The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd

by Chris D. Dodson

  She straddled his waist, then raked the claws along his arms and chest until trails of blood appeared. She made a quick stroke with one of the claws, burrowing a slash across his cheek. He began murmuring a frail cry. She lifted the claws above her and shouted, “Vengeance est mei!” She began beating the razor-sharp claws against him, thrashing his arms, legs, face, and torso with repeated slashes, then his pelvic area—more intense was the attack there. Her flailing arms altered the bright ceiling lamp into silent, beating strobes that seemed to pound against him. The punishing blows severed his large arteries that exploded into misty sprays, then into gushing, ejaculating streams of crimson red. His consciousness began slipping into fluid currents of light... all pain, sound, and sight began to slip away until....

  I reclined on my back in the same bed, feeling the trauma to my body that the subject in my dream felt. Was I awake, or was I still asleep? I lifted my head to see blood amassed atop me; I lay paralyzed inside a stabbing pain.

  A sudden moment of time seemed to shift the room into an altered reality. I thought of the old ornamental clock in my study, the way the hands read a few minutes past midnight, my preparation for sleep, and my head pressing the pillow. The truth, reality, as I and now severely wished it to be, began returning. Blood no longer coated my skin, and the stinging torment had vanished. I focused on the bright morning light and on a woman now sitting upright and straddling me. “Catherine?” She was nude, ethereal, like an angel.

  “Where are they, Jack?” she asked.

  I clutched Catherine’s arms and maneuvered her over to the other side of the bed and then positioned myself on top of her.

  “How did you get in my house?” I asked.

  “I came for my things. Where are they?”

  I stood. A red, silk sarong lay next to her.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, clutching my head. The room began to spin.

  “I swam through the harbor to your house. I came for my things. Except you stole them from the trunk and now I want them back.”

  I faced the bureau, noticing my reflection in the mirror and three long scratch marks across my chest still wet with blood. “What the hell did you do to me?” I asked, examining the scratches. I thought of the nightmare, how a man’s body had been savaged. My mind no longer traversed inside that dream...or did it?

  “I thought it would be a good way to wake you,” she said. “You were jostling in your sleep and muttering words as if you were pinned down and in danger. Are you in danger, Jack?”

  “How did you get in my house?” I said. I sat on the bed, trying to keep the whirling sensation in my head from throwing me onto the floor.

  “Your backdoor is much too easy to come through.” Catherine tossed the red sarong across my shoulders. “Come lie down, John, and I’ll tie you up again, after that we can really talk. I’ll wrap this pretty sarong around your neck and strangle you the same way you choked the life out of poor Michelle. What do you say, bad boy?”

  I stood and stiff-armed her, causing her to nearly fall onto the bed. She laughed and walked into Emily’s bedroom. I followed her, followed it, an illusion, this evil entity that had possession of my mind, my home.

  The trunk in Emily’s room was open.

  “Where are they, Jack? I know Emily would want you to tell me. In fact, Emily would want you to tell me everything, just like she told me everything. That’s why I hid my toys in her trunk.”

  I looked at the empty trunk. “I’m not going to let you kill anymore, Catherine.”

  “That’s not for you to decide. The best you can do is simply watch. Now, my things, you stole them and I want them back.”

  “I threw them in the ocean.”

  “You’re lying. I know they’re somewhere near because you’re still not sure what to do with me, turn me in to the police or run away with the devil to some faraway land. If you don’t give me my things, I’ll start killing people you care about.”

  “You’re mad!”

  Catherine reached toward me and rubbed her fingers against the scratch marks on my chest. “I’ll make them bigger and make them hurt more,” she said.

  I grabbed her wrists and pushed her across the room until she stumbled against the truck and fell inside. I slammed the door shut, entrapping her.

  Calm, muffled words came from inside the trunk, “Jack? My toys, I need them.” An unsettling laugh, then more words, “John...oh, John?”

  I reclined in my bed alone again, feeling the quiet morning, realizing, after several moments, that another dream had just reamed through my head. I wiped perspiration from my brow with the back of my hand. My heartbeat began to slow. The burning impressions of the dream, or dreams, I wasn’t sure, returned to common thoughts.

  In the shower, warm water wilted down my head and body, energizing me. I guided my fingers along my chest, looking for scratch marks. It was just a goddamn dream, Jack. I got out of the shower, dried off, and went to the living room and made a B-line to the wet bar and poured a glass of 80 proof. The clock on the wall read 8am. Both my evening nightcaps and my early morning whiskey tilting were becoming a ritual, up to three drinks daily now—Jesus, after that crazy walk with the sandman, who can blame me.

  I listened for any sounds in my house...it was quiet and peaceful—too peaceful. I paced through the house carefully until I entered Emily’s bedroom. On the floor sat the trunk with its door shut. I scoffed, took a drink and said, “Easy, Jack, it was just a dream.” As I approached the trunk, sudden images of the dream telegraphed through my head. I reached for the trunk, feeling the cool, brass latch, the weight of the lid, hearing the squeak of its hinges. I swung it open. At the bottom of the trunk lay a brunette wig with its hair strands fanned out evenly. I lifted the wig and beneath it was a slip of paper that read:

  Pleasant dreams, John.

  30

  Later that morning I sat on my boat dock with the usual combination: the Orange County Register newspaper, a laptop computer, and a crème-cheese bagel topped off with a liberal spreading of boysenberry preserves, oh, and a tall cup of freshly brewed coffee, un-burned. I scrolled through a rough outline I’d written for Barry Green.

  As promised I sketched out certain details of dangerous liaisons for Barry’s segue into television, vis-à-vis his voyeurism, as well as my own creative take on the matter, vis-à-vis my meltdown and escape.

  The dream I had this morning pinged like hell in my head—induced or coincidence—I couldn’t tell, but that damn brunette wig on top of that hand-written note was sure as shit rattling my grasp of reality. I decided for now to shift the dream and its accessory hair piece to a dark and secret place at the back of my chess board.

  I lifted the newspaper and scanned for relatable reports, any breaks in the recent killings, a change in plot, turning points that may bolster my own pursuit; still no word from my plant in England. But Sam Ivy was a thorough sleuth. I needed to trust him.

  I had many balls in the air now, but being in both the gigolo business and real estate business, I knew how to juggle my balls pretty well. But not the police, Ivy, Interpol, or the FBI combined, at the moment, were as privy to these noir femmes as I was.

  One story in particular on the Art’s and Leisure page caught my eye. Orange County’s recent rock-n-roll phenom guest, Robert Price, had departed our quaint village, or more appropriately, had gotten away un-lacerated. He was now finishing his world tour in Asia. It appeared that ol’ Bob turned out to be just a scratching post for one green-eyed lady cat, after all. Hmmm, let’s see, that leaves two of us now, me or Tommy Barton to be minced at midnight.

  I opened my e-mail messages. One was from Yuko Akagi:

  I sorry Johnny but no can protect you from ninja. Her skill is master Samurai. I stay any longer she cut my Hermes leather jumper suit and my tits to pieces. You up shit creek cowboy. I fear for your ass.

  Yuko.

  True to the Samurai spirit, and every other spirit that possessed her head, Yuko had tailed me for three
days in her Mini Cooper. She had watched over me like a loyal guard, all the while wearing that stupid lone ranger mask on her face. She did put on one hell of sword fight that day, I’ll give her that.

  The other message was from my pharmaceutical proprietress friend. I examined a chemical list and notations of the contents found in the martini and whiskey glasses that Carmella and I had drank from fourteen nights ago. It was the usual ingredients for a martini, mostly vodka, some vermouth, a touch of citric acid. But in the whiskey glass were traces of Valium, a common tranquilizer, and also the name of a drug called Ketamine. After a Google search, I learned that this particular substance was used as a recreational drug for hallucinatory effects: a kind of LSD for hedonists. Why the hell did Carmella put that in my drink? Or did she?

  I put my laptop on a patio table. A pair of binoculars hung around my neck. Boats and yachts are what I normally enjoyed spying on; however, an occasional scan of neighboring patios and boat slips would sometimes accidentally on purpose come into view.

  I trained my sites down the channel. Cornering the farthest point of the harbor before it turned into the outer bay was the Hunnicutts’s estate. A function today, it seemed, outside on the patio, a mid-morning tea with some of Newport Beach’s finest trophy wives.

  I watched enjoyably through the binocs the coy whispers, the dropping of names, and the contrived reactions from each well-comported trophy. I knew exactly what they were hiding, and so did they when they went to church on Sundays. I have it all logged in my black book with time, place, and explicit details of how they got serviced.

  Just then, the sudden blur of a small spherical object rushed passed my head. Then the thud of another like object bounced against my lounge chair, careening off my dock, then plunking into the water. I dropped instantly to the deck.

  Those closest to me, who know my inner workings of cuckoldry, have warned me several times not to perch myself on my dock like a sitting duck. All it would take, they’ve repeatedly told me, is one jealous husband with a high-powered rifle and a clean shot across the marina.

  I peered through the legs of my chair at a bobbing tennis ball in the water. I then zeroed in toward a small group of people standing on a dock across the channel. I set my sights through the binocs and spotted my attackers, one in particular. I laughed quietly at the delicate build of the man and the way his long, gray hair lay on his iodine-brown shoulders. My neighbor, Desmond Winston, in the company of a handful of gorgeous women, stood on his private dock adjacent to his house. He was holding a hand-held tennis ball launcher in his hands and laughing, no doubt entertained at my flailing reaction.

  Desmond brought a pair of binoculars to his face, to which we both peered at one another across the channel. With the grace of a Bohemian gentleman, he extended his middle finger toward me. He and the women then waved cordially, gesturing me over to his place. I placed the binoculars on the deck and contemplated the invitation.

  Desmond was an unlike creature. He was cultured and corrupted all at once and inebriated always by the hard booze and beautiful women that made up his Shangri la. He was a retired tennis pro turned noir novelist—sexual thrillers was his genre of choice—and the royalties on his novels and adapted screenplays kept him lush and plush enough to never feel repentant about anything. He was a living, breathing non-conformist, hated by all on the island, including myself, yet I enjoyed his company the same way I enjoyed one of his many anti-heroes in one of his many bestselling tomes.

  Using a bullhorn, Desmond called out, “Jack, you stoic sonofabitch! Get your ass over here!” A few of my shut-in neighbors standing on their docks turned their heads, peering across the marina toward the nasally voice. Desmond was from Australia and had lived in the United States for the last thirty years, yet he had never lost his original Aussie cadence. He also cackled when he laughed. I found the noise grating. Desmond called out again, “I’ve got something for you!”

  Because Desmond was devilishly uncanny about fact and rumor, I knew that a meeting would probably round out both my screenplay idea for Barry and my thirty-day endgame.

  I boarded my skiff and scuttled across the channel to his private dock. He took my bowline and tied it to the cleat. I stepped onto the deck and felt his strong, boney hand assist me out of the skiff.

  “You know the girls, right, Jacky?” Desmond said.

  “Hello, girls,” I said, eyeing enjoyably Desmond’s small cadre of sex-kittens whose sole purpose was to stroke his aging body and ego.

  “It’s been a while, Jack, how have you been?” Desmond asked.

  “Busy.”

  “I know. I watch you all the time through my glasses.” Desmond’s sun-damaged skin and booze-ravaged face still flashed glimpses of his once rugged, good looks. His strong forearms and sturdy legs, by-products of being one of the greatest tennis pros of all time, were also still noticeable, even for a man pushing sixty.

  I followed him and the girls inside the house. His home resembled a college dormitory with books and periodicals and unlike furniture cluttered about. Hanging on the walls were large posters of book covers and subsequent movie trailers that all bore title to his name. And just like one of his noir novels, his home too had a shadowy, quirky feel to it.

  “What’ll you have to drink, mate?”

  “I never drink before five, Desmond.”

  “Like hell you don’t. Athena, go make Jacky boy a cold daiquiri, and step it up. He looks mighty morose this mornin’.”

  The woman walked away. The other three women continued standing close, a duty they performed, to be sure, serving as leaning posts for Desmond’s common and frequent benders. Today he appeared sober.

  The woman came back with the drink and handed it to me, a little too quickly, I thought. I sniffed the daiquiri; it was probably one of Desmond’s ready-mix elixirs he kept stashed in the fridge. Desmond gestured for the women to leave the room.

  “I see you were spying on the Hunnicutts’s tea party earlier,” he said. “Wonderful MILFs, ey?” He lofted his drink and a half-bent smile.

  “Don’t you think this neighborhood’s a little dissimilar for you, Desmond? You know, a little too Orange County, all the straight-laced Republican MILFs.” I sniffed the daiquiri again.

  “I’m actually content here. Besides I need to stay close to those in Hollywood who adapt my stories.” Desmond studied me for a moment. “They’re trying to pillage your land, mate. You know that, right?”

  “I spy their pirate ships off shore every day.”

  Because Desmond was the biggest nose in the harbor and had a network of international connections more vast than even the C.I.A., I decided not to question his remark any further. I made a try at the drink. Sure enough, like unsealed Jell-O, it had a stale refrigerator taste.

  “Don’t you ever tire of protecting those orange trees, Jack?”

  “I do wonder at times how long my garden will last.”

  “They won’t stop until they get it.”

  “And I won’t stop until I lose it.”

  A smirk lined Desmond’s face. “I heard through the grapevine how you nearly got your brains scrambled the other day by a Lugar wearing a silencer.”

  “It ended up the other way, but without a silencer.” Even though my visits to Desmond’s house were rare, I did, most times, enjoy his devilish provocation, his Aussie drawl. “What’s Australia like this time of year?” I asked.

  “Why you ask?”

  I shrugged. “Never been there.”

  “It’s winter now down under. Being from Melbourne, a temperate climate, it’s quite similar to here in California.” Desmond’s blood-yellow eyes brightened with amusement. “Forever the dreamer, aren’t you, mate?”

  I looked at the women outside on the deck, all stripped of their bikini tops and bottoms and lying prostrate to the sun. “I see you’ve added a couple to your entourage.” I craned my neck to get a better look.

  “I met them on a beach in Rio a couple of weeks back. Luscious
damsels they are. Don’t speak a word of English, just lovely Portuguese. Poor girls too, had just enough money to buy a few set of clothes to lure a rich foreigner like me. Now they’re residing in the some of the richest real estate in the world, sipping cocktails, and sucking my cock. There’s nothing like having a gaggle of gorgeous women around.”

  “At least you’re reciprocating in the gaggle.” I pulled another drink from my cocktail and scowled at the glass.

  “They’re wonderful girls, really,” Desmond said. “But you know how it is with a bed full, don’t you, Jacky?”

  “I don't do the bed-full routine anymore.”

  Desmond’s amusement amped up a notch. “But you are still into the femme fatale routine, aren’t you?”

  I remained quiet, betting the monetary sum of my next three Janes that my Bohemian neighbor somehow knew Catherine Fleming.

  “The princess you had at your place last week,” he said. “The lovely Ms Whittaker. I watched you retrieve her from the drink and sail off with her in your yacht. I recognized that face instantly.”

  I considered Lady Catherine the mysterious and how she always seemed scripted in place. “You mean Fleming, don’t you?”

  “Could be. I’m sure she has several aliases. Is that the name she gave you?”

  “How do you know her?”

  “Wimbledon, about three years ago, a celebrity match I was in. I met her at a party after the tournament. She was a Broadway dancer come to visit some old friends in the U.K. A bit famous with the theater arts crowd, private fetishes included. A perfect piece of eye candy and quite hard to taste. My compliments.”