A 3rd Time to Die

by George A Bernstein

  "Do you live nearby?" she whispered huskily, animal excitement rasping her voice. "Can we go to your place?"

  "I live way up in North Miami Beach. Can we wait that long? D’ya live off campus? A roommate?"

  "Yeah, and the roomy’s no problem." She pressed tightly against him, arms around his neck, her fingers playing in his hair.

  "She's spending the night at her boyfriend's."

  "Swell. We’ll take my car, and pick yours up later. I can’t tear myself away from you, even for just a few minutes. I've waited so long to be with you… this chance to fulfill my destiny!"

  Jodi stared at him quizzically, charged by a sudden flutter of anxiety. What a strange thing to say! It almost sounded as though...

  She thrust fleeting doubts aside, reveling in the obsessive behavior she ignited in men.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Angie drew her to a stop next to a shabby blue Ford, generously decorated with dings and scratches. Her confidence wilted, uneasiness again assailing her. He shrugged, grinning, running a hand over the badly oxidized finish.

  "Not a thing of beauty, is she? She’s my surveillance car… something no one would notice. I came directly from work, not expecting to really meet you. I should've gone home for the Mercedes. Can’t judge a lady by her looks, though, ‘cause this baby runs smooth as a top. "

  Jodi's budding concerns eased. Yet she was again assailed by a ripple of indecision. Was she really considering a roll in the sack with a stranger, however alluring? He’d been a total gentleman, putting no real pressure on her. It was her own ardor she struggled to corral… and losing the battle.

  “You look apprehensive, Jodi. Look, I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you into something…”

  "No, it's Okay.” She thrust a gag in the little inner voice, whispering caution to her. What could go wrong? And he’s so hot!

  “My place is less than a mile."

  “Good. I’m glad you didn’t change your mind, ‘cause I’m really looking forward to having a glorious time together.” She shivered.

  He made it sound almost like a religious act. How exciting to be deified!

  Angie held the door for her, holding her hand as she slid in. Closing it, he leaned through the open window.

  “You know, you’ll be my first… love… since I’ve been set free. You can’t imagine how eager I am to begin again.” He stood back, then circled the car, as she wondered…

  Recently divorced? And I’m his first. Wow!

  Slipping into the driver's side, he reached over, strapping her in. They kissed, his hand trailing across her breast, over her flat stomach, finally resting on her thigh with a gentle squeeze.

  Coming up for air, she gasped, her heart tripping over itself.

  "Go south on Dixie,” her voice a horse whisper. “I'll show you where to turn."

  She planted a quick, hard kiss on his lips.

  “I can hardly wait.” He said, starting the car. An almost wicked grin flickered across his lips, kindling another tickle of doubt. What the Hell was she doing? She really didn't know this guy. Was she so horny she’d screw the first mature stud that looked good to her?

  Well, he acted like a gentleman… a damned sexy one. At least he wasn't a weirdo. If things didn't work out, it’d just be a one-night-stand. He did seem special. Very special! And she was so hot! Everything would be fine. Probably better than fine. She could handle herself pretty well, too, if things got out of hand.

  Self-reassured, she directed him to a parking spot a half block from her apartment. They walked the difference, hand in hand.

  "We'll have to be careful. My landlady's not too happy about guys in our rooms, but she's hard of hearing, so it should be easy." She studied him again, a shiver of nervousness rekindled.

  She was about to let stranger jump her bones. She was rarely so impetuous, but the cumulative excitement of the last weeks had her so charged, she couldn’t control her own rampant lust.

  Sure, Angie was different… a real man. Not some college punk. Anyway, she was too turned on to chicken out now. It was going to be Okay.… probably the fuck of her life.

  So she justified what, in her heart she knew may be a mistake, fueled by an ardor always difficult to keep under tight rein. Everything was happening too quickly.

  Pausing in front of the four-flat building, she turned, gazing at this rugged, sexy guy, hesitating, still battling indecision.

  Hell, they were just heading for a wonderful romp in bed. It wasn't like he was forcing her. She wanted it just as much as he did. What could go wrong?

  "I'll see what’s going on with the old lady. I'd like to avoid any hassle with her, if I can."

  "Hey, I don't want you getting into any trouble, but I don't think either of us can wait. We’ll go somewhere else, if you think…."

  "No. It's Okay. If she hears us, just be quiet and try to make yourself look smaller. She doesn't see that well, either."

  "I'll be like a ghost. Good thing her hearing's not good, though, 'cause my heart's pounding like a bass drum."

  She smiled and planted a quick, warm kiss on his lips. Feeling better again, she skipped lightly up the steps. Opening the outer door, she peeked inside, then beckoned him. He took the stars two at a time, joining her on the stoop. Pulling her to him, he nuzzled her hair and neck, kissing her lightly on the ear. This was perfect. Just perfect! He trembled, clearly seething with an impatient equal to hers.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They sped through the doorway into a little foyer, heading for the stairs.

  "Quiene va?" a shrill voice cackled from the room to their right. The door was slightly ajar.

  "It's Jodi, Mrs. Ramos, from 2B."

  "Who wit you?"

  "Gloria, my roomy. Just the two of us, coming in for the evening."

  "Okay.. Buenos noches."

  Grabbing Angie's hand, they raced up the stairs, turning left at the top. Five quick steps brought them to her doorway. She turned, giggling and looking radiant. He swept her up in his arms and their lips fused, tongues fencing, their bodies aflame, quivering deliciously.

  "Wait. Let me…"

  Hands shaking, she fumbled with the key, finally springing the latch. Slipping inside, he kicked the door closed, again snatching her close in a steamy embrace. Four hands roamed freely with busy fingers, exploring the firm fullness of her body, and the lean hardness of his. Electricity stormed every nerve, sapping strength from her legs.

  Finally breaking away, she dragged him across the room.

  "C'mon! In here. I'm too horny to wait a minute longer." She was dazzling, glowing with the heat surging through her. His eyes consumed her, as if photographing the memory.

  Spilling into the bedroom, he frantically snatched at the buttons on her blouse.

  "Wait! Wait!" she panted, shoving away his hands. "I’m gonna undress you and then treat you to a sexy strip. To set the mood.”

  “I don’t need any extra encouragement, beautiful.” Groaning softly, his tongue darted between lips as she twisted, spinning from his grasp, arms raised and intertwined above her head.

  “You'll love it, baby. I promise it'll be worth the wait."

  A hungry smile split his lips. His magnetic dark eyes devoured her, and he nodded, as if answering an inner voice.

  Avoiding his questing grasp, she slowly unfastened the buttons of his shirt, moving around him like an ethereal forest nymph. Slender, red-tipped fingers lightly stroked his chest. Teasing kisses peppered his neck, chest and belly. She slipped behind him, stripping away his shirt, snuggling against him tantalizingly while unfastening his belt.

  He was still as a bronze statue as she unzipped his fly, pulling down his pants. Crouching in back, her hands constantly fluttered over him with butterfly wings. Finally, slipping to her knees, she lowered his boxer shorts as her long nailed, perfect fingers trailed up and down the insides of his thighs, fleetingly caressing what had grown there.

  Deftly fending off his clutch, she gently shov
ed him into a sitting position on the bed. Jodi stood, feet spread, hand on her hips, her tongue darting across smiling lips.

  She began swaying, hips undulating with an ancient provocation. She unbuttoned the last of her blouse, teasing him with fleeting views of her luscious breasts. Pirouetting slowly, when she faced him again, the thin silk top was in her hands, covering those lovely mounds. She swayed erotically in place, slowly uncovering one then the other. Her nipples were large and fully erect. His midnight-dark eyes glittered with a smoldering, almost maniacal passion.

  Wonderful! I'm driving him absolutely crazy. This is going to be so-o-o perfect. I can hardly wait!

  She eased down her short white skirt. She twirled once more as her sheer bikini panties quickly vanished. One last twirl, giving him a full view of the woman he’d bargained for. Pausing again, hands on hips, she arched her back, naked perfection… Aphrodite incarnate.

  Caution long dismissed, she enveloped him, kissing, licking, stroking them both into a frenzy. His mouth, tongue and hands devoured that glorious body, as they whipped each other into a wild froth. Flipping around on the bed, she took his hardness greedily into her mouth, as his tongue licked and sucked her, drinking in her freely flowing juices. They were on the verge of a wonderful madness.

  "I can't wait… any longer! I need that… big beautiful thing… in me… now! Condom?"

  “No worries,” he said. “You’ll never get a disease from me.”

  “Oh, shit! I never…. Promise you’re not…”

  “Yeah, yeah. No STD’s from me, babe. We gonna do this?”

  “Oh, damn, can’t stop now.”

  Panting, flooded with passion, she crawled over him, straddling his body, taking his iron hard spear slowly into her. Then she started to move, rocking back and forth as she raised and lowered herself, trapped him in a wet, velvety grip.

  "Oh, God! I'm coming already," she wailed.

  "Oh, God! Not so soon! Please! Not so soon! Oh, God!"

  "Yes! Me, too. Fuck me! Oh, fuck me, whore! Fuck me, while you call to God. Too late… to redeem yourself. Oh, Lord, forgive me the pleasure! Arggghh!!"

  He exploded, his fingers gliding across her hips, her thighs, her breasts, as his release ignited hers, filling her with mind-numbing ecstasy. In a corner of her brain, submerged by the shuddering glory of her climax, a thought bloomed.

  He’s talking dirty, but… so strange. What’s he trying to say? Lost in the throes of her orgasm, the full impact of his passion-slurred words didn’t register.

  His hands stole higher, caressing her shoulders and neck, sowing ridges of goose-bumps. She barely heard his murmured words, his tender tone belying a dangerous message.

  "Wanton whore! Immoral harlot. Now it is God calling for you! Pray you find redemption at his side."

  Still trapped inside her, he began hardening again as he drew her closer. Kissing her breast, then her lips, as his roaming hands gently circling her neck. Still trying to make sense of his words, raw ardor clouded her thoughts as his thumbs caressed the lines of her jaw, stealing tantalizingly down the front of her neck.

  Smiling whimsically, his lips lightly brushed hers, followed by a gentle sigh. Suddenly those thumbs were rigid posts, boring into her windpipe, his grip tightening like a vise.

  Jodi gurgled, prying at his wrists, clawing weakly… ineffectual efforts casually thrust aside. His black orbs glittered, his lips twisted into a cruel smile as her cobalt eyes bulged, filled with terror.

  “Don’t!” Her voice a hoarse whisper. “You’re hurting…”

  Shit! I shouldn’t have... Her hands fluttered, the wings of a crippled bird, body going slack. Her karate brown belt meant nothing.

  Angie Dedios drew her close to his breast, the vise of his hands never relenting, as he planted a gentle kiss on her forehead.

  “Listen and you’ll hear him. Your journey to glory awaits you.”

  Her last, fleeting memory in life was his final three words, ringing in her ears...

  "The Lord calls!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The patrol cruiser careened down a dark, narrow alley, ricocheting off one wall, then bouncing off the other. Its siren pulsed, an ear-piercing wail, echoing off a massive stone barrier looming ahead. The car was out of control, about to annihilate itself against that impenetrable pile of rock. He clutched the wheel, pumping the brakes with no effect. He tensed, boring backward into the seat, bracing against what was surely his impending death. The repetitive squeal of the klaxon echoed off the towering brick canyon, as if summoning him…

  …And he lurched awake, groggy and disoriented. Fumbling in the dark, cursing under his breath, he groped for the insistently trilling phone, surely the siren in his dream. There was a jangling crash as he knocked the noisy contraption onto the floor.

  "What the fuck time is it?" Al Warner muttered, as he scrambled for the hand piece. Shaking away cobwebs, his eyes focused on the LED of his clock radio: 5:40 AM.

  "Yeah?" he growled. "Whatizzit?"

  "Al? Is that you?"

  "What other asshole'd be answerin’ this fucking phone at this hour?"

  "Hey." The voice was indignant. "That how you talk to your boss? You still asleep?"

  "Not anymore.” He sighed. “Sorry, cap’n." Warner perched on the edge of the bed, stifling a yawn, knuckling sandy eyelids.

  "I was asleep, and havin’ one Hell of a scary dream. What's up?"

  "Good, then, that I woke you. Anyhow, we got us a murder over near the U of M. Strangled coed, maybe raped. CSU's on the way. Get your ass down there before someone fucks up the crime scene. I get real nervous about a campus murder, ever since Gainesville."

  Detective Alan Warner, now fully awake, turned on the night-stand light, scrambling for his note pad and pen. He copied an address and the few details Captain Santiago had. Hanging up, he stretched, trying to loosen the dream-cramped muscles in his back and get his still sleep-fogged mind into gear.

  Damn! He needed coffee. Hadn't had a good night sleep in at least a week. Those Goddammed crazy dreams. The doc said he was fully recovered. Physically, maybe, but he never had nightmares like these before. Post-traumatic stress over crazy Leordano, Doc said.

  Stripping off sweat-soaked pajamas, he hurried to the bathroom. Tepid water from the “cold” faucet splashed across his face did little to dispel the remnants of sleep.

  He grunted. One of the few things he missed from his childhood in Illinois was cold water from the tap.

  Warmer’s fingers sought the still slightly throbbing right side of his head. Close-set, dark-brown eyes examined the area above his right ear in the mirror, tracing the three-inch-long furrow, well hidden now by his unruly mop of curly chocolate hair. The dull ache, always seeming amplified by the nightmares, was beginning to fade. His slightly hawkish face, usually ruggedly pleasing, was a crumpled road map, seamed by occasional scars earned over the years at his hazardous occupation.

  He looked wrung out, but so many weeks without a real night’s sleep can do that to a guy. So what? He didn’t think he was anything special to look at, except maybe when he went running on South Beach. He had a compact, well-muscled physique, the rewards of vigorous rehabilitation after the Leordano fiasco. At forty-two, he was in the best physical condition of his life.

  He slipped on tan cargo-pocket slacks and a beige short sleeved cotton shirt. The weather was getting cooler, as it did most falls, but never cold enough for Warner. In the kitchen he mixed himself a large mug of strong, instant coffee. Grabbing two chocolate doughnuts out of a box on his counter, he examined them for ants. Lucky the little bastards hadn't found these yet. As an afterthought, he stowed the box in the refrigerator.

  Then he was out of his cookie-cutter town house, pausing only long enough to toss Mrs. Beecham’s Miami Herald up against the foot of her front door. Any steps he could save those 87-year-old arthritic hips was a moment well spent. She had no immediate family nearby, so he always made time to run errands for her, however busy his
schedule. She frequently rewarded him with plates of scrumptious brownies.

  Speeding along the freeway, he avoided using his siren, as traffic on I-95 was light at that early hour. Making good time, he arrived in his green Camaro at 6:25. The street was jammed with two patrol cars, the morgue meat-wagon, and at least one unmarked cop car he recognized.

  Warner hated being the last at a murder scene. Too many ways for eager amateurs to screw up evidence. And the average street cop was an amateur when it came to homicide. In his haste to park, Warner's tires crawled onto the sidewalk.

  Fuck it.

  Jumping out of his coupe, he flashed his badge at the officer guarding the door of the two-story yellow stucco building. Warner hurried across the brown tiled foyer, finding another policeman slouching against a doorjamb of one of the downstairs apartments. A constant singsong lament poured from the open doorway.

  "Madre de Dios. La pobre nina. No en mi casa! Dios, no en mi casa! La pobre nina. Madre de Dios!"

  Warner looked at the cop, his eyebrows arched. The young officer grimaced.

  "The landlady. She found the body. Sneaking around, checking on her tenants, I guess, and saw the open door. She's freaked." He gestured toward the stairs with a toss of his head.

  He raced up, two at a time. The door to his left was open, where a small, scruffy guy was studying the carpet. Warner spotted two pairs of eyes peering through a barely ajar door of the other apartment on the floor.

  Witnesses? That’d be a change. He dropped crouched next to a diminutive man, kneeling in the doorway. tech, spawning a small groan.

  "Hi, Moe," Warner said. "Findin’ anything useful?"

  "Nope. Just getting warmed up, detective. Finished with the stiff, though. What a dish! One good look at her, and you're might get a little stiff yourself." He stood, proffering his hand.

  "Glad you’re back on the job, Al. Not enough good men in Homicide to let a guy like you sit on the sidelines."

  Warner nodded to the short, pencil thin chun little man, round-shouldered from years of hunching over lab tables and microscopes. Maurice Gold was an unlikely looking cop, , almost a dwarf , with thinning, light-brown hair and a bushy little mustache. Thick, shaggy eyebrows hovered like wings over a huge, hooked, Semitic beak, one of the things earning him the nickname, "The Hawk." The other was that his piercing cocoa eyes rarely missed even the tiniest detail. Dressed in a crumpled, tan polyester suit, he seemed innocuous and bumbling, until , unless you were happened to notice the subject of quick intelligence in his intense s crutiny brown eyes .