“Thanks, Tag, but it’s still hard not to feel responsible.”
“Believe me, you’re not.”
“So, our last, best lead has disappeared?” John asked.
“Yeah, but at least he might still be alive, so there’s hope.”
“Not much,” Stuart said.
“Look, it’s obvious that we have a major conspiracy here, so it’s only a matter of time before the police come around and drop their investigation of Jessica,” I said, trying to be optimistic.
“Be that as it may, we’re almost out of time. The day after tomorrow John either declares he’s running or not.”
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Jessica pleaded.
“Well, we still have some other avenues we’re pursuing,” I said.
“Anything you’d like to mention? I know I’m not alone here in that I’d like to have at least one piece of good news so I can sleep tonight,” Frank said.
“I think it’s probably best none of you know the particulars at the moment, but my hope is that it will lead to something tangible or, more specifically, someone tangible.”
“Well, you better hope so if we’re going to have any chance of salvaging John’s bid for president,” Jeremy said.
“I think we should start preparing an official statement in case the police decide to make a public announcement that Jessica is the primary suspect,” Stuart, the public relations guy, said.
“We’ll do nothing of the sort. We’re giving Tag two more days to pull a miracle out of his ass. If anyone can do it, he can,” John said.
I was thankful for the vote of confidence, but I hoped I could actually live up to his praise, as I didn’t exactly feel any miracles occupying my anus.
“We do have something positive here,” I said.
“Which is?” Brent asked.
“The fact that they tried to kill Violet and me today means they’re afraid we’re getting close. That means we’re on the right track.”
“Let’s hope so,” Frank said.
“All right then, I believe we’re done here for the moment. There’s no need to drag this on any longer tonight. I’m officially ready for a drink,” John declared.
“I’ll join you,” I said.
“Me too,” Corn added.
The three of us stood and headed for the private bar on the other side of the room, and John set about making a pitcher of martinis. Finished, he handed each of us a glass, and I realized that it felt like old times—except for the whole murder conspiracy thing. I sipped my martini and instantly felt a mild cathartic release, though it would probably only last as long as the buzz. Eventually, I would sober up, and, in that moment, feel a great deal of anxiety for my friend’s predicament. I had already felt bad enough during the first damage control meeting, but now, three days later, I felt even worse having not been able to unearth any physical proof of Jessica’s innocence. Yes, it was obvious she hadn’t murdered her ex-husband, but how in the hell could I prove it to the police?
“Corn, any luck on your end coming up with a possible bad guy?” I asked.
“Not yet, and besides, most of our assets are focused outside the country if you know what I mean. Plus, it’s a little tricky, as we don’t want Sasquatch to appear as though he’s using government assets for his personal problems, but, either way, we haven’t found shit.”
“It’s like we’re up against fucking Professor Moriarty here,” John said.
“Yeah, and this one is not elementary, my dear Sasquatch.”
We continued to drink, and my guilt subsided a bit as my buzz increased. I took a second to look around the room and saw Violet sitting with Jessica and Lux, and the three of them were engaged in an animated conversation and already looked like old friends. That was probably a good thing, as Jessica needed all the moral support she could get at the moment. Violet noticed the ladies were all needing a fresh cocktail, and she stood up and came over to the bar. I refilled their glasses, and, as she headed back over to the ladies, the three of us menfolk watched her go.
“That is the hottest FBI agent I’ve ever seen,” John said.
“No shit,” Corn added.
“So, how is your relationship coming along?” John asked.
“It’s better now. She even introduced me to her parents.”
“Uh oh. Have you picked out a ring?”
“No, but I should.”
“Yeah you should. Join the club, and give up your sordid bachelor ways.”
“Says the guy who’s still technically single.”
“Not for long. I’m going to marry that girl even if she goes to prison, and I end up as a high school shop teacher.”
“Don’t worry. That’ll never happen. You’re not handy enough to teach shop.”
“Not true. I made a chopping block once.”
“Declaring a two by four a chopping block doesn’t count.”
“Bullshit. You could totally cut the cheese on it.”
“Yeah, but not without getting splinters in your butthole.”
“True, but regardless, I’m going to marry that woman—splinters and all.”
Suddenly, the girls glanced over in our direction and gave us a strange look that seemed to hint that they were talking about them. Fucking women had the most powerful radar on the planet. It could cover vast distances, penetrate the thickest lies, and uncover even the most minute details, and, with that in mind, all three of us did our best to clear our minds and stare back dumbly. It appeared to work, because they soon returned to talking.
“Phew, that was a close one,” John said.
“Yeah.”
A moment later, Rex came to the bar for a drink.
“Spare a martini?” he asked.
“Of course. Anything for a fellow soldier.”
I handed Rex a glass and noticed he had a bandaid on the back of his hand.
“Anything serious?” I asked, pointing at his hand.
“Not unless you call getting slammed into the coral serious.”
“Surfing or body boarding?”
“Surfing.”
“You any good?”
“Apparently not.”
We all laughed, then I topped off Rex’s glass.
“It’ll help with the pain, and, if your hand gets infected, you can always pour it over the wound.”
“Well, thanks, medic,” Rex said, as he turned and rejoined Frank.
Eventually, everyone decided that we desperately needed to go to the restaurant and eat something before all of us got completely trashed, and so we headed downstairs and managed to get an enormous table that was reserved for private parties. Even better, was that it was completely open on the side facing the beach, and it allowed us to enjoy the warm tropical breeze coming in off the sea. The weather in Hawaii was always changing, however, and by the time dinner arrived, a rain squall had blown in off the dark Pacific. Back home in Sausalito, that might have been a pain in the ass, as it meant getting soaked as I walked from my car to my houseboat. Here, however, it was warm and welcomed as a brief respite from the heat, and it made the tropical night that much more magical. We finished dinner, and everyone slowly excused themselves to retreat to their various rooms, and Violet and I were left standing alone at the patio’s edge as we looked out into the rainstorm.
“You staying over at my place tonight?” I asked.
“Damn straight.”
I started to turn to walk back inside, but Violet pulled me back.
“Let’s go through the courtyard—it’s faster.”
“It’s also pouring down rain.”
“Yeah, and what do you think might happen to this dress if it gets wet.”
She had a point. I therefore smiled and stepped out into the rain, and my clothes instantly started getting soaked in the deluge. She followed, and we made it as far as the pool, when I looked over to see that Violet’s dress was now clinging to her skin and making quite a show of her dark hard nipples.
“W
hat did I tell you?” she said.
“You were right. This was definitely the way to go.”
I suddenly felt the very real urge to kiss her, and the rain poured down over us and made Violet feel like a port in a storm and her lips my refuge. We entwined our tongues, and with every second, my desire grew out of control until my heart was pounding and pumping ever more blood into my gentleman region. Violet could feel it pressing against her, and she ran her hands down and slid off my shorts and freed Tag Junior from his nylon prison, thus allowing his full length to fly free and proud in the stormy Hawaiian night. I, in turn, reached up and slid off her dress, and her body now lay bare and glistening in the soft ambient light of the nearby pool.
I kissed her lips then neck and soon felt her guiding my mouth down to her breasts, where I ran my tongue over each delectably hard nipple. Violet gasped in pleasure then took hold of my manhood and worked it fastidiously until it was as hard as carbon steel. I lifted her up and carried her to a nearby table, and she reached down and guided my member unto her glorious lady region. I pressed in and out with a slow, purposeful intensity, and the pace allowed us to entangle our tongues as I reached out with my hands and ran my fingertips over her nipples then reached down and took firm hold of her buttocks and pulled her hips into mine. The pleasure was steadily growing in intensity, and it caused me to quicken my pace, making each thrust a little faster and harder than the one before. We both started calling out, and the table was moving violently and scraping against the deck, but, thankfully, the rain was blanketing the sound of our coupling and enveloping us in a cocoon of privacy that felt as though it was providing refuge from the world at large.
Minutes that I wished would go on for hours passed, and I could feel we were both on the cusp of sweet release. I took hold of her breasts and cupped each nipple between a thumb and forefinger then kissed her and instantly felt her nails dig into my back, thus telling me in her own special way that it was time. I continued to thrust and grind with every ounce of remaining strength until we ran headlong into the most intense mutual orgasm I had ever experienced. My mind was lost to the moment, and our mighty screams of pleasure were carrying out over the Pacific and probably even reaching Japan. I never wanted the moment to end, but the eventuality of our mortal failings could not be postponed any longer, and I relaxed and looked into Violet’s eyes as I delivered a long passionate kiss. We parted lips but remained biblically entwined, with the only sound being our pounding hearts and the falling rain. Oddly, I heard the slurping sound of a straw reaching the bottom of a drink and looked over to my left and saw that there was an older couple in the Jacuzzi a mere ten feet away. They were both slack jawed and staring as they sat there with their tropical cocktails in their hands.
“Oh, hello, folks, are you the couple that called the front desk and asked for a public sex act?”
“Um—no, but we did enjoy the show,” the woman said.
“Great, because tips are always welcome.”
“Can we bill it to our room.”
“Absolutely, now if you don’t mind we have to get cleaned up for an eleven p.m. show in the Wiki Wiki Room. Good evening,” I said.
Violet and I left the pool and reached my room to find it was thankfully free of the D&D contingent. We went straight into the bathroom, showered, then got ready for bed, as it had been a hell of a day followed by a hell of a night. It was therefore nice to finally climb into bed and relax, and Violet snuggled up against me, and I gently ran my hand over her back as we lay there in the darkness. There was always something magical about the last few minutes before you fell asleep, as it was often a time of great clarity—and especially after coitus, but tonight I was troubled. My mind continued to process all the events of the last few days, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I was missing. Regardless, exhaustion eventually managed to overcome unease, and I put it all to rest and fell asleep feeling ever hopeful that I might find answers in the day to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Sand Man and the Boner
I WAS SUDDENLY brought awake with a jolt, and I lay there with my heart racing as I tried to process what had just happened. I had been having an anxiety dream in which I had been back in Afghanistan, and, oddly, I was reliving the last five minutes of the time I rescued John. I was carrying him over my shoulder and was almost to the rescue helicopter’s door when I was hit by the AK round. During the actual event, my adrenalin had been running so high that I hardly felt the impact, but in the dream it was so vivid and painful that it brought me awake. Interesting. I wonder what made me go back and live that particular moment? Perhaps it was the fact that now, like then, I was saving John’s ass. Back in Afghanistan, I had been successful in spite of various setbacks—the bullet being the most obvious—and, this time, like then, I certainly had plenty of setbacks, though hopefully there wouldn’t be another bullet.
I lay there and tried to go back to sleep, but my mind was restless with anxiety, and, oddly, my scrot-sense was tingling, though it wasn’t because of any immediate or perceived danger. Instead, it seemed to be originating from this case, and somewhere deep in the recesses of my subconscious, there was something I was missing. I finally decided to get out of bed and throw on my shorts and a T-shirt then quietly slipped out of the bedroom to make myself a small cocktail to settle my nerves. There was a lot riding on me at the moment, so going back to sleep wouldn’t be easy. I walked over to the little bar, poured myself a glass of rum, then went over to the lounge and sat on the couch. The nerd’s D&D game was laid out before me, and I glanced down at their various character sheets and laughed to myself when I saw Rachel’s. I was the person who brought her and Beebs together, and now I desperately hoped that my matchmaking skills would work out for John and Jessica as well. With nothing else to do, I opened my laptop and combed YouTube until eventually finding an episode of a long cancelled gun show on the Discovery Channel. In it, an all American family owned a gun business, though I, and most of their male audience, watched the show in order to see the particularly attractive busty mother and daughter as they fired their various weapons while wearing short shorts and tight shirts. These shots were usually done in slow motion, and the result was a rather lovely show of the effects of reverberation rippling through their ample bosoms.
I sipped my drink and waited in earnest for a slow motion shooting segment, and, in the interim, saw some sort of confrontation between two of their gunsmiths. The result entailed one of them firing an old Henry rifle into a small test chamber. The chamber was virtually identical to the one Walther had in his workshop, and the weapon, to the relief of the gunsmiths, fired without incident. The show moved on and at last came to an obligatory slow motion boob gun scene, then the credits rolled, and I closed my laptop and decided to take a little walk to clear my head and perhaps even do a little investigative work.
I slipped on my thongs, left my suite, and walked over to the room where Jessica had stayed on the night of the bachelorette party. I looked at my watch, turned, and started making my way towards Steven’s room by following the exact path that Jessica had allegedly traveled the night of the murder. I entered the lobby, hit the button for the elevator, then looked up to see the clock directly beside the security camera and remembered that Jessica had done the same thing in the video. While I waited, I pulled out my iPhone and took a little video of myself looking up at the camera, and I finished it by saying Beeber massages my balls with his chin. I decided to play it back and laughed when I watched my wacky ending, and so I decided to play it again just for the hell of it, and something in the video made my scrot-sense tingle. I couldn’t get my head around what was causing the sensation, so I stored it away and was hopeful that it might eventually make its way out of my subconscious.
The elevator doors opened, and I walked in and rode up to Steven’s floor before exiting and heading to the other wing of the hotel. Upon reaching his room, I looked at my watch and saw that it had taken roughly four
minutes and thirty five seconds. I walked back to the elevator and, while waiting, glanced out of the adjacent window and saw that the rain had stopped. The pool was now very visible in the courtyard below, and it made me think about Violet and our earlier adventure. It also made me think about something she said—namely that the shortest route from that side of the hotel to ours was to go straight across the middle. It was a very obvious point and something I should have already considered. The hotel was more or less horseshoe shaped with Steven’s room at one end and Jessica’s at the other. I therefore went back and decided to retrace a new route between their rooms. Starting at his front door, I went down the nearby stairs, walked across the courtyard, and entered the other side of the hotel to climb the two flights of stairs to reached Jessica’s door. I looked at my watch and discovered that it was indeed faster—a full two minutes faster. I was suddenly very intrigued as I pondered something even more interesting—namely that the alternative route also bypassed all of the security cameras.
The killer, in walking through the hotel and using the elevator, was either incredibly stupid or very intent on being seen. Jessica Thurman was not stupid, nor did she want to end her future husband’s political career, and so, if she had actually wanted to kill Steven, she would have done a hell of a lot better job. This was yet more annoyingly obvious evidence of a staged murder, and, filing away these new revelations, I started walking back towards my own suite then came around the corner of the main lobby to see the janitor and his cart full of cleaning supplies. He was just dipping his mop into the bucket as he was obviously about to clean the floor. He looked up and smiled, and I nodded and returned the gesture then moved on to stairs and ran up the final few to reach the next floor. I opened the door and saw a figure directly in front of me and was so startled that I screamed like a little girl. Recognition quickly set in, and I realized the stranger was Violet, and she was not amused.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” Violet asked angrily.
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