The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 10

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Eight a.m. sharp, just as I started in on my second Turkish coffee at the Arabesque, Alice Grey strolled up the banquette – what we call sidewalks in New Orleans because they serve as banks when the streets flooded, which happened often. She wore another form-fitting dress, this one yellow, and matching high heels. Maria brought her a Turkish coffee before Alice arrived and stood towering over me. She gleeked me again and said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “About your fictitious uncle, right?”

  She sat and poured six sugars into her coffee, took off her sunglasses and said, “My father’s missing.”

  OK. I handled missing person cases all the time. I was just recovering from a wandering daughter case that broke my heart, but that’s another story. I took out my notepad and Parker t-ball jotter ballpoint and said, “What’s your father’s name?”

  Alice’s story went like this – her father, a Presbyterian minister from Westhope, North Dakota, left Alice and her mother a year ago. At first the police suspected foul play because Jonathan Grey hadn’t left Westhope, except for occasional visits to Bismarck, since he’d returned from the Chicago Seminary where he was ordained in 1911. Two weeks ago, Alice’s mother got a Bourbon Street postcard with an exotic dancer on the front. Postmarked New Orleans, the wandering minister said he was sorry he’d left so abruptly, but he’d found a better life and to not worry about him. No, Alice hadn’t brought the postcard.

  Bourbon Street, that narrowed it – over two miles of the scummiest dives, strip clubs, clip-joints, heroin dens, reefer houses, whorehouses, you name it. I told Alice that and she grew pale for a second and said, “Then you’d better get started.”

  “I’ll need a description of your father and a picture.”

  She withdrew a three-inch square, grainy, unfocused picture, probably taken with a Brownie camera, of a man and a woman standing in front of a white wooden house. All they needed was a pitchfork to be that painting of the bald guy and homely woman, I don’t remember the name or the artist. Jonathan Grey was sixty-two, stood five nine, with a thin build.

  “I’m going to need a retainer from you, too. A hundred dollars. I charge thirty a day, plus mileage and expenses.”

  She put her sunglasses back on and withdrew two crisp c-notes, passing them to me. “Two hundred,” she said, “it may take a while.” She picked up her coffee and took a sip. I rubbed the backside of the bills on a napkin and some of the ink rubbed off, which meant the bills were probably genuine. Ink on counterfeit bills dried completely.

  “Now what was all that guk about a dead uncle?” I asked.

  She just winked at me.

  We parted company after draining our coffees. She pecked me on the cheek and waved down a passing Yellow cab, gleeking me from the back seat as the cab pulled away on Burgundy.

  That was Saturday, 27 September. On Sunday evening, as a driving rainstorm slammed fat raindrops against my building, forked lightning dancing over the roofs of the Quarter, thunder shaking the building, I stood in my apartment and peered out of the French doors that opened to the balcony. I watched the street flood. My doorbell rang and I hit the buzzer, went out on the landing to watch Alice come through the building front door with two large suitcases and stand there dripping.

  “I’ll get a towel,” I called down to her. By the time I came back out on the landing, she was halfway up the stairs hauling those suitcases. I went down, handed her the towel and took the suitcases, nice Samsonite luggage.

  “They’re waterproof,” she said, “so’s my purse. But I’m not.”

  I brought the suitcases into my apartment while she dripped out in the hall. Hair soaked, lipstick smudged, eyeliner dripping down her cheeks, her tight black dress was pressed even tighter to her slim body. She gave me a coy look as a puddle formed on the carpet beneath her feet and said, “I owe you another apology.”

  “Don’t tell me. Your father’s not missing?”

  “He’s been dead ten years.”

  The agony of the last thirty-six hours flashed through my mind, like snapshots from a horror flick – burly bartenders glaring at me, bouncers telling me to get lost, buxom strippers peeling off gaudy costumes, reefer maniacs hiccupping as they sucked in smoke while I showed them the grainy, out-of-focus Brownie picture, not to mention a long line of prostitutes painted like – forget it. My feet ached and I’d even worn the reddish-brown oxfords with the rubber soles I’d picked up on my wandering daughter case, but that’s another story.

  Alice ran the towel through her hair and looked like a maniacal Medusa now. She wiped her face and ran the towel down her body before tossing it to me. She turned and said, “Unzip me.”

  I suggested we step into my apartment. She said, “You want a puddle in your apartment?” So I unzipped her and she kicked off her heels, stripped right there in the hall, handing me her dress, half-slip, garter belt, stockings, bra and panties. I passed her the towel again and she dried off.

  My neighbour across the hall took that moment to peek out. John Stanford was an eighty-one-year-old Englishman, a very nice gentleman who often gave me history lessons and took a keen interest in my love life. Alice turned to him as she finished wiping off and tossed the towel over her shoulder to me to give Stanford a better view, some full frontal nudity.

  “Enjoying the view, sir?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite.”

  She turned, rolled her hips at him on her way into my apartment.

  Stanford grinned at me and said, “It’s always a pleasure, old chum. What? Ho?”

  I went into my apartment, closed the door as Alice lay on the sofa. She gave me a wink and said, “You gonna offer a girl a drink, or what?”

  She took her bourbon on the rocks. I opted for a cold Miller High-Life. The rain slapped the windows, lightning danced over the rooftops, thunder rumbled and I sat in my easy chair watching a naked woman sip my bourbon. OK, not completely naked with all that jewellery around her neck, wrist and several fingers, not to mention earrings.

  “I want you to take me to Rio,” she said.

  “De Janeiro?”

  “Is there another Rio? I need protection and I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars, American, to sail with me on a Brazilian ship, tomorrow night. Get me to Rio and you can come back, if you want. I need a bodyguard.”

  I looked at her body and said, “You’re telling me?”

  We did it again, this time on my bed. It was her fault. I was a goner as soon as I unzipped that dress, so don’t blame me. Women used me a lot. Bless their souls.

  Alice Grey was a fairly predatory lover, reaching for the pleasure, knowing she was giving it back. She kissed hard and fucked hard, bouncing me like a toy atop her. Coitus brought out her strength. She was louder this time and cursed. My first girlfriend did a similar thing. Elvira wasn’t as predatory, a good Catholic girl, but she could curse.

  Alice started with “Fuck me!”

  “That’s what I’m doing.” Here’s a lesson for men. When they start cursing, you’re not supposed to respond. Just let them vent. Alice pinched me hard, so I shut up.

  “I want dick! Fuck! Screw me! Fuck my pussy! Inside! Fucking harder! Slam your balls! Dick! Dick! Fuck me!”

  I obliged, like an obedient boy.

  Lying in bed after, Alice curled against me, a light rain tapping against the bedroom windows, I tried to figure her out. I’d been too busy wrestling with her body to wrestle with the idea she might be a lunatic. When she woke, I planned to question her. I mean, what the hell was all this, sending me on wild goose chases and now Rio de Janeiro? Then again, ten grand was ten grand and I’d be holed up on a ship with that body.

  I thought of the black widow. Not the spider but the woman in the paper. Red-headed woman from Canada. I’d looked up Westhope on the map. It was only about five miles from the Canadian border. What if it was the woman curled in my arms? How did she put it – “ten thousand dollars, American”? What other dollars could we be talking about? Canadian dollars, maybe?

  D
isentangling myself from Alice, I climbed into a pair of shorts and checked her luggage. Locked. I went out to her purse, which she’d left on my Formica kitchen table. The contents hadn’t gotten wet and I found a set of keys with two Samsonite keys, a compact, two lipsticks, a small make-up case, a wallet with an Ontario driver’s licence bearing a Toronto address in her name, a library card for the Toronto City Public Library, nine one hundred dollar bills, six fifties, two twenties and nine ones, all American money, and two bank books from Swiss banks – Banca Arras in Geneva and Suisse-Maximilien Bank in Zurich – with no amounts listed, just coded numbers. I also found two first class steamship tickets for the SS Jozinda, destination Rio, and a nickel-plated .25 calibre Para-Ordnance semi-automatic pistol with plastic grips.

  “Para-Ordnance is the only gun manufacturer in Canada,” Alice said as she eased into the kitchen. She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “You’ve found me out.”

  “You’re the black widow?”

  “Black widow? No, silly. I’m Canadian. That’s why I need you to sneak me aboard the Jozinda. I don’t have a passport or visa.”

  I re-stuffed her purse, except for the automatic, and sat at the table. She came and sat across from me and slowly repacked her purse.

  “What about your uncle and your missing father? What the hell was that all about?”

  “I wanted to see if you were up to it. Obviously I liked your looks, your moves in the sack, but could you take instructions? You tried. That’s all I needed to know.”

  What did I say earlier? Lunatic.

  The doorbell made us both jump. Two o’clock in the morning. Couldn’t be good news.

  I hit the buzzer, went into the hall to look down as Frenchy led two skinny guys up the steps. They came straight in, the strangers spotting Alice and pushing past me for her, one declaring, “You’re under arrest in the name of the King.”

  Alice put her hands on her hips. Frenchy almost swallowed his cigarette as he gawked at my naked guest.

  I asked Frenchy, “What King?”

  “King George VI,” said the skinnier of the two strangers.

  “The King of England?”

  “And Canada,” he said, “the entire Commonwealth, in case you’re interested.”

  Frenchy blew out a long trail of cigarette smoke. “These are Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

  “So, where are the red coats?” I quipped.

  “I went over this with you before. These are real detectives.” Frenchy smirked but he wasn’t looking at me. He was checking out Alice’s body parts. I wanted to flick the cigarette out of his mouth but I’d only probably burn my finger.

  “Actually we’re inspectors.”

  What they weren’t doing, however, was inspecting Alice. They did not seem to even notice she was naked as they glanced around the room. What were they looking for? Canadians? What did I expect?

  I couldn’t think of one thing a Canadian ever did. OK, they were at Normandy. Juno Beach. Under British command, they did well.

  “Wait!” I called out. “The black widow? I’ve been canoodling with a black widow?”

  The skinnier Mountie gave me a pained look, moved his gaze to Frenchy and said, “What is your friend blabbering about?”

  “He hates spiders.”

  The second Mountie said, “What’s canoodling?”

  “It means screwing,” said John Stanford, now standing in my apartment door. He smiled at Alice and added, “You are looking quite fetching with your hair all fly-away.”

  The skinnier Mountie took a step toward Alice and declared, “Prudence Francine Greyson, you are charged with embezzlement, grand larceny and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.”

  Prudence? No wonder she used Alice as an alias.

  The other Mountie asked me, “Did she bring luggage?”

  I pointed to the bedroom. “The keys are in her purse.”

  Alice came over to me, her eyes wet now. “You turned me in?”

  She moved to Stanford, pressed her face against his shoulder and began to cry.

  She was good. My old friend wrapped his arms around her as the skinnier Mountie dug the keys from Alice-Prudence’s purse and went into the bedroom. He came right out with the suitcases, laid them on the sofa and started unlocking them while his partner started taking the jewellery off Alice, beginning with the necklace.

  I asked Frenchy, “Could you give me a hint as to what the hell’s going on?”

  He smirked again. “International cooperation of law enforcement officers. You should be taking notes.”

  Besides clothes, and there were a lot of clothes, the inspectors discovered six small bags bound with drawstrings in the suitcases. One bag contained loose diamonds, one rubies, one emeralds, one contained gold jewellery adorned with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, one contained platinum jewellery, equally adorned, and the last bag contained what the Mounties explained were semiprecious stones – garnets, jade, amethyst, opals and blue lapis lazuli streaked with stripes of gold.

  Frenchy put a friendly hand on my shoulder. “You see, your new client-slash-girlfriend absconded with most of the family jewels. Greyson Jewellers of Toronto. Canada’s largest jewellery dealer. Her father owns it.”

  “How’d you put all this together?”

  “It’s real detective work. Wouldn’t interest you.”

  “Humour me.”

  Frenchy went to the kitchen sink, rubbed out his cigarette and fired up a fresh one. “You mentioned a red-headed client who’d sent you on a wild goose chase. They came in with a warrant for a red-headed diamond thief.”

  “That’s it?”

  He actually winked at me.

  “You failed to mention,” said the skinnier Mountie, “we’ve been one step behind her for two months and traced her to your Jung Hotel.”

  “Yeah,” Frenchy admitted. “Georgie Crane tipped us. Said he’d recommended you to her when she asked about a private investigator.” Crane had been my sergeant when I was a rookie patrolman at the Third Precinct. He’d retired and moved on to the Jung Hotel as its hotel dick.

  Prudence Francine Greyson, alias Alice Grey, had stopped whimpering, but was still pressed against Stanford. I watched his wrinkled hands slowly descend from Alice-Prudence’s back to her hips to her ass, which he squeezed.

  She pulled back, brushed her lips across his, said, “Would you like to feel my tits before they take me away.”

  “That would be magnificent.” The old man caressed her breasts.

  “Enough of that!” the second Mountie said. “Why isn’t this woman clothed?” About time he noticed.

  “I don’t allow women to wear clothes in my apartment,” I said.

  The Mountie seemed even more confused, said, “Awfully irregular.”

  “You’ll need to dress her,” the second Mountie told me.

  “I only undress them. You’ll have to dress her. There’s plenty of clothes over there.”

  The skinnier Mountie pulled Alice-Prudence from Stanford’s hands and we watched the two Mounties dress her. She didn’t cooperate too much, but Mounties are hard workers and managed.

  When the Mounties were ready to take her and the suitcases away, I passed Frenchy the nickel-plated .25 calibre Para-Ordnance semi-automatic pistol with plastic grips, which I’d been holding in the palm of my left hand. “Y’all might want to take her purse too. Besides money, there are bank books from two Swiss banks and steamship tickets for the SS Jozinda, destination Rio. And I have two c-notes downstairs she paid me.”

  “Keep ‘em,” said Frenchy. “You earned ‘em.”

  Frenchy grabbed a suitcase while the skinnier Mountie picked up the second one and the other Mountie took the purse and Alice, now handcuffed behind her back. Alice stopped next to me and smiled weakly, “We almost made it, didn’t we?”

  She’d put on fresh lipstick before she’d come out of the bedroom. I hated to mess it up, but what the hell? I kissed her and she kissed back. I told her I’d never forget her. He
r eyes suddenly filled and she sucked in a deep breath before looking away. Man, she was good. I was kidding.

  Frenchy shook his head, asked the Mounties, “How much is that reward?”

  The skinnier Mountie said, “It would amount to ten thousand dollars, American.”

  “And we all know,” Frenchy went on, “cops can’t collect reward money.” He blew smoke in my face. “Since you’re not the real police, you actually qualify.”

  I felt my heart stammering in my chest. As I dressed, I came to my senses and figured this was the best practical joke Frenchy had ever played on me. Reward, right? I’d be thankful if they let me go after I gave my statement.

  The certified cheque arrived from the Ottawa branch of the Bank of England three weeks later in the amount of £5,000 sterling. British money. The real stuff. I called my bank right away and the exchange rate meant I held well over $10,000, American. I stared at the Monlezun for a long moment, a smile creeping across my face with the memory of the long-legged wench. Ten grand and I didn’t even have to go to Rio.

  And that was how I, Lucien Caye, private investigator, solved my first international caper. Well, almost solved. And, to think, it all started with a gleek.

  Slut

  Charlotte Stein

  I couldn’t put a name to him at first. I’m not used to using a name like that for boys. But he is none the less: slut.

  He isn’t a slut in the same way that some guys are – players and bounders and cads. The word “slut” doesn’t quite seem to apply to them. But it applies to him, when we’re in the stationery cupboard together.

  We’re in there, and he smiles his little sly slut’s smile at me. At the time I didn’t know what that smile meant, but I did soon after. I did when he turned around and bent over as though to reach for something on a low shelf, and his bum very obviously pressed into the front of my skirt.

  Not even the front of my skirt. Into my groin. Definitely against my groin. He even had to kind of crouch to do it, because he’s very tall. But he managed it none the less, and I felt those firm buttocks push into the place where my pussy is.