The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd

by Chris D. Dodson

  I nodded and walked slowly through the house. When I checked the tax rolls and the title on the property, which is something I always do before taking a listing, a Mr. and Mrs. Clyde and Gertrude Jones did in fact show on the record, well, sort of. I proceeded through the house.

  The property had fine hardwood flooring with no signs of water leaks or foul odors that would suggest water damage or mold. All the bathroom and kitchen fixtures had been upgraded to contemporary styles, and nice touches of crown molding and baseboard ran the length of the ceilings and floors.

  “I noticed on a title search that you and your husband are the original owners,” I said.

  “Yes. We paid only twelve-thousand dollars for the place back then. Amazing, huh?”

  I nodded with a bemused grin at a seemingly scripted response. “Just you and your husband purchased it, I take it?”

  “Of course. We’ve solely held title on it for fifty-three years.”

  “Actually I noticed in the records that your husband’s parents purchased the property originally in 1952, then quit-claimed it to you and your husband.”

  The old woman demonstrated that subtle pause in a person’s face when the brain slips and the eyes do their best to conceal an oversight. “Oh...well, yes, it’s been so long ago.” Next came the put-on smile with gasping chuckle. “My, I’d forgotten all about that. You do know your business, don’t you, Mr. Kidd.”

  “I do try.” I then thought, a quitclaim to property is a significant point to remember, Mrs. Jones—if that is your name. “You and your husband will make a sizable profit on this.”

  “I think so.”

  “By the way, where is your husband?”

  “He’s playing golf today.”

  “Nice day for the links. Does he play around here?”

  “Yes, he’s a member at Strawberry Farms here in Newport Beach.”

  “You mean Irvine, don’t you?”

  Another slip of neurons, another gasp. “Yes...well, he’s the golfer in the family.”

  I nodded again, still holding my aforementioned grin and lofted eyebrow. I assessed all my mental notes, except this time some of the notes began to raise crimson flags. This old bird doesn’t even live around here, and I’ll bet the net worth of my next crop of oranges that there’s no Clyde Jones swinging out of a bunker at Strawberry Farms. There was no furniture in the house, and her mentioning of her personal belongings as, “the furniture,” without the usual possessive tense, “our furniture,” was a telltale that she’s never lived in this humble abode.

  Gertrude crossed the room and entered a bedroom. She called out, “Perhaps you would like to see the main bedroom now, Mr. Kidd?”

  I assessed her mannerism, the way she paced across the room, turned, and beamed that marksman aim on me whenever she thought my side-line vision was blind to her. This old bird was a pro at something, and I was now damn sure her skill-set had nothing to do keeping books at Dr. Murphy’s Dance studio.

  My heebie jeebies were near the redline now, and the pistol riding my ankle began to feel like a hot iron as I moved toward the bedroom. I thought for sure I’d turn a corner into another dimension and see either Rod Serling with cigarette propped in his fingers, wearing the dark suit and thin black necktie. Or worse, I’d see Guido holding a .45 caliber pointed at my head.

  I entered the bedroom. Gertrude stood next to the window, clasping her hands in front of her, all the while holding a serpentine grin on her face. She seemed proud to show off her empty bedroom, or, and my hunch was betting warily on this one, she finally had me cornered.

  She said, “The large walk-in closet was built by my husband. As you can see there are special built-in cabinets with extra storage and clothes racks inside.” Her eyes gestured for me to view the closet more closely.

  I approached the closet, noticing its depth, the shelving, and so forth, but no cabinets: wrong again Granny. I paused inside the small room. From a full-length mirror that hung inside the closet, I had a clear view of the bedroom behind me. Sure enough, granny whitehead planted the same locked-and-loaded stare I saw in Brenda’s futon room, but this time she reached behind her loose-fitting blouse and pulled out a handgun with a noise suppressor attached to the barrel.

  I waited carefully for her to raise the weapon, then I spun around and slung my binder Frisbee-like toward her and the pointed gun. At the same time my trusty binder connected with her gun hand (I was the all-city Frisbee throwing champion in 1979) battleaxe grannies’ firearm fired off a single round that punctured the ceiling just above my head. With the assurance of a half-ass marksman, I reached down for my Glock, aimed, then fired off a round, plugging a nickel-sized hole in the middle of Gertrude’s forehead. The old woman slammed against the wall like a bag of concrete.

  28

  “What caliber did you use in that gun of yours?” Detective Sullivan asked me.

  “9mm hollow point. Why?”

  “That’s hard-core ammo for self defense.”

  “I abide by the scorched-earth doctrine, Frank.”

  Frank stepped around the body of the late granny Gertrude. He examined the wall where most of her brains and skull had splattered, then said, “Never fails to amaze me how much head splatter looks like spaghetti sauce.”

  On the street in front of the house several patrol cars blocked traffic. Bright yellow tape cordoned off the property with at least a dozen of Newport Beach’s finest guarding the crime scene. Inside the house, along with Frank Sullivan and me, were two other homicide detectives. Fortunately the horse’s ass, Detective Balosky, wasn’t on duty today.

  Frank said, “You got her dead on in the forehead, Jack. That’s a hell of a shot for an amateur.”

  “It’s amazing what you can do when your life depends on it.”

  He nodded with a smile. “You always carry your gun around on appointments?”

  “I do have a concealed weapons permit, Frank.”

  “I know, just routine questions.”

  After my match of Russian roulette with Gertrude, I called my favorite crime fighter Frank Sullivan to investigate my victory over nearly being murdered and hopefully have him enlighten me on just who this old woman was.

  “So why did she try to nail me, Frank?”

  He cast a look at me. “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me.”

  “Like I told you, I caught this old bird gawking at my bare ass at Dr. Murphy’s dance studio. She asked me to list her house, so we arranged the appointment. We chit-chatted for while, Realtor, client small talk, after which we drew our weapons and the rest is history.”

  “I believe you. The good thing is you popped her before she popped you.” Frank smiled. “So you were catting around at Dr. Murphy’s cathouse, bare ass and all, huh?”

  “Yeah, Frank, bare ass and all.”

  He walked around the body some more, studying the crime scene. Frank seemed to be enjoying all this. Or perhaps he was just so desensitized by so many homicides in the past that a bug-eyed grandma with half her head missing didn’t faze him anymore. “Damn hollow points blow out the back of a head like a cannonball,” he said. “More work for the coroner, you know.”

  “So what about this woman?”

  “She has no ID on her person. We photographed the face, or what’s left of it. I have an officer running the pic on a computer in a squad car. One thing we do know for sure, this house didn’t belong to her, and she obviously had it scoped out for her rendezvous with you.”

  “I could’ve told you that.”

  “It seems these femme fatales are swarming out of the woodwork now, Jack. If it isn’t Aunt Mabel with a—”

  “Her name was Granny-ass-gawker, Frank. Please respect the dead.”

  Frank nearly laughed and said, “Okay. With all due respect, if it isn’t Granny-ass-gawker toting a nine-mil Lugar with a noise suppressor, then it’s a beautiful Broadway dancer wearing cat claws. Either way, my friend, you have a bull’s eye on your backside. So my question is, what the he
ll did you do to deserve all this?”

  “It’s a long story, Frank.”

  “And getting shorter by day.” He huffed out a sigh and asked, “So what tipped you off about this old bird?”

  “I guess it was the way she ogled me at the cathouse. Call it a weird kind of turn on.”

  Frank nodded and rubbed his chin. “I suppose in your line of work you’ve learned how to a sniff out a woman, saggy breasts and all.”

  An officer entered the room and handed a laptop computer to Frank. He eased out a subtle laugh as he scrolled through the report. “It seems your gun-toting client was a hired killer. Quite a history, too. Her real name was Gertrude Hamner, aka the Iron Maiden, and she’s a German national, been in this line of work for forty years. Hell, she’s considered one of the top perps in the hit business. You hit the big time, Jack.”

  “I’m flattered. So who hired her?”

  “Good question. And one we probably won’t know until we follow some leads. It’s obvious she had this scene all scoped out. The house is up for sale,” he nodded toward a For Sale sign propped against the wall that had been found in the garage. “So looky loos have been entering and leaving here pretty regularly, nothing to tip off neighbors that something other than real estate business was going on.”

  “The property’s a for-sale-by-owner,” I said, examining the sign. “Which is why I didn’t see it listed in the MLS.”

  Frank added, “Being an old and weathered hired gun, it wasn’t hard for her to jimmy the door. That’s why there’s no vehicle outside or in the garage. After she’d blown your brains all over that closet, she’d simply walk outside to an accomplice with a getaway car.”

  “So what about her accomplice? Any suspicious cars cruising the neighborhood?”

  “I have a watch on the area now. Smart call. Maybe you should’ve gone into the bad-guy chasing business instead of skirt-chasing business, huh?”

  I looked away from the serious mirth in Frank’s eyes. He continued reading the computer screen, “Hopefully there’s a paper trail on the ass gawker from here to where ever she came from, which, by her name and that Lugar she used, places her source of operation most likely in Europe.”

  “She had that homespun, grandma routine down pat,” I said, staring down at a corpse.

  “She was a pro.” The good detective zeroed his eyes on me. “This is either the usual scenario about a pissed off sugar daddy you borrowed a wife from or this is about something much bigger.”

  “Am I allowed to leave?”

  “I’m afraid not. You’ll have to come down to the station and fill out a god-awful amount of paper work. Got to keep the bureaucrats busy.” Frank looked down at the corpse, crinkled his nose, and said, “Let’s say we get out of here before Granny starts smelling like rotten spaghetti sauce.”

  29

  An old clock mounted inside a replica model of a clipper ship sat on a shelf in my home-office, demonstrating a time of two minutes past midnight. The clock was a beautiful work of art, a nineteenth century design with the typical British character and theme. It was the perfect ornament to make one think of the ages, of faraway worlds to escape to—a vast island continent south of the equator.

  I had difficulty falling asleep, so I propped myself at my desk and began shuffling and filing paperwork regarding two escrows coming to a close at month’s end. Even though I had a transaction coordinator at the brokerage office to file my docs, both digital and hardcopies, I still felt the need to keep backups and verify that I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed. Call it covering my tracks, which is something I’ve learned the hard way from my night job, or as my shamus Ivy likes to phrase it—always keep a close watch on your rear flank.

  Speaking of rear flank, nearly having my posterior plastered inside a walk-in closet this morning did little to steady my nerves. Fortunately my remedy, a tumbler of Bushmills on the rocks, sat close by on my desk.

  My world, or what was left of it, was finally beginning to unravel according to plan, and my Lady Catherine the mysterious was more than living up to my daring expectations. My endgame was set, my chess pieces in motion. My king and queen lingered in the shadows prepared for the final act. My rooks, knights, and bishops were propped compellingly in droll, tactical positions.

  With just nineteen days remaining in my apocalyptic bon voyage and an hour past my usual bedtime, I downed the last of the chilled, watered-down whiskey and staggered my carriage through the corridor and into my bedroom. A scrubbing of my teeth with pleasant-tasting toothpaste promising a whiter smile lathered in my mouth. I spewed the contents into the sink, dowsed my face with tepid water, and performed my pre-slumber constitutional by discoloring the toilet water into a pastel shade of yellow.

  My head pressed the pillow and it wasn’t long before reality, as I dared to know it, passed through a certain door where I found myself alone in another dream, as an observer, unseen by the other two players in the scene. But this time I found myself in the bedroom I had as a boy....

  The overhead ceiling light sculpted shadows across the woman’s lissome, nude physique as she slinked through the room. She held in her hands two wine glasses and a bottle of wine. A red sarong dangled loosely around her waist.

  “How did I dance this evening?” a man asked. He was lying on the bed, staring at the nude woman and the way her long, dark hair lolled on her bare shoulders.

  “Miserably,” she replied. “You danced like an injured animal.”

  “Easy now,” he chuckled. “I’m still learning.” He studied the wrap around her waist. “What’s with the sarong? Are you going to tie me up?”

  “Tonight you will worship me.”

  “I already do.” He sputtered out another laugh.

  “Like the virgin Maria?”

  He held his tongue for a moment, then said, “That is your name, isn’t it...Maria?” The man thought about her name, the room, the house, and why he was there.

  “I am righteousness,” she said as she sat on the bed and laid the two wine glasses on the night table. Concealed in her hand was a small amount of a white-powdery substance that she dropped discreetly inside one of the glasses. She poured red wine into both glasses and leaned into the man with a long and timed kiss. After twirling the volume of rouge vino inside the wine glass for a moment, she handed it to him. A sharp chime broke the silence as they touched their glasses.

  “Do you remember the story of when Jesus turned the water into wine?” she asked. She looked at the man until he spoke.

  “His first miracle, right?”

  “It will be your first miracle, too,” she said.

  He finished his wine and held out his glass for more and asked, “What’s with the religious crap?” Without answering, she poured more wine. The pointed, bright ceiling light stabbed at his eyes. “Let’s say we kill the light,” he said, motioning toward the ceiling. “It kind of slays the mood.”

  “I enjoy the light and how it casts sinful shadows.”

  “Yeah?” The man rolled his eyes, then consumed more wine.

  Tossed on the floor were his clothes: black slacks and shoes, a tailor-fitted button up shirt. A Rolex watch sat on the night table, and just outside the house a porch light gleamed golden ribbons along the length of his shiny, silver sport car.

  She took his wine glass and placed it on the night table. Her hands nudged his muscular, lean body into a supine position. She stood and released the sarong from her waist and tore the thin material into two sections, then stretched one of the sections across his chest, sliding the smooth fabric along his skin, teasing its hidden strength across his neck and around his wrists. She twirled the material, twisting it into a long, thick strand, which she wrapped around the brass head frame of the bed. She stretched its length in equal measure and tied his wrists securely and then used the other strand to tie his feet.

  His arms were stretched together above his head, and his feet were conjoined at the foot of the bed. He said with a sputtering laugh,
“This is my first time at being tied up.”

  “I know,” she replied. She became excited when she heard the frailty in his voice and saw the naked length of his extended, crucifix-like body. She slithered down the bed and sunk her eyes into the shadowy light. Her fingers trailed, scratched, and then massaged his loin and crotch, exciting him until he was full and ready. She moaned between the teasing, succulent strokes of her tongue along his hard shaft, then plunged him inside her mouth and throat with hurried, ravenous thrusts. She slowed the warm and wet sucking motion just enough to suspend what his loin ached to release. She then mounted him. Her hands pressed hard against his chest; her fingernails pierced his skin. Bouts of moans and groans orchestrated to the pounding slap of flesh—she reared back, crying out a climax of pleasure followed by his shout of ecstasy.

  She pressed her head onto his chest, calming her rapid breathing and pounding heart. She looked at her wristwatch, accounting for the minutes that had passed. She kissed his mouth, noticing the hardening flesh and the unresponsive muscles of his face. She erected herself and prodded her fingers onto his arms and chest and decided it had worked. His eyes were frightened now, captured and perfect. Forced, frantic breaths hissed from his nose. A feeble voice muffled from his paralyzed mouth. He lay frozen between life and death, and she could see it in his eyes. She placed another shorter ribbon onto his lips to completely gag him.

  In the bathroom she pulled from a handbag two black leather gloves, each with long blades attached to the fingers that extended like claws. She trailed her index finger along one of the blades, examining its razor-sharp edge, its angle that tapered to a brutal, pointed end.

  At the bottom of the handbag lay a rubber mask with the likeness of a cat. She slipped the mask over her face. She then slipped the gloves onto her hands, flexing each finger slowly.

  She entered the bedroom. The drug had paralyzed the man completely now, yet he was able to see her slow, stalking movement, the macabre, cat-like face of a creeping figure. And with the agility of a cat, she slinked onto the bed, creeping slowly toward him. The drug’s effect began to seize his lungs, impeding his respiratory function to short, shallow breaths. The bright, searing overhead light flooded the room, seemingly pricking at his skin like hot, stinging tentacles. His thoughts raced—cry for help! Escape! But how?