Carey’s shoulders lifted as he inhaled and he moved his head back and forth as he sighed.
“What do you want me to do now, Mo?”
“Find out who those guys are.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to just close this case? You’ve got more than enough to confront your wife. What good will it do you to know who these guys are?”
“Because I’m gonna – “ He stopped abruptly and ground his teeth together noisily.
“No. I’m not going to do it. You’re going to get yourself in trouble. If I tell you who these guys are, you’ll go after them, and I can’t have that on my conscience. You’ll end up in jail. You might even end up hurt.”
“If anybody gets hurt, it won’t be me.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. You’ll go after them. I won’t find out who they are, Mo. I won’t do it. You’ll have to find somebody else to do it, because I won’t.”
“Fine, then. Maybe I will.”
Reznick nodded once. “Fine.”
“How much do I owe you?”
Reznick took the bill from the folder and handed it across the desk to him.
Carey produced a checkbook and wrote a check. He ripped it from the book and put it on the desk.
“Can I keep these pictures?” Carey said.
“They’re all yours. The whole file is yours. Here.” Reznick picked up a pen and on the bottom of the manila folder, he wrote the password he’d used to get into MILFParade.com. “That’s the password you can use to get into the website.”
“Thank you.”
Carey took the folder and stood. “Burning Lizard Amusements, you say?”
“That’s right. It’s in the file.”
“Okay. Thanks for your help.”
“Not at all. You paid for it.”
Carey left the office.
Reznick sighed. Another job done.
He sat back in his chair and locked his hands together behind his head. He was tempted to go home, and it wasn’t even noon yet. He remembered that Kendra was home alone all day. Home alone, all by herself.
In case you haven’t noticed, Kendra has a crush on you, Anna had said with a smile. I hope you’d never consider taking advantage of that, understand? Because if you did, I’d kill you. And you wouldn’t even see it coming.
Reznick chuckled a little. But it wasn’t funny. He knew she’d meant it.
But when he thought of Kendra in those short shorts and that bikini bra… all that bare creamy flesh… that sultry face and all that luxurious blonde hair…
He started getting an erection just thinking about her while sitting there in his office.
He decided not to go home. Not just yet.
He took out a book and started reading, hoping the door would open again soon and another client would come in with another case.
Steven Regent was fixing himself a sandwich in the luxurious cool of the air conditioner when someone knocked at his door. When he opened it, he looked down at Kendra and returned her big smile. She wore a baggy white T-shirt with the Three Stooges on the front, a pair of black shorts, and flip-flops on her feet. The T-shirt could not conceal her generous breasts.
“Well, hello there,” Regent said.
“Hi, Mr. Regent.”
“I thought I told you to call me Steven.”
“Did you?”
“I think I did. Didn’t I?”
“Well, I will if you want me to.”
“Good. Come on in.”
He opened the screen door and she climbed the steps and came inside.
“I was just fixing myself some lunch,” he said. “You hungry?”
“No. I thought maybe you’d like to take more pictures.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure. Lunch can wait. I’m not that hungry, anyway.” Regent put the mayonnaise and mustard away, then picked up the plate with the unfinished sandwich on it and put it in the refrigerator. “Come on back to the studio.”
Regent wore a grey UCLA T-shirt and a pair of blue shorts, with sandals on his feet. “Where did we end up last time?”
“Well, you were about to take some pictures of me in my panties, but I chickened out,” she said.
“That’s right. You feeling braver today? You feeling naughtier?”
She giggled. “Yeah, I am. I’m feelin’ real naughty.”
“That’s my girl.”
In the bedroom studio, he turned on a couple lights, picked up his camera, and when he turned around, she already had her flip-flops and T-shirt off. He sucked in a little gasp of air at the sight of those glorious breasts. She dropped the black shorts and wore lavender panties underneath.
“How’s this?” she said.
He swallowed – it was more of a gulp – and nodded. “That’s… just… fine. You want to get on the bed and pose for me?”
“Sure. You want me to pose like the ladies in the magazines again?”
“Yeah, that would be good.”
She began to pose and he took pictures. As she moved around on the bed, her breasts swaying from side to side, Regent stiffened in those blue shorts.
Suddenly, Kendra sat up.
“You’re hard again,” she said, staring at the bulge in his shorts.
“Uh, yeah,” he said with a smile. “You don’t mind, do you? I mean, I can’t help it. You do it to me every time. And you’re gonna do it to every man who looks at your pictures.”
“Can I see it?” she said.
“Whuh… what?”
“Your hard penis. Can I see it? I’ve never seen one before.”
Regent felt a tingle of excitement. “You want me to… show it to you?”
“Yes. You told me you wanted to teach me everything I needed to know to get that man I was attracted to, remember? Well, how am I gonna get him if I’ve never even seen a hard penis before?”
He grinned. “Okay.”
She came to the foot of the bed and sat on the edge, folded her arms across her lap, and leaned forward, staring at the bulge.
Regent lowered his shorts and it sprang free.
Kendra’s eyes widened a little. “It’s big,” she said. “Are they all that big?”
“Well, they come in different shapes and sizes.”
“Oh.” She looked awhile longer, then said, “Can I touch it?”
Oh, God, Regent thought. If she touched it, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to control himself.
“Well, uh… “ He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“What do men like girls to do to their hard penises?”
“Are you serious?”
She smiled. “How’m I gonna know how to please the man I’m after if somebody don’t tell me?”
Regent thought fast. “If I tell you what to do and you do it, can I get it on video for the website?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
Regent quickly pulled up his shorts, turned around, and readied the video cam. “Okay,” he said, “sit over here on the side of the bed.” She did. “Now, what a man likes more than anything is for his girlfriend to take his penis into her mouth and suck on it.”
Her face screwed up and she said, “In her mouth?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry, the penis is clean. There’s nothing dirty about it.”
“But… in the mouth?”
“Just you wait. When you see what it does to me when you do it, you’ll like it.”
“I will?”
He grinned down at her as he pulled his shorts down again. “Just you wait.”
Nineteen
Lunchtime came and went, and Reznick’s stomach growled. He’d eaten only an apple for breakfast. At one thirty-five, he decided to go home, if only long enough to eat lunch. He thought of that barbecue chicken in his refrigerator, waiting to be heated up and eaten.
He turned everything off and locked up his office on the way out, got into his Toyota, and drove home.
Kendra returned to the trailer, hoping Dexter hadn’t piddled on the floor again in her absence. When she went inside, she found no puddle on the kitchen floor. Dexter was curled up on the couch, but when she came in, he immediately dove off the couch and came to her. He went to the screen door, hopped up on his hind legs and pawed at the screen.