The Always Anonymous Beast

by Lauren Wright Douglas

“Yeah,” I said. “I just had a bad dream. Sorry if I woke you up.”

  She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I couldn’t sleep anyhow.”

  “Well, you could join me in drink,” I suggested. “I’m vacillating between Scotch and milk. What’s your pleasure?” I got up, walked to the cupboard, and took down two glasses.

  “Neither,” she said, from behind me.

  I turned around in surprise.

  “You.”

  For one of the few times in my life, I was without a clever riposte. I stood there, a glass in each hand, feeling like a tongue-tied adolescent.

  “Come to bed with me, Caitlin,” she said.

  I put the glasses down on the counter behind me, took a deep breath, and looked directly at her. “Tonia,” I said, “please don’t think I don’t want to. God knows I do. But we don’t...” I shrugged helplessly, “click. We grate. We’re like cats and dogs. Oil and water. East and west. We stand for different things. And—”

  “For God’s sake, Caitlin, I’m not asking you for forever. Just tonight.”

  She didn’t have to ask me again. I stepped toward her and she came eagerly into my arms. Through the thin cotton of her blue pajamas, I could feel her body’s warmth as I embraced her. She ran her hands over my shoulders, careful of my bandaged wound, then gripped my arms.

  “Strong,” she commented, surprised.

  “We thugs are like that,” I said smiling, my lips against her throat.

  She laughed, and I felt some of the nervous tension drain out of her.

  With my lips I traced the line of her jaw, then brushed her hair aside and began to kiss her ear.

  She gasped a little, and I felt her shiver.

  Slipping both hands under her pajama top, I caressed the warm length of her back, then the smooth skin over her ribs. When I felt the swell of her breast against my hand, I paused. She made an inarticulate sound and, fitting her body closer to mine, put both hands in my hair, pulled my head back, and kissed me.

  I felt as if a jolt of electricity had traveled directly from my lips to somewhere far lower. First I was aware of the exquisite softness of her closed lips, then, as she pressed her mouth to mine, the warm satin wetness of her tongue. It entered between my lips slowly, gently, as if asking permission, then more urgently, meeting mine with an insistence that left no doubt as to what she wanted. Then she withdrew, and I followed, entering her, accepting the invitation of her tongue with my own.

  Breathing hard, we finally broke off the kiss. I leaned back against the counter, weak-kneed, my hands on her hips. If some support hadn’t been there, I would probably have oozed to the floor. She smiled, and I took her hand. “This is crazy,” I said. “Let’s go to bed.” Fortunately, the spare bedroom was close by.

  In the half-light we embraced again, and Tonia’s kisses were even fiercer, more urgent this time. So much passion surprised me, but in another moment I understood. This was Tonia’s way of holding back the fear. It was a good choice—making love was one of the sweetest distractions I knew.

  Tonia peeled me out of my sweatshirt, and I unbuttoned her pajama top and let it fall to the floor. I ran my hands over the incredible softness of her skin, and she shuddered, taking my hands and putting them on her breasts. I felt her nipples harden under my palms, and bent to brush them with my lips. As I took each hard bud in turn in my teeth, Tonia moaned. She put her hands in my hair again, not gently, and raised my head from her breasts. Looking at me for a moment, she kissed me open mouthed, her tongue demanding. I slipped my hands inside her pajama bottoms and held her against me, a knee between her legs, and she began to move against me in a rhythm of her own.

  “Caitlin, please,” she breathed, taking her mouth from mine.

  My hand found her hot, wet center, and she gasped, her arms tightening around me. I stroked her lovely velvet wetness until she began to tremble.

  “Now, Caitlin,” she gasped, “now.”

  I slipped inside her and she closed immediately around my fingers in a series of fluttering spasms. As she clung to me and gasped my name, some of the sharp, sweet pleasure that claimed her claimed me, too, and I felt pierced to my soul by the wonder of holding in my hand the throbbing center of her.

  I put both my arms around her and held her, stroking her hair and kissing her.

  “Come on to bed,” I whispered. “Maybe you can stand here all night, but I can’t.”

  “I can’t stand at all,” she said weakly. “If you weren’t holding onto me, I’d collapse.”

  Getting rid of the last of our clothing, we fell together onto the bed. I pulled the sheets up over us, and she leaned above me on one elbow, looking down. I ran my hands along the long, warm, lovely length of her back, and she sighed.

  “Thank you for that,” she said.

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I told her, smiling.

  She tapped my nose with one finger. “Oh? Is that part of your service, too?”

  I chuckled. “Not as a rule. Only under special circumstances.”

  “Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully, bending to kiss me, a little more gently this time.

  Through her barely parted lips our tongues met, turning my blood to molten lava, and her tongue invited me to tell her what I needed. For my part, I was fast becoming unable to tolerate much more of this. My desire was now as urgent as hers had been, and I was at the point where it was impossible to delay much longer. As she ran her hands over my breasts, taking my nipples between her fingers, a nova flared in the pit of my stomach. I groaned, and she needed no further invitation. Kissing me once, quickly, she slipped a hand between my thighs, and found the place where I needed to be touched. Her clever fingers opened me like a flower, entering me once, then withdrawing. Beginning a gently, rhythmic stroking, she fanned what was already a red ache of desire to a white hot flame of urgency. I gasped, feeling myself an eager climber approaching the peak of some mountain: almost there, almost there. Then, just when I thought I might faint from desire, a hot wave of liquid gold came boiling down along my nerve endings and swept me away to a place where there was neither sound nor light nor any sensation save the ecstasy that had seized me.

  Afterward, in the ebb tide of pleasure, when I could breathe and speak once again, I opened my eyes to find her looking down at me. She brushed my lips with hers, smiled, and smoothed back my sweaty hair.

  “Sweet,” she said.

  Then, settling down beside me, she put her head on my good shoulder. I put one arm around her, and was about to say something — nothing important — but when I looked down, she was asleep.

  I lay there in the dark for a long time until I was certain she was deeply asleep. Then, very gently, I wriggled out from under her sleeping weight. She murmured once, then turned over, sighing. I tucked the blankets around her, put my sweatshirt and pants back on, and left her, closing the door quietly behind me.

  In the gloom of the hallway, I paused for one moment, tempted to go back to that bed, pull the blankets over Tonia and me, fit my body to hers, and join her in oblivion. But I couldn’t. Quite apart from the bonding I feared might happen if Tonia lay in my arms all night, there was the job ahead of me. I needed my mind clear for it. Afterwards? Well, we’d see.

  I got a beer from the kitchen, and took it into my bedroom with me. As I lay there drinking, getting sleepier by the minute, I found my thoughts turning away from Tonia, back to the dream I had had earlier.

  Funny. I hadn’t thought about Aunt Fee for years, let alone dreamed of the Dark Lady. Well, maybe my reading of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnet had caused Aunt Fee’s bête noir to stir in my id. They weren’t the same creature, of course. Still, my subconscious had made a connection between them. What did it mean?

  Was this another facet of the Llewelyn prescience? I shook my head. If so, it was worse than the bloody Delphic oracle. It was far too indirect for me. Since I hadn’t heard a peep from this particular province of my subconscious for years, why was it trying to communicate now? I yawne
d, and decided to ignore the dream. To hell with it. Everyone was entitled to bad dreams now and then, right?

  I wrapped myself in my bedclothes and let myself fall back into the oily pool of sleep. As I submerged, I thought I sensed an insistent voice yammering at me from a distant place. Something seemed to be scratching urgently at the door of my mind, begging to be let in, but I was far too tired to listen. I had one single sharp, bright thought, but it slipped through my tired mind like a firefly, and the rising tide of sleep soon snuffed it out.

  Saturday

  Chapter Fourteen

  A shroud of fog lay over the city Saturday morning, and it didn’t seem to be the kind that had come in on little cat feet. It looked solid and serious. Had I tried, I couldn’t have designed a more Gothic setting for the end of this sordid little tale of blackmail.

  The phone rang. It was Gray.

  “I received your message last night,” she explained in her flawless English. “However, it was too late to call.”

  “I may need your help,” I told her. “Later tonight I’ll be speaking with a gentleman I don’t know very well. He’s the physical type, I think. I would appreciate having the girls on hand to dissuade him from getting physical with me.”

  “I understand,” Gray said. Then, after a pause: “Should I accompany them?”

  Animals weren’t the only critters with whom Gray could communicate. Was my lack of self confidence so apparent? I wasn’t insulted, though. Far from it. I’d take all the help I could get. “That might be a good idea,” I said. “I’ll need to contact you with the time and place.” Damn! There was no phone at the farmhouse. “Gray, when are you going to persuade your aunt to get a phone? Or maybe I should try.”

  “It’s not my place to try to persuade her of anything,” Gray said. “She brought us out of Vietnam on a leaky thirteen-foot fishing boat and saved us from rape and murder by pirates. What advice could you or I possible give such a woman?”

  I felt ashamed. Gray was right. It was none of my business. “However,” she said, “I will be in the flower packing barn all afternoon. You may call me there.”

  “Thanks, Gray.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said formally, and hung up.

  I began to feel more confident. My plans, such as they were, were starting to fall into place.

  I found Tonia in jeans and a white sweatshirt, tossing old coffee grounds down the drain, and resisting Repo’s blandishments. I let her make coffee while I fed the starving cat, then we sat across the table from each other. She smiled at me once—a secret smile—then looked away. I felt a surge of relief. So she, too, felt that there was no need to refer to what had happened last night. But as I looked at her, I also felt one sharp twinge of regret. Might-have-beens are always poignant.

  “You seem awfully cool,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Today’s the day, you know.”

  “Today’s the day all right,” I agreed. “Cool? Well, why not—it’s almost over. Right?”

  She looked at me with a little more confidence than she had the other day. Not much, but a little. I tried not to preen.

  “Didn’t Farkas say he’d call about noon?” she asked.

  I checked my watch. It wasn’t yet nine. Should I let her chew her cuticles for three hours, or should I gamble and tell her what I had planned? I decided to compromise. “Relax,” I told her, exaggerating my optimism about sixty-five percent. “I’ve got it all under control.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow again. She did that sort of thing rather well. I guess it intimidated the hell out of the undergraduates. But by now I’d seen it too often. When I didn’t begin to tremble and ask for the equivalent of an extension on my term paper, she resorted to speech. “Oh?”

  The heat of the night before seemed to recede a bit further as I poured a mug of coffee and nodded sagely. “I’d rather not discuss the details,” I told her. “You might inadvertently communicate a hint to Farkas over the phone—you know, sound just a little bit too feisty. Make him suspect that something’s up.” I wanted badly to tell her that I’d found the letters and that they were safe, but I couldn’t realistically trust her. If Farkas started gloating over the phone, she’d probably forget herself and tell him to go to hell. Which wouldn’t be a bad place for him. But I needed to do it my way. I wanted Mr. Farkas to tell me a few things.

  “But something is up, isn’t it?”

  I nodded wisely again. “Cross my heart.” I thought it would be tempting fate to add the latter part of that oath.

  She shook her head in disappointment. “I guess I’ve got to go on trusting you.”

  “Seems silly to stop now,” I remarked. “Besides, unless you want to call in the police, or pay the blackmail money, what other option do you have?”

  “None,” she said, the old pain-in-the-butt Tonia resurfacing.

  “Tonia, it’s going to be all right,” I said, attempting to reassure her. “I know you don’t have much confidence in me, but this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this.”

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and started for the study. “I’m trying to remember that,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m just... frightened.”

  “I know,” I commiserated. “Listen, I have to go meet someone in a few minutes,” I told her. “But I’ll be back in plenty of time to coach you for the phone call. And to get you over to your place to receive it.”

  She began to say something, thought better of it, then shrugged and nodded. Turning her back on me, she headed for the study.

  Repo looked at me quizzically.

  “Beats me,” I said to him. “Anyone would think she had no faith in me.”

  He began to furiously wash a back leg.

  “Another Doubting Thomas I don’t need,” I informed him. “Go sharpen your claws on the apple tree. Although you hardly need it — you’ve wounded me to the quick.”

  I was glad to see that Lester was punctual. It meant he was taking things seriously. Right on the dot of ten he came through the door of British Fish ‘N Chips, a large brown envelope in his hand. He looked a trifle haggard, I noted. Well, I hoped he was learning that a life of crime was not as cushy as that of a journalism student.

  “I got them,” he said with a weak smile, pushing the envelope across the table to me.

  I ordered coffee for both of us, and then opened the envelope and looked inside. He seemed to have kept his word. As nearly as I could tell, there were photos of all the electronic goods I had seen in the house on Redfern. Backs, fronts, and serial numbers.

  “Are your buddies ready to work tonight?” I asked him.

  He grimaced. “They thought I was joking. It took me a long time to persuade them I wasn’t.” He licked his lips nervously. “But they don’t want to go to jail any more than I do. So they’ll do it. I mean we’ll do it.” He raised his eyebrows in alarm. “Unless you have something else you want me to do. Instead, that is.”

  I would never have thought of it had Lester not volunteered his services. The idea just popped into my head. “Lester, is there a lens or something that lets you shoot pictures at night?”

  He nodded. “Sure. It’s the equivalent of a starlight scope. Same technology. It takes available light—starlight, moonlight—and magnifies it eighty thousand times. Makes even the darkest scene pretty bright. I don’t have one, though.”

  “Can you rent one?”

  “I suppose so. The camera shop where I do business has a couple.”

  I thought this over again. It seemed like a terrific idea. Insurance usually is. “I may want you to take some pictures tonight. Go rent the scope.” I took out my wallet and peeled off a couple of fifties. “That should be enough. Just make sure you stick around today so I can tell you where this little assignment will be, and exactly what sort of pictures I want.”

  He nodded, then could not prevent himself from yawning. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Right now I’m going to go home and sleep. After I rent the scope, that is.” H
e swallowed the last of his coffee and looked at me curiously. “Can I ask you something.”

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  “What do I call you? Can you tell me your first name, at least?”

  I didn’t see why not. “It’s Caitlin,” I said.

  He got up from the table and stood there for a moment, looking gangly and awkward. I felt a surge of affection for him. “Caitlin,” he asked, “will this assignment tonight be...dangerous?”

  “Maybe for me,” I told him. “But not for you. You just do what I tell you and no one will even know you’re there.”

  “You’re going to meet Farkas, aren’t you? By yourself.”

  I nodded, deciding to save the girls and Gray for a surprise. Just in case my amateur photographer happened to turn his coat.

  He swallowed nervously. “Be careful with that guy. I’ve seen him lift Harrington and Jerome right off the floor—one hanging on each of his arms.” He shivered.

  “Thanks for the warning,” I told him. “I’ll keep it in mind. Now go get the scope and have a nice nap. We have work to do tonight.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I picked Tonia up at eleven and we drove through the fog to her condominium. The stately Gary Oaks towered over us, ghostly shapes that disappeared drippingly into the mist, underscoring my sense of the unreal. Perhaps this was just a bad dream, I thought, one from which I would soon awaken. I doubted it though. I didn’t often have an itching, half-healed bullet wound in my dreams. Or a case of high anxiety.

  Inside, I pulled the drapes and turned on all the living room lights. Tonia went to the kitchen to make coffee and I followed her, closing and latching the shutters. If she thought me a little paranoid, she said nothing. Perhaps a week of incarceration with me had accustomed her to the bizarre. Well, her parole was at hand. As soon as Farkas was neutralized, she could move back in here. By now I looked forward to the event as much as I believed she did.

  I attached my earphone and recorder to the telephone and we sat there and looked at each other.