The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd

by Chris D. Dodson

  Her eyes narrowed; her jaw clenched, the way it always does before her balled fists began flailing wildly. Instead of turning my other cheek, I kept the glass of ice next to my face. Hot, pointed words then shot into my ear, “I had nothing to do with her coming here, you bloody fool. In fact, I came here to warn you and to see that you’re all right—but you’ll never be all right.” Her eyes narrowed even more. Her nostrils flared, pulsing short, ticklish bursts of warm breath. “But you’ll have to kill her now, Jackie boy. Those scratches on your ass mean you’re marked.” She shuddered a laugh, the kind people guffaw when they’ve reached the end of a long and fruitless journey. “Do you know what’s most pathetic about you, Jack?”

  “The fact that I always burn coffee?” I winced, waiting for another round of 34-carat knuckles.

  “You can’t feel anything; and the reason you can’t feel is because you’re too fucking lazy to cure that hurt boy inside you.”

  Our eyes locked, and I saw myself staring back, relieved, yet saddened somehow that this would be the last time. Then a piece of me, a contagion, walked away from the table as briskly as she pleased.

  23

  I had several tentacles to valet money into the United States. A third-party Swiss bank account was my primary method of hoarding cash. My bank of choice was a highly regarded Zurich location where I had several large deposits in both paper status and hard currency. Being tax free and untouchable by American authorities, it was a low-risk, anonymous means of wiring money to stave off future calamity and mayhem.

  The latest addition to my list of recipients, twinkle-toes William, was an impatient accomplice who’d been badgering me daily for his turn at suckling on one of my sullied tentacles.

  I met Willie at the most brief and transitory place I could think of, a wide shoulder along an open stretch of PCH. I needed the fresh air and serene ocean view to calm my nerves while I negotiated with the blackmailing mole. If it wasn’t for William’s pussy fragility, I would’ve already decked his skinny ass at the studio. But a tacit understanding of his motives was vital until I used up all that William had to offer.

  We had parked our cars parallel, pointed in opposite directions, so that we could talk face to face. As I said, if William made the mistake of conveying another sexually snide insult, then I’d be forced to reciprocate by body slamming his scrawny carriage onto the side of the highway. So the barrier of our two vehicles served a tactful means. What’s more, the last thing I wanted to see was pinky turn another pirouette.

  “Nice wheels,” I said across our chasm of Détente. I was surprised by William’s choice of ride: a midnight blue Mustang Shelby Cobra GT, aka muscle car.

  “It helps with the ladies,” William replied. Then, as if a pixie had just crawled from the backseat, he squealed out a high-pitched laugh and said, “Point of fact, this cool ride belongs to a real estate consultant with Terra Firma enterprises. You know the firm, a big construction company that’s widening a freeway through some gigolo’s orange groves in Yorba Linda. Isn’t that right Kiddy Ja—ooops.” William pressed his hand over his mouth and clenched his shoulders. “God, I almost forgot.” He dropped his voice to a low octave, “Mr. Kidd.”

  I glared across the chasm, wishing I had my Glock stored in the consul of my car. The highway was empty, an easy shot between the eyes, drive away as if nothing happened...

  The pixie continued, “Nice man ride, huh? I’m doing its owner, a Rock Hudson type, broad shoulders, square jaw, and very nice lips.”

  My hand clutched the door handle of my car, ready to leap across—

  “Anyway, sorry if I’m pushing your homophobic buttons, Mr. Kidd”—again with the low octave—“but muscle machines really make my juices gush.”

  I gazed at the numbers on the speedometer that were turning into blurry images. There was this voice echoing in my head, asking me, quite emphatically, why the hell I haven’t flown my ass to a large island continent in the South Pacific already.

  “I’ve got something for you, Jack Kidd, if you’ve got something called money for me,” William cocked his head toward me, holding his pixie grin.

  I reached my arm across the chasm and said without any emotion, “I need Lena’s shoe size and the disc; do you have them?”

  “Not until you give me the wiring instructions to your Swiss treasure.”

  “Check your phone, William. I sent that information to you this morning.” Idiot.

  He browsed through his Blackberry phone until he found his email. His eyes widened. “Wow, looks official, Zurich Switzerland. You’re really hardcore, Mr. Kidd.”

  “The CD William.” I held my arm out until I felt the thin jewel case fall edgewise into the palm of my hand. “And the shoe size?” I asked.

  “She’s a size 4 U.S., 35 Euro. Take your pick, pretty boy.”

  I inserted the compact disc into my stereo receiver and listened to the recording: murmurings, distant music, familiar voices, namely Brenda’s, passing in and out of the range of William’s hidden microphone. Catherine, Lena, and Angela were all there loud and clear, sort of.

  “Sound good?” he asked.

  “I’ll listen to it more at home. If I find it’s just random conversations with no bearing on what I’m looking for, then I’ll have no choice but to retract the wired funds.”

  “Retract the funds? Too late, Mr. Plantation owner. The money is already in my account.”

  “Not quite. What you’re viewing is a preliminary request by the Zurich bank to your bank that it effect payment according to instructions. I haven’t pushed the send-money button yet for you to receive the 333,000 dollars. In fact, even when sent it’ll take a day or two to transfer, in which I’m able to stop the transfer if I think it necessary. So, Willie, don’t consider yourself any richer until I’m satisfied with the goods.”

  “That wasn’t in the game plan, Mr. Kiddy Ja...Mr. Kidd.” William’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. His jaw tightened, his brow furrowed. The imp looked as though he was going to pop a nut.

  “You’ll get the money, William, but only if I like what I hear. If I do, then we’ll continue doing business until I have all my singing birds and you have the other 667,000 dollars.”

  “You think you can mess with me like this, Jack Kidd? Well, you’re wrong. I know people—I know some goddamn, evil people that can do things to you.”

  I stared at William for moment. “I know people, too, Willie. Namely one ballerina serial killer who I’m sure won’t appreciate your eavesdropping on her. It’s your choice; you either end up on a chorus line on Broadway or sliced and diced on that futon in Brenda’s cathouse.” I let him mull that over for a moment until I asked, “By the way, how do you know about Terra Firma Enterprises?”

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you, big boy? Well, I’ve got my bases covered. Remember two days ago when we met on the beach and made our first exchange?”

  I nodded.

  “It seems you were being tailed by some people that day, in which I’ll classify as good guys gone rogue.” William sniggered, then said, “One dude, some hideously ugly fat toad of a man who looked and acted like a cop, approached me at my apartment last night and”—William paused, offering more of the pixie grin—“you know what the first thing he asked me was?”

  I shook my head.

  “If you’d gone gay. He seemed pretty interested in that, as if he couldn’t wait to publish the outing in the local paper.”

  Mick Balosky.

  “Anyway, I told him I was meeting with you secretly for other reasons than hard-bodied sex.”

  “Did you tell him about him our deal?”

  “Of course. I’m playing all the angles here.”

  “Playing mole is a hell of a dangerous game, Willie.”

  “I’ll play mole with whoever pays me the most. In fact”— William hunched his shoulders and hung his head out the window—“for an extra ten grand, I’ll tell you something that’ll suck your johnson right off
.”

  “Not interested.” Ugh!

  “It has to do with Terra Firma Enterprises, with certain villains trying to pirate your land, hmmm?”

  I stared at the fuzzy numbers on the speedometer again. I wondered when I was going to hit the bottom of this abyss. I then said, under duress, “You’re on. What is it?”

  “I have it on good recognizance that this toady cop has been sleeping with someone in the police department. Someone who’s actually in internal affairs—a mole—and has been investigating some rogue cops on the force.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “One of my students, shall we say, the former Mrs. toad. She’s been opening up to me while she stumbles miserably through the cha cha.”

  Mick Balosky’s ex-wife?

  “Seems this woman has been investigating her former husband for back payments of alimony.”

  I thought of Brenda’s polished oak floor, her parlor, the menagerie of dropped secrets and back stabbings: the ideal blank canvas for sordid cat-tales and inkblots.

  “What does the ex-Mrs. toad know?” I asked.

  “She knows there’s a big coup in the works regarding some local land owner who’s refusing to give up his land for the future growth of this county.”

  “What else?”

  “What else could there be, Mr. Jack, the Don, the pretty-boy farmer who gets his ass whacked at the stroke of midnight? Isn’t that what usually happens in a coup?”

  “Is this toad a Detective Mick Balosky, by any chance?”

  “Was it fifteen large or twenty that we agreed on?”

  “Stop fucking around—was it Balosky?”

  The pixie nodded. “Ooowee! In two weeks it’s Broadway, Greenwich Village, Studio 54—God, I can’t wait!”

  “That was a serious mistake to talk to Balosky, William. He’s not going to pay you anything except your life.”

  “Or yours, Jack Kidd.”

  I had a sudden thought about the all bodies that’ve piled up here in the last few weeks, both dead and alive, and now I had one more dumbass to keep out of that pile. “You need to keep this simple, William. Our deal was for you to give me the goods on Catherine and Lena and I’d pay you. There’re people in this harbor you don’t want to fuck with.”

  “I’ll fuck with whomever I like, plantation man. Just make sure I get my money. I’ve got to go before the coppers catch us soliciting each other for...well, you know.” Another pixie shrill of gaiety. He started up the 500 horses of Mustang power. The engine groaned smoothly and superbly while William kept shrilling that pixie laugh. God, I wish I had my gun. Note to self: in times like these do carry a firearm for both self defense and spontaneous acts of righteous fury.

  “You won’t be sorry about what’s on that CD, Jack Kidd, so don’t forget to push that send-money button. It’s a million plus ten large now—don’t forget.” His prissy grin morphed into an evil leer as he rode the clutch, causing the Shelby Cobra to peel through the dirt, then roar down the highway.

  24

  A nice swell came ashore that morning at Trestles Beach in San Clemente. Because of the angle of the shore’s slope, the swells at Trestles had a long and mellow break, perfect for long boarders. The sun had burned away the remaining cloud cover and except for the surfers and their boards spotting the beach, the summer crowds had yet to make their daily visit.

  I stood at the edge of the beach close to the highway, just a few miles south from where I’d just met Willie. I forced myself to block out my prior engagement, but it was hard. I’ve known some slimy knuckleheads, but Willie boy the squealing pixie was shooting for the title.

  Truth is, I didn’t need what Willie had to offer, but I did need to keep him off my back. He had me off balance, which in a parlay situation is good for keeping the survival juices flowing, but not good when I had a life or death deadline in just nineteen days. I was leveraging a million dollars to help me lose a two-and-a-half-billion fortune, so no matter how I juggled this, I was betting the whole damn farm on deceit. Besides, the last thing I needed was a G-man knocking on my door with questions regarding my Rio excursions of orgies and strangulation, or worse, me screwing his wife.

  I steadied my eyes on the steel-gray horizon, enjoying the graceful way the surfers rode the three to four foot waves that rolled in like clockwork. A particular surfer, Tommy Barton, another dumbass I was good-heartily looking out for, was whom I came to talk to. I knew he was here; his badass jet-black Hummer was parked just off PCH.

  I peered out toward the breakers, watching a building swell with Tommy skillfully riding the wave into shore. He tucked the board under his arm, then lumbered his tall muscular physique along the beach. He stopped and laid his board down and peeled the upper part of his spring-suit from his shoulders and chest.

  Before renting out his hard body for cash, Tommy was a star quarterback at the local high school, earning him a scholarship at UCLA. Not only was he was a natural at nailing the numbers on every receiver that screened across a field, he was also good at nailing every ovulating female that screened across campus. When his chances for the pros got cut after blowing out his arm during the annual Rose Bowl game, he had no recourse but to continue playing the jock, only now on a different playing field.

  I slipped off my Docksides and socks and carried them across the beach toward the lion. A smug, quizzical glare formed his face as I approached.

  “Tommy Barton, right?” I announced.

  “That’s right. Who’s asking?” Tommy whipped back his head, flinging his illustrious wet mane onto his broad shoulders. He applied a towel to his wet face.

  “My name’s Jack Kidd.”

  “Yeah? What can I do for you, Jack Kidd?” His eyes gave me a once over until he said, “Dressed like that, you should be sipping cocktails at the yacht club.” He slipped off the bottom part of the spring suit. Two sets of fingernail scratches tracked along his lower back.

  My mind shifted abruptly to a sidebar on this page of intrigue. I began calculating how many asses had been scratched since the beginning of summer: Dr. Bernhard, Kenneth Flint—both scratched and nixed—leaving Robert Price, me, and now Tommy Barton up for grabs. If Detective Sullivan’s theory was correct and only three posteriors per summer got minced, then there were two too many asses in the mix.

  I said, “I was cruising along the highway and thought I’d watch the action out here. You ride pretty well.”

  “So I’ve been told. What do you want, my autograph?” The man was a pathetic case of unbridled privilege.

  “Hardly. Just thought I’d come out and present you with a warning.”

  “Warning for what?”

  “Lena McGuire.”

  “Who?”

  “Good looking dancer chick with pale skin, albino blue eyes, ink black hair, pulled back like a serpent.”

  “You mean the vampire-looking bitch who just came into town?”

  “She does have a hell of a bite.”

  “I defanged her.” The Lion sneered as if he were invincible. He began toweling off the heavy beads of seawater from his arms and chest.

  “I doubt it. Take my advice and stay away from her.”

  “Why?”

  “You ever been marked by a woman, Tommy?”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Fingernail slices across your ass sting like hell, don’t they?”

  He turned, putting his backside away from me. “I know who you are now,” Tommy mumbled, kneeling down to pack his bag. “You’re that aged-out gigolo who lives on Balboa Island. The one who uses real estate deals to snag MILFs.”

  “It’s a living. But you know all about the profession, don’t you, Tommy? Or is it the Lion?”

  He chuckled. “At least I don’t bone grandmas.”

  “Yeah, well, my grandmas are richer than your barflies. But who’s keeping score, huh, Tom?”

  He continued stuffing his bag, mumbling more derision.

  “She’s marked you, Tommy.
Those scratches on your backside mean you’ve been put on order.”

  He stood. “Look, James Bond, you need to get your nosey ass out of my business or I might just drop you where you stand.”

  “I doubt it. It’s common knowledge you can’t swing your right arm worth shit anymore. You remember that day, don’t you? The day you blew out your rotator cuff during that bowl game, along with your chances for the pros.”

  A hardened veneer of self-importance gave way for a moment, giving me a glimpse of the man’s fractured ego.

  “Have you pissed off anyone, Tommy? Anyone close to you, money deals, a jealous girlfriend?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Lena plays the players, strokes them for as long as she can and...”

  “And what? What the fuck does this have to do with me?”

  “I saw you with Lena the other night at the Pub Select. You’ve been marked, Tommy. Those scratches on your back prove it. The first time you bang her, you get scratched, the second time, you’re flayed meat. She’s a hired killer who hits players like you who piss off other players. Two victims have turned up dead recently, and I think you’re next in line.”

  “And I think you’re out of line, Mr. Whacko Kidd.” The lion gestured his head toward the highway. “You’d best be on your way.”

  “Just being the good Samaritan, Tommy. Do take care of those scratches. A good predator can smell blood a mile away.” With my high-priced footwear in hand, I plodded my bare feet through the cool sand back to my car.

  25

  Twelve noon and hunger tore at my stomach. My meeting on the beach with Tommy went the way I figured it would. But I knew he’d be all right as long as I had possession of the claws. Hopefully, they were the only stash.

  Not far down PCH a small roadway sandwich bar stood atop a bluff, Harvey’s Grill, the best greasy spoon for miles. Outside the wood-framed outpost were a few cars: two seven-series BMW’s, a C class Mercedes, and a couple of utility pickup trucks. The place attracted all income brackets.