Stilettos and Steel

by Jeri Estes

  “Here, let’s drink to my new routine,” Rosie toasted. “We’ll pop the bubbly later to celebrate.”

  I gave her a disapproving look as I took the drink. “We can’t get fucked up. It’s dangerous.”

  “Papi, don’t be silly. We’re safe. There’s an army out there.”

  Rosie chug-a-lugged her rum. Not to be impolite, I joined her.

  She pulled a bomber out of her purse, fired it up, and passed me the joint.

  Rosie said coquettishly, “I can’t wait for you to see my new routine. Sit down, baby.”

  I took a hit, obeyed the lady, and passed back the grass. She picked up a record she had brought and pranced over to the stereo.

  “I’m gonna come out of the hallway. Keep your eyes closed and count to ten. Promise, papi, you won’t look! Count slowly,” Rosie instructed excitedly.

  I chuckled when I heard blaring from the stereo, ‘Wild thing, you make my heart sing.’ After counting to ten, I opened my eyes to find Rosie clinging to the hall doorway like a leopard scratching a tree. She wore a long black feather boa, a short see-through nightie and a cheetah g-string.

  Her lips sang with the lyrics as she seductively growled at me. “Wild thing, you know that I love you.”

  She arched her back and pulled away from the door like a stripper in heat. The sexy tigress crouched down on all fours. Lust filled her eyes and hot lips as her brown face flushed with heat. She prowled across the floor. Like a tail, the feather boa flowed behind. Her full breasts pointed the way to her prey. I watched the seductress slowly stand up. She danced backward and threw off her skimpy nightie.

  Rosie’s soft brown velvet flesh and firm tits were bared. Black swirling pasties sparkled above her g-string. Dancing towards me, Rosie shimmied out of her g-string, which clung to one stilettoed foot. I chuckled with delight as Rosie flung the g-string across the room with a firm kick. It landed perfectly on top of a lamp shade. She turned her back to me, wrapped her fingers around her shoulders, spread her legs wide, and bent over firmly.

  I whistled, admiring her flexibility and enthusiasm. Dramatically, she rose up and slinked forward. She encircled my neck with her feather boa and straddled me. Her breasts greeted my face as she lowered herself onto my lap.

  The sex kitten purred, “This is the special part of my act. You take off the pasties.”

  As my mouth kissed her breasts between giggles and a growing lust in my groin, Rosie unzipped my zipper, winked, and ground into me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her boobs into my face.

  “Bite off my pasties, daddy!”

  I gripped a pasty between my teeth, yanked it off, and spat it out over her shoulder. Quickly I nibbled the other pasty off her nipple. I blew it over her shoulder—and stared right into the eyes of Carmen.

  “What the fuck!” I shouted as Rosie pulsated on my lap.

  Carmen stood transfixed.

  “I wanted to surprise you,” she said testily. “Little Bastard said you were expecting me.”

  Rosie stopped her performance and gave Carmen a catty glance over her shoulder.

  With controlled fury, Carmen said, “Enjoy your suffering, Jesse.”

  “Wait a minute, Carmen!” I cried. “I was just helping Rosie with her new routine.”

  Carmen picked up the champagne and hurled it at the bay window behind us. The sound of shattering glass blasted through the room as my window rained down to the sidewalk below. Grinning, Carmen quipped back, “I have a new routine too. I’m spending the weekend with the D.A. It might be nice to try the real thing for a change.”

  Alarmed by the crash, Rascal lumbered into the living room with a cocked shotgun. She surveyed naked Rosie on my lap, then the expression on Carmen’s face. Letting out a long sigh, Rascal uncocked the rifle and went back to her post. My girl left as quietly as she had entered.

  “Carmen, wait!”

  Chapter 27

  CAMELOT HOTEL

  The Temptations’ tightly orchestrated chorus serenaded my apartment. Fighting the urge to call Carmen once again, I brooded despondently. She hadn’t taken any of my calls. Worse, she had been seen hanging all over the D.A. They were spotted like a couple of love birds leaving Carmen’s apartment. The frightening thought entered my mind that maybe he was becoming more than a trick.

  Asian Pearl stood in my living room discussing her game plan. She had just arranged for me to meet with an assassin named Scope. She was hoping I would hire him to resolve the Prince problem once and for all. Pearl was eagerly explaining the benefits of having Prince and his twisted brother killed.

  On the other side of the coffee table sat Junior, jacketless with her shirt sleeves rolled up. The silver butt of her .38 rested against her chest in her shoulder holster. Across from her sat Little Rosie in the Queen Anne chair with her pearl-handled Derringer sticking out of her black bustier.

  Asian Pearl stood with a beer in one hand and the other on the back of Rosie’s chair. “Listen, Jesse, you know you can’t fucking flatter your way out of this one. We’re going broke. We can’t work. We can’t even fucking party! I’m going to get a beer belly drinking this shit,” she said, holding up her bottle of Schlitz. “Who wants a geisha with a beer belly?”

  I had to hand it to Pearl. That was a strong selling point. Like prisoners desperately in need of a jail break, we all listened intently to her plan.

  “Gomez is lucky to be alive,” Pearl went on. “What more is it going to take until you kill those sons-of-bitches? Jesse, are you listening?”

  “Pearl, Rascal gave Mutton Chop a new trash can lid hat. She smashed that dude’s head so hard the trash can lid looked like a Jiffy Pop crown!”

  “That’s chump-change payback!” said Pearl. “Do you think that’s going to scare Prince?”

  I stood up likewise and stated my reservations to the group. “If I have Prince and Giuseppe killed, I would fall to their level. That’s not cool. Things would snowball into a huge bullshit war between all the Fillmore players and everyone in the Tenderloin. It would spread like an incurable disease. With all the carnage in the streets, no john would ever feel safe doing business with any of us.”

  Pearl sneered ay my objections. “I’ve arranged a meeting with the best assassin on the West Coast, Jesse. His name is Scope. Of course, a real street person would hire him, but it’s your call. Do what you want.”

  The Asian bitch was crossing the line with the “real street person” comment, but I held my temper. Instead of kicking her ass for her disrespect, I said, “Pearl, I appreciate your efforts. I’ll meet with your referral and I may end up hiring him. You were smart to act so quickly. It took a real street person like you to be able to acquire such resources, but unfortunately,” I added, “other street people may end up dead from not thinking things through.”

  In a voice that let them know the discussion was over, I said, “Pearl, you and Little Rosie are going back into hiding at the house with Marie. Got it?”

  The girls simply nodded in response.

  I called out, “Rascal, come in here for a minute.”

  My stoic warrior walked in cradling a sawed-off shotgun against her chest and squeaked, “What’s up, boss?”

  “Rascal, take Pearl and Rosie downstairs. Have Animal and Red escort them back to the house in Chinatown.”

  “Yes, boss,” answered the big girl.

  “I am sick of being cooped up with trashy house whores!” Pearl complained.

  “I am a call girl. If I wanted to live in Chinatown, I would have got married!”

  ***

  The mission of interviewing a killer required the darkness of the seedy Camelot Hotel. The building was a haven for degradation and immorality, including murder. I asked myself, “What spiritual force governs the place and the time of the major events of our lives?” I wondered if we have an inner compass that guides us to a particular town, street or restaurant.

  Street lore had it that our beautiful city by the sea became a gay mecca back in
World War I. The navy would drop off dishonorably discharged faggot servicemen at the San Francisco harbor. The crime-ridden Tenderloin district quickly became a gay ghetto filled with queers from all over the United States. Like the ones before me, my personal journey of independence was born at the intersection of Turk and Taylor.

  This corner was the place where the major events of my life had come together. My reconciliation with Carmen and many of my business dealings transpired here. It was the crossroads of my life, and I had come here now to protect my girls’ and my new position.

  We walked through the tacky lobby, passing the nodding manager, Ted Summer. He was sitting slouched over in a little office chair on wheels, his big body stuffed between its arms. Behind him were little wooden boxes which held the room keys.

  His sunglasses dangled at the bottom of his nose beneath his big Panama hat and his loud Hawaiian shirt. Ted was oblivious to the fact that it was late fall and that he was a smack-head manager living in a dirty, flea-bitten hotel. In his mind, it was always summertime. His passion used to be golf trips to Miami, but the only trips he took now were in his head. We silently filed past him, careful not to wake him as we dashed into the stairwell.

  The gray wooden stairs creaked and the peeling paint flaked under my black wingtips as we ascended toward the assassin’s room. I checked my piece under my jacket and felt the top of the cold steel handle.

  I heard Junior take her piece out of her leather holster, checking it as we continued our climb.

  Slipping my hand into my trouser pocket, I caressed my lighter and felt reassured by its weight and familiarity. I quickened my pace, taking two stairs at a time, excited at the prospect of finally dealing with this fucking shit.

  I began to think that this might actually turn out okay and I spoke to Junior in hushed tones. “Asian Pearl said that he’ll be by himself. We’re supposed to meet him in Room 412. Guess what…I think that’s the first place I ever fucked Carmen.”

  I heard Junior chuckle behind me. Once again, my one track mind had broken the tension.

  Within moments we reached the fourth-floor landing. I cracked the stairwell door and looked down the hall. The coast looked clear, so we walked to Room 412 and quietly rapped on the door three times. Junior stood at my side with her hand inside her jacket over her piece. The door cracked open. I leaned in close and felt a blast of hot breath. In a husky whisper, a woman asked, “What’s your code?” I replied through the crack, “Twelve, twelve.”

  The door opened slowly into a dimly lit room exposing one bare light bulb suspended from the ceiling, casting shadows against the wall. A statuesque Asian drag queen stood before us. I felt shivers go up my spine at her unexpected presence. I was expecting just a military man who was an active-duty sniper. Pearl had assured me that I would be meeting with the assassin alone.

  Sensing my apprehension, the Asian queen told me, “I’m Asian Pearl’s cousin, Joy Luck. You’ll be meeting with my old man, Scope. Come in.”

  I believed the drag queen because she was wearing chopsticks, painted with dragons that were identical to Asian Pearl’s. She was also adorned with lovelocks. They must have shared the same hairdresser too. The dead cold glint in her eyes also resembled her kin, looking like shark eyes about an inch under the water.

  The queen was older and much harder, though. She was wearing a tight leather miniskirt and a leather halter top which held up a fortune in hormone shots. Inked into her high cheekbone was a small tattooed dot, which revealed her affiliation to a convict tribe.

  She said in a husky, cigarette-strained voice, “My cousin’s told me all about you. I’ll introduce you to Scope.”

  The room was small, yet it was considered deluxe for the Camelot because it had a bathroom and a bedroom. On a white coffee-stained sink in the corner rested a hot plate next to four little blue-and-white Chinese teacups. On the other side of the room was a small daybed placed against the wall. Lying on cheap leopard velvet pillows and a tattered beige bedspread was a slinky young man. Across his lap lay a high-powered rifle with a long barrel and a large scope at the top.

  He did not acknowledge our presence as he methodically stroked the barrel between his fingers. He was cleaning the steel shaft with a small white cloth, caressing it as gently as his lover’s penis. His rapt attention on his task had the energy of a sexual moment, and I felt like a voyeur as I waited to be introduced.

  The Asian companion said in a gentle voice, “Honey, I’d like you to meet Jesse, the young lady my cousin Pearl told you about.”

  I hesitated to greet him, as I didn’t know the proper protocol for meeting a professional killer. Not knowing what else to do, I stood politely with Junior at my side, waiting for him to finish his task.

  After a long, awkward moment, his eyes rose from his tool of destruction to look up at me. He said in a lifeless monotone, “Hello, Jesse. Respect, man, I’ve heard nothing but good things about you.”

  “Respect, man. I’m pleased to meet you too. Pearl is the main lady in my crew, and she tells me you’re in special ops and a top-notch sniper in ‘Nam, freelancing while on leave here.” I made sure to mention, “My brother’s over there. I gotta hand it to you.”

  The young soldier, with small beads of sweat on his high forehead, peered over his John Lennon glasses. “That’s cool. I’m not happy with those mother fuckin’ peaceniks over at Golden Gate Park. They have been burning our beautiful flag. They’ve been having orgies all weekend in the name of peace. Those love freaks! I hate acidhead traitors. I’d love to give them all a gift from ‘Nam!”

  Scope lifted up his rifle, pointed it above our heads and pulled the trigger. With a terrific roar, he shot a fucking hole in the wall and calmly said, “Bang!”

  Junior and I ducked. I shouted, “Peace, brother, peace!” sounding like Two Bits the hippie. Plaster fell from the wall to the floor. Joy Luck casually grabbed a broom and began to sweep up the mess.

  Scope continued as he laid his rifle back onto his lap, “Glad to hear your brother’s doing the deal, that’s cool.”

  Having found common ground, Scope had responded to the first rule of sales; rapport building. The emaciated warrior gave us a faint smile as he waited for me to speak.

  Still nervous from the gunshot, I decided to add another dash of flattery. “My brother tells me tree jockeys like you live up there for days. You guys are famous for not disturbing a twig.” I piled it on a little. “Pearl told me you volunteered for that duty. I’m impressed. I have to admire your endurance.”

  Scope then said to us in a relaxed tone, like a commanding officer ordering his men, “At ease. Why don’t you girls sit down?”

  “Thank you, Scope, I think I will.” I gestured for Junior to sit and we took the two white wooden chairs in front of a milk crate coffee table. Scope nervously licked the open cracks in his dry bottom lip like a lizard. His flat gray eyes stayed focused, unlike his tongue, which due to some nervous disorder, had a life of its own. His creepy tongue action made it difficult for me to concentrate.

  I started right in. “What’s your asking price and is it negotiable?”

  Before he had an opportunity to answer, I put my hand up in a halting gesture, risking the disapproval of the man with a high-powered rifle in his lap. “No offense, but I was under the impression that Junior and I would be talking business with you alone.”

  Scope gave a measured nod of his head as if to acknowledge my concern. “Jesse, this is Asian Pearl’s first cousin, and believe me, you can trust her because she’s real street, just like Pearl.” I nodded okay, and he continued, “I got to go back to Fort Ord in a few days, so I’d like to handle our business tonight. I’m just like any other soldier,” he said, cracking a grin. “I needed to see my old lady while I’m on leave. From what I hear about you and the ladies, I thought you could appreciate that.”

  I considered his reply and thought, “It takes all kinds. A horny death-addicted soldier and a female impersonator, they definitely made an in
teresting couple.” I asked again in a straightforward manner, “What are your terms?”

  For the first time that morning, Scope came alive. “I’ll take fifty percent up front and the rest when the job is done. To kill Prince it will cost you sixty-five-hundred, and if you want me to dispose of his body that’s another grand.”

  I paused, remembering my father’s words, “When negotiating, whoever speaks first loses.”

  I waited until Scope went for the close and offered me a deal. “I can throw in his brother, Giuseppe. I’ll dispose of both of them for ten grand, total.”

  He gave me a smile like a used car salesman. “I understand it’s been a little tight for you lately. My old lady’s cousin hasn’t been able to work much. Guess your whores are off the streets until this blows over. I want you to pay what’s in your comfort zone.”

  “Thanks man, I appreciate it. A break would help.”

  Scope then made me another offer. “If I nest up above the Booker T. Washington Hotel and knock them both off as they leave their apartment, I’ll just let them lie where they drop. For that I’ll charge you only seven grand. I’m easy and I’d appreciate referrals. So what do you think?”

  Scope’s soft-spoken remarks caused my skin to crawl. I replied, “Scope, you’re a professional and I believe that you can do the job. I need to discuss this privately with my crime partner Junior in the other room for a minute.” I rushed to explain. “I told Pearl to inform you before our meeting that I was still considering some other options. I wanted to meet you in person because I always make decisions based on my gut reaction to people.”

  I then removed my hat so as to appear extra comfortable, like I was going to stay a while. I didn’t want the trigger-happy young man to think I was gonna bolt before I gave him an answer. Politely I asked, “Where can I chat with Junior privately?”

  By way of a reply, Scope yelled, “Joy Luck, is the bedroom clean or do you have all of your girly-girl shit in there?”