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GERTIE’S HAND RESTED on the door handle as she and Marge stood at the entrance to the Swamp Bar. Even with the door closed the smell of beer, whiskey, cigarettes and sweat invaded the nighttime air. Ida Belle was waiting on the dockside in the boat in case they needed a quick getaway. Marge glanced down at Gertie’s hand, noticing it was making no effort to open the door.
“Everything okay?”
Gertie glanced at her. “Two things on my mind, actually. Did Ida Belle seem slightly off to you this evening? A little distracted?”
Marge nodded. “She’s always like that after seeing her dad. I wouldn’t worry about it. What’s the other thing?”
“You aren’t taking any ERA petitions in there with you, are you?”
“Didn’t bring one. Besides, who in there would I get to sign it?”
Gertie shrugged. “A bunch of drunk men, that’s who. Drunk men who would take one look at you in that pink skirt and sign anything you put in front of them.”
“You can check my purse if you don’t believe me.” Marge tried not to smile. She had thought of it. She figured she could get about 20 to 30 signatures.
Gertie laughed. “Who do you take me for, Marge? It’s in your bra. That way when you take it out to have men sign it, the sight of your hand reaching inside your bra will make them extra stupid.”
Her friend knew her well. Marge stuck her hand inside her bra and pulled out the petition. Gertie grabbed it and stuck it in her purse. “Good try, though.” She pulled out her lipstick and dabbed at her lips. “Now, stand still. You could use a good touch-up yourself.”
Gertie added a swipe of lipstick onto Marge’s lips.
“I hope it’s Buster’s night for drinking,” said Marge.
“From what I’ve heard, every night is Buster’s night to drink.”
When Gertie opened the door, the smell of drunken humanity intensified, as did the volume of the country music on the jukebox. Marge glanced at the dance floor and saw a man with his arms wrapped around a woman in a skirt almost as short as hers. Almost. They both swayed to the music, the guy clearly operating with several shots under his belt. The woman swaying with him seemed to be taking advantage of the opportunity and lifted his wallet from his back pocket. Normally Marge would intervene with a pickpocket, but the way the man had his hands clamped on the gal’s behind as if he were kneading fistfuls of dough, she figured the woman should be justly compensated.
It didn’t take but several seconds before heads began turning their way. Men and women.
“I think we have a couple of ‘professional’ gals here tonight,” Gertie said, scanning the crowd.
Marge agreed. “And they don’t look pleased to see us.”
“Watch your back,” Gertie warned. “We’re the competition. And something tells me those gals don’t give a rat’s nest about the sisterhood of women.”
One man caught sight of Marge as the bartender was handing him his shot of whiskey. He sat frozen as the glass slipped right through his hand and landed on the bar.
The pink skirt had that effect on men.
Gertie leaned into Marge and whispered, “It’s your lucky night. Buster’s playing pool at the middle table. Red T-shirt.”
Marge nodded.
“I’d like to die right now and come back as your hot pants.” The statement came with a whiff of cigarette and beer breath. Gertie and Marge turned to find a muscular, balding man in his forties, his bloodshot eyes firmly planted on Gertie’s cutoffs.
“You believe in reincarnation, do you, Muscle Man?” Gertie asked him.
He looked up at her, bewildered. “Reinwhat?”
“Well, Pickles,” Marge said, using the name Gertie had chosen for the evening. “I’ll leave you two kids to your metaphysical discussion. I’ve got some socializing to do.”
“See you around, Lola,” Gertie said.
Marge made eye contact with several men lined up by the pool tables, each one pushing the other out of the way to get a better look at her. She was surprised their eyeballs hadn’t fallen out of their sockets and joined the pool balls on the tables.
She sauntered over to them just as Buster was about to take his shot.
“Don’t scratch,” she said in a husky voice as he attempted to shoot the four ball into the side pocket while avoiding the eight ball in its path. He glanced up as Marge leaned into the table. She could feel the weight of her boobs filling her tube top. His eyes widened. Marge smiled as he absently took the shot and inadvertently knocked the eight ball into the side pocket to the laughter of the men watching the game.
“I said, ‘Don’t do that,’” Marge said to him, winking.
He looked back down at the table and, noticing he’d just lost the game, cursed. Marge pointed to a man wearing a T-shirt featuring a beer drinking alligator. “You, Gator Boy. You going to stand there with your jaw mopping the floor, or are you going to offer a lady a beer?” His eyes lit up as he raced over to the bar and ordered a bottle of beer.
“Mind if I give you a few pointers?” Marge asked Buster. He grinned as several men hooted.
“I’d say you’re already giving me a couple ‘pointers,’” Buster said, licking his lips.
Gator Boy returned with Marge’s beer. She reached for it and he shook his head. “Uh-uh. What do you give me for it?” He puckered his lips at her.
“Watch what you ask for, Mikey,” a female voice said, “you might end up with a bad case of something.”
Marge grabbed the beer from Mikey’s hand and glanced over to the source of the voice, which came from a gal in her late thirties. Tight red dress and straight blonde hair halfway down her back. The gal ran an arm around Buster’s waist and kissed his neck.
“Not now, Baby Doll,” Buster said to her. “This lady here was about to give me some additional pointers.”
Baby Doll shot daggers at Marge. The gal looked like she’d fold pretty easily in a bar brawl, but Marge never liked to contend with a girlfriend. This was definitely a complication.
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MUSCLE MAN’S HANDS held Gertie tightly around her waist as they danced to “Stand by your Man.” She’d already slapped his hand once as it strayed south to her rear. “Can’t blame a man for trying,” he’d said at the time with a sheepish grin. He wasn’t bad looking for an older guy, she thought. In fact, he seemed downright normal. And he didn’t seem totally sloshed, either. She could see them meeting in some other locale, say a bakery in Paris, one she’d been to on leave and them hitting it off.
Until...
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “How much?”
She stopped dancing and pulled away from him. “For what?”
“Uh...” He shrugged and scanned his eyes from her crop top to the bottom of her cutoffs. A horrified expression crossed his face. “I didn’t mean... it’s just... would you like a drink?”
She followed him to the bar. It was obvious he knew he’d stepped in it, and if he wanted any chance of some action later with her, he’d have to make nicey-nice. A perfect time for Gertie to pump him for information about the baseball cap.
“You really hurt my feelings,” Gertie said to him.
He handed her the beer she’d requested. “I didn’t mean what you thought I meant.”
“What else could I think?” Gertie asked. She took a sip of beer, a slow sip, one that included licking a drip of beer that had started to slide over the edge of the bottle. Like any innocent girl would do. Except a little slower. Gertie could swear she’d just heard him gulp. “You’re just like all the other men in this place.”
“Oh now, Pickles, I’m different,” he said.
“Hmmmph. Last week I was in here and a man came up and totally disrespected me. You remind me of him, exactly.”
“Pickles, I do respect you. What’s the guy’s name? I’ll have it out with him.”
“I don’t know his name, but he was wearing a baseball cap with an Atlanta Braves logo on it.”
Muscle Man shrugged. “Atlanta Braves? Coulda been anyone. Anyone but me. Not a Braves fan.”
“This man certainly wasn’t a gentleman, that’s for sure. And neither was that other man I met. Wade Guillory was his name. Gave me the creeps.” Gertie figured if Muscle Man didn’t know anything about the baseball cap, perhaps she could feel him out about the murder victim.
Muscle Man looked around the bar as if he didn’t want to be overheard. He leaned into her and whispered, “The guy who was murdered a couple days ago?”
She feigned surprise, holding her hand over her chest. “Oh my, murdered?” she whispered back.
He nodded. “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but Wade Guillory was a blockhead.”
“Did he come in here much?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? See that little room over there?” He pointed to a room around the corner of the bar, obscured from full view by old fashioned “batwing doors,” the kind that marked the entrance to western saloons. “That’s the club meeting room.”
“What club?”
“Anything you want to call it. One night the car club meets there, another night the hunting club meets there. There’s also the fishing club and the motorcycle club. The owner rents the room to whatever club wants to meet that night. But they’re not talking cars or hunting or fishing in there.”
“They’re playing cards?” Gertie asked.
He nodded. “You’re quick, Pickles. And Wade Guillory? He was in the fishing club and the hunting club. Fishing club is meeting tonight.”
“You think one of those men in there might have wanted him dead?” Gertie asked.
“I doubt it. From what I heard Wade lost more than he won. Why would you want to kill the guy who keeps losing to you?”
Gertie took a swallow of beer. “Maybe one of those men caught him with his woman. Wade had a wedding ring on when he had his paws all over me.”
“That’s all in the past, Pickles,” said Muscle Man, brushing his finger across her cheek. “Let Dickie help you forget Wade Guillory and the man with the baseball cap.”
“Well, Dickie, I’m a lover of mysteries. And now I’m intrigued by who would want to kill Wade. I don’t know if I can think of anything else. And I bet you anything he was cheating on his wife.”
He shrugged. “Anything’s possible. I heard a couple of the gals in here talking about him.” He nodded toward a group of three women sitting at a table together. “Let me see if I can remember what they said.” Muscle Man screwed his face up in thought. “You know, I can think clearer in my truck, away from all this noise. What say we go out there and sit in the cab and brainstorm?” He placed his hand on her back. She felt it go lower. And lower.
“No no.” She reached behind her and removed his hand. “Pickles hasn’t given the green light just yet.” She turned to the bartender and ordered three bottles of beer. “And put ‘em on Dickie’s tab.”
Dickie smiled. “Whatever floats your boat, Pickles. If a few beers will help loosen you up, go for it.”
The bartender placed the three longnecks on the bar and Gertie grabbed them by the narrow tops. “What floats my boat right now is saying goodbye to you. Thanks for the beers. I’m sure the ladies over there will enjoy them.” She headed for the table of three women, leaving a cursing Dickie behind.
As she approached the women’s table, she assessed her targets. All in their mid to late 20s. Big hair, the kind that went out of style years ago across the rest of the United States but was still popular in small-town Louisiana, topped the heads of all three women. Two of the gals wore wedding rings. The one without the wedding ring wore the shortest skirt. Gertie nodded to them and glanced at their near-empty beer bottles.
“You gals look like you could use a refill. Compliments of Dickie over there.”
Gertie set the beers on the table.
The women stared at the beers, then tossed one another looks of bewilderment. One of the married women shrugged. “He gave them to you to give to us?”
“I can take them back if you like.”
The woman craned her neck and glanced at Dickie, then shrugged. “Who couldn’t use more beer?” She glanced at her friends warily. On this night at the Swamp Bar, other women were nothing more than competition. And the competition didn’t bring over beers, compliments of a man with half-decent looks and possessing all his teeth.
Gertie needed a story that made sense to them. She gestured toward an empty chair at the table. “I’ve been trying to hunt down my boyfriend all night, the cheatin’ SOB. I’d love to sit a minute without some drunk hitting on me. You mind?”
Gertie’s story must have hit home with the woman who’d spoken a moment ago. She nodded and gestured to the empty chair at their table. As Gertie sat, the woman introduced herself as Mary, the other married woman as Jennie, and the unwed woman as Cindy. Tonight’s mission was to find Cindy a suitable husband.
“She’s almost thirty and no husband,” Mary said. “Jennie and I had to do something.”
Gertie nodded. “I know this is where all the men come to find women. Even if they already have one. That’s why I’m here.”
“Your boyfriend’s stepping out on you?” Jennie asked, a look of sympathy on her face.
Gertie sighed. “That’s what my girlfriends told me. All this time I thought he had church choir practice on Fridays. But no, he’s been coming here for the past couple of months.”
“You poor thing,” Mary said.
“Not that he’s any great treasure,” said Gertie. “I mean, he is a little odd. Do you know what he does for a living? Analyzes animal poop for the Fish and Game Department. Have you heard anything so crazy? And that’s all he ever talks about.”
Jennie looked at the other two women. “Didn’t Bonnie date a boy that did that?”
Gertie perked up at the name. Dickie had mentioned they were talking about Wade Guillory. Seems she just got herself a twofer. “Isn’t that interesting. My boy dated a Bonnie. No, it couldn’t be his Bonnie, though. His Bonnie was older and also had an affair with Wade Guillory. The man who was just murdered.”
The women looked back and forth at one another. Mary leaned in. “Now that you mention it...”
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BUSTER’S GIRLFRIEND was growing more and more agitated as Marge went through several pool shots with him. His attention, however, wasn’t on pool. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Marge’s body. This was the part of spy life she hated. But if you wanted men’s lips to loosen, leaning over a pool table in a short pink skirt did the trick. Tying him to a chair, placing earphones over his ears and playing screeching noises also did the trick and was her preferred method. But she’d found that hitting men below the belt was quicker. And right now, she was definitely giving Buster a workout below the belt.
“Hey, baby, why don’t we blow this joint?” his girlfriend said to Buster. “Your Baby Doll has other things on her mind than pool.”
“After my lesson,” he said to her.
“This tramp doesn’t know a thing about pool,” Baby Doll said to him, pouting. “She’s nothing but a slut.”
How Marge wanted to shove an ERA petition into her hands. If any woman could use her consciousness raised, it was Baby Doll. Marge had to speed things up. She pointed to a ball on the table. “Six ball in the right corner pocket.”
Buster smirked. “Impossible.”
She made the shot and called another. And another. And another. Buster’s smirk disappeared as every ball Marge shot made it into the called pocket. She came to the eight ball.
“Eight ball left side pocket.” She bent over, provoking a few whistles, and retrieved the chalk from the table, slowly and seductively chalking her pool cue. After placing the chalk back on the table, she wiped her fingers across her tube top.
Forgive me women everywhere.
Buster raised his brows. “There’s no way you can make that—”
Before he uttered the last word, Marge had double-banked the eight ball and it slid into the left side pocket. She smiled. One of her spy personas had been as a barmaid at “Saigon Sues,” who loosened many a lip with her pool moves. Those years of playing pool with her dad had certainly paid off.
“She’s a freak.” Baby Doll grabbed his arm. “Let’s go.”
“We need to talk,” Marge said, ignoring Baby Doll.
“’Bout what?” he asked, smiling.
“Business.”
“You’ve got your nerve, you tramp,” Baby Doll said.
“About a job,” Marge added. “It’s confidential, Baby Doll. Otherwise, I’d invite you to sit in on our meeting.”
Buster frowned, clearly let down when he heard the word, “job.” He plucked a couple of ones from his wallet and handed them to Baby Doll. “Get yourself a drink. This won’t take long.”
She shot a warning glance to Marge and stormed off to the bar.
“Come to my office,” Buster said, gesturing to a table next to the wall, where a man and a woman sat making out. Buster snapped his fingers. The man looked up. “I have some business to attend to.”
The man lifted his brows as his eyes scanned Marge’s body. “I bet you do.” He and the woman stood. Before leaving, the man leaned into Marge. “If Buster here doesn’t do a good job, you can always call on me. I never let the ladies down.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Marge said. She wouldn’t.
She and Buster sat. “I’ll come right to the point,” Marge said. “It’s about Wade Guillory’s murder.”
His brows rose. “Damn. Here I thought you wanted me for my body. I gotta tell ya, your look does not match your telephone voice. I never thought you’d be so young. And hot.”
“Really...” she said. Now they were getting somewhere.