Sal Louis was dead. It took LaStanza forty-eight hours on the street to discover the man was in Charity Hospital. Forty minutes later, he learned that Sal expired that very morning of lung cancer.
LaStanza spent the next twenty minutes convincing a doctor at the large, public hospital that it was important he view the body of Sal Louis. “You see, doc. There’ll be no post-mortem. If I don’t see it now. It’s gone.”
Actually, he was angry at himself for being dumb enough to ask, instead of heading straight for the cadaver. He learned, in the army, that you never ask permission, you just do it.
The young intern agreed but insisted on accompanying LaStanza down to Pathology. They found Sal on the fourth stretcher in the hall outside the lab. Charity was always crowded, even the halls.
LaStanza pulled back the white sheet and looked upon the cancer-ravaged remains of a Rastafarian male. Sal Louis had dreadlocks past his shoulders, old needle marks in both arms, three teeth missing from the front of his mouth and yellowed index fingers on both hands.
“He admitted a three-lid-a-day marijuana habit,” the doctor said.
LaStanza added, “He made his living selling it and running dope scams on white boys too stupid to know the difference between pot and ragweed.”
He’d also discovered, in his search for Sal, that the man had not car. It would be tough, taking two whores all the way to Algiers without a short. Besides, Sal might have stood six feet tall but the pothead weighed less than LaStanza, even less than Jodie.
LaStanza measured Sal’s feet before leaving. The footprints at the scene were twelve inches long, exactly. Sal’s measured a little less than eleven inches. Not exactly the scientific way to eliminate a suspect, but good enough.
LaStanza was writing a nice, brief daily when Jodie came into the office and told him about their new car.
“It’s one of the new Fords,” she said, placing her briefcase on her desk.
LaStanza looked up from the gray Smith-Corona and shook his head.
“It’s nice,” she went on, “really.” She draped her suit jacket over the back of her chair. She wore a shoulder holster which required a second look. It was one of the new nylon types with the revolver dangling upside down beneath her left armpit, balanced by two speed loaders under her right arm and a pair of handcuffs in back. She was also wearing a loose fitting black skirt and her usual white blouse, neatly buttoned to the neck.
Her make-up looked a little heavier than usual but that was probably the strong, afternoon sunlight streaming in the quad room. Her hair, as usual, looked fresh and fluffed. It probably didn’t need much work, he thought to himself, especially with the pageboy cut.
He wanted to tell her to lose the shoulder rig but instead told her about Sal Louis. She’d learn about the back pains on her own.
“You should have called me,” she insisted when he finished.
“What? And miss that new car?”
She wasn’t amused.
LaStanza pulled the daily from the typewriter and spotted Lt. Mason coming out of his office. “Good, you’re here,” Mason said. Trailing smoke like a locomotive, the lieutenant sauntered over and sat on the edge of LaStanza’s desk.
“Got a call earlier from a Mrs. Gerrols,” Mason said, exhaling a large cloud that floated toward the ceiling.
“Mrs. Goebbels,” LaStanza corrected him.
Masons chiseled face almost smiled. “Claims you told her she was a pain in the butt.” Mason paused for emphasis. “Two minutes on the phone with her, proved your point.”
The lieutenant paused for another deep drag.
LaStanza said, “So?”
“So, I told her there was no departmental regulation in accurately describing people.”
“Good,” Jodie said.
“So?” LaStanza repeated.
“So, she said she was going to the Chief with her complaint. Thought I’d let you know.”
LaStanza nodded and reached over to turn up his radio.
Snowood was calling.
“Can y’all mosey over here a minute? I could use a little assistance,”
LaStanza asked Jodie to answer. He started packing up.
Mason was still there. His eyes were closed and he was rubbing his temples. He added an epitaph to his Mrs. Goebbels story, “Goddamn woman started preaching to me about little NEEgroes swimming in some fountain.”
•
Snowood was in a particularly good mood for a man standing in a pile of black mush in the center of a roofless, abandoned warehouse on Nuns Street, a block from the St. Thomas Housing Project. He wore a pale green cowboy suit and a cream colored Stetson. Fel was in a regular suit, only it was red. They looked like Christmas-in-the-projects when they stood together.
LaStanza picked his way between a scattering of two-by fours and broken glass and the black, oily guck on the floor that was probably some sort of toxic waste. After all, this was Louisiana. The place smelled like toe cheese from a dead man. Near the center of the wide warehouse, LaStanza couldn’t help notice a naked white woman hanging by her neck from one of the cross rafters.
“Must have used this thing,” Fel was saying, pointing to the ladder next to the body.
“Good detecting,” Snowood said sarcastically.
LaStanza moved around to get a better look at the dead woman. Her face was covered by her long, dirty blond hair. He counted nine large puncture wounds in her torso, most in the abdomen, one through her left breast. Dark splotches of purpled post-mortem lividity ran along her back from her neck to her oversized rear end. A thick, hemp rope was wrapped twice around her neck and three times around the rafter.
“Well,” LaStanza said, “what in the name of Alfred Hitchcock is going on around here?”
Snowood didn’t answer, He shrugged his shoulders and grinned his dip-stained teeth at his old partner.
“Jesus,” Jodie whispered, barely loud enough for LaStanza to hear.
Snowood began whistling his favorite tune as the crime lab technician took photos of the body. He whistled Suicide Is Painless from the original M*A*S*H movie.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” LaStanza had to ask.
“Got laid last night. The old lady broke down.”
Ask a stupid question.
LaStanza waited for Country-Ass to tell him what help was needed but it didn’t come. So he watched his partner as she followed the technician around, taking private notes. She had a sour look on her face, but she was hanging in there.
“OK,” he finally had to say, “what help you need?”
“Well,” Country-Ass added more black shit to the floor by spitting out a long stream of chaw, “a lady name Gerrols called earlier.”
“Mason told me.”
“She called him too?”
That kept LaStanza from leaving right away. He stepped over a two-by-four with two rusty nails sticking out and waited.
Country-Ass didn’t let him down, “This Mrs. Gerrols – ”
“Goebbels.”
“Whatever. She said there was this little Dago going around her neighborhood pissing people off about some stupid westbank murder.”
LaStanza narrowed his eyes, “Come on, she didn’t call me a Dago.”
“I swear on the memory of Gary Cooper.” Snowood teased but he didn’t lie. “Though you’d like to know.”
“You need any help here?”
“Yeah, can y’all canvass?”
“Sure.” LaStanza waved to Jodie. “Let’s roll.”
On their way out, they passed Stan Smith, who was tip toeing in, careful not to ruin his uniform but too curious to stay away.
“Hey Candy-Ass, where ya’ going?”
LaStanza kept walking.
“Back to Coliseum Square?”
LaStanza didn’t answer.
“You know, some woman’s been reporting you as a 107 over there.”
LaStanza stopped and turned around.
“She’s been calling the district, instead of 911 so we can’t trace the calls. Says there’s this short, swarthy, spic-looking son-of-a-bitch out in the square starting a revolution. Figured it had to be you.”
Stan was known to lie, but LaStanza had heard enough.
He stormed from the warehouse but had to stop and drag his feet on the concrete to scrap the black guck off his penny loafers. He was surprised how little got on Jodie’s high heels. The girl was learning fast. Canvass what? That was his next question. There were abandoned warehouses on either side of the one with the body. He checked them anyway, in case there was another body dangling.
Then he went around all three warehouses and jotted down the license plate numbers of all the cars parked in the area. You never know, the killer’s battery may have went dead. Or a citizen, upon parking his Pontiac, may have seen some lunatic carrying a naked, dead woman into the warehouse but figured it was none of his business, until an inquisitive detective knocked on his door. Then the man would say, “Oh yeah, I saw a guy with a dead white broad – ”
LaStanza figured he might as well walk up Nuns Street to the St. Thomas and ask the people out on the balconies and stoops if they saw anything. The balconies were painted vomit green on this side of the project. Before getting close, he could see the people beginning to melt away. Jodie seemed spooked when the whistling started. She moved a little closer to him and switched the note pad to her left hand.
“It’s just warning calls,” he told her, “the polee’s here.” Whistling was a pretty effective alarm system.
Several defiant looking men remained on the stoops but pretended they didn’t understand English when LaStanza asked his questions. Most of the children peeked at them from around the sides of the buildings. Not only had no one see anything, no one would even speak to them.
Three days earlier they had watched Bobo’s mama sobbing over the little boy’s blood in that same project. Moods in the projects change like the weather. Most of the time, in New Orleans, it was plain hot. On their way back to their new tan Ford parked on Nuns Street next to the warehouse, Jodie asked about the body.
“It was moved wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Once lividity is set, it doesn’t move.” There were no purple splotches on the dead woman’s legs. But he wasn’t thinking about that shit. He was thinking about kicking in a certain lower garden district door and ripping a certain telephone off the fuckin’ wall.
The gate was locked on the fence at the Goebbels house so LaStanza rang the bell next to the gate. He saw her Ustinov face peek out a side window and then pull back immediately. When she didn’t answer his ringing again, he jumped the fence, bounced up the stairs and pounded on the carved, wooden front door.
“Tell headquarters where we are,” he told his partner. In case Goebbels got cute with the phone again. He was about to hit the door again when Mrs. Goebbels opened the window next to the door.
He stepped off the porch and leaned against the railing.
“What do you want?” she asked from behind the window screen.
“I wanna talk to your husband.”
“He’s dead,” she shouted back.
“You’re not missing a daughter, are you?”
“I have no children.”
“Figures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Missing any blond headed neighbors?”
“No, why?”
“Because we just found the body of a young, white woman hanging in a warehouse – in this wonderful, brightening neighborhood of yours.”
“Dead?” her voice rose.
“If not, the autopsy’ll kill her in the morning.”
“That’s no way to tell someone.” She sounded pissed.
“By the way,” he added, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about some woman reporting me as a suspicious person to the Sixth District station?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answered frostily.
“Fine. If they find out who it is, she’s going to jail. If I find out first – I’m gonna rip out her larynx.”
•
Aunt Brulie woke him the next morning, flipping on the overhead light, opening the curtains on the French door of their bedroom balcony.
“Come on, white boy. Get up. You got a phone call.”
His eyes had a problem focusing. He felt like he’d just fallen asleep. He reached for Lizette but she wasn’t there.
“What time is it?”
Brulie was already on her way out, “Time to get up. I ain’t got all day to pamper you.” She continued complaining all the way out the room. “Lazy Italians sleep all the time – ”
He rolled over and reached for the phone. It was Mason.
“You sleeping?”
“No, waterskiing.”
“What time’d you get to bed?”
“I was out late hitting the bars with my partner.”
“Oh. Batture Murder, huh?”
You couldn’t fake-out Mason.
LaStanza yawned and sat up. “Any particular reason you called?”
“I’m waiting for you to wake up. The Chief wants to see you.”
“So?”
“He wants to see you and me and your partner, now. Your partner says she can pick you up in a half hour.”
“You kiddin’?” Which was a really dumb question which Mason didn’t even answer.
“All right,” LaStanza started to hang up.
“You in the least bit curious?” Mason asked.
“Nope.” LaStanza hung up.
He climbed out of bed just as Brulie came back in.
“What’s that smell all over your clothes downstairs?”
“Sixth District funk.”
“Say what?” Brulie looked at him for the first time that morning, furrowing the brows of her scrawny face at him, twisting up her eyes. She gave him an harrumph and walked out again.
He wished she wouldn’t smell his clothes. He’d tried to get her to stop washing them, but that was harder than it sounded. He looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. He’d been asleep three hours. Lizette was already in class.
He took an extra long shower. Somehow, he started thinking about the first day he woke in the Mansion. He remembered how he went into the refrigerator while Brulie was fixing lunch and asked, as a joke, where the Grey Poupon was.
Brulie jumped all over him, “Silly-Ass boy, we don’t use that Poupon shit. We use Zatarain’s Creole mustard!” Then she threw an oven mitt at him. She never missed with her mitt.
When he came downstairs, Brulie had his coffee ready. It wasn’t his typical coffee-and-chicory. Brulie had a steaming cup of cappuccino ready.
He felt like a little toast and made the mistake of reaching for it himself.
“What are you doing?” Brulie was all over him.
He pointed to the toaster.
She snapped the slices for bread from his hands.
“Sit down and drink your wop coffee. I’ll get your toast.” She popped the bread into the toaster, mumbling to herself, loud enough for him to hear, “Probably electrocute yourself.”
“No I won’t,” he said back.
“Well, it’s my job.” She turned away, adding, “You got murders and shit to solve. I do the work here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The cappuccino was delicious.
•
Jodie had dressed up in another of her suits, all buttoned up and neat. LaStanza wore jeans and one of the authentic New York Yankees baseball jerseys Lizette had bought him after she discovered he’d been a Yankees fan since Mantle and Maris.
“You going like that?” Jodie asked when he climbed into the tan Ford. He didn’t answer. He put on a pair of black, mirrored gangster-sunglasses, turned to her, tucked his chin down and gleeked her.
Mason wore a suit and was waiting outside the Chief’s office, in one of the comfortable chairs in the hallway. He stood up as they approached and nodded for them to follow.
Stepping up to the door, they were all nearly bowled over when Bob Kay burst through and brushed by them like a mad rhino. Kay growled, “The man’s a goddamn idiot!”
“Hi, Bob,” Jodie called out as he stormed off without responding.
LaStanza held the door open for his partner and grinned broadly at her. She looked shook. The Chief’s secretary waved them in without uttering a word.
Mason tapped LaStanza’s shoulder and said, “Lose the glasses.”
LaStanza slid the gangster glasses into the jersey.
Superintendent of Police Ron Miles was seated in the large captain’s chair behind his large desk. He wore a wide-lapeled tan suit with a pink tie. The fat Chinaman sat in a chair to the left of the Chief. He was also wearing a wide-lapeled tan suit but with a yellow tie.
Miles pointed to the three chairs in front of his desk and waited for them to be seated before clearing his throat and starting with, “We have a problem.”
He waited for his words to sink in, as if he was the burning bush. LaStanza fought the urge to put the glasses back on.
Miles continued, “I’ve just entertained a complaint, a serious complaint, from the President of the,” he looked at the note pad that lay in front of him, “Lower Garden District Association.
LaStanza started shaking his head. He caught the Chinaman smiling, Just slightly. He focused on they man’s eyes but they were lifeless eyes without a hint of emotion. The man looked like an over-stuffed Buddha doll in a three-piece suit.
“A Mrs. Gerrols,” the Chief was reading notes again.
“That’s Goebbels,” LaStanza corrected him.
“Huh?” the Chief looked up and then down at his notes. LaStanza spelled the name for him. The Chief wrote it down and then looked up at LaStanza with blood in his beady eyes. “As in Joseph Goebbels?” he asked angrily.
“As in ‘let’s poison the kids so we can be with the Fuhrer in the promised land’,” LaStanza answered.
Miles ripped up his note and snapped at Mason in his high pitched, fruity voice, “Mrs. Gerrols says that Detective LaStanza threatened to,” he read from his notes again, “to rip out her throat.”
Miles turned to LaStanza and asked, “Now, Detective LaStanz, did you tell this lady you were going to rip out her throat?”
“It’s LaStanza,” Mason said.
“Quit correcting me!” The Chief’s cheeks quivered when he shouted.
“Now, detective. Did you?”
“No. Unless she confessed to making false complaints to the Sixth District.”
“What?”
“I told her that if I caught who was making false complaints to the district, I’d rip out that person’s larynx. If she said she was the one, then I did threaten her. Did she confess to you that she was the caller?”
It took Miles a second to realize he was asked a question. He blinked his eyes twice and said, “You’re not here to question me.” He cleared his throat again, leaned over and spit a large glob of snot into his waste basket.
LaStanza could hear Jodie gag.
Miles looked back at LaStanza and said, “You’re not funny, detective. I suppose your threatening people is supposed to ensue confidence in the citizens of our fair city?”
Fucker wasn’t even from the city. Obviously, because there was nothing fair about New Orleans. LaStanza figured it was futile to respond.
Miles put a real mean look on his face. LaStanza tried his best to keep from yawning.
The Chief turned to Mason and said, “Lieutenant, how do you feel about your detectives threatening people?”
“Well, he’s shot a couple people, but never ripped out a larynx.”
Miles’ cheeks began quivering again. He looked back at his notes and fired away with, “And why is this detective alarming the entire lower garden district about a murder that happened on the westbank?”
“Because,” Mason answered calmly, “that’s where the victims were last seen alive.”
“Well, I think he’s putting too much overtime in on this case and I intend to talk to the Chief of detectives about this.”
Mason paused to make sure the man was finished before asking, “Since when do we measure hours on murder cases?”
“On a case like this one, we do. I know all about that case he’s working on. It’s a low priority case.” Miles went on to elaborate about the rising murder rate.
He didn’t say it, but it was clear to LaStanza. Black whores didn’t deserve the time of overworked detectives. They weren’t nice, upstanding citizens.
Miles finished with, “If I don’t see any progress on this case by the weekend, I want it closed.”
LaStanza could see the tightening in Mason’s jaw as he leaned forward and said, “We close cases in Homicide, when I say they’re closed.”
Miles shot a quick look at the Chinaman and said, “I anticipated that.” He picked up a sheet of paper and shoved it across his desk at Mason. “This is an order forbidding any further overtime on this particular case. Period.”
Miles sat back as if he’d won something. When he received not response, he added, “And I want Detective LaStanz to apologize to Mrs. Goebbels.”
LaStanza shook his head.
“Is that a refusal?”
“Yes it is.”
“That’s insubordination.”
LaStanza didn’t answer. So the Chief tried Mason, “That’s insubordination.”
“If the civil service commission says it is, then it is,” Mason said.
Miles tried the Chinaman but got no response there and gave up on it.
Thank God for the civil service commission, LaStanza was thinking when Miles asked him, “And why are you dressed like that?”
“It’s my day off, Chief.”
Miles started tapping his chubby fingers on his desk and told Mason to stay.
LaStanza led the way out. Jodie followed silently all the way back to the Bureau. LaStanza turned toward the men’s room and told her. “I’ll be on Camp Street for a minute.”
When he got back to his desk, Jodie hand already made a sign out of a manila folder. She’d printed CAMP STREET in black marks-a-lot. She put tape on all four corners of her new sign, got up and put it over the MEN sign on the men’s room door.
“Got a nice ring to it,” she told him when she got back.
Mason walked in a minute later, rubbing his temples, trailing smoke like an incinerator. He stopped and sat on the edge of LaStanza’s desk.
“So?” LaStanza asked.
“So, our fuckin’ Chief’s turning you in to Internal Affairs. He thinks you’re on the take.”
“What?” Jodie nearly shouted.
“He heard LaStanza’s driving around in a Ferrari.”
LaStanza started laughing.
Jodie stammered, “That man’s not only stupid. He’s dangerous!”
She slammed her briefcase shut and yelled, “If I see that goddamn Goebbels broad again, I’m gonna slap the fuckin’ bitch silly!”
LaStanza and Mason exchanged a curious look as Jodie stormed off toward the lady’s room.
“How about some coffee?” Mason asked, stepping toward the pot.
LaStanza picked up the FUCK TIS SHIT mug and followed his lieutenant. “I just put in overtime sheets out of habit. Lord knows I don’t need the fuckin’ money.”
Mason nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
LaStanza passed the coffee pot and asked, “Think they suck each other dicks, or what?”
Mason’s face soured as he nodded.
“I liked it better when we had an Italian Chief.”
Mason chuckled, “Especially when it was your father’s old partner.”
“That fat bastard keeps fuckin’ with me, I’ll quit and solve the case on my own.”
“I know.”
•
Lizette was looking forward to a rare night out with Dino when he was on the evening watch. She took her time getting ready, putting on a new, loose fitting, black cotton blouse with a wide neck and puffy sleeves and a green, full miniskirt that would flow when she walked. She added black pantyhose and spiked heels to the outfit. Dino loved black stockings.
He’d gotten ready early and was waiting downstairs when she descended the spiral staircase. It was like going out on a date, him waiting in the foyer to pick her up. He was smiling at her as she came down, leaning on the stair railing like a short Rhett Butler. He needed a hair cut. She liked that as well. He looked better when his wavy hair was long and out of control.
He wore a navy blue, light wool jacket with a European cut, a powder blue shirt with a crimson tie, baggy black pants and black penny loafers. She’d bought his entire outfit. She liked buying his clothes almost as much as buying hers. She was surprised, at first, that he let her. He’d seen the tag on one of the sport coats she bought him once and said, “That’s more than a month’s pay!”
He must have felt bad because he quickly added, “It does look good. Just don’t tell me the price anymore.”
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him. He brushed his lips against hers very lightly and said “Let’s go.”
•
Lizette looked better than anything on the menu at Commander’s Palace Restaurant, which had one of the best menus in a town famous for good dining. He liked the barrettes in her hair, pinning it up on the sided, while the rest of her hair fell over her shoulders. Her lips were adorned with that dark brown lipstick again, which made her full lips look velvety and sexy as hell.
She might have grown up in a world of garden parties and manicured lawns and cut glass doors, crystal chandeliers and long elegant staircases, fine table settings, works of art and diamond tiaras, but Lizette wore no jewelry, except her wedding ring. She didn’t need to. The watch she wore was a Bulova. It was for telling time.
As usual, she ordered for them. He watched her with the waiter, ordering in fluent French. He liked the way she tilted her head when she spoke, the way she rolled her shoulders. He liked the way she moved her his when she walked or readjusting herself when sitting or standing, the way she’d catch his eye with a flirty glint in her eyes.
Lizette knew instinctively what excited a man, the flash of a thigh when sitting, the roll of her eyes, a feminine sigh, the way she set her lips when listening to him. He liked the way she crossed and uncrossed her legs, sliding them together so he could hear, faintly, the sexy sound of nylon against nylon.
Dino had known many girls before who turned him on. But these girls had no idea what affected a man, what caused him to feel desire, not just sexual, but the longing to be with her, even at a football game. Lizette was aware of what attracted a man. He’d caught her, again and again, pulling it on him. He liked it.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked when they were alone again, “not about the Chief and the Chinaman?”
“No, I was wondering what you were like when you were a teenager. You know, like when you made your debut.”
“Goes to show how much you know, hot shot. I never debuted. No one in my family ever has.”
“I thought all rich, uptown girls made debuts into society.”
“Wrong,” she aid, shaking her head, “debuts are an American invention. Original French Creoles don’t debut.”
“I’ve seen plenty French names in the newspaper’s debutante section.”
“Huguenots,” Lizette sneered. “Protestants. Love to see their faces in the paper. Vote Republican every chance they get.”
He couldn’t hold back from laughing. She stuck her tongue out at him as the bread and wine arrived.
They dined in relative silence, exchanging teasing looks and sexy looks, quietly settling down to a good meal. They had stuffed shrimp, baby veal and some French wine who’s name Dino could not pronounce. It was, as usual, excellent.
After, while standing out in the evening air, waiting for the valet to bring their car around, Lizette tucked her arm under his and snuggled against him. The air felt warm and damp, as if another shower was on its way.
Dino looked across the street at Lafayette Cemetery. The place looked extra dark on a night with no moon. He could see, faintly, the outline of crosses looming over the wall surrounding the cemetery. The crosses were set atop the concrete sepulchers and cement tombs of a cemetery built above ground. “The water table’s too high,” someone figured a long time ago. So the dead were placed in little concrete houses.
“How about some slow dancing”?” Lizette asked.
“Yeah.”
They went to a nightclub called Slow Dancin’ on St. Charles Avenue where they danced to Beatles love songs and Streisand and Mathis and Neil Diamond. Lizette had a couple Sazeracs. He had his usual scotch-rocks.
•
Back at their mansion, Lizette kicked off her heels and led the way to the kitchen where she opened a new bottle of another unpronounceably-named French wine. He stepped out on the rear deck, fired up the Jacuzzi, and turned the back yard lights on low. He made sure the temperature in the hot tub was on the lukewarm setting before starting to take off his clothes. Lizette joined him with the wine and glasses, which she placed next to the tub before she began to disrobe.
Dino looked around the small yard, at the high, wooden fence along the Garfield street side of the house. He’s checked it out before. No one could see into the back yard unless they were in the mansion itself. But every time they did this, he looked around again.
He finished firs and slipped into the warm, bubbling water, moving around so he could watch his wife as she removed her bra and then pulled off her pantyhose and then slipped out of her small panties.
Before joining him, she reached over and popped a cassette into the stereo ender the canopy. Smokey Robinson’s voice eased into Crusin’ as Dino’s naked wife slipped into the Jacuzzi next to him.
He reached around her waist and pulled her on top of him and kissed her. Lizette wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Her tongue rolled over his tongue in a long, wet, French kiss that lasted for most of Smokey’s song. Just before she pulled away, he sank back into the water and brought her down with him to the bottom for a moment to get them both completely wet.
Being With You was the next song. Dino caught his breath and slid over to the wine, Lizette still straddling him. He deftly poured two glassfuls, passed one to her and then drank the other done.
“Sip it, silly,” she whispered. He poured himself another and drank it down too. It felt cool and tangy and warmed him as soon as it found the scotch in his belly.
More Love came on the stereo. Lizette was still nursing her first drink so he leaned her back and began kissing her nipples one at a time, back and forth, his hands cupped on her rear, pushing her against the stiffness between his legs.
“Ahhh,” she signed in a voice husky with passion. She put her glass down and pushed herself against him and began to ride him slowly, up and down the length of his erect penis, rubbing herself against it until he lifted her slightly to allow himself inside.
Buoyed by the water, heated jets shooting at them, bubbles soring around them, they continued until he felt he was about to explode. He stopped suddenly and whispered, “Wait! Wait!”
In a couple second he had it under control and started the grinding again. Lizette leaned back and put her arms on the side of the tub. Dino stood up, pulling her up to the top of the churning water so he could see her completely and continued the pile-driving motion against her.
God, she looked gorgeous with her hair wet and her body glistening under the soft light, with her legs open and him inside her, feeling her moving back against him, seeing the glow of pleasure engulf her face. Lizette reached for the pleasure and it made him feel that much better to see how much it gave her. She bit her lower lip. Her gold-brown eyes opened wide and appeared to soften.
When she came, her voice became shrill, her gyrations rapid and hot. When he exploded, he rode her in and out until he felt his legs slip away. It took another two songs for him to recover. They remained in the tub for a while, in silence, with their eyes closed, decelerating from the big high.
•
Lizette was the first to move, climbing out to turn off the Jacuzzi and bending over to pick up the wine and the glasses. He followed her into the kitchen to the towels and grabbed one and began to dry her off. She took the other towel and dried him off. Then she tossed both towels aside and led the way, naked, through the house and up the stairs to their bedroom.
The little exhibitionist, he thought to himself. Just like their honeymoon, when she strolled in the buff across the black pebble beach on Guadeloupe to skinny dip with him in the clear, warm water of the Caribbean.
She pulled back the sheets in the dark and slipped into the bed. He climbed in net to her. She moved her head into the crook of his shoulder. He could feel the naked length of her warm body against him.
Dino closed his eyes and began to daydream himself to sleep. In his mind, he envisioned a sixteen your old Lizette in her Catholic school uniform. She was at the Beatles concert in City Park. He was still twelve, sitting in front of her, peeking up her dress.
He dreamed that night, but not of Lizette. He dreamed of the girl in the tight red skirt, slumped over her typewriter. The blood on her blouse was brilliant crimson. He moved her long, sandy hair and saw her blue eyes were open. Her eyes were lifeless. She was dead.
Later, he dreamed of a kitchen filled with smoke, not cooking smoke, but gunsmoke from bullets fired in anger at a killer cornered in the next room with his own gun belching back. Then he saw Millie Suzanne crawling in the kitchen window from the fire escape. He saw her point her stainless steel revolver toward the killer, saw the bullet strike her, saw her head snap to the side and watched her slump, in slow motion, into the room. He reached for her. The blood on his hands was warm and looked dark and muddy, like the waters of an unending river.
When the phone began ringing, he thought he was till dreaming. Butt it wasn’t a dream. It was Mason.
“Take a second and wake up,” Mason said.
“What?” Dino felt as if had been hit in the head with a hammer.
Mason was patient, adding, “It’s important.”
Dino sat up and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He tried to focus on the clock but his eyes were too blurry.
“What time is it?”
“Two a.m.”
Dino fell back on his pillow and aid, “OK, what is it?”
“They found another body on the batture,” Mason said calmly. “At the same spot. The exact same spot.”