Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #8

by Marvin Kaye

  I put the sequin top on. It fit snugger than I thought. I mean, man, you could see everything. Clarence didn’t want me wearing a bra. I’m pretty well-built. Twenty-four inch waist and a thirty-eight D cup. My hips are wide. It fit tight. I put my pea coat over it.

  I went into the main bar area. The three slobs were gone from the bar and a tiny lady was sitting sipping some drink with a flower in it. I didn’t even know we made those. I mean this job I got like a week ago, studied the bartending manual a couple of nights at home and never did get to the part of making a drink with some damn flower in it. Probably plastic. I could hear voices in the inner office. Clarence musta heard me come out of the bathroom.

  “Get in here, sweetheart,” he yelled in.

  I slid back the greasy curtain separating his office from the main area. There was a pool hall on the other side of the bar, but I never think about that because I never have any reason to go back there. I just forget it. Maybe when I’m in this job longer I’ll be going back there to serve drinks or something. I walked into his office. I’d been there before when he hired me, but it looked smaller at night. No window. That always makes a space look smaller.

  Clarence was sittin’ in a swivel chair behind a big desk which took up most of the room and had a land line phone and lots of papers and shit on it. It faced the entrance. Clarence loved to lie back in the swivel and put his feet, crossed of course, on the table top. Made him feel important, I guess. Behind him on the cork board wall were fight posters. Now, I never knew Clarence to be a fighter or a fight fan, he never mentioned anything, but like I say, I’ve only worked here a week. A tiny red-shaded light gave the only light in the room, a pale cherry color.

  Clarence didn’t look like no fighter. He was built like a fire plug. Small head, big trunk, short legs, short arms. Put on a green top and he could have gone to a Halloween party as an avocado. I had to smile when I thought of that, but I’m sure he thought I was just being sweet. He looked steady at me as I came through the curtain.

  “You changed?” He said, sitting forward and putting his elbows on the table. He was smoking a cigarette and it was down to the last ash. Stank up the whole room.

  I opened up the pea coat. He sat forward and laughed out loud.

  “Show Mr. Willfield here, will ya, baby?”

  I turned, holding my coat flaps open.

  “This is Mr. Bob Willfield,” he said, nodding his head to the far corner of the room where there was no light.

  I looked over. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear someone breathing real loud, like they were a smoker. I was surprised I hadn’t heard it when I came in. Then as my eyes got used to the dim of the room, I made out a small fat guy in a black or grey business suit, it was hard to tell in the dark, wearing a tie on a dark shirt. He had on real shiny shoes that laced up. His hands were folded over his paunch, the fingers locked together like a guy who’s resting back after eating a big meal.

  I let my coat flaps close and cupped my hands over my eyes to focus.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” Bob said back. “Call me ‘Bob’ honey. I like to be called Bob.”

  He had a deep, real melodic type voice. Like someone you hear on a radio. “You got a real nice body, honey.”

  “You two get going,” Clarence said, like he owned me. I was startled. I looked at him and for a second I couldn’t move, like when someone you kind of like shouts at you and you didn’t realize they had that in them.

  I turned and walked out without answering him. I just went back into the bathroom, found my skirt and put it on. I looked in the mirror. My grandma’s heart necklace was around my neck. It’s the only thing she left me when she died. Of alcoholism, they said, but it was because her husband ran off twenty-five years earlier. Women don’t get over that easy. I was debating if I should keep it around my neck. It was kind of personal. I don’t see why I should share that with this little fat Bob. I put it in my purse.

  I hung my uniform up so it wouldn’t wrinkle. You have to pay for your uniform yourself, but if you have no money, like, hell, I don’t, Clarence takes it out of your first week’s pay. Twenty-five dollars. I walked out of the bathroom. Philie was sweating over the hot water washing glasses and she didn’t even look up at me when I came out. I pushed the curtain aside.

  The fat guy had moved the visitor chair and Clarence was gone.

  “For a second there, I thought you had left,” Bob said.

  I nodded. There weren’t any other chairs so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now. Then I saw it. Five lines on some newspaper and the little fat guy grinnin’ like he’d discovered his dick. He’d rolled up a dollar bill and held it out to me. I looked at the little fat guy. He gave me a side glance. Like he was shy or hiding or something.

  “You’re gorgeous,” he said. “Come here, take a snort, huh. Show me how it’s done. Make me feel at home.”

  I took the rolled dollar bill.

  “Kneel, baby,” Bob said.

  He kept that frozen grin on his face. If I’d had a gun I would have shot it off there and then. I knelt down and the desk came up to my chin. So I couldn’t stay kneeled or I wouldn’t be able to snort the blow. I kind of crouched. I snorted a line, wiped my nose, and licked my fingers and then automatically handed him the rolled up dollar.

  Bob took it real careful and put it at the edge of one of the lines. Then, like it was his first time, he snorted the line real slowly. He looked up at me, wiped his nose with his fingers and licked off the rest of the powder. Mimicking me. Maybe he was trying to make me feel at home and maybe he was playing me, I couldn’t tell yet.

  Then he took a bottle of Jim Beam and two shot glasses out of his briefcase lying next to the chair and put them on the table. He poured two shots and handed me one. I took a sip. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew that was going to be the end. Then he did something I really didn’t expect. He took out his wallet and handed me five hundred dollars. In hundred dollar bills. I took them. I folded them and put them in my purse. Now I knew that purse wasn’t going out of my sight. Jeez, that amounted to three weeks work, minus the tips. I usually get pretty good tips.

  Jeez, oh jeez I was happy. I smiled at him. I felt like he’d given me a million dollars in cash. Ma would be out of her mind with glee, man. I make ten dollars an hour and if I get shitty tips, the whole week’s ruined.

  I took another sip of the Jim Beam. The bourbon was going down good. I was feeling that buzz that usually meant I was lightening up. I forgot the little fat guy was even there. He put his paw on my ass. I shook it off without thinking. Creep.

  I looked down at the little fat guy taking up the entire chair with his bulk. He just kept looking at me. I pulled my hair forward so I’d look like a blond Indian princess in that stupid off the shoulder top with my hair falling down to my waist. I leaned over and blew in the little fat guy’s ear. I was beginning to feel frisky. I was feeling real ‘frisky.’

  The little fat guy looked up at me and for the first time I could see his eyes didn’t match. I started laughing, like I was having a ball, but I was really laughing because his eyes turned outward. One eye looked out one way; the other looked out the other way. I thought he was from a Steven Spielberg sci-fi movie or something. Close Encounters of the Weirdo Kind. The guy didn’t know what I was laughing at so he started laughing, too. There were two lines of coke left and I scraped up one. He did the other.

  Then I sat on his lap and put my arms around his neck. Things were getting a little blurry, but I was feeling warm and that buzz-click I get on shit was working kicked in big time. I could feel he was hard. And he was sweating.

  I wasn’t supposed to be driving. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get home. I knew it was a one-time thing, though. I told myself I’d be back in an AA meeting tomorrow and just say I slipped. Everyone slips. Keep coming back. That’s the motto.

  “I’d like to take you out tonight,” the little fat guy says to me. “Give you a good time.”

&
nbsp; “Why can’t we have a good time right here?” I ask.

  “There’s no room, here,” he says. “I have a big Mercedes 500 outside.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say, starting to feel real mouthy. “You got a driver, too, I guess.”

  “No, I let him off for tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah? That was real nice of you,” I said, and then I just kissed him on the mouth. I opened his lips with my tongue just lightly and smoothed the kiss off. I wiped his lips with my forefinger in case I got lipstick on them. My hair was flowing over his face. He pushed it behind my ear.

  Then he gets up with me in his lap. He puts me down. He comes up to the middle of my chest, I swear. But I can see in the dim red light that he is wearing an expensive suit. His tie tack looks like real gold. He looked expensive. Small, but expensive. I swore tomorrow I’d hit a meeting. In fact, I’d even do two of ’em, AA and Narcanon.

  He put his hand under my arm and led me out the back door. I swayed into the parking lot, and just like he said, I couldn’t believe it, there was a big ol black four door shiny Mercedes. No other cars in the lot. He took me over to it and opened the driver’s side door.

  “Why don’t you drive, sweetheart,” he says to me.

  “Look, I’d love to, but I can’t drive when I’m high like this. I had to sign a contract with my PO that I’d never drive when I had something to drink,” I said.

  “You signed that, huh?” He said, nuzzling into my chest. He was making me sick. Men always thought they could manhandle you just ’cause they had money. He unhooked the bustier in the back, pulled it down enough to nuzzle my cleavage.

  “I’m a pretty important politician around here. If anybody bothers you about driving tonight, I’m going to get you off, what do you think about that?”

  He’d pulled the bustier clean off and shoved it into my purse. I was worried about the money. I didn’t have a wallet. I had just folded it and put it in there. The purse was huge with a top zipper. I felt it with my hand. He’d zipped it up. That was nice. He was sucking on my left boob. I pushed his face away real gentle and pulled the pea coat over myself. He slid his hand up my thigh. I pushed his hand away.

  “I’m just a little tipsy,” he said in his low, creamy voice. “I don’t want to drive like that. You drive, baby. Just down the freeway to this great hotel I know in Newport. It’s got a view of the harbor and in the morning we’ll have their Sunday brunch. Would you like that?”

  I don’t know why, but I thought about my little kid—my boy. That’s just how I lost custody the last time. Trusting his stupid father. “Just down the freeway,” Tim, my ex, had said. I’d do anything for Tim. He was six two with blond hair and he worked out at the gym everyday. Even in prison he used the gym. He had respect for his body. But the last time I was with him I was driving and some cop pulled us over and did the breathalyzer test and all that crap and I’m the one that gets busted.

  Five years, one inside and four on probation and then I take this stupid, dumb, ridiculous drunk driving class in rehab and all anybody did in there was play cards and when we went back to our rooms we drank. And somebody snuck a lot of drugs in there. I just smoked the pot. It calmed me down.

  When I got out of that rehab, the judge made me promise not to drink and drive again. But Tim got me drinking Southern Comfort and sure enough I get busted again, and that’s when all hell broke loose, they took our son away from me and he got put up for adoption, which now I’m grateful for, and I get this song and dance and the judge and lawyers and my sponsor all got me signing some contract that if it happens a third time and anybody gets hurt, I get twenty-five to life in a penitentiary. What a crock. I have an addiction.

  I got in the driver’s side of the Mercedes. I’ve never even been in one, much less driven one. It was nice. Tan leather bucket seats. A gorgeous wood panel, all the radio and CD stuff. A big console separating the seats to hold drinks and your stuff. Man. It was beautiful. The steering wheel was made of wood. Polished wood.

  The fool gets into the passenger seat and smiles at me. His eyes smiled, too. Individually, of course. I muffled a laugh. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  “Let’s not put on the seatbelts,” he says. “You’re a good driver, aren’t ya?”

  “Gee,” I said, real sarcastic. “Why no seatbelts? We gonna have fun?”

  He showed me how to start the thing. Push a button. I pushed the button. The engine made a low roar, a rumbling. It sounded like the Indy 500. I put it in drive. He put his arm up and opened the sun roof. The sky was really black. No stars. The moon showed bright through the hole of the roof. It was beautiful.

  I could feel the fuzziness in my head subside slightly, so I knew I could drive. No problem. We weren’t going that far. I turned left out of the parking lot onto the two lane street. In the ’burbs there’s never enough street lights. No cars were coming in the opposite direction though. The bright blue clock on the panel said one fifteen. Boy it gets late fast.

  He put his paw on my leg again. This time I didn’t push it off. Tim used to do that. He loved to rub my upper leg back and forth. It was supposed to get me hot. It didn’t. I just hate people pawing me. I stared out the windshield. The houses on either side were little one-story bungalows jammed together. I heard a dog barking from somewhere in the neighborhood, but not close. If he’d been close I would have slowed down. I’d hate to run over a dog. I’d never forgive myself.

  The little fat guy pinched my boob. On the outside. I would have pulled over if he’d put his paw underneath my shirt. Not while I’m driving.

  A black sign, which was probably green in the daytime, said the interstate was just up ahead. I got on the ramp and blew the red light. My head was feeling really watery now. I felt like laughing, but I was also getting a little paranoid wonderin’ what this guy was expecting. I don’t do kink of any kind. He pulled out a flask from that expensive suit and shoved the open bottle under my right arm and right into my nose. I took the flask and took a long slurp. I kept my eyes on the highway. Then he pulled the flask out of my hand and I could hear him slurp. Two slurps and then it must have been empty because I could hear him screw on the little cap and put it under the seat.

  Tim always had booze in the car. I get blamed and Tim was the one with the booze. Probably ’cause I’m a woman. After my boy was adopted out, Tim felt safer. He made love to me more than he ever had before I had the kid. He said he wasn’t sure he could make love to a woman who’d given birth.

  Bright lights were coming at me from the other side of the freeway and I slowed. My head was spinning and I felt like throwing up. I prayed I wouldn’t. Clarence would fire my ass for sure if I fucked up this trick. The fat little guy’s talking real low with that mellow voice he’s got, but I swear to God I have no idea what he’s saying and I can’t really hear him good anyway because I’m feeling so high.

  The Mercedes must have been swerving because somebody honked and yelled out the window at me. I was hoping it wasn’t a gang or something. There’s drive-by shootings in L.A. I smiled and gave the person a thumb’s up. Real nice. Then I burped. I hear the fat little guy laughing. At me. Now he probably thinks I will do anything for him ’cause he’s got me driving his big, black, fancy Mercedes. He’s so rich and powerful. Oh, lucky me. I should have gotten a thousand dollars for this gig. Why did I accept five hundred?

  My mouth tastes funny. Dry and sticky inside. My breath must stink. I love it. Good. I hope my breath stinks. That made me smile. The fat little guy must have thought I found whatever he was jawing about funny, cause he leaned into me, put my hand on his crotch, pulled my head back and started really kissing my cheeks and my hair, saying some more shit about how great I am.

  I pull my hand away. The hard-on’s gone. I kind of push him back and he gets nasty. I mean real nasty. He slaps me up the side of my head and I see stars and bright shards of light. That mixed with the booze and the coke, I’m really feeling sick. My lane is clear, though. I’m in the middle la
ne. No cars jammin’ in front of me. Down the road I see a truck, it looked like a Fedex truck on the shoulder of the freeway. I can never tell how many feet or yards something is.

  I change into the slow lane. I hear him yellin’ at me, but I swear I can’t hear what he’s saying. Something about it being too soon to get into the lane. My head was spinning and the front of the car looked longer than I knew it probably really was. Like it was stretched out too far in front. The bumper felt like it was twenty feet long and the lights from the freeway began to blur into one really bright white light. It was hurting my eyes.

  I feel him grab my hair again. Tim used to grab my hair. I push his hand away. I hear someone yelling. I realize it’s me. I don’t know what I’m saying, but somehow my mind takes me back to the ambulance speeding down the freeway to the hospital to deliver my son. I can hear myself calling out for Tim. I’m beginning to feel like I did then, when they took me to the emergency room. When the baby was coming too early.

  The little fat guy pulls my head down to his lap and I feel his flesh. I’m gonna throw up, but I try to swallow it back. I’m really feeling sick and the car’s swerving back and forth not helping matters at all. I can hear cars honking, lots of honking in the distance. I pull my head back up and we’re practically on top of the Fedex truck. It came up so quick. I look over at the little fat guy and he’s got this mean look on his face. I figure I’m in for a beating.

  The Fedex truck is like real close on the shoulder of the freeway. I can’t see anybody in it. I slam my foot on the gas as hard as I can and swerve the car toward the truck. I hear the fat guy yelling, but he sounds far away. The passenger side of the Mercedes smashes right into the back of the van. The car is practically cut in half long-wise. The car slams to a stop. I’m okay. I smell smoke and I look over at the fat guy. He’s bleeding from the top of his head down his shirt. Lots of blood and white stuff gushing out and his left eye is open and wandering. He’s making little jerky movements. He’s not making any sounds. Fire has started on his side of the car. I was thinking the front panel with all that wood will really light up. I look up to the sun roof and it’s puckered, but completely open. Like a woman’s lips when she’s angry. I lift my hand and see they’re dirty with soot.