The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd

by Chris D. Dodson

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Fuck your pardon—I said we’re both killers! You slice, I strangle!”

  Even when high on cannabis, that easy-to-see cruelty hid effortlessly in her face. “This drunken bender of yours is quite unbecoming, John.”

  “I deserve to be drunken. Why the hell are you speaking so British now?”

  “Dear Desmond brought it out of me.”

  “He’s Australian not British, and what's more, when you’re in America you talk our language—got it?” That damn DVD kept turning in my head. Crazy bitches, all of them.

  “Perhaps you should sit down, love. That lump on your forehead and your bruised knuckles look ghastly swollen.”

  My forehead was beginning to throb. I massaged the injury, the injury Lena had scored on me just days ago. I asked, “I haven’t seen your ball-busting bitch in a few days. Where is she?”

  “I thought it best to give Lena time to heal her wounds.”

  “She’s a cunt, and I wish I’d snapped her evil neck.” Just the memory of hammering that pale-skinned bitch made my hands ache even more.

  “Evil is nothing more than chastity clothed in righteous cloaks of unanswered questions.”

  I picked up the whiskey and began across the floor, concluding that my manic muse was in a serious state of psychopathic denial. I exited the kitchen, stumbling my way through the house until I entered my bedroom. Catherine followed and stood in the middle of the room. I pulled my needed clothes from drawers and the closet and tossed them on my bed. With the whiskey in my hand, I walked to my office, then opened a wall safe behind a priceless Picasso. I pulled out a jewel case.

  Catherine stood in the doorway. Explicit scenes flashed in my mind’s eye again, the ones in that DVD of Catherine having sex with multiple partners, even one of Orange County’s worst, Conrad Turner. I didn’t know which was making me want to hurl more, the whiskey sloshing in my gut or Turner’s naked ass pounding on top of Lady Catherine the cunt.

  I opened the jewel case. I wanted to slam my fist against her terminally attractive face and drop her brilliant, manipulating gorgeous ass on my eighteen-inch terra-cotta tile floor. But instead I showed her a 24-carat diamond tennis necklace. A look crippled her face.

  “It’s lovely, Jack.”

  “Turn around,” I said. I lifted the necklace from the case, placed it on her neck, and caressed the tiny clasp together. I drew close to her. I wanted to smell it, that peppery, sweet Giorgio Armani stink so that I’d have a reason. Then voices, whispering from my basement, Do it, Jack, do it...you know all about wrenching your hands around a woman’s neck—just do it.

  She turned. The stunning points of light from the diamonds complimented superbly her emerald eyes and tanned skin.

  “It’s yours, Cat,” I muttered.

  Her hands fainted over the necklace. She nearly whispered, “It’s an exquisite piece.”

  She looked at me with a glimpse of something I’d been hoping for, yet, I honestly didn’t know what I hoped for anymore.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because it wouldn’t wear well on anyone but you. It’ll set you off at the ball.”

  “It’s not a gift once gotten, is it?”

  I shut my eyes and said, “Why the fuck would I receive such a gift?”

  “I don’t know...I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it that way. It’s adorable.”

  She kissed me, causing more impulsive thoughts to rage inside me.

  “Are you ready for the tournament?” she asked, facing a full-length mirror and admiring the necklace around her neck.

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you and Angela going over your steps this morning?”

  “I said no.”

  “Did you enjoy fucking her?”

  I looked away.

  “She told me, of course. She tells me everything. She’d better stay away from you, though, or I’ll scratch her eyes out.”

  “It was mutual.”

  “Making love to Angela was the same as making love to your own daughter; you would never do that. She tricked you and hurt you terribly.”

  I treaded wearily with bottle in hand back to my bedroom to finish dressing. Catherine followed. I said, “From what I saw the other night at the club, you were all enjoying each other. I’ve got the claw marks to prove it.” I held up my arm.

  “Angela is young and sees things fiercely, so we play with her. I found her in a coffee house in London listening to inane squabbles of radical rogues and has-been politicians. I noticed she had zeal about her, a perfect disciple, so I kept her.”

  I lifted the bottle and took a mouthful. “How was Victor?” I asked. “Was he a hard and radical rogue? At least that’s what I saw on that goddamn video you left for me to watch.” More porn scenes flashed in my head of Victor Knight the humungous playing tag team with a bed full of sociopath nymphs. I took another bite of the Bushmills.

  She glanced at the bottle in my hand. “I see,” she said. “I apologize for stirring such envious demons inside you, Jack, but I did you a favor by recording that video. I have Conrad Turner’s confession and thus proof of his intent at killing you and stealing your land. That’s why I shared it with you.”

  “Did you have to fuck him too?”

  “Really, Jack, this drunken display of jealousy is rather feeble—”

  “Did you have to fuck him and everyone else to get it, Catherine?”

  Her eyes fixed on me until she said, “This Turner chap was at a nightclub, the one where we all met and where you and Lena had your row. The rumors made their rounds about his plot against you, so I simply extracted information from him. I did it for us, love. After all, how will we make our getaway if you’ve been nabbed or done away with? Besides, I made sure Turner knows that I seduced a confession out of him. At this very moment he’s no doubt writhing torturously like a spider in Vaseline.”

  “You do know he wears plaid trousers, right?” I paced across the room, turned, and said, “Beware Lady Catherine—I’m on to you.”

  She laughed. “The only thing you’re on, love, is a bottle of whiskey. Conrad Turner and those other men were nothing more than simple encounters of exuberance. A girl does need to enjoy herself, I dear say, both sexually and strategically.”

  “Like playing with someone’s sleep, planting dream-inducing drugs into the things I drink.” I held the bottle, eyed it, and then slung it against the wall where it shattered then splattered like spit tobacco.

  “Now you’ve made a mess. If you continue this decline of character, Jack, I’m going to leave.”

  “Go ahead—leave!” I buckled my belt and began to button my shirt and asked, “How did you get past my security system?”

  “I stole both your house keys and security combination from Emily. That’s how I got in initially. After you changed the locks, I used an electronic device that scrambles any code, after that I used deadbolt picks; the kind any locksmith would have. I put the drug in that bottle of whiskey you tilt every night before you retire, the brand you just smashed, in fact. Have the dreams helped?”

  “No, but your confession has. Have you conspired with Emily lately?” I slipped on my shoes.

  “I’ve attained all I need from Emily.”

  “Even her bedroom as a hiding place? Or do I need to show you the empty trunk in her room?”

  “I was hoping you’d find the items. I do have to hand it to you, Jack, your investigative skills were better than I’d thought.”

  “How did you leave that note under the wig in the empty trunk—and how did you link it to my dream?”

  “With tried and true methods of apothecary.”

  “Did Emily hire you to kill me?” I stepped closer to her.

  “She didn’t have to. She merely spewed out her neurosis as we lay in bed. She mentioned California several times, and you. I’d never been to California or had I ever met a “pathetic procrastinator”, as she called you, who was both handsome and rich, and so I
packed my suitcase and traveled west for newer, fresher encounters.”

  “Did you come here to kill me?”

  “Do you want me to kill you?”

  I sat on my bed, trying not to puke.

  “As I said, I came for fresh encounters and a more challenging project. I’m the lacuna to this destiny you’ve sketched out, love. I’m here to save you, to save both of us.”

  I stared at her for a moment. Bushmill’s Irish spirit really began to ring my bell, and I was unsure which fuzzy polar of Catherine I was looking at. “I don’t need your fucking saving,” I said. I clenched my stomach muscles, trying to keep down the half liter of whiskey. I went on, “Did you feel the fear in those men when you butchered them, devil? The same fear you heard and felt when you were a young girl?”

  “Oh, shut up. You think you’re so smart because you have a scent about you, but you really have no idea—”

  “You’re good at the sexual encounters, the other encounters, those psychotic massacres you gave those men and women are probably recorded, too. But I’m sure they’re stashed somewhere safe. A queer little boutique in Soho, London where you keep your fucking apothecaries, maybe? How much did your clients pay you, devil? Or is this all about revenge against those fatherly priests who crawled into your bed at night when you were a wee little lass?”

  She laughed. “You’re such an emasculated man trying to do the right thing, is that it? I should’ve never shared my stories with you. I should’ve never trusted you—”

  “Did I hit a nerve, devil?”

  “Jack the wiseass—Jack the Jackass, always prying. It’s that fucked up lifestyle of yours, you can’t seem to find your bearing.”

  I stood, snatched my car keys from the nightstand and exited the bedroom. “I’m leaving, devil.” Catherine trailed behind.

  “Shut up with that name—I hate that name! You want to be a hero now, don’t you, and put the solving article in the papers? I won’t let you. I’ll save you first—save us first.”

  “Save us from what?” I squared myself in front of her. “Just what the fuck are you trying to save us from?”

  “You’re one fucked up bloke, I must say!”

  We locked eyes for a long moment. I stared helplessly at her unmade, brutally lovely face, those damn, beguiling green eyes, her damp, stringy hair and how the diamonds sparkled stunningly around her neck.

  She said, “Just remember that when it’s all done with today, I’ll be the only one you’ll have. There’s only one thing for us to do now, John.”

  She approached me and placed her arms on my shoulders. We kissed for a moment until I pinned her against the wall. “Now you listen to me, Catherine, the killing’s going to stop—do you understand? Goddamn it, you and I are going to leave all this and the killing is going to stop!” I ran my fingers along her face and throat, kneading her flesh as if it were a ball of clay. I pulled her toward me and kissed her more, gripping tightly her arms, breasts, and buttocks. I clutched her jaw and her throat, wanting to kill her, love her, punish her, devour her for an eternity.

  She pushed away and shouted, “Fuck, John! Why don’t you rape and strangle me too, you bastard! All the bloody, fucking things you’ve done—after all, you’re bloody sly at the act, aren’t you? Disguising yourself and then skipping out of a Brazilian hotel just in time to come home and be the worthless man that you are!”

  So here it was, a paragraph of completion, Lady Catherine, high on Desmond’s hash, had allowed her huntress skills to fail her, to which she spewed her modus-operandi right in front of me. My man Ivy hit the mark. Emily wasn’t the reason for Catherine’s visit to Newport Beach; it was none other than Lord Malcolm.

  Catherine retreated to the bedroom. I watched her lie on the bed and drift off to sleep. I set the alarm so that she would wake up for the dance tournament this afternoon. I had gotten what I wanted, what I needed to hear. This twisted puzzle was snapping into place. I felt dead already.

  42

  After I’d puked most of the Bushmills behind a Hydrangea bush in my front yard planter, I mounted my silver bird and headed south. Still numb from both the whiskey and Catherine’s admission, I traveled soberly drunk along the curves and fast straight-aways of PCH toward a deliberate heading. Roger had called me on my cell phone this morning and left a message that he wanted to see me.

  Not long after his call, I received a text message from Ms Quinn. The two names I’d given her did appear in her radar. I was glad one of the names had showed up, glad that the pesky bastard had finally come into firing range. It was Mick Balosky in the helicopter that day when the tow truck went off the highway.

  But the other blip on the radar didn’t leave me with the same vindication. So this was how Julius Caesar felt when the knife stuck his back. Et tu, Brute? Roger, my colleague and best friend, had been in bed with the conspirators, but to what extent? Ms Quinn didn’t know yet. But what could I expect? My ranch was more than just a grove of orange trees; it was a garden, lush with the scent of money, a tempting, beautiful virgin in the midst of lecherous greed.

  I pulled into Roger’s driveway and parked. His garage was open and his German luxury sedan’s door hung ajar. The cabin light inside still burned brightly, yet the hood of the engine felt cold to the touch.

  The service door from the garage to the inside of the house was slightly open. I pushed my way in. I noticed first the dimly lit kitchen cluttered with dishes and then the rancid smell of food that was way past its safe-to-eat date.

  I called out, “Roger!”

  A voice mumbled, “I’m over here.”

  I passed through the kitchen and into the living room. I plodded carefully through the darkened air space. I reached a window and yanked on the five-and-dime chord that hoisted the flimsy mini-blinds, mercifully sucking them out of sight. A pleasant view of the ocean and sunlight filled the large bay window.

  Roger sat in a chair, reclined and slouched, cringing at the sudden invasion of light. He was dressed in the kind of clothes a man would wear to a nightclub. He clutched a fifth of whiskey in his hand.

  “Rog...what’s going on?”

  He lifted the slender bottle to his lips and drank some of the contents. He held the bottle against his breast and cocked his head toward me. He hadn’t slept, and his thick, black hair was disheveled. I could tell he’d been crying. I sat on the couch next to him and smelt the liquor.

  “I knew I could count on you, my friend,” Roger said. “I knew that when I called you, you’d recognize my number and surely pick it up in hopes of knowing how your friend was.”

  I watched how his drunken face sulked out words; how his bloodshot eyes glanced around the room.

  “That’s the kind of man you are, Jack. You do wicked things in your life, but you’re not wicked. You take care of your friends.”

  “Why are you sitting here drunk?”

  “I went out on the town last night in hopes of finding her.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes, the lovely Ms Lena McGuire.”

  “You need to stay away from her.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.” He sighed a roll of laughter, the kind born of pain. He said, “When she kissed me with those potent, evil kisses, I felt something, Jack. When we made love, with her usually on top, I felt something. When she talked to me in her dominate, bossy tone, showing me how brilliant she was, I felt something. She made me feel like a man, and I so so want to feel like a man.”

  “Give me the bottle, Rog.” I reached for the whiskey.

  He pulled the bottle closer to him. “I love her.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “How do you know I don’t?”

  “I just know. What happened last night?”

  Roger turned his head and stared out the window. “I was to meet her at a nightclub. I couldn’t find her, though. I waited at the bar and drank soda-water raspies with a touch of rum. Both men and women propositioned me for some time and I became distracted. I should’ve stayed d
istracted. I should’ve responded to the advances, then gone home and had crazy sex with them. I should have, Jack.”

  “Tell me what happened, Rog.”

  “And so I drank my last drink, moved across the dance floor and searched the room for her again. And then she walked past me with that beautifully cruel stark-white face and jet-black hair of hers. She was holding hands with a big, black buck of a man. She had a bandage on her nose, too. It appeared she’d been injured.”

  “I’m sure she deserved it.”

  Roger halted his soulful diatribe and gazed at me like a drunken fool. “She saw me, Jack...she looked directly at me and continued with the big buck out the door. I followed them out to the parking lot and watched them drive away.”

  “Was it a red Ferrari?”

  “Yes. Do you know this man, Jack?”

  I nodded.

  Roger stood and staggered to the kitchen. I followed him. He opened a cabinet and pulled out another fifth of whiskey. “Would you like something to drink, my friend? A beer or would you like some of this distasteful liquor?”

  “Why don’t you put the booze away?”

  “What’s this man’s name, Jack, the man who was with her?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Of course it is. I wish to send my congratulations to him at how he won her over.”

  “He didn’t win anything.”

  Roger opened the bottle and took a sizable drink. “Of course he did. I followed them in my car and stood outside his condo for an hour’s time and came to a frightful realization of things. After that I became numb with stupidity and entered through his unlocked front door...that’s when I saw them.”

  “Don’t think about it, Rog—”

  “His room was lit with a scarlet light, and his bed was draped in leopard skin, and on the walls were African artifacts of spears and shields and such. In the dimly lit room, he was as black as black could be and she was white as white could be, and his bed was designed with props for his feet as he pressed against her, propping himself for an exact penetration as she cried out in captured pleasure. And I gasped, Jack, and they turned to notice me, and then I stumbled like a dumb shit through the house and out the front door. I can’t get it out of my mind...his beautiful, muscular strength pounding atop her lovely submission.”