Food was being served all around me and in spite of my overall impression of this joint; the smell streaming past on the steaming trays from the kitchen was making me hungry. I stopped another circulating cutie wearing a yellow orchid in her hair, ordered another beer and a menu. She snatched a loose copy off the bar and I scanned the choices, while I waited for my next cold round. I didn’t intend to eat here, especially a full course dinner, but the pork dinner combinations appeared to be a sure bet as a house favorite from what I could see others were eating. Maybe I’d grab something here after all, before I left tonight.
I tossed the menu aside, took a sip of my fresh beer and glanced at my watch. It was later than I expected. I was startled by a shadow crossing my table and glanced up. This dish had silently floated over from somewhere in the main dining area and stopped in front of me. I slid back, stood up and was greeted not by Ruby as I expected, but another smiling oriental knockout. She was unusually attractive, more so than Ruby or any of the others I’d seen drifting around this room tonight. She looked more Eurasian than pure Oriental. A beautiful light olive skinned combination of something exotic that you couldn’t classify and didn’t want to.
She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, sophisticated and from the way she approached my table, carried it off with a touch of arrogance. Her shiny raven black hair was swept across her shoulders, cut off straight above the eyes and left loose and lively in the soft candle light when she moved her head. Her sparkling eyes and gleaming white teeth were set in a face meant to fall in love with. After one look, I was halfway there. This doll wore no over the top makeup like all the others. Slightly oval almond shaped dark eyes, gently arched accented eye brows and flaming red lipstick on a puckered mouth, hinted at a tantalizing dame that knew how to use her assets, possibly as your worst weapon. Her well-proportioned body was intriguingly packaged in a skin-tight black oriental silk dress custom designed to discretely expose her breasts. Decorated with embroidered full-length golden dragons entwined from front to back, it was slit to mid-thigh on one side, exposing perfectly proportioned legs. She was balanced on black stiletto heels high enough to give you vertigo just looking. From whatever scent she was wearing; maybe sandalwood or lavender, she was intoxicating.
Before she’d even spoken a word, I knew this was one dangerous dame. She had a hint of everything imaginable; every mystery of the orient, from tantalizing sex, to anything illegal, immoral or toxic. It was all wrapped up in one ravishing package, including your trip to the city morgue … if you weren’t careful.
She was balancing a black slender cigarette holder like an ice pick with a dab of shiny red lip stick on one end, the other tipped in gold, contained a smoldering cigarette. When she spoke, her mellow seductive voice took me by surprise. It drifted in my direction like an unexpected ocean fog rolling across the deck of my boat at sea after dark, foretelling a disaster lurking … dead ahead.
“Mr. Thornton? I heard you were in town tonight. I’m so glad you decided to stop at Shanghai Ruby’s,” she said, then breathlessly continuing without a pause. “I’ve heard so much about you. We finally meet. I’m called Jade, Black Jade, but my friends call me Noir. Please do.”
“Just call me Matthew. That’s black in French, isn’t it? Nice, I like it … suits you.”
I offered her my hand. She shot me a guarded smile, not sure how I meant the compliment, and extended hers for me to grasp. It was smooth and cool to the touch, like a reptile in the grass and I didn’t hold onto it for long. I had a strong feeling this babe would be a challenge to connect with. Her dark eyes under those arched eyebrows were locked on mine like two Cobras on high alert and made me feel uneasy, especially her comment about knowing ahead of time I was coming here tonight.
I pulled out the chair and she sat across from me, tapping out the ash on her cigarette in the ashtray, never losing her composure. This Noir babe was a smooth almost bloodless character all right and knew how to hold her cards. I glanced over her shoulder toward the bar and blockhead was locked onto both of us like a magnet, watching and waiting for our next move. I’d have to be cautious around here; there were too many eyes and ears following me tonight starting with him.
I tapped out a Lucky for myself and snapped a light from one of the courtesy packs on the table. It was a mirror to the match pack in my pocket that I’d picked up at the Blue Parrot. “I was hoping to speak with Ruby. We were very close at one time. Is she here tonight?”
“She told us about you many times. So sorry to tell you, Matthew, but Ruby is no longer with us.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Noir. Maybe I’ll speak with her another time.”
“I do not think so. She died in San Francisco. I am her daughter.”
I was shocked and disappointed with this news of Ruby’s death and had never heard her speak of this dish before either. This evening was already taking a strange turn, and I began feeling uncomfortable.
I blew out a stream of smoke towards the ceiling and said, “I-ah…a didn’t know she had a daughter.”
From the surprised look on my face, she read my mind and decided to fill in the pieces, no doubt selectively. “Actually, I am her adopted daughter, but that is another story for another time. My sister and I were brought back to the states from China several years ago when we were young. Now I own Shanghai Ruby’s. My sister Pearl is called Apricot Blossom. She also runs a massage parlor and curio shop not far from here in Chinatown, where they sometimes play Mah Jong in the back parlor. You might like to attend?”
I nodded, smiled politely, lied and said, “I might,” and tossed off the last of my beer.
I wasn’t the least bit interested in getting my rod oiled by a masseuse, shopping in an Oriental junk shop, or penny-ante gambling at board games with old-timers. It was probably a front for illegal activity anyway, which I’d uncover when I had more time. However, it did sound intriguing.
I could see this wasn’t going to be easy obtaining the information I needed. I didn’t want this lead to dry up before it even started, so just played along. I had a feeling it would be difficult to get her to open up with something I could use without a lot of foreplay in the diplomacy department. I hoped I was wrong. I might have to escalate my persuasive tactics.
“Would you join me for a cocktail? I’ll have another beer, also.”
She didn’t hesitate and said something serious to a passing oriental waitress in Mandarin. I’d been to the Orient and knew enough to understand that what she ordered was straight forward. No funny business with loaded drinks, at least not yet anyway. Instead of the flowered waitress delivering the drinks, blockhead quickly appeared at our table with a deadpan expression, delivering some concoction for her in a tall glass covered with one of those miniature bamboo umbrellas and a brew refill for me.
I watched the way she sipped her drink slowly and deliberately. She quietly observed me at the same time, like she was sizing me up for something I wasn’t planning. My beer was a safer drink than one with alcohol and tasted okay. She moved very cautiously with calculated gestures measured just enough to throw you off balance. She held her sleek black cigarette holder poised like a weapon in a pale slim hand of red lacquered nails sharper than talons. On the index finger on her right hand, she wore a black jade ring large enough to bust down a door. That I didn’t trust and had seen smaller, that contained enough poison to drop a charging bull. Those deep dark snake eyes of hers darted back and forth across my face like a serpent’s tongue testing the air to find out what I wanted. She was playing the smooth Oriental game of forcing me to show my hand first before divulging too much information herself. I’d played that game before with Ruby, so was onto her. First, I’d order some dinner and then work my way in slowly from there.
She suggested we move into a side booth reserved for VIPs that was quieter and more secluded, where she would join me for dinner. She directed me to the one with a semitransparent bamboo bead covering over the opening, adding to the illusion of privacy. Once settled inside in the semicircular booth, we were just as private and comfortable as if we’d nestled into a private room of our own. She sat close but preferred an angle facing me, close enough to allow her leg to casually touch mine.
In between courses of dinner, Black Jade presented a vague history of Ruby with her involvement in the Tong takeover in San Francisco’s Chinatown and her death from an explosion in a friend’s restaurant that she was visiting about a year ago. She and her sister’s rise to power afterword’s in L.A., and this Shanghai Ruby’s supper club was then set in motion. Both girls were originally bought from a Geisha training temple where they learned the subtle arts of pleasing gentlemen. She alluded again to her sister’s business, the Full Moon House of Pleasure, in Chinatown L.A., if I was interested. It became apparent that they were offering illegal gambling, probably also selling dope as well as prostitution, and who knows what else.
What I really wanted to know was about the elusive Frank Murphy and what he was doing at Shanghai Ruby’s with his blonde girl friend and the brunette Ava G. look-alike. That was still a mystery. She knew nothing about the subjects and clammed up when questioned.
We’d finished eating, and I realized I’d struck out with this dish. Her well of information was vague at best, and only if it concerned nothing, I was really interested in. I was planning to call it an evening when she made a final proposition, which I suspected was on her agenda right from the beginning.
“Matthew, I think it’s time for us to get a little better acquainted, don’t you?” she said, giving me a sly, coy smile with a raised eyebrow and stubbing her after-dinner cigarette out in the ashtray. She’d kicked off one of her stiletto shoes sometime during our meal and punctuated her suggestion with a raised foot planted firmly between my legs, her toes manipulating my responsive … her intended objective.
Naturally, I rose to the occasion, but didn’t trust this babe. Especially after the sketchy background details, she’d reluctantly fed me about Ruby’s demise and the particulars concerning her sister’s probable illegal operations in Chinatown. I’d let it ride. I knew where this latest play was going and had to be cautious. I might wind up as a side order of chop suey for ignoring the warning signs.
“I have my own private apartment located upstairs. I know we can be more comfortable. You can explore Noir’s most intimate pleasures in harmony. You see.”
It wasn’t spoken so much as a request but more as an assumed decision that would be mutually agreed upon without question. She expected me to follow blindly, but I wasn’t falling for it. I noticed she’d cast a sly deliberate glance in the direction of blockhead the bartender when we exited the booth. He nodded back to her that he understood the meaning of her gaze and reached for a telephone sitting on the counter behind him to make a call.
I was prepared myself. Something unexpected was in the wind as we threaded our way through the crowded main dining room towards the back. She led me down a private, darkened carpeted hallway that had an overpowering odor of pungent incense. Other closed rooms of possible pleasure were situated on either side, and I envisioned the action going on inside. I walked close to the doors listening but couldn’t hear anything from inside the rooms as we passed. Maybe it was too early, or maybe they were just storage rooms after all.
She led the way. I held a hand rail ascending a steep dimly lit stairway. It was covered in a plush red carpet deep enough to get lost in. Other than some muffled rhythmic clicking sounds, like a hidden metronome mirroring her ascending footsteps, we moved silently upward, unspeaking. The sway of her shapely hips and posterior from my position below was intoxicating. It was a maneuver she’d undoubtedly practiced, guaranteed to lure the unsuspecting, blindly into a spiraling vortex with the possibility of no return. Each stair step upward was executed with calculated precision, knowing her shapely legs in high heels and tight slit skirt held my attention without question.
I glanced behind me numerous times as we proceeded and squeezed the heater in the shoulder rig under my left arm. I was relieved we hadn’t been followed, stopped or interfered with, but that didn’t mean my eyes were closed. We reached a second-floor landing with a darkened unfriendly hallway leading to what looked like adead-end at the other end. The whole place was gloomy, quiet and cool as a morgue on a Monday morning. We passed several closed doors painted a shiny lacquer black before reaching another closed door, this one painted in shiny red lacquer. I cast a momentary look upwards. For some reason, maybe the height of the ceiling, I felt there was another floor or an attic crawl space above. Black Jade ignored my observation. She unlocked her private apartment entrance with the red door and stepped inside. I cautiously followed. Turning on the lights from a side wall switch, it illuminated a room decorated in colorful Oriental imported furnishings, both stylish and expensive. An over-powering smell of jasmine or other incense permeated your senses upon entering. Carved jade knick-knacks in a variety of colors, ivory in abundance, blue and white glazed jars and other intriguing pottery,hand-carved statues, and other trappings in every size, shape, and colorful design were neatly arranged everywhere. Semitransparent lanterns in orange, reds, and yellows hung from the ceiling. Multicolored tapestry chairs and a sofa with a black lacquer coffee table inlaid with abalone shells with matching end tables and lamps were arranged neatly around the room. The main living room was larger than my entire apartment in L.A. And more lavishly furnished. An ebony-colored standup bar embedded with decorative dragons of abalone shells and matching lacquer stools sat off to one side, waiting for a visiting guest. A teakwood dining set sat off to the other. An assortment of other teak furniture sprinkled in between glowed in the warm ambiance and mood of the room. This place was too opulent for an over-saloon apartment. It must have been set up for a professional business of some kind and gave me the jitters.
She offered me something a little stronger than the beer I had been drinking downstairs as an after-dinner aperitif. A snifter of cognac sounded right for the occasion, but I wasn’t fooled by it either. I decided to take a chance. I watched her hands carefully pour out two snifters from the same bottle. It was a relief she didn’t pull any funny business when she took a sip from hers first. We made ourselves comfortable on the couch, smiling, chatting amiably about nothing, and sipping our drinks. I was still prepared for foul play on her part and playing it cautious.
After another round, raven hair suggested we’d be more comfortable in her adjoining bedroom. I took a look behind her. More teak, dresser to night stands. The walls were plastered with oriental dragons. This time, inlaid mother of pearl set in panels ofhand-carved teak. The subdued lighting from the surrounding night stand lamps was quickly replaced with numerousincense-laden candles she lit while floating around the room.
I watched as she methodically removed her jewelry and placed it in a hand-carved jewelry box. Then she slipped off her high heels and slithered out of her black dress, followed by her bra, black lace panties, and stockings with more practice than a snake losing its skin. She arranged them neatly on a side chair and turned slowly towards me, proud of her body. She was a beautiful eye-full, all right. I set my cognac snifter aside on a night stand and stripped off my own clothes just as fast, tossing them onto another chair near hers. She slipped close and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her warm naked breasts against my chest. Looking up into my face with her dark, dangerous eyes was like peering into a crystal ball and seeing the other side.
Her body was a vision of perfection from her firm, full tilt-up breasts to her body’s smooth lines in exact proportions. She was built like a sleek thoroughbred without an ounce of anything extra out of place. Her tongue darted deep into my mouth like the serpent she was. We backed up to the bed, anxious for the main event to get started. She didn’t want it tomorrow, and neither did I. I glanced skyward again and didn’t like what appeared to be mirrored reflecting tiles situated in the ceiling. There were more around the room walls, maybe for an audience. I didn’t think so, but from where I was standing, I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Ruby say you like Shanghai Squeeze, yes?” she whispered in my ear. Her hand slipped below my waist and, smiling coyly with raised eyebrows, gripped my throbbing egg roll. “You lie down on back. Noir show you best, okay? I be back in minute,” she said, moving away behind a decorative screen, not waiting for my response.
She stood in front of the adjacent dresser mirror, where I could observe her movements. After admiring her reflection, she ran both hands slowly and sensuously over her body as if self-stimulating foreplay. Then, parting her legs, she retrieved two intimately placed shiny spheres, carefully dropping them onto a circular glass jewelry tray. They made a familiar clicking sound as they rolled together, touching the inside rim. Satisfied with her preparation, she returned, smiling. Anxious to continue her way, she faced me with my back to the bed.
I had other ideas. “How about we take another direction on this, doll?” I said.
She looked disappointed and wanted to object but didn’t argue. This dish was no novice to any mattress scene. She’d be able to cover the bases regardless of which direction we took, but sunny side up or down was not an option I wanted to debate. I wasn’t going to face upwards towards the reflective mirrors under any conditions. Maybe just an old con game, but I wouldn’t fall for it.
I spun her around, facing away from me, and bent her over the edge of the bed with my hand firmly placed on her back. She didn’t need more instructions. She grasped the covers in tight handfuls, eagerly spreading her legs and cheeks wide. I stroked her slowly and deliberately with my extension. She felt smoother than a piano’s keyboard, and I was anxious to tickle her ivory. She purred with my touch, undulating side to side in anticipation. Her love nest was moist and an anxious target for my field cannon. I moved my troops forward.
She rotated her hips several times , anxious for my deep intrusion, moaning with that deep, lusty voice I’d first heard tonight and groaned, “Ride me, Matthew, and hard.”
I entered her smoothly and carefully, taking it slow at first before working her up into a passionate rhythm. Twisting and pumping, we were soon both on fire. She grasped and regrasped the bed covers, desperate for a sprint to the finish line. Once I rounded the final turn, I drove her faster and smoother than speed shifting a super-charged Cord into top gear.
“Yes … yes, that’s it,” she groaned in another gritty tone of ecstasy. “Harder and dee-per.”
Her hips and pelvis gyrated smoothly in time with the thrusts I was generating like a primed oil well ready to strike the promised load. Little drops of perspiration beaded on her back, blending with the pool of sweat dripping from my forehead.
This dish was a thoroughbred all right. She knew what she wanted right from the beginning, and so did I. She’d obviously seen plenty of action in the past and been ridden hard at some of the major tracks but still rated the winner’s circle. The only thing missing for this filly was a riding crop for that extra push over the edge. She might have liked it, but she wouldn’t need it. I had something else in mind.
She was now breathlessly racing for the home stretch in a passionate frenzy. As we neared the finish line, I reached forward and grabbed a fist full of that black mane with one hand and with the other, slapped her firm silky buttocks, producing a startled yelp and instant red welts. The sharp, stinging, cracks were loud enough to drive her into another level of raw, unfettered ecstasy. She didn’t flinch or back off. Instead she reached back, digging her claws into my thigh, rough enough to draw blood. She was relishing the punishing ride. I responded, grinding against her naked buttocks, hammering harder than a ten-ton trip hammer banging out license plates in the big house.
That was just the edge she needed, “Now, now … I want now,” she pleaded, gripping my stallion in her vice-like snatch with that one final, well-practiced, over the top Squeeze she’d been saving for a photo finish. It was good, very good, anyway you looked at it and we both knew it.
After uncoupling, we collapsed on the bed, hot and sweaty. She crawled forward and slipped halfway under the cool sheets. Leaving her tantalizing body partially exposed from the waist up, she reached for her cigarette holder. I lit one for both of us. Instead of sliding in beside her, I reached for my clothes and began getting dressed.
“You like, Matthew? I make best, don’t you think? I learn very special,” she said, puffing on her smoke and caressing one breast sensuously trying to sell me on an encore. She began working the other hand below stimulating herself again under the sheet. To sweeten the offer, she rimmed her cherry red lips with a wet tongue hoping I’d fall for it.
This dish was tantalizing and she knew it … but, I wasn’t buying more. It was time to move on.
“You not going to lie down on bed beside Noir?” she said in a little girl voice pretending to frown and tapping the sheets beside her, trying for a replay.
“Sorry, sweetheart, got to go.”
“You hot? You like to take shower instead with, Noir?”
“Not now, baby. I’ll get cleaned up later.”
I took a final sip of my Cognac and fired up a Lucky. She sipped her Cognac and laid back against the pile of pillows her tousled, black mane of glistening damp hair sweeping across her shoulders, dark eyes sparkling in the flickering candle light.
Maybe she was anxious to have my hands running over her body again or was she just stalling for time? I gave some serious thought to planting another smoldering kiss against those puckered lips and caressing her breasts peeking over the top of the covers, but I resisted. After seeing another bulge in my pants, she was clearly disappointed to see me planning an exit, but seemingly contented with our brief encounter anyway.
“Ruby was right about you, Matthew. It’s not exactly the way I planned it, but we were good, weren’t we? Will I see you again?”
“I’m not sure, baby. Depends on a lot of things blowing in the wind right now, maybe.”
I exhaled a cloud of smoke from my cigarette, blanketing the shiny tiles on the ceiling, then stubbed the butt out in the nightstand ashtray and finished my necktie.
I was purposely vague and wasn’t comfortable hanging around here any longer. The setup wasn’t right, and her answers to most of my questions earlier were purposely evasive. The jury was way out on this dish, and I had a lot of digging to do for the right answers to match some of my suspicions before she and this Ruby joint were in the clear. But one thing was right on target, she was one “sizzling dish” in the sack in spite of my reservations. A return engagement? Maybe, if I only got lucky here tonight. What did she really have in mind for me? For that, I’d eventually have to wait for the right answer.
I said, “Adios” to this cupcake and kissed her once more. In spite of her frowns and moans that I was bailing out so soon, it was time to head back down to the Black Swan at the Anchor Marina in San Pedro for a little serious shuteye. I had another big day planned and needed an early start from this side of town. I left her lying back in bed, closed the door quietly and entered the darkened hallway.
I hadn’t reached the stairwell yet, when blockhead unexpectedly exited one of the adjacent rooms to Noir’s and approached me with his usual scowl, crowding my path.
“You took her from behind, didn’t you?”
“None of your business, blockhead. Ah- ha … I was right. You must have been peeking through those mirrors,” I said with a grin. “Disappointed I didn’t fall into your photo trap, too?”
I gave him a nudge to shove him aside, but he was big and bulky. I also remembered this moron was one of Ruby’s faithful enforcers in the old days.
He mumbled a confused excuse about observing our bedroom performance and added something about how he never liked me when I was with Ruby either. He was close enough to observe the battle scars creasing my face and wasn’t intimated. Stubbornly insisting in crowding my space in the narrow hallway, he wasn’t finished letting off steam either.
I’d had enough of this lug and dropping the grin said, “Back off dog breath … out of my way.” I gave him a push on the chest up against the wall.
He was still closer than I liked. From the way he’d been looking at us downstairs, I knew he’d been jealous of Noir’s interest in me and wanted a showdown. It wouldn’t work out the way he planned.
He didn’t say more. But, from the determined look on his mug, I knew he’d take a swing and try to take me down. It was a tight hallway and I couldn’t get out of the way in time. He tossed a short throw and I stepped aside, catching his glancing blow on one shoulder. We grappled. After deflecting his next telegraphed punch, I drove a sharp knee upwards into his groin, smashing his balls as hard as I could. He dropped his arms and grabbed his crotch instinctively with both hands to prevent another blow. I followed that up with a two-handed clap to both ears, ringing his chimes loud enough to hear back in China. He screamed in pain. I could almost hear his eardrums blow, but this loser was a big lug and far from finished.
He was partially out of commission and going to need another round of softening up before I was done. I had to work fast. Instead of pasting him with a round house swing like he deserved, I gave him a short-range elbow smash across the bridge of his nose. It snapped his big head backwards, smashing it into the wall hard enough to dent the plaster. He collapsed down the wall like a deflated gas bag, spattering blood on the floor from his busted nose, obscuring his vision. I stepped over the bleeding loser, cupping his ringing ears to silence the bells and groaning in pain from the smashed snout.
I still wasn’t finished with blockhead. Before leaving, I dropped another well placed knee into his ribs to remember me by, then grabbed my hat off the floor, adjusted my tie and took the stairs down and out to pick up my heap in the parking lot.