I shaved and showered and tried to find some fresh clothes that fit. It was hard not to think about the dog collar … hearing her voice again … “You can’t return Sunny. If you never really leave …” I don’t know how she pulled Sunny out, but maybe I could teach her some tricks too.
I tried to focus on my questions. My previous encounter with Ms. Genevieve had been a little too ex parte. I aimed to even things up this time. Get her on the back foot. What did she know about Stoakes and Whitney? Had she met them—intimately? What was the nature of her involvement and what was the nature of the proposed Salmaxis development? From the dimensions at Records, it appeared to include the premium site below her residence but was centered on what had formerly been the main parking lot of Funland. The consortium that controlled the amusement park had gone belly-up a while ago, and Zagame’s was owned by the gangster tribe of the same name. More title searches and company checks were in order. Either way, I wanted to hear her theory on why two men she was doing some kind of business with had apparently killed themselves within days of each other in such savage, unexplained ways.
I’d broken into a sweat by the time I finished dressing and was half-considering another shower. My nipples ached with the friction of a shirt. I thought of Jimmie, and what must’ve gone through his mind when they told him about the scan. He’d been under the knife while I was poring over Stoakes’ file. I wondered if I should call the hospital. Not being family, they probably wouldn’t tell me anything. I went to pick up the phone and saw the dog collar lying on the table. I put the receiver down. It was better that I swing by in person later. He’d probably still be under the anesthetic and I didn’t want to get any important news over the phone. Besides, I had to get to Eyrie Street. There was good reason now. As well as bad.
Driving over to Cliffhaven, there was a song on one of the Mex stations, “Yo Qiero Mojar Contigo.” I turned back to Melody Lane to catch Nat King Cole doing “Walking My Baby Back Home.” That was much more my speed. Cool West Coast jazz from the ’50’s, Tin Pan Alley and one hit wonders from the ’70’s, like “My Baby Loves Lovin’.”
I thought about other things Genevieve had said before. I couldn’t stop thinking about the things she’d said. She was right about my fixation on equipment. Stun guns, pepper spray, telescopic steel batons. I’d always had a thing for stuff—and textures. Stuck in the limbo of traffic, moments from the past started to connect in my mind.
Growing up in the Colorado River irrigated valley, there was always a lot of produce around—in the fields, on the sides of the road, and in our house. We had all the usual bright plastic Pop-O-Matic stuff of the time—the kind of games and toys that carry Choke Hazard warnings now—and the fake Pillsbury Doughboy food. But there was a lot of real food with real smells around. Valencias, radishes, cantaloupe, broccoli and zucchini.
I couldn’t remember the first house very well, but the one I really grew up in was in a subdivision that had appeared almost overnight beside a cauliflower field and a row of orchards. Dad built the house himself—and put double the normal insulation in. He built a lot of houses in the area, and then started traveling 100 miles a day or more with guys like Jake “knocking together” other places in other towns.
We had a big walnut tree in the back yard and Dad made me and Serena a tree fort in it. There was nothing he couldn’t do with his hands. Big white Arkie hands. His family had come west the hard way. There were old photos I’d seen of jalopies and canvas tents. They’d burned corn in the stoves because it was cheaper than coal—and when he was just a kid he’d picked figs and prunes. He listened to cracker music from Bakersfield on the radio, but there was nothing redneck about him.
I remembered the mysteries of his tool shed … his rock maple miter box … and the smell of the walnut dust on him when he came down from the tree, having finished our secret refuge. “Everybody needs a place to hide away,” he said.
His tools were the balance to the spices in my mother’s kitchen—and the underwear and clothing she hung on the washing line to dry. Nobody used a drier then. The smell of the fabrics—the miraculous design of a brassiere—the scent of wood shavings and ripe tomatoes—my father’s spirit level—or his steel tape measure with the shiny yellow tongue. I felt and smelled them all again. Sheetrock and flour for biscuits. Sheetrock. Washing powder, linseed oil. Ten penny nails and black currants. My father’s tool belt and my mother’s girdles …
I wondered if Genevieve would be home. Or alone. She might have another client with her. Was that what I was? Jesus, I hadn’t put it that way to myself before. I about rear-ended a guy on Molson and had to pull over to get steady. Over the years I’d walked into bars and meat-packing plants to meet men I knew were armed and “dangerous,” but now here I was panicked about meeting a woman in a harbor view house. And a dame with great tits at that.
I detoured by La Playa where Whitney’s body had been found cremated inside the smoking shell of his Mercedes. Pretty soon—probably as early as the next morning—there’d be pressure from above to sign off on the Stoakes matter as death due to self-inflicted injury. I was going to have to move fast to connect the dots to Whitney’s death, or the whole thing could blow away like dust in the rearview mirror. I went to start the car again and noticed the tip of the other box of Dilley’s Chocolate poking out under the seat. The name on the cover said Compulsions, and the image was a close-up of a woman’s mouth about to engulf a piece of chocolate in the shape of a man. I laid the box on the passenger seat and swung back into traffic.
I parked over on a street called Rockview, which was lined on both sides with flowering fruit trees. I stowed the box of chocolates under my arm and walked around the corner to Eyrie and then up the hill and down the stone stairs. If she was home, I didn’t want to give her any more opportunity than necessary to spot me before I got to the door.
I half-expected some sort of manservant or bodyguard to open the door. But when I pressed the buzzer, which I noticed this time, in the different light, appeared to be a tiny flying dragon, the door opened almost immediately—and there she was—dressed in a white lab coat of all things, with high-heeled black pumps. At least, I sensed it was her.
The woman I’d met before had had a grind house savvy with a heady dose of Sherry-Netherland class—like a bell of Poire William with a thumbscrew in it. She looked different now. Her hair was strawberry roan for one thing, but that could’ve been just a wig, or a dye job. Her face had changed too, although I couldn’t say exactly how, other than the Fearless Fly glasses. In my mind, she’d become irresistible—and this woman was. But was she the same woman? Suddenly all my rehearsed questions about Stoakes and Whitney flew right out of my head like birds. Damn her.
“You’re early,” she said without expression.
“Is that good or bad?” I asked, trying to get casual and official all at once. Maybe another session was in progress. Maybe the guy had a thing about lady scientists.
“It’s good for me,” she answered. “Time will tell whether it’s good for you.”
I didn’t have a quick comeback so I let it go. She let me in the front hallway, which was just as it had been the day before, except the white parasol had been replaced by one the color of a Dilley’s Fixation. Maybe the parasols changed every day at 4 Eyrie Street. It reminded me of the box in my hand. She saw it and said, “Pour moi?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged, with a God-ate-my-homework feeling of a kid faced with his teacher.
“I adore chocolate. And from a big tough man like you! You’re a closet romantic. That’s another reason I’ve pinned my hopes on you.”
I squinted. “I don’t like things being pinned on me.”
She looked at me with stony eyes behind those intellectual glasses. Her irises didn’t appear to be either brown or green now. More amber. But the lines around her mouth softened, which made me focus on her full bow lips. She could’ve been the model for the lid of the Compulsions.
“You’re already making
progress, Sunny. Don’t be afraid. I won’t make the obstacle course any harder than you can handle. At least, I don’t think so.”
I was about to start in on my questions when I looked to my right, into the parlor / sitting room where I’d been blindfolded before. The whole room other than the fireplace and the mantel was different. Before I knew it, she’d swept me inside, and although the room had been at least partially visible from the foyer, it was like stepping into some other kind of dimension.
The walls had been painted a stark hospital white and the crystal light fixture had been replaced by single naked bulb. The Turkish rug was gone. The blinds were hard metallic silver and fully closed. The library chair and the pink sofa were nowhere to be seen. Instead the room was crowded with rat cages, expensive laboratory ones—and filled with rats. A series of interconnecting wires linked them to a console on the mantelpiece. At the center of the console was some type of scientific clock. It had only one hand and a face that was segmented by colored bands: blue, red and black. There was a stack of black anodized boxes with needle arm gauges. All of the rats in the clear cages were lab specimens, mostly pure white. The key exception was an ugly and very large sewer rat. It was isolated in a wire cage, but despite its street-drain appearance, it was methodically rotating on one of those spinning exercise wheels. I didn’t think you could teach a gutter rat to do that.
The only lab rodents that seemed anxious were the ones in the cage closest to an aquarium on the floor. There was no water inside the tank, but there was a cat, a well-groomed Persian that didn’t look at all happy to be so confined. The roof of the tank had perforations to allow the animal to breathe, but I noticed a tube slipped in through the top—and following the tube backward, I saw that it disappeared into a hole in the wall. I didn’t like the look of that for some reason. I liked the look of the larger steel cage that stood beside it even less. This structure was big enough to hold a human, if crouched or squatting. Facing all this was a chair that might’ve been at home in an early 20th century gynecologist’s office. I liked this not at all. Behind the chair was a black leather stool on wheels and a stack of more electrical gear, some of it blinking. She let me take in the new contents and décor before swishing in front of me in her lab coat which was now unbuttoned. Underneath she wore only a finely netted push-up bra and see-through knickers the color of delphiniums. I tried to recapture my questions, the official police tone that was going to put her on the back foot. As if.
I got even more confused when another female swept into the room behind me. She was petite, maybe 20 years old. Rich dark hair fell in ringlets down to her shoulders. She was naked with a skin tone the color of olive oil in a lightly simmering pan. The idea that a babe that hot could be standing next to me without a stitch—without me slipping her a couple of C-Notes! I didn’t even feel Genevieve slip the collar around my neck, and only realized she’d done so, when I heard the catch lock.
“Don’t worry about this collar. At least not yet,” she said. “You know all about collars, don’t you, Sunny? That’s a term you use in your line of work.”
I flashed back to the Chihuahua buckle at home and reached up to rip the restraint off—when she casually produced from a pocket in her lab coat a remote control, which gave me a very bad feeling. It was only a little bigger than the enameled cigarette case she’d carried before, with several buttons embedded in its surface and an antenna that she extracted from one edge.
“Wait,” she soothed. “Sophia wants to undress you.”
I felt the girl’s hands on my skin, the combined fragrances of the women fevering my head.
When Sophia had finished undressing me, she laid my clothes on the floor at my feet. Then she reached down to massage between my legs. It felt so good I didn’t see when she reached over and picked something up from the floor at her feet … a little foil ring, connected by a wire to one of the boxes on the mantel. Before I knew it, she’d propelled it skillfully into a very awkward position. A raucous buzzer sounded and I just about jumped out of my skin. The door of the largest cage opened, and to my chagrin, Sophia went over and ducked inside. Genevieve depressed one of the controls and the door clanged shut behind the girl. Suddenly I realized I was standing there naked before two smoking females … the lab rats’ noses twitching, the Persian looking stressed inside the tank, and that street rat still working away on its wire wheel. Sophia squatted on her haunches in the big enclosure.
“Now Sunny,” Genevieve began, and her voice sounded like another kind of cage door closing. “As you may have guessed, around your neck is a shock collar.”
She pointed with the antenna of the remote to the old medical chair.
SAT DOWN AND SHE REMOVED THE LAB COAT TO GIVE ME a good look at her curves, the expensive underwear and smooth black shoes. The shoes and the glasses seemed like lingerie too.
“We’re about to conduct a simple but deeply important experiment,” she said. “Any lapse in your concentration will result in the administration of a shock. The problem is that your collar is set for maximum voltage. Even a man of your body mass will find the pain excruciating. Your hair will have a static, fried texture. Your eyeballs will throb. Your heart will jolt—and it’s said that subjects exposed to this high an electrical charge often bite off their tongues. At best, there will be a taste of burnt metal in your mouth, which will linger well after you’ve stopped seeing stars and caught your breath. The muscle spasms may persist longer.”
I couldn’t accept what I was hearing, even though she said it so matter-of-factly. I felt like a trap door had opened underneath me and I’d fallen right out of anything I understood.
“You’re going to read to me, Sunny, from a book I’m going to give you. You must read every word, clearly and meaningfully. As we express ourselves, so do we listen. This is the first thing you need to learn to step through the barriers that surround you—that have become you. If you mispronounce a word or stumble on a sentence, you’ll be given a shock. If I press this button, you’ll scream like the most delicate schoolgirl—and probably even cry. Then you’ll buck and shudder in that chair like a ridiculous marionette.”
I think I bucked and shuddered right then. She smiled sweetly and malignly all at once.
“The good news is that while you’re reading, Sophia is going to kneel between your legs and put her pretty mango wet mouth to work. If you remain still and appreciatively open to her, she will satisfy you more deeply and expertly than you’ve ever experienced. You’re free to enjoy this artful privilege as completely as you can, but you must remain attentive to your reading. It’s my pleasure in hearing your voice massage each word that you must be concerned about. The slightest slip of your tongue while Sophia graces you with hers—and you taste the fire. Understand?”
I stared stupidly back at her, unable to comprehend what I was hearing—hearing it as if from another place in time. Or mind.
“Now, there’s another element to this experiment,” she continued. “That little foil ring Sophia has attached? It’s also an electrical device. A sensitive, precise way of assessing the fullness of your arousal. Of measuring it. The device is connected to this switch relay over here.” She pointed to the mantel.
“As you read, water will fill the tank in which the cat has been placed. The greater your arousal, the slower the water will enter the tank. The other conclusion is obvious.”
“The cat could drown,” I said, feeling my stomach rumble. Nothing El Miedo had ever thrown me could compare to this scene that had taken hold of me.
Genevieve’s eyes brightened.
“Do you know about the case of Wagner and Brahms? Wagner accused Brahms of being a serial cat killer for the purposes of learning how to translate the death wails of cats into music for the violin. An historian has now officially cleared Brahms. A pity really. I think Wagner’s view of him was more interesting.”
“You’re going to kill a cat! That’s—”
“I’m not going to kill the cat, Sunny. You ma
y. But don’t make it sound so dramatic. You’ve never been a big animal lover—going to back your childhood in the valley. Don’t you remember? You now have a chance to save a cat simply by responding like a virile male to a beautiful and much younger woman. Is that too hard? No, I see some things are certainly not hard enough. But you may yet rise to my occasion.
“However. Life is a precarious balance. Should you discover some masculine enthusiasm—giving you the benefit of our hope—as soon as you demonstrate sufficient stimulation to cut off the water to the cat’s tank, you’ll trigger random charges of electricity to the rat cages. There’s always a price for performance and pleasure, just as there is for failure and humiliation.”
“My God, you’re …”
“Shh, Sunny. It’s very difficult when you have this power at your fingertips not to use it. And lest you shrivel further, let me say that you won’t be alone in the hot seat. Sophia will also be wired. The charges for her are much smaller, but they will be all over. Her devices will be monitored by the clock on the mantel, which has a feedback connection to your sensor. The longer it takes her to encourage you, the more the pain will increase for her. So you see, she has great incentive to entice you to achievement.”
“What happens if I …?” But my voice didn’t sound like mine. It didn’t sound like El Miedo. It sounded like an echo bouncing off a wall I’d somehow walked right through.
“Another significant aspect of the expected male demonstration. If you should sow your oats before the clock hand reaches the blue area, then the waterflow will flood the cat’s tank. All of the rats will be electrocuted and Sophia will receive the maximum charge from all the pain points. You won’t receive an electrical shock—only the shock of seeing the consequences of your inadequacy. If, on the other hand, you respond properly, maintain an acceptable degree of firmness and reach a climax after the clock hand has entered the red area, then only the rats in the left cage will be terminated. The cat will survive, and Sophia will have endured but a variation on the usual discomfort women experience in trying to please unworthy men. You, of course, will then be free to go. Just as you’re free to go right now.”
Private Midnight Page 7