“You’ve been-” I began.
She cut me off with a light kiss. “Yes, Klein, I’ve been following you around all day. You’re quite the fellow about town. That’s a fascinating assortment of acquaintances you’ve got, but we can talk about that later. I am tired of talking just now.”
She kissed me again and I returned the favor in the growing darkness. The flavors on her tongue-orange, smoke and brandy-began to overwhelm my senses. The kisses deepened quickly without the pretense of challenge and surrender. There seemed an urgent sadness in all of this, a hemorrhaging emptiness and not all of it hers. But as I pulled her familiar sweater off, the apparent urgency diminished.
“Wait,” Burnum demanded, literally holding me at arms length.
She reached into the goody bag which I’d unconsciously let fall at the first sign of passion. The bottle of Grand Marnier appeared in her hand. She broke the seal and took a prodigious gulp. She put the bottle down and finished undressing without my help. I walked to the bed. That seemed to please her. But when I reached for my belt buckle, she shook her head violently. That would be her job, her candy.
I rolled over. She was at the bottle again. She turned the bottle over on her bare breasts and rubbed the resulting stream into the thin patch of hair below her waist. Barnum turned to me, seemingly startled that I was watching. I took the bottle, then a drink, and then her.
Her breasts were surprisingly solid, sticky to the touch and sweet to my taste. Her nipples spread wide over the front of her breasts and their bloom was brownish. I had dreamed them differently, but their real feel and flavor did not disappoint. I played hard with the bumpy brown circles of skin, capturing her erect nipple between my top and bottom teeth.
“Bite, goddamit. Bite!” a breathless voice begged.
I bit hard, very hard.
“Christ!” she cried. I’m. . I’m. ” her body arched like the back of a bronco, throwing me off to the side.
I moved to mount her, but she held back.
“Wait,” she coughed in the deepening night and fumbled along the rug. “Here,” she handed me what might’ve been a wet nap, but since we weren’t eating ribs or lobster. .
I didn’t put it on and tried to move my mouth along the dried brandy river, into her positively soaked crotch.
“No!” she pushed me off the bed, her feet against my shoulders.
When I crawled back up, I found her knees down, tucked and spread. Her head faced away from me and a pillow was wedged under her breasts. The full pink of her lips seemed to glisten with a light of their own. I rolled the latex on and went looking for that light.
As I was about to enter she reached back and guided my penis into a spot above where I was aiming. God, it was tight and I could feel the muscles fairly close around me. A groan rose up from Kate Barnum that spoke volumes of the thin lines separating pleasure and pain.
“God, Dylan,” she gasped. “Hard. Just hard.”
I pounded into her, slapping my mass against her with each thrust. It was over quickly for me. The explosion burned right through me, so intensely that I couldn’t judge whether any of this was hard enough or long enough to suit Kate Barnum.
I staggered into the bathroom. She followed. We showered in silence. We didn’t kiss. We touched only through the medium of soap. None of it had been about romance anyway. Punishment? Manipulation? Maybe. But surely not romance. . Our fucking was food shared between the starving, food we might otherwise have ignored.
“I need you to find out what you can about the dead woman,” I spoke straight out. We were back in bed, ignoring what had just passed between us.
“Why? Can’t his royal highness, Larry Feld, defender of any and all scumbugs be bothered with such small details?” she asked with feigned surprise.
“Next question,” I waved her on.
“What was the trip to the Diamond Ex-”
“Let’s get something straight,” I stepped on her words. “You’re gonna get your fucking story. I was ringing your house when you knocked. But how I dig and why I dig is my turf. Don’t step on it. When I ask you to dig,” I flattened her nose with my left index finger. “You dig. I’ll worry about what your shovel brings up,” I pulled my finger in. “I want to know about the dead woman.”
“Yes Tarzan,” Barnum mocked me with a bow, her still bare breasts brushing the covers. “But if I can’t come along for the ride, what guarantees do I have that you’re giving it to me straight?”
“My word.”
“Your word?” She lit a cigarette.
“That’s all you get,” I grabbed the cigarette and took a puff. “And if,” I coughed the smoke out with my threat, “I catch you pullin’ what you pulled today, it’s no deal. No story. Don’t follow me again. Don’t have me followed. I’ll be lookin’ now.”
“I get the whole story, unedited, unwashed?”
“Dirty as a clamdigger’s toenails,” I assured her.
“Let’s drink on it. Pass me the Grand Marnier,” she pointed out its hiding place.
I leaned over the bed’s edge, recouped the quarter-filled bottle and took a choking swig. Kate Barnum snatched the bottle, matched my swallow and killed the bedside lamp. She moved near me and let the remainder of the bottle flow into my lap. Even in the blackness, I could see that she had moved to clean up the latest puddle. She cleaned and I let her.
Someone Else’s Toy
Kate Barnum had gone. The sun was strong. Most of the snow had turned itself into sewer juice. And the list of John Francis MacClough’s former partners was waiting for me at Larry Feld’s office. I tried to strike up a conversation with his secretary, but she blew me off like last year’s lint. She did, however, give me a condescending scowl when she noticed that my attire hadn’t changed since yesterday. I didn’t take it too much to heart and left Mary to wither and die. Hopefuly, sooner than later.
The top four or five names were familiar to me. I’d already met some of these guys at Emerald Society functions MacClough had dragged me to. One or two of them had even graced the Rusty Scupper with their presence. They’d be easy enough to talk to. Lord knows, they seemed to have an endless stream of Johnny MacClough stories.
It was John’s early running mates that concerned me. They were old school boys from a time when patrolling a beat meant using your feet and not a steering wheel. In their day, all lunches were free, drinks were always on the house and everyone in the precinct had pockets padded by local businessmen. Their weakness for the payoff wasn’t at issue. It was accepted by everyone, except Al Pacino, and condoned at the highest levels. It’s just that old-timers didn’t believe in talking to non-cops. That was a real barrier. That and the fact that one of John’s ex-compatriots was five years with the angels and another lived in Yuma, Arizona.
Cops, all cops, are such suspicious bastards. I’d have to tread lightly, but not so lightly as to reap no results. It would be like tap dancing around a land mine. One misstep, one wrong question and they’d tip Johnny to my game. I couldn’t afford to have things blow up in my face; not yet, anyway. I decided to use the wheeze about throwing Johnny a big party and how it was a total surprise type deal and, while we’re on the subject, do you remember any of his old flames? The line hadn’t worked on Larry Feld, but nothing ever fooled Larry and I was fresh out of alternative ploys.
I started by calling on the cops I’d met and moved onto the ones I’d heard Johnny mention in stories or in passing. Some of them were still on the job. Some were in various states of retirement. By nightfall I’d been in every borough of the city, seen the insides of three precinct houses, walked the floor at Bloomingdale’s with the assistant head of security and shared overcooked shepherd’s pie with one of John’s ex-partners who ran a failing Irish pub in Greenpoint. By nightfall I’d run out of even vaguely familiar names. By nightfall I’d been almost everywhere, but gotten nowhere.