by Suz deMello
He reached for her left-over letters and began to add them to his score. “Hmm. There’s a woman meeting that description with a room at the Oakland house and she’s been there for about eight months. At the Chinatown house, there’s a young blonde who’s been there for, oh, nearly a year.”
“You frequent Galway’s in North Beach,” Liza said. “According to my information, Sindie Keller went there on May ninth, dressed in red leather and reading Story of O. She hasn’t been seen since.”
“So that’s what you were doing.” Putting down his pencil, he gazed at her with dawning comprehension on his face. He started to laugh. Between guffaws, he managed to choke out, “You’re not into Story of O at all. You merely reenacted the scenario of a kidnap victim.”
“Yeah.”
He controlled his laughter, shaking his head. “I’ve heard of hardworking cops, but you blow my mind, Liza. Was this necessary?”
“We had no other clues.”
“Perhaps you’d better explain with more detail.” He pushed away the game board.
As she talked about Sindie Keller, her relationship with attorney Ray White, and her sex diary, James’s expression grew grimmer. “I’m beginning to understand,” he said. “You know, Ray White is a close associate of Derrick Galway.”
“I didn’t know that. White denied any connection.”
“He lied. White and Galway are trying to run me out of business. Most recently, they bribed some locals to form a phony neighborhood group here in Pacific Heights. They’ve sued me to close this house on grounds that it’s a nuisance.” James rose and paced, his silk robe swishing around his calves.
“That’s the lawsuit against your front company, China Doll Enterprises.”
“It’s not a front. China Doll is a legitimate real estate business, started decades ago by my grandfather. I’m guessing here, but I imagine that Ms. Keller was dangled out to me as bait.”
“Bait?”
“Galway and I don’t get along,” James said. “Not because of anything I do -- I think there’s room in this town for both of us. His interests are completely different from mine -- he owns strip clubs on O’Farrell, the bar in North Beach, and runs his whores out of those businesses. But Galway wants to dominate the sex trade in the city. Frankly, I know he loathes me and I can’t resist yanking on his chain, so to speak.”
“I’ve heard that you regularly go into Galway’s bar and order coffee, never drink it but pay with a fifty.”
“Exactly. It’s my little joke on Derrick. I’ve heard he hates it, so of course I keep doing it.”
“And Sindie Keller?”
“That the young lady was asked by Ray White to read Story of O in Galway’s suggests to me that she was bait to trap me. To frame me for her abduction.”
“Derrick Galway wants to get rid of you that bad?”
“Oh, yes. In the past, he’s stalked my renters, even had his goons beat one of them up. You met him. Bobby.”
“He beat up Bobby?” Totally pissed off, Liza’s eyes narrowed. “Can you prove this?”
“Of course not, otherwise Galway’d be under arrest. As it is, he skates on thin ice with me. I’ve been too busy to deal with him, but ...”
“Sindie Keller?” Liza prodded.
“Yes. I did see someone of her description in Galway’s a couple of weeks before you showed up. I was intrigued, of course, and had planned to pick her up.”
Liza held her breath. “And ...”
“I went to the bar and ordered coffee. I was on the way to the men’s room to take a leak when I saw her. When I came out, she was gone. I figured that someone got to her before me.”
“I wonder who --”
“I can guess. Come along.” James’s voice was calm, as usual. “It’s time to defang the snake.”
He strode into his bedroom. “Get showered and dressed.” He went to a chest of drawers and took out jeans and a sweater. He tossed them onto the bed and went into the bathroom.
She followed, stepping into the shower with him. He kissed her, but she didn’t close her eyes and neither did he. Appearing distracted, he didn’t initiate sex.
She dressed in the clothes he’d given her and her black heels. “These are my size,” she said of the jeans and the fisherman’s sweater. “But I’m not surprised anymore.”
He donned a similar outfit, topping his sweater with a black leather jacket. Because he usually wore suits, the street clothes gave him a rawer, more savage air than she’d seen.
He didn’t chat, but hustled her out of the house to his Jag, speeding to O’Farrell Street and parking near the corner of Leavenworth. Even on a Sunday afternoon, the area, packed with tawdry strip clubs and adult stores, was busy, mostly with men, Liza noticed. Typical.
James said to her, “Keep up with me.”
He moved faster than she expected, sprinting with a whippet-like grace across an alley and through an open doorway to approach Galway’s club from back of the adjoining shop rather than using the front entrance. In her heels, she’d reached only the neighboring shop’s exit when he rammed his shoulder against the back door and burst in.
He didn’t stop or wait for her. That was okay; she realized he couldn’t without endangering both of them. The advantage lay in surprise. He glanced over his shoulder to see her stumbling along in her high-heeled pumps, maybe ten steps behind him. His lips quirked, and she guessed he was smothering a grin, the jerk.
He disappeared into Derrick Galway’s strip club, and she gritted her teeth, ignored the pain in her feet, and ran to catch up. Using the same door, she strode along a dark corridor, following him to a back room, her toes jamming into the tips of her tight, pointed shoes.
Even though San Francisco had long forbidden smoking indoors, a sickening stench of cigarettes still fouled the thick air, as if it had permeated the peeling paint on the walls and the beat-up wood floor. Trying not to breathe deeply, Liza shouldered past a group of heavily painted she-males leaving the stage. The next act, fan dancers dressed in feathers, clogged the hallway.
When she arrived at the back room, she could see James. Before any of Galway’s goons had the chance to react, he grabbed an obese, red-faced man by his greasy ponytail and pounded his forehead into the table at which he sat.
Shocked at his violence, she stopped short.
“Don’t move,” James snarled to the heavies. “Or I’ll snap his neck.”
One of them shifted his weight, and James nailed Derrick Galway again. Galway croaked, “Back off! Back off!”
James threw Galway into his chair. His thick body lolled against the chair’s high back. In a too-small T-shirt and old jeans that rode beneath his beer belly, Galway was the unappealing personification of a low-class pimp.
“Where is Sindie Keller?” James demanded.
Galway grunted in surprise. “This is about gash? Jesus Christ, Li!”
“I don’t like being framed,” James snarled. “Are you acquainted with Detective Bowman?”
Galway’s green, bloodshot eyes swiveled over to Liza. “I’ve heard of her, uh, you.”
Liza nodded. “Likewise,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” Galway rubbed his abused forehead and glared at James. “I thought you’d been promoted to Major Crimes.”
“How did you know that?” she asked.
He chuckled, but before he could answer, James snapped, “Let’s quit bullshitting. I’m here because of a missing person case that Detective Bowman is investigating.”
“A young woman named Sindie Keller was reported missing since May ninth,” Liza said. “The trail led through your North Beach bar to James Li, who frequents that bar.”
“Tee-hee-hee.” Galway’s girlish giggle contrasted with his overweight, sweaty body and slimeball demeanor. “About time that your little joke backfired and bit you on the butt, Li.”
“The person who reported her missing was your attorney, Ray White, who also happened to be Keller’s lover.” Liza kept her tone
of voice calm and matter-of-fact. “White sent her to your saloon.”
“Shit,” Galway said. “That dumb fuck. I told him to take care of you, Li, but I guess I wasn’t specific enough. Asshole.”
“Excuse me?” James asked.
“Not you. White. What the hell has he done? Was he trying to frame you or something?”
“Apparently,” Liza said. “I believe he planned for James Li to pick up Keller, but she’s disappeared. From your saloon.”
“And I don’t know where she is,” James said.
Galway pointed upwards.
“She’s here?” Liza asked.
“Been here, yeah, since May ninth, I guess. Caught her trolling in North Beach, in my bar, no less.” Galway scowled. “Stupid cunt.”
“Can I talk to her?” Liza asked.
Galway glanced at his watch. “Sure, she should be done about now.”
“She’s working for you?”
“Yeah. That ho could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.”
Liza winced at the cliché.
“And she likes it, too. Johns, they can always tell the difference. You’ll see. Come on, I’ll take you up.” Rising, Galway lumbered out the door, followed by Liza and James.
When one of Galway’s heavies started after them, James turned on the goon with a glare. “We don’t need you. Capische?” He flicked open a glittering switchblade.
Again, Liza shook inwardly, but hoped she didn’t look scared. However, in the past five minutes, James had shown her aspects of his character she hadn’t known about.
Or maybe she’d been deceiving herself.
Could she really have a relationship with him?
She shunted personal matters out of her mind in favor of doing her job. She was going to break the Keller case. This was what she lived for.
Wasn’t it?
Wooden stairs, narrow and old, creaked under Galway’s bulk as he climbed. They passed the second floor, and as they ascended, the air grew hotter, steamier, redolent of perfume, rat poison, and sex.
A hand caressed her bottom, then squeezed. James caught up with her. “When this is over, I’m going to fuck you mindless,” he murmured into her ear.
“Good,” she whispered, perspiring beneath her fisherman’s sweater. She needed some nice clean sex with James to erase this event from her psyche.
She trailed Galway along the third floor hall to a plain wooden door. From behind the closed door came grunting followed by a woman’s scream.
Galway opened the door and stood aside to let Liza and James see.
The small room was almost filled by a raised, padded platform covered in fake black leather. Upon it, a blond woman knelt. She was bound in black leather, wearing forearm restraints which were laced together behind her back. The position thrust out her corseted breasts, their pink nipples hard and wet with saliva.
A man held her by a studded dog collar while he fucked her face, using a leash to whip her on the shoulders, left bare by the black leather corset. While Liza watched, a second man rammed into her ass, and the woman cried out again.
The scene was so reminiscent of what Liza had experienced and enjoyed that she began to sweat. Her clit twitched against her tight denim jeans. When James grabbed her by the nape of her neck, she couldn’t restrain a gasp.
Galway laughed. “So that’s the way of it, Li? Smart move, fucking a detective from Major Crimes.”
James glowered at Galway, who shut up. Liza asked tightly, “When is she supposed to be done?”
“Now. I’ll make a mental note to charge them overtime.” He looked at Liza. “Are you gonna bust me?”
“Not today. No warrant. I just want to solve the Keller case.” She scrutinized the woman. Though her face was contorted with lust and streaked with a whore’s harsh makeup, she appeared to match the file photograph of Sindie Keller. “Umm, where should we wait?”
“Right here, if you want to watch the show,” Galway said. “No extra charge, Detective.”
She exchanged a glance with James. He shrugged. “If we go someplace else, we risk losing your witness.”
“True.” She leaned against the doorpost, trying at least to look nonchalant when her pussy was weeping tears of need.
“You can use a room if you want.”
No doubt Galway wished to be generous to an SFPD detective, but Liza didn’t want to be on his hook. She said, “That would be too much for me, but thanks.”
Galway’s hand strayed to his pants, but Liza stopped him with a glare. She was sure she couldn’t handle the sight of Derrick Galway spanking the monkey while watching one of his whores.
“Well, I’ll, uh, just be on my way.” Galway backed out of the hallway, his nervous eyes on James.
James moved in closer to Liza, rocking his hips against her rear, left so sensitive by his discipline. She could feel his erection, hot and hard, even through two layers of denim. “Can you come this way?” he whispered into her ear.
“Maybe.”
The man behind Keller had grabbed her buttocks and was opening her crack wider to push more of himself inside. Reaching for a bottle of oil that sat on the far side of the platform, he missed it and had to pull out of her ass. He had to be at least ten impressive inches long, and very thick.
Liza sucked in a breath.
“Like what you see?” James murmured into her ear. He reached underneath her sweater and slid his hands around her waist and up, up, up ...
“I like what I’m feeling,” she murmured, as James’s busy fingers approached her breasts, unbound by a bra under the bulky sweater.
The man buttfucking Keller squeezed more lube onto his dick and into her ass. She turned her head, releasing the cock in her mouth. “Hurry up,” she begged.
That was all Liza had to hear to convince herself that the so-called victim’s presence at Galway’s whorehouse was voluntary, but she figured she ought to stay to take a statement.
The man getting the blowjob grabbed Keller’s head by her blonde hair and growled, “Take it, bitch.” He shoved his dick down her throat again. Liza could see Keller’s cheeks hollow from the effort of sucking him off.
The john behind her dropped the lube, grabbed her asscheeks, and opened her crack wider. Her back hole gaped, shiny with oil, red from the hard fucking. The knob of the john’s dick was only a little smaller than a pool ball, and Liza wondered how the hell he’d get it inside.
James gripped her breasts, squeezing her nipples as the john forced his way into Keller’s butt sheath. Even with the lube, he didn’t get in far on the first thrust. He pulled out partway, leaving his head inside to stretch her anus. With a grunt, he shoved in again, about halfway. Keller choked; the john in her mouth was coming.
Liza watched, fascinated, aroused, not only by the spectacle but by James’s clever fingers plucking and pulling at her nipples, his hard-on rocking against her sensitive ass, reminding her that he’d been inside there just a few hours before.
The john who’d come rubbed his limp dick across Keller’s breasts as the other drove his entire length into her rear. She screamed and writhed against the bonds pinioning her arms. “Please! Please, God, let me come!”
The john inside her slapped her buttocks as the other man sprawled to lick Keller’s cunt through her blonde bush.
Her pussy clenching, Liza came with a gush of cream. Her knees weakened, and James supported her with one strong arm around her waist, his other hand caressing her breasts. His breath and lips tickled her throat, taking her higher.
Eyes closed, she could hear Keller squeal, “I’m coming, I’m coming ...”
Liza collapsed against James, who pulled her out of the overheated room and into the cooler hallway, quietly closing the door. “Are you all right?” he murmured into her ear. “I don’t want you to pass out.”
She blinked, recovering herself. “Yeah, I’m okay. But that was totally sleazy. I can’t believe I got so turned on.”
“It was sexy as hell because it was exa
ctly what we did on Friday night. Except, of course, that I’m better.” He winked at her.
“Yeah, you are. Better technique, I’m sure.”
“Experience will out.”
* * * * *
About five minutes later, the johns emerged, glowering suspiciously at James and Liza. She wondered if they knew they’d been watched.
“Let’s go in. I’m tired of this sleaze pit.” With his boot, James toed dirt rimming the wooden wainscoting. “I swear, Liza, I’d dig ditches before I ran a shithole like this.”
She knocked at the door and waited until she heard a soprano voice call, “Cut me a break. I’m not ready yet.”
“I just want to talk,” Liza said.
The door opened, and Sindie Keller stood on the other side, dressed in a short flowered robe. She held a damp washcloth to her face, wiping at her raccoon eyelids. Her hard blue eyes took them in, widening; Liza guessed that she and James didn’t look like her usual johns.
“Uh, hi. Who are you?”
“SFPD,” Liza said. “Are you Sindie Keller?”
Keller dropped the washcloth. “Ye-es.”
“I’m not here to bust you. Did you know you were reported missing?” Liza asked.
“Uh, no. You’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Keller’s glance slid over to take in James, but apparently she didn’t recognize him. “You could have asked my boss,” she said. “I mean, my former boss, Ray White. He knows I’m here.”
Liza smiled. “Mind if I come in and take a statement?
Chapter Eleven
Liza and James didn’t talk as they left the strip club to walk through the early evening mist toward his Jag. When they found it, he opened the passenger door and let her in. He asked, “Where to?”
“How about my place? I want to write my report ASAP and take a shower.”
“We just got out of the shower.”
She sniffed. “My hair stinks of Galway’s strip club. Ick.”
He leaned over to inhale her scent. “I can’t smell it. You’re dreaming, baby.”
“Well, I feel ... fouled.”
He started the car. “You must feel fouled every day, having to deal with dickheads like Derrick Galway and Ray White.”