USA Noir Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series

by Johnny Temple

  “Melinda, I . . . I didn’t hear the door open. You startled me . . .” So much so, in fact, that I couldn’t remember anything that I had planned to say. “You sound as if you’ve been expecting me.” She ignored this.

  “Come in,” she said.

  As I followed her through the foyer and into the heart of the house, I began to feel a sort of resignation; a feeling that, now that I had set things in motion, I could sit back and relax, free from the burden of decision making. It was not an unpleasant outlook.

  “Christ,” I said as we walked into the living room, its windowed ceiling a full twenty feet above me. “I’d forgotten how damn big this place is.”

  “I doubt that,” she responded. “Still drink bourbon?”

  “Finally a question. Apparently there is at least one thing that you’re not sure of.” I was starting to feel cocky. How else could I feel? I’d come this far into the house, into my past. The less I thought about it, the better it felt. I was comfortable here. Melinda understood me in a way that no one else could.

  “Not really, Timmers.” She reached into an antique Spanish sideboard and extracted a dusty bottle of Wild Turkey.

  “My brand, even. I’m impressed.” I narrowed my eyes and grinned at her. Her presence was making me giddy. I was excited—this was so easy. She knew why I was here. It was like being in a cathouse—no pretense. You ask for sex and they give it to you. But a cathouse would seem like a church compared to this place.

  “Your bottle, actually,” she said.

  “Fuck it,” I said. “We can drink all we want later.”

  Without missing a beat she set down the bottle, picked up my hand, and turned silently toward the staircase. I willingly followed her determined walk and flowing silk robe. This was the beginning of the end of ten years’ anxiety. It seemed as if I’d barely been away. Right now nothing seemed less relevant than my time away from her.

  But I did have that time, and I had to remember that. I had to remember the futile years of trying to ignore this hidden life, with Melinda and this extravagant house standing at the center. I had to remember why I was here.

  Why was I here?

  What if I did like it? Liking it—living it—had been the whole point. I was back now and it was time to unlearn compassion and let Melinda take me again.

  We climbed the staircase to her bedroom; ten years since it had been our bedroom and yet it looked exactly the same to me. Perhaps it would always be our bedroom. Melinda dropped my hand and turned to face me. She stepped back and looked into my eyes as she untied her robe and let it fall to the floor. I was amazed at her perfection. Though life had left its many marks on my body, she was just as I remembered—flawless, still possessing all the curves and textures of a nineteen-year-old showgirl.

  She unbuttoned my shirt and in a moment I, too, was naked. Melinda wrapped herself around me. I lifted her onto the bed, the raw heat rising inside of me. It was exactly as I remembered. I ran my hands along her thighs, stopping short of the cleft of her. Her nipples were hard and brown. I took one between my teeth, one between thumb and finger, and bit and pinched with exacting pressure. Melinda cried out, but did not move to stop me. She was open beneath me, ready. It was time. I licked and tasted her until her legs quivered on the brink. I stopped short of her orgasm and lay on top of her, breathing in the intermission. Finally, I pushed into her. She climaxed in waves, acute bursts of pleasure. I was close behind, teetering on that exquisite edge.

  Melinda sensed this, as I knew she would, and stopped all her motion. At once my imminent climax was completely in her control. She slid from beneath me and sat up on the side of the bed. She opened the nightstand drawer. I waited, trembling, as she extracted a stainless steel tray and with slick efficiency prepared the injection. The glowing black fluid filled the syringe. My hardness raged. I swallowed against it all, my throat dry.

  At that moment it was impossible for me to understand how I had stayed away from this drug—we called it “The Tik”—for all those years. I had never heard of it outside this room and had never looked for it elsewhere. Somehow I knew that it existed nowhere but here. This place was as much a part of The Tik as I, moments before, had been a part of Melinda. She lived here in a desert oasis with it, and the whole scene had always been one great, indivisible, seductive, eternal entity to me. I had once believed that I could escape it by running. Now I had run back, and was going to try to escape another way.

  Melinda tapped the needle of the syringe with a long red fingernail. The sexual tension and my own anticipation had my heart nearly beating out of my chest. My bloodstream was primed to rush the drug to my brain. Melinda turned, ready with the needle. I closed my eyes and offered my arm.

  The beautiful pinch.

  As the hot fluid rushed through my veins, Melinda prepared another hypo and injected herself. Then she dropped the syringe onto the tray and kicked it, lunging into me. As the stainless steel and empty vial clattered to the floor, Melinda clutched my waist and took me into her mouth. The heat of The Tik inside of me and the heat of Melinda’s tongue outside of me combined into that perfect euphoria I’d known only within these walls. She held me on the brink for as long as she could. Then I yelled out, pumping into her.

  The feeling of being alive poured over me, elemental and singular. We were finally together again.

  The Tik.

  We blinked in the aftermath, verifying it was real. I lay on my back, Melinda’s head on my stomach. Then she reared up and playfully bit me. I laughed and pushed her off. Full of new energy, I bounded out of the bed and down the stairs, returning with the bottle of bourbon. Melinda already had her panties on and was rolling up her fishnets. I sucked the bottle as I watched her dress. She grabbed it from me and took a big swallow.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she said. She shoved the bottle back into my hand and pulled open the door of what had been my closet. I was stunned. Before me hung all my old clothes, just as I had left them.

  I laughed. “Unfuckingbelievable. Do you still have the Jag too?”

  “In the garage,” she said.

  Nothing had changed.

  Melinda and the drug were working in perfect harmony. My head spun with satisfaction and lust. I grinned wildly and shook on the leather jacket that had always fit me like a second skin. It still did. My boots, my jeans, everything was in place. I gulped some more bourbon and pounced on Melinda. We fell onto the bed and I ripped off the black lace bra she had just put on. She laughed as the zipper on my jacket scratched her. We fucked again, more perfunctorily this time, then got dressed.

  After finishing the bottle of bourbon we went down to the garage. Melinda’s vintage Jag, a black 1967 XKE, was still in perfect shape, just as I, by now, expected everything to be. The car had also fit me. I slid into the driver’s seat and palmed the bulb of the stick shift. Melinda’s perfume blended with the smell of leather and night air. We squealed down the driveway and onto the moneyed side street. The ragtop was down and the wind blew Melinda’s hair all around. I flew through a red light. We vanished into the night.

  We headed for the Strip, battling traffic. I didn’t mind. I basked in the stares this beautiful woman and car garnered beneath the streetlights and neon.

  “Let’s go to the Barbary Coast,” I said.

  “The Barbary Coast? You’ve got to be kidding,” said Melinda. “Why?”

  “Dunno,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “The $3.99 prime rib dinner?”

  Melinda laughed, throwing her head back. “Oh, Timmers,” she said. “I’d forgotten how you make me laugh.”

  We parked off the Strip and started walking hand in hand through the crowd. The Tik pulsed inside me and mixed with the bourbon. Melinda was on my arm. I was ten feet tall.

  Overweight Midwesterners stared at the two of us, wishing they could be us. We were the Las Vegas they came to see. A middle-aged man in Bermuda shorts eyed Melinda’s long legs.

  “Loosest slots on the Strip,” I said to him
with a conspiratorial nod as we passed. Completely stunned, he looked up at me, his mouth agape. Melinda and I folded with laughter, then broke into a run.

  After a few minutes, Melinda stopped, breathless, and turned to me. She squeezed my hand. Her nails broke the skin.

  “It feels so good to have you back, Tim,” she said.

  I pushed her against the cold brick wall and put my mouth on hers while pressing my thigh between her legs.

  “I love you,” I whispered. My hand was sticky with blood.

  She returned my kiss, our tongues rolling together until Melinda pulled back.

  “Why then,” she said, “are you going to make me go in there?” She nodded toward the billowing entrance of the Coast.

  “Come on,” I said. “I feel so good. I feel like slumming. And if we don’t find any action in there”—I indicated the space in front of me with a grandiose sweep of my arm—“the entire Strip awaits us.” We stepped through the forced air plenum and into the clanging miasma of the casino.

  A semi-attractive blonde with a very large chest caught my attention. She was sitting alone at a blackjack table.

  “I’m going to the girls’ room,” Melinda shouted over the cacophony of bells and chimes that rang from the slot carousels. “I’ll catch up to you in a couple of minutes.”

  I nodded and watched her meander off, as did most of the people she passed. The fishnet stockings had that effect.

  I sat down next to the blonde and threw a hundred dollars on the table. The dealer set a short stack of chips in front of me as a cocktail waitress in a bad pirate costume appeared at my elbow.

  “A double bullshot,” I said, placing a chip on her tray.

  “What’s that?” said the blonde as she slurped at a frothy blender drink.

  “It’s beef bouillon and vodka,” I said, peering at my cards.

  She wrinkled her nose into a grimace. “Ewww! Why are you drinking that?” The end of her straw was coated in waxy orange lipstick.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. After all, I was. I nodded yes to a hit from the dealer.

  “That’s so gross,” she said.

  “Fuck you,” I said. Maybe semi-attractive was too generous a description for her, stacked or not. The bad casino lighting wasn’t shoring up her odds either. “Now shut up and finish your snow cone.”

  “Okay, I will,” she said. “And then you can.”

  “I can what?” I said, rolling my eyes. The waitress set down my drink with exactly the speed a pre-tip buys. I placed another chip on her tray and turned back to the blonde.

  “You can fuck me,” she said as the dealer flipped over his jack and ace.

  “Who the fuck are you?” With characteristically perfect timing and an equally perfect brunette, led by the hand, Melinda intervened. The blonde sized up the two women and picked up her drink. “I’m more than you could handle anyway,” she said, then collected her remaining chips and walked away, flipping us off.

  “Tim, this is Teena,” said Melinda, not even looking after the blonde. “She’s new in town. Just got a job as a waitress over at the Peppermill.”

  “After I finish the training course,” said Teena. “Of course,” she added, giggling at her own quip.

  “Right,” said Melinda. “After you finish the training course.” She wrapped an arm around Teena’s waist and turned to me. “She’s coming home with us for a nightcap.” One look at Teena and I could see that Melinda had bribed her with the coke she always kept in her purse.

  “Hi, Tim. I saw you walk in and thought you were really cute. I’m really glad to meet you,” said Teena. She seemed like a willing little lamb, naïve and very sexy. Exactly what I’d had in mind.

  “With that perky attitude,” I said, “my bet is you’ll sail right through that training course.” Teena gave me a prom queen smile. Perfect, just like everything else so far.

  “So what do you say, Tim?” asked Melinda, though she already knew the answer. “Nightcaps at our place?”

  Our place. “That sounds just fine,” I said. “First let’s have a drink for the road.” I pushed a chip toward the dealer and steered the girls around to the bar. “Will you be riding with us, Teena, or do you have your own car?”

  “Teena will follow us out to the house,” said Melinda, lifting an eyebrow down the bar.

  I smiled at Teena.

  “What can I get for you?” said the bartender, one eye eclipsed by a fake black eye patch.

  Melinda looked at me. “Make a wish,” she said.

  * * *

  I motioned Teena to park next to the Jag in the garage. Melinda took Teena inside to show her around while I looked over Teena’s Honda and then locked up the garage. I went in the back door of the house and found Melinda and Teena necking in the kitchen. I didn’t seem to disturb them.

  “Save some for me, Mel,” I said. “Anyone want a drink?”

  “Tequila,” said Melinda.

  “Got any champagne?” asked Teena.

  I headed for the sideboard to crack open a new bottle of bourbon.

  “Join us upstairs when you’re ready, Timmers,” Melinda shouted down the hall. She was anxious despite her cool veneer. It had been a long time for her too. I was eager to do a number on Teena, but something vague seemed to be holding me back. Fuck that, I thought, and took the longest drink of bourbon in my life.

  By the time I got up to the bedroom, Melinda’s face was buried between Teena’s legs. Teena seemed a little dazed but was holding up her end quite well, no doubt aided by the small mountain of coke next to her on the nightstand. Melinda saw me and bolted upright. She was covered with sweat.

  “Fuck her, Tim,” she said. “Fuck her proper.”

  Teena rolled over and did another line, then she lay back on the bed. “Yeah, fuck me,” she said.

  I did. I was rough but she took it. When I got off her, bruises started to form on the insides of her thighs. I reached for the bourbon and watched her and Melinda work on each other. I felt strange. The Tik still moved through me, though now at an even keel. I drank more bourbon.

  I drank for a long time.

  Melinda screamed and dug her nails into Teena’s skin. Teena threw her head back on the pillow. Melinda rolled over and beckoned me. My head was spinning. I placed my hands on Teena’s knees and opened her as Melinda reached for the nightstand. I centered all my consciousness on Teena. I focused my whole body on my mouth, and my mouth on her. Melinda moved on the bed. I heard a whisper of rushing air. Teena stiffened and bucked under me. A hot spray rained across my back. Something clinked against the wall. I squeezed Teena’s waist with all my strength. Tears came to my eyes. Teena’s body went limp.

  I lay hugging her, my breath so fast. The room was quiet. After a time I looked up at Melinda. She smiled and wiped the blood from her eyes. She got off the bed and picked up the straight razor, which she had thrown against the wall. She dropped it in the nightstand drawer.

  “You okay, Timmers?” she asked. “I know it’s been awhile.” She paused, then reached back into the drawer. “Maybe it’s time for another shot.”

  “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

  I picked up the bourbon and had a sip. Melinda closed the drawer and turned toward the bathroom.

  “Suit yourself, but we shouldn’t wait too long,” she said. “I’m going to clean up. Will you take care of that?” She nodded at the blood-soaked bed and the still body, naked and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

  “Of course I will,” I said. “Don’t I always?”

  I finished the bourbon as Melinda closed the bathroom door behind her. Out the window, dawn announced itself quietly with a barely perceptible change of color in the east. A car started off in the distance and I reflexively glanced at the garage door. It was still locked. I really didn’t worry. Melinda and I had always led a charmed existence. I sighed and put on my pants.

  “Wash my back, Tim,” Melinda called from the shower when she heard me enter the bathroom. I opened the curtain
and soaped up my hands. I massaged her back as I washed it.

  “Ahhh, that feels good,” she said. “Get in here. I’m ready for a good fucking.”

  She put her cheek against the wall and closed her eyes. I pulled her razor from my back pocket. With one motion I grabbed her hair and drew the blade across her throat. For an instant she stretched her neck out, exposing it even more, and then she slumped quietly to the bottom of the tub. I turned off the water and went into the bedroom, dropped the razor into her nightstand.

  I cleaned up and finished dressing in the clothes that I had arrived in the day before. I kissed Teena’s forehead. I kissed Melinda’s hand and held it to my mouth for a long time.

  Downstairs I lit a small fire on the love seat in the living room, then went to the kitchen and turned on all the gas jets. On my way out to the garage I stopped and, as an afterthought, picked up my leather jacket.

  I backed the Jag out of the drive and looked for but did not see the German shepherd. It suddenly occurred to me how very old he must have been. As I put the Jag into gear, my eyes paused at the mailbox, an unlikely witness. I pulled away and, driving down the road, watched it disappear in the rearview mirror. I thought about how badly I needed to sleep.

  LIGHTHOUSE

  BY S.J. ROZAN

  St. George, Staten Island

  (Originally published in Staten Island Noir)

  It sucked to be him.

  Paul huffed and wheezed up Lighthouse Avenue, pumping his bony legs and wiping sweat from his face. His thighs burned and his breath rasped but he knew better than to ask if he could stop. One more uphill block, he figured, then he’d turn and head back down. That would be okay. That would take him past the mark one more time, even though there wasn’t much to see from the street. A wall with a couple of doors, a chain-link fence, raggedy bright flags curling in the autumn breeze. The building itself, the little museum, nestled into the hillside just below. Paul didn’t really have to see it. He didn’t have to do this run at all, truth be told. He’d been there a bunch of times, inside, in that square stone room. He used to go just to stand in the odd cool stillness, just to look at those peculiar statues with all their arms and their fierce eyes. Long time ago, of course, before The Guys came, but the place hadn’t changed and he already knew all he had to know about it. Alarm, yes; dog, no. Most important, people in residence: no.