The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd

by Chris D. Dodson

  “Why the femme fatale remark?”

  “You know why.” Desmond’s yellowish, on-the-verge-of jaundice eyes studied me. “Is she the muse you’ve been miserably waiting for?”

  “I kind of thought we’d discuss my sketch for Barry.”

  “You need to get your head out of Barry’s ass and forget about that dribble you call writing and understand the art of a woman, Jack.”

  I checked my watch and thought about my overturned patio furniture, the puddle of unburned coffee on my dock, and the art of two women I had appointments with today. I began toward the door—

  “You’re the mouse and she’s the cat, Jacky. You are her type of meal, and she’ll give you only playful swats with those claws of hers until you give her enough reason.”

  I stopped halfway across the room, then realized I still had this God-awful drink in my hand. “I can handle her.”

  “Are you so daft you actually think you can tame this kitten?”

  “It’s the pale-face bitch I’m more worried about.”

  Desmond took a drink of his cocktail and began pacing the room, a technique he probably used while crafting plots for his novels. “The ashen-skinned brunette is indeed a sinister one,” he said. He stopped and turned toward me. “Every smart villain owns a goon, one who’s adept at busting knee caps as well as shamelessly killing. And that pale devil does it with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. The other brunette, the young one, makes a perfect diversion and is therefore too much of a red herring.”

  “Prettiest red herring I’ve ever met.”

  Desmond went on pacing. “Careful cats they are, and they play the shell game very well. One does the luring, one the decoy, while the other kills. Performers of their caliber don’t work in two-bit dance studios, so you know it’s just a ruse. The FBI, local detectives, they’re all chasing them—hell, even Interpol is after them. But some I know, who hold no moral opinion of life or murder, find their style engaging and follow their butchery like chapters in a book.”

  “And I suppose they review those chapters with you?”

  Desmond nodded and said, “The world forever teeters on a plot.”

  “So what’s your take on her plot?”

  “I think it’s marvelous, a classic femme fatale modus operandi and perfect material for a novel I’ll one day write. I also think the scare she’s putting into this cream-puff harbor town is thrilling. But you’re a good bloke, Jack, and you shouldn’t be one of her victims.” Desmond paused. His eyes peered at me as if trying to remember something. He then began reciting words to a poem, ‘This one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze....’”

  “Oscar Wilde?”

  “Charles Baudelaire.” Desmond fixed a stern look my way. “Men and women aren’t meant to be together for long durations, Jack. It’s always the ego that gets in the way, and the only way to defeat that ego is to slay the heart. It’s hard to think right when you’re in love with your muse. They’ll always catch you off guard.”

  “There’s a way in with every woman,” I said. I glanced at my drink, noticing a disgusting emulsion now floating on top.

  “You’ve been telling yourself that for most of your miserable life, haven’t you, mate?”

  I held my tongue as long as I could until I said, “You’re just a drunk, Desmond.”

  “And you’re just a gigolo, Jack.”

  “Thanks for the drink.” I slid the piss-poor cocktail across a nearby table. Desmond’s hand was there to rescue it before it dived off the edge. I started for the door again.

  “Michelle Brigham wasn’t your fault, Jacky.”

  After three heavy steps I halted my retreat, wondering if I had just heard what I actually heard.

  Desmond added, “God knows how many times I’ve tried that risky move with one of my damsels.”

  I turned. “How the hell do you know about Michelle Brigham?”

  “There really are no secrets, mate, especially in Rio.”

  I studied Desmond’s bloodshot, jaundice eyes some more, eyes tormented by too many whisky sours and far too much self awareness. My future eyes?

  I went outside to the dock, carefully stepping over the pleasant gaggle of nude goddesses bathing in the sun. The girls lifted their heads, acknowledging me, then slumped back into their booze-induced naps. I boarded my skiff and started the motor.

  Desmond came out of the house and stood over my boat. He untied the cleat and handed me a sealed envelope and said, “You got two choices, Jack. Either you turn her in or you follow her lead and see what happens. But you’re not going to stop until you make it right, are you?” A grin eased across his face, the kind rascally eccentrics with kind hearts wear artfully. “I hope these details help. Good luck, mate.”

  As I scuttled across the channel. I looked down at the envelope, then back toward Desmond. One by one he prodded his sleeping damsels gingerly with his foot, prodding them to turn over so that they wouldn’t sunburn too badly.

  31

  My friend Victor Knight had a tall, slender, muscular physique, which was made more distinctive by his coal, black skin and African features. Curious to the eye of any beholder and regarded handsome by most, his dark complexion and blue, mulatto eyes had an almost mystical allure. With crimson-red Ferrari, a likable cavalier persona, not to mention an alleged lower appendage of mythical size and proportion, Victor Knight, aka Mandingo, was a virile, fashionable gigolo, and in Newport Beach this drew the interest of many women.

  “I’m just here for a piece of the pie, Jackson,” Victor told me as we drove in my car along PCH. He always called me Jackson. His quick-paced Jamaican accent was hard to understand at first until its cadence resonated enough times, making his vernacular amusingly clear.

  “You’re here for every piece you can get, Vic,” I said.

  “Don’t patronize me, my friend. I have been seriously considering ending my days as a premier woman pleaser and settling into a more safe and lamentable career.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  Day fifteen, and the June-gloom, morning clouds had burned away with the sun hovering in mid sky at full force. With my Porsche’s convertible top down, silky currents of cool ocean air streamed through the cockpit.

  Sometimes Victor and I met to compare scorecards, a list of our Janes, usually in a bar or a bistro, but this morning Victor needed a ride to his dealership garage where his Ferrari was being serviced.

  “Looks as though you’re getting some nice pieces just about every night,” I said, glancing down at the list of women on his scorecard. I noticed a Hollywood celebrity’s name. Maybe it was the so-called code of ethics I was sworn to as a Realtor, but I always felt uncomfortable about revealing our scorecards. Disclosing one’s principal inside a craft of depravity did seem the lowest of negligence. Today I’d forgotten my card.

  “Like a ghost I am, Jackson, an incubus copulating the queen inside the man’s shadow. In fact, just the other day I was pleasing this woman in her house when her husband came home unexpectedly. I was able to jump from the window upstairs. This man ran outside and began shooting at me. I pulled my Glock from my car and fired back several shots, hitting only his mansion. It was very close, Jackson, and I nearly broke my leg from the fall. He put two bullets through the windshield of my Ferrari, nearly shooting me in the head. In fact, this is why I have it in the garage.”

  “You know the rules, Vic, never box yourself in.” Actually, Victor knew the rules well and his cat-like athleticism had saved his ass several times from the rage of a jealous husband. But with a libido as super-charged as Victor’s, life-threatening situations were a given.

  Victor said, “It’s not enjoyable if I think of such rules. You carry a gun, ey, Jackson?”

  “Sometimes. But I’ve never had to shoot at anyone, not until a couple days ago, anyway.”

  “Yes, I heard. It appears you came out of it all right.”

  “I popped granny before she popped me, so, yeah, I’m
damn all right.” I downshifted hard for a traffic light, causing my Porsche to belch out its incomparable, head-turning roar.

  Victor said, “To this day that husband still pursues me.”

  “You boned his wife and shot up his house, Vic.” I came to a stop at the light. A therapeutic dose of sunlight baked against my neck and shoulders, graciously uncoiling a boatload of kinks and knots.

  “I’m even considering a lifestyle change,” Victor said. “To pretend to be someone else—incognito. Do you think this would work?”

  “Hardly. Do you carry a spare magazine for your Glock?”

  “Yes, I have one here in my carry.” Victor unzipped his European shoulder bag and fumbled inside until he flashed a slender magazine in front of me.

  I glanced around to make sure no one in the surrounding traffic noticed the magazine. I took it from Victor and examined it. “It’s empty, Vic.”

  “Wha?” He grabbed the cartridge and rattled it in his hand, then dropped it in the bag.

  “That magazine should be loaded and kept close to your gun,” I said. We pulled away from the light.

  “I don’t alarm myself with such things.”

  “It’s called backup, Vic. How about condoms? Do you use those?”

  “It’s like fucking with a sock on.”

  “It’s either a bullet up your ass or the clap, take your pick.”

  “Each woman I’m with is but a toxic adventure. If I am shot in the back or rendered impotent, then so be it.”

  “You’re more qualified, Vic, than whoring around. You’re a Princeton grad for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, but as it is with you, my friend, I have more a gift with the women than with honest work.”

  “I’m a Realtor, Vic.”

  Victor laughed. “You are a whore just like me, Jackson. You do not score as many young and beautiful women as I do, but you are a whore, nonetheless.”

  The highway opened up; I accelerated faster.

  “But you are fortunate man, too, my friend,” Victor said. “To have a plantation as you do with acres of bounty. My father was a foreman for a British sugar plantation in Jamaica. Like me, he was also mulatto, a black man with light eyes, which in Jamaica gives one a significant status.” Victor paused, gazing out the windshield; a faraway look held his eyes. “My father was a scholarly man, a man more apt to teach English literature than to manage a sugar plantation. But the position proved lucrative for him, and in turn he was able to send me to Princeton. I remember as a boy working in the fields, stepping in the cool, soft mud, chopping the thick cane and tasting it...how sweet it was, Jackson, in that time, how sweet indeed.”

  I stopped at another traffic signal. Green stands of sugar cane swaying in warm tropical breezes wafted through my mind. I then focused on the posh buildings and high-end luxury cars gleaming cold, sterile reflections around us. I asked, “You ever thought about the afterlife, Vic? You know, heaven and hell and all that?”

  “Of course. I am both Voodoo and Christian and well aware of heaven and hell.”

  “When we die, do you think there’s peace of mind on the other side like a large island with plenty of food and water and female sex surrogates—with their tongues cut out, of course? A place where a man can get lost and never see another greedy, fucked up soul ever again, or is it just the same ol’ bullshit purgatory?”

  “Peace, of course, if you go to heaven. If you go to hell, then this is a different matter, and one you don’t wish to think about.”

  Amen reverend, voodoo. The light turned green and we pulled ahead.

  Victor’s mullato eyes locked on me. “Why all this pining today, my friend?”

  “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “You are of an age when a man needs a companion, one who has her own imprint on her side of the bed. It sounds as though you’ve fallen in love and have lost the impish spell that men like you and I possess. Is it someone I know?”

  “I hope not.”

  “The kind of woman you should fall in love with should not sleep around, my friend. She should be well learned, brazenly beautiful, and with the temperament of a princess.”

  I had a sudden thought of brazenly beautiful Michelle Brigham, then Catherine Fleming, and then my recurring slasher dream and that girl from Ipanema, the murderess ingredient to my dangling lacuna. “You ever thought about being a farmer again, Vic?”

  Victor smiled. “Almost every day, my friend.” He placed his hand on his breast. “I would give anything to have my own plantation and to harvest a bounty of crop and even use it for noble deeds, like to allow underprivileged children to come and work in the soil. You know, teach them the value of the land and hard work. My father did this by allowing several of the youth in Jamaica to work the farm. This built extreme confidence in them and made them fine, upstanding citizens.” Victor pulled a black, hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket and lit it. “One would not think it so from a man like me trapped within such a superfluous lifestyle, but I do dream of one day carrying on my father’s practice of farming and as a purveyor of noble deeds.” He pinched a long drag on the cigarette.

  I fixed my eyes on my brazen friend. “Where did you get those fags?” I asked.

  “Fags?” Victor whinnied out a laugh. “I have not heard that word since being in London. They were given to me. Why?”

  “Do you remember who gave them to you?”

  “I am given cigarettes and cigars all the time.”

  A black Dodge Viper appeared on my starboard side, seemingly pacing my speed. The Viper then swerved dangerously close in front of us, causing me to veer quickly into the next lane.

  “Wa’ de ell, mon!” Victor blurted out in straight Jamaican brogue. His long legs thrust against the floorboard and his hands clutched a death grip on the dashboard. “Is dis a road rage, Jackson—perhap a jealous husband?”

  “That was a woman,” I said.

  The roadster fell back and traveled along Victor’s side. A window came down and a woman wearing large, dark sunglasses beamed a smile. I recognized the woman and the car—Lena McGuire. Victor waved at her. She accelerated ahead of us and around a bend.

  “That was a lovely Irish girl with ashen skin and deadly blue eyes I met the other evening,” Victor said, regaining his composure and control of the King’s English.

  “That was a ball-busting bitch, not a girl.”

  “Indeed. I hooked up with her at a nightclub a few nights ago and we all danced and fucked ferociously.”

  “We all?”

  “Her and a few more. They accompanied me at my home for a time. It is refreshing sometimes to have sex for only pleasure and not money.”

  “Was a blonde with her?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Only the Irish girl gave me her name, Lena, it was and these fags, too. Now I remember. She gave me a small box full of them.”

  I drove slower in the fast lane than the flow of traffic allowed. Glaring drivers passed by, causing me to ease into the slow lane.

  “What about this blonde? What did she look like?” I asked.

  “She was beautiful and wicked all in one. Is this a jurisdiction thing, Jackson? If these women are your Janes, I do apologize.”

  I shook my head.

  “They asked me to come and dance with them at a studio,” Victor said. “The one here in the harbor. In fact, I have decided to have these lessons starting next week. Do you know of this studio, Jackson?”

  “I stumble around there myself.” My mood suddenly flat lined.

  “Good. Two men of our stature cavorting in such a place of folly. It would make a wonderful hunting ground for futures clients, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t say anything. I pulled into the parking lot of the dealership and stopped amidst a sea of pristine, high-end automobiles that only one percent of the world’s population could ever afford. Victor’s red Ferrari sat in the lot.

  “I must travel south
today along the interstate freeway. A Jane in Tijuana, Mexico; imagine this.”

  “Take care of that Ferrari down there,” I said.

  As Victor lifted himself from the seat, his shirt pulled up and I saw scabbed over scratch marks on his lower back.

  “Some nasty scratches there on your back,” I said. “Looks like fingernails rutted your skin.”

  “Yes, it happens sometimes in the heat of the moment. You’ve been scratched before, ey, Jackson?”

  “Yea...” I pondered which set of lovely digits, Catherine’s or Lena’s, had marked Victor as future game. “May I have one of those fags?”

  “Of course.” Victor pulled one from his pack and handed it to me. “I thought you never smoked, my friend.”

  “I don’t. Just like collecting things.”

  “So long, Jackson. The next time we meet, we shall compare scorecards.”

  Before Victor closed the door, I said, “Do yourself a favor, Vic. Load that extra magazine and keep your gun close, and stay away from the blonde and the brunette.”

  “Very well, Jackson. I always respect a man’s clientele.”

  “I mean it, Vic. These women aren’t the usual Janes. They have claws, the kind that can turn a guy into mincemeat.”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. All women have claws, which is why foolish stullas like you and I crave them so much.” Victor closed the door and strutted away with that damn, irredeemable smile of his.

  32

  Saturday mornings were different at the dance studio. Sunlight filled the room instead of the usual warm lamplight, causing sobering, distilled moods. I had Angela Bashir in my arms. We were practicing our dance steps.

  The marked calendar on the wall revealed the date of the annual tournament next week. I was competing, for the hell of it, of course, yet it was important for the studio to show off its freshly charged protégés at these events. I zeroed in on the calendar as we waltzed by. Angela and I were the only ones in the studio.

  “We’ll be ready, Jaywalk,” Angela said, noticing my eyes on the calendar. She was fresh this morning, smartly comported, nearly immaculate. I held her delicately, flattering her with robust, earnest dance moves.