. She knows I’m here, no doubt keeps a vigil at her window, waiting for me to get home so she can douse herself in violent perfume and throw herself at me.

  “Yes, Lena,” I call out.

  She doesn’t respond, so, begrudgingly, I tuck the kitten under one arm and open the door.

  She’s really outdone herself this time. Smells like the inhabitant of a bordello and looks like one too. Has on some sort of clinging low-cut red velvet top and a leopard print miniskirt. She’s packed makeup all over her face and piled her Band-Aid-colored hair atop her head. Her red spike heels match her velvet top. She’s probably someone’s wet dream, just not mine.

  “Ned,” she coos, pressing herself in through the door and coming to stand about a millimeter away from me so that her considerable cleavage is touching my shirt. I have half a mind to shove this cumbersome bosom away but don’t want to get that involved with it.

  “Lena,” I say, backing up several feet. “I just got home.”

  “Oh?” She rounds her eyes in mock surprise. “You must be tired,” she says, “and hungry.”

  “Yup. Got a dinner date. Gotta get ready,” I say, watching her for what I hope will be a quick retreat. But no. Nothing’s ever so simple with a dim, single-minded girl. Her face falls several miles and, I believe, she manufactures some moisture in her eyes.

  “You have date?” she says at length.

  “Yes, Lena, a date. You have dates too, remember?” I say, trying to bring her back to the reality that she only gets hot on me between victims—most of whom are rather large men who are either extremely blond and Eastern European or deeply black and American.

  “I don’t want dates, I want you.” She quivers her bottom lip and brings more moisture into her eyes.

  “Lena, please, I’m very grateful that you’re helping me with the kitten,” I say, “but right now I have to clean up and get going.”

  “No!” she exclaims, stamping her foot. “This is not good, Ned,” she says, and before I know what’s what, she’s lunged for me, making me drop the kitten, who thankfully is very much a kitten and lands on her feet, unharmed. Lena has grabbed my shoulders and is attempting to attach her mouth to mine. Suddenly she drops to her knees and starts unzipping my pants with alarming alacrity.

  “Jesus, Lena, stop it,” I say, pulling back, but she’s on me like a hyena and already has my pants down over my hips and is yanking my boxers away, and before I can pull back from her she has her mouth on me and her long red fingernails digging into the skin of my hips, threatening to claw me if I move.

  “Lena, stop!” I say, which just seems to get her more worked up. She’s doing terrible things to my cock with that red mouth of hers, which, most unfortunately, has my mindless cock responding.

  “You want me,” she says, taking her mouth off me for a second and looking up at me with big pleading eyes. This gives me a chance to leap back several feet and hoist my pants up.

  Lena’s coming at me again but I’m ready for her this time and shove her a little harder than I’d intended, causing her to fall back on her ass.

  She sits there, savage-looking, panting a little. “You want me,” she says again, pointing at my crotch, which, thankfully, is slowly returning to a restful state now that the mouth is away.

  “No, Lena. No. You’re not my type,” I say mercilessly, sick of it all.

  “I am all man’s type,” she says, unceremoniously reaching her hand up her skirt and spreading her legs a little. “Look, I have beautiful pussy,” she says, and at this point it’s very difficult not to laugh because this is just fucking ridiculous.

  Until today, I’ve gone a great many months without any action at all—ever since I stopped seeing Rebecca, a cute little federal marshal I met in my travels. Rebecca was a smart lady and very sexy, but took her job quite seriously and brought it home with her to bed. She couldn’t get off if she didn’t have me trussed up in handcuffs and a gag, which was interesting as an experiment but ultimately tiring as a preferred sexual routine. Rebecca and I parted ways and I vowed to be more careful before plunging into a relationship again, which isn’t to say I haven’t needed to get laid. I’ve needed it. Badly. And now, the night I finally have a goddamn date, I’m practically raped by the savage Russian psycho next door, who, ironically, does have a beautiful pussy, and it’s not like I’m some martyr or something. As a rule, someone throws pussy at me, I don’t tend to shove it away.

  “Lena, you’re a beautiful girl and most men would like nothing better than to make love to you. As it happens, though, I have a date and I also know that you will lose interest in me by next week. Okay?”

  She’s still sitting there, on the floor, leopard miniskirt jacked up, revealing her lack of panties. Her mouth is parted a little and she’s still panting slightly. “You are homosexual,” she finally
spits out.

  I shrug at her.

  She stands up, pulls the skirt down, walks to the door, and slams it behind her. I hear her cursing in Russian as she walks down the hall, back to her place.

  My first thought is to call a locksmith, but checking my watch, I see that I have all of forty minutes to clean up and get over to Brighton Beach to meet Ruby.

  I take a few moments to feed the kitten, who looks as put out as Lena when I refuse to drop everything and play with her. I jump in the shower, throw soap on myself, taking care to rub the baroque bordello perfume stench off my cock, then dry off and put clothes on.

  I take the time to rig up a contraption that will give Lena some problems should she choose to let herself in when I’m out. I lock the kitten in the bedroom, out of harm’s way with a bowl of food and a litter box. Then, just in case Lena does make it past the booby traps and lies in wait for my return, I remove my Smith & Wesson from my dresser drawer, put it on under my light jacket, making sure it’s well concealed. I’d prefer not to have to explain to Ruby why I’m armed for our dinner date—which would lead to explaining why I have a gun in the first place, which isn’t something I can tell Ruby right now.

  I don’t plan to brandish this thing on Lena if she does make a return visit, I just want to make sure she doesn’t have access to it. I go out and around the corner to the outdoor lot where I keep the fucked-up old Lincoln town car inherited from my dead uncle Jack who envisioned himself something of a pimp. I take a moment to muse that Jack would have loved Lena. The very thought of her would have kept the old guy alive another decade. But such is the timing of life.

  I get in the car and drive.

  It’s hell finding a parking spot in Brighton Beach, and it also occurs to me that it’s a strange irony to be meeting Ruby in a Russian neighborhood. It would be astonishingly awful if Lena, in her sorrow over her failure to blow me, happened to come trolling around to hang out with her fellow Russians.

  I finally wedge the vehicle into a semilegal spot and quickly make my way to the designated restaurant, where I am instantly greeted by a hostess who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Lena. I explain I’m meeting someone. The hostess begrudgingly lets me look around for Ruby. Not finding her, I go back outside to wait for her there.

  Directly above is an ancient elevated subway. A train grinds by. Neon signs throb out their urgencies in front of the many shops and restaurants lining the busy thoroughfare.

  I consider lighting a cigarette then remember I quit five years ago. I lean against a wall, clearing my head of everything, wanting to savor the first moment I lay eyes on my hotwalker in this new context.

  My mind is blissfully clear when Ruby comes striding down the street, lovely in a nicely fitting black outfit and a pair of red shoes with slight wedged heels.

  She grins her crooked grin and asks if I’ve been waiting long. I assure her I have not. I’d sort of like to dispense with all the formalities, pull her into an alley and fuck her right now. But that might be awkward.

  “Shall we?” I say, holding the restaurant door open for her.

  The hostess shows us to a table. A great many Russian-looking individuals eye us as we take a seat.

  “You Russian or something?” I ask Ruby as she settles in her chair and accepts the menu the hostess is offering.

  “No. I’m not sure why I picked this place,” she says, looking around and seeming to suddenly doubt her own decision. “I’ve only been here once and it was remarkably loud. I just couldn’t think of anywhere else.”

  “It’s nice,” I lie.

  She smiles—grateful for my indulgent fib—then looks down at her menu. I stare at her.

  “What?” she says, looking up.

  “Just looking,” I say, “sorry. You’re easy on the eyes.”

  I tend to be an idiot when I like a girl. And my idiocy seems to actually be making this particular girl blush. I can’t believe it.

  She ignores the comment, frowns at her menu. Taking it a step further, I reach over and softly try unfurrowing her brow with my finger.

  She’s startled and pulls back a little. Then laughs. “What are you doing? I’m not a horse.”

  “No. That’s obvious.”

  She laughs again.

  I have a perverse urge to tell her about Lena. I restrain myself, and feel any further inclinations toward idiocy leave me.

  We fall into easy conversation. Pausing to let a chunky bleached blond waitress take our order.

  We exchange biographical sketches. I tell her about growing up in Queens and walking hots at fourteen and falling in love with horses. I leave out a few things pertaining to one of my alternate careers—but nothing she needs to be concerned about right now.

  She’s got a very expressive face, and she frowns and grins and revels in certain aspects of her story as she tells me her own highlights. She’s a live one, all right. Quick-witted but sincere. Pretty but relatively unimpressed with herself. She tells me she used to work at some museum at Coney Island. Might go back to it if it doesn’t work out for her with the horses.

  “It’ll work out. If you want it to,” I assure her.

  She smiles some more. “I’ve got to make a bit of serious money though. I need a new piano.”

  “You’re a pianist too?”

  “A bad one. But it’s my love,” she says, and the way she says it, I don’t doubt her at all. “I want a Steinway grand. An old one. From Hamburg. They’re like forty something thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not cheap.”

  “No,” she says, looking a little despondent.

  I want to run out and buy her one. Instead, I shovel in my food. She does the same, and forty minutes later we escape the unfortunate Russian restaurant and, by mutual unspoken agreement, head to the beach.

  We’re walking toward the water when I pull Ruby to me, put my hands at her waist and lean down to kiss her. She responds with an almost shocking amount of fire. I feel myself going a little blind. I pull back a bit and stare down at her. She stares back. I kiss her jaw-line. I hear myself growl a little. I want this girl.

  I contain myself.

  I feel her doing the same. She launches into some explanation about a houseguest. I refrain from explaining Lena the émigré and the possibility that she will be camped out at my house, jerking off in my boxers.

  We walk. Back over to busy Brighton Beach Avenue, on into Sheepshead Bay. We pass a dingy little motel incongruously perched on a corner of land jutting out into the bay.

  “What’s that doing there?” I say, stopping to look at the place.

  “I love that place,” she tells me.

  “You do? You’ve stayed there?”

  “No. I just always wonder what it’s doing there. If anyone stays in it.”

  “You want to?”

  “Stay in it?”

  “Now, yeah.”

  She looks up at me and grins. “Uh-huh,” she says.

  I feel myself getting the fiftieth hard-on of the last hour.

  We walk to the hotel office. There’s a small Italian woman wearing a busy hairdo and a smock. She grunts as I pay her in cash. “Make a right out the door here,” she gestures, “third door on your left.”

  We find our way to the room. It has dark pink walls and smells of stale smoke and seawater. I pull the door shut. Turn on a bedside lamp. The bed takes up most of the room, and the mattress looks like a swaybacked mare.

  “Can I smoke?” Ruby suddenly asks.

  “Smoke?”

  “Cigarette?” She smiles up at me, and she looks about twelve.

  “Sure. I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I’m trying to cut down,” she says sheepishly.

  “Smoke your heart out, girl,” I say.

  I watch her reach into her jacket pocket and extract a pack of Marlboro Lights.

  I go into the bathroom and remove the Smith & Wesson. Put it under the sink. I go back into the room and find Ruby sitting on the edge of the bed, smo
king and staring at me. I lean down and kiss her right after she’s inhaled. It tastes good.

  I put my hand at the small of her back and dig my fingers into her sacrum. She moans a little, stands up abruptly, goes to the door and throws the cigarette out. She comes to stand in front of me and pulls her little black top off. She’s wearing a nice red lace bra. I put my palm on her stomach and feel a pulse. She starts fiddling with the front of her pants, gets them undone, and wiggles them down to her knees. She’s wearing matching red panties that break my heart. I reach around and pinch her ass. She laughs. Touches my hard-on through my pants, then starts undoing my buttons. I grab her and flip her around onto the bed, press myself into her lovely pale ass. I reach one finger inside her panties. She lets out a funny little yelping sound, then turns around to face me and pulls my head to her chest. I struggle out of the rest of my clothes, then with a hard-on so distended it looks pretty threatening, I fish through my pants pocket and produce a condom in a tired-looking wrapper. I’d have stocked up if I’d imagined things would go this way this fast.

  Ruby yanks the condom out of my hand, takes it from its wrapper, and rolls it down onto my cock. Now it’s her turn to shove me flat onto my back, where she promptly mounts me.

  I am the luckiest man on the face of this earth.

  I lay there, almost motionless, letting her have her way with me. She seems thoroughly pleased, and I’m not feeling too shabby myself She keeps grinding into me, then periodically leans over and kisses me.

  Eventually, I take my glasses off. Ruby’s a little blurry now, but I’ve committed most of her to memory anyway.

  Apparently, my taking my glasses off sends her over the edge. She comes rather fiercely, clawing into my chest as she does. Thankfully, her nails are short.

  I push her off of me, onto her stomach. I threateningly put my cock between her ass cheeks, seeing what kind of reaction that one gets. I feel her tense a little but she doesn’t protest. I make note of this, then enter her in a more conventional fashion. She bucks a little. I shove myself deep inside her little body. She’s turning me on so much I almost want to hurt her. But not quite. I’d rather have my way with her several thousand times. Don’t want her damaged.