Femme Noir

Femme Noir

Womanizing tough broad Nora Delaney meets her match in Max Abbott, a sex-crazed dame who may or may not have the information Nora needs to solve a murder—but can she contain her lust for Max long enough to find out?

Dames, booze, and murder is the oldest story in the book, but this time, it happens too fast to Nora Delaney, who is a notorious womanizing college basketball coach. After her ex is found murdered, Nora chases the scent all the way from Los Angeles to Tulsa to find some right angles in this nasty business, only to be waylaid by a gorgeous, gin-swilling skirt who has information as well as an appetite for women like Nora.

Filled with cock-eyed optimism, vivid sexual fantasy, tough broads, and big babes who know their ways around drinks, trash talk, and murder, Femme Noir is a wry homage to retro outlooks of a bygone tough guy/femme fatale age. If you like sex and humor, this book is for you.

Femme Noir

Brought to you by

E-Books from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

E-Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

Femme Noir

by

Clara Nipper

2009

Femme Noir

© 2007
By Clara Nipper. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN
10: 1-60282-117-8E

ISBN
13: 978-1-60282-117-0E

This  Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,

P.O. Box
249

Valley Falls, New York
12185

First Bold Strokes Printing: September
2009

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman

Production Design: Stacia Seaman

Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

Acknowledgements

For Kristopher Kris, it’s all for you and all because of you.

For Radclyffe, Publisher Extraordinaire—signing a contract with BSB was one of the best and most rewarding decisions I ever made. You have restored my faith.

And Cindy, Editor Deluxe—you got mad skills. I am lucky to work with someone so talented, precise, and logical. All of life should be so painless and easy.

For my new family at BSB: all of you are as wonderful as a sack of diamonds and as much fun as a basket of kittens. I am forever grateful and looking forward to being an asset to BSB for many years to come.

Dedication

For Kristopher Kris

Together we are the spark and the path forever

• Acknowledgements
  
• Dedication
  
• Prologue
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Epilogue
  
• About the Author
  
• Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
  

Chapter One

The ringing was insistent, urgent. I let myself into my apartment as quickly as I could because nobody calls at four a.m. with good news. I flicked on a light and ran for the phone, a heavy, corded black dial phone that I loved for its old-fashioned rebelliousness.

“Yeah?” My voice was hoarse from lack of sleep. Karen’s appetite was insatiable. I shrugged off the sweaty T-shirt and damp cotton shorts I wore to and from Karen’s house. I never needed regular clothes there and felt it was too much bother to dress up just to go to her and come home. Underneath, I was nude.

“Nora?” The voice was crackly and scared and chillingly familiar. Michelle. My last and worst ex.

“What the hell do you want?” I demanded. After all, Michelle was with someone else and living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was in Los Angeles, completely free and not obligated to lift a finger to save Michelle from her persistent destructive foolishness.

“I, I’m sorry to call so late…to call at all—” Static blocked her voice.

“Yeah, you have some nerve.” I wanted a cigarette badly. I needed to suck one to ash in two seconds flat. I made it out of Karen’s clutches without one, and now, I
had
to have that dry, hot taste to return me to myself. Sex took it out of me in a way that only cigarettes could restore. Plus, I needed to be soothed for this conversation. I spied a pack across the room. “Hold on!” I barked as I put the phone down and dove for the pack. I crumpled it and moaned. Empty. I smelled my hands with Karen’s ripeness coating them. I licked my lips. I picked up my wadded shorts, now a wilted pile of color, and checked the pockets. Nothing. I needed a shot. A shot of something. Maybe tequila. I also needed a shower and some sleep. I needed a wife to come in and clean up this place and maybe do some laundry and ironing. I padded back to the phone wearily.

“—need you!” Michelle pleaded when I returned.

“I can’t help you no matter what you need,” I told her acidly. I found some wooden matches, my preferred method of lighting cigarettes, and flicked one after another with my thumbnail. I felt the tiny fire was comforting, as if I were about to have a cigarette. Like the promise of foreplay. The flaming match told me that there would be eventual satisfaction. Was it possible to get a sudden ulcer? Maybe I should go back to Karen’s where there was beer to soothe this sudden craving, plenty of hot water, clean towels and sheets, all the cigarettes I could smoke, and of course, Karen. Karen’s cool, cocoa arms around me all night.

Static. “—please!” Static. I angrily banged the receiver against the table, taking mean pleasure in possibly hurting Michelle’s ears. I flicked more matches, savoring the smell.

“After these few months, don’t you have someone else to call?” I asked.

“It has to be you. Only you can help. I need you to—” Static.

“What? What do you need?” I scraped one calf with my other big toe.

Crackling and hissing. “—trouble. Bad.”

“What sort of trouble?” I was perversely enjoying this drama, so it never occurred to me to get Michelle to call back for a clearer connection. The more inconvenienced Michelle was, the better I felt.

“Sloane Weatherly.” Static. “—hear me?
Sloane Weatherly.
Don’t—”

My instincts made me write down the name. When I heard a noise in the hallway, I looked up, realizing I had left my front door open, and my upstairs neighbor stared in at me with frank appreciation. I suddenly saw myself through his eyes: a tall black woman sprinter-lean, my mahogany skull shaved clean. My ebony skin gleamed from sex sweat. My large nipples were chocolate satin on my flat chest and my belly was hard and cut into an eight-pack.