Murder in the Rue St. Ann

Sexy gay private eye Chanse MacLeod investigates the financial shenanigans of club promoter Mark Williams and discovers Williams not only has ties to the New Orleans judiciary, but also to Chanse’s lover, Paul. The connection reveals secrets about Paul’s past that Chanse had never guessed and now wishes he didn’t know. When Paul disappears, it seems his past has caught up with him in a terrifying way.

Murder in the Rue St. Ann

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Murder in the Rue St. Ann

eBook Copyright © 2012 By Greg Herren.

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-837-7

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Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

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First Print Edition: © 2004

First eBook Edition: Bold Strokes Books March 2012

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.

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Credits

Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

The Chanse MacLeod Mysteries

Murder in the Rue Dauphine

Murder in the Rue St. Ann

Murder in the Rue Chartres

Murder in the Rue Ursulines

Murder in the Garden District

Murder in the Irish Channel

“Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.”

-Tennessee Williams,
A Streetcar Named Desire

This book is dedicated
To
PATRICIA BRADY
A great lady and a terrific writer
And of course,
PAUL

For the tenth time in less than two hours, he peered out through the blinds.

The digital clock on the VCR read 11:13. It figured today would be the day the mail came late. He took a sip from his diet Coke and let the blinds close as he turned away from them.

The entire house was dark, despite the high sun outside. All the blinds were closed tight. He liked the gloom; there was something comforting in the darkness. Even before, he’d liked the dark. He almost tripped over a pizza box filled with hardened crusts. He swore, sending the box skidding across the rug with a reflexive kick. It hit a couple of empty cans somewhere out there. He didn’t care.

He followed the blue light from the blank screen of the television around the end table and sat down on the couch, picking up the remote for the VCR off a pile of old
TV Guides
. He hit the ‘play’ button with his index finger. After a brief pause and a whirring sound, the tape began playing again.

A faint smile played across his lips and he settled into the sagging sofa cushions. This was his favorite tape. He’d practically memorized it in the six months since it had come in the mail. He never tired of watching it; some days he watched it as many as six or seven times.

His left hand drifted down to his pierced left nipple and he started to pull on it just a little bit. His breathing became shallower, and his surroundings faded into the far corners of his consciousness. He no longer smelled the litter box or the mound of garbage on the coffee table— fast food bags and soggy paper cups and partially full coffee mugs where tiny gardens of mold had begun to grow.

 The sound of someone groaning filled the room. He pressed the volume button, and a little green graph crossed the bottom of the screen. The groaning got louder. He tugged harder on the nipple ring. His eyes gleamed as the camera moved in for a close-up of a reddened face, once handsome, now hideously twisted in pain: veins bulged in the forehead, the eyes were scrunched close and the mouth an open grimace limned with spittle.  His cock began to stir inside his white underwear and his predatory smile got wider.

 The camera pulled back from the face to reveal a muscular pair of legs gripping the head. As the legs flexed, cords of muscle rippled beneath skin that was smooth, hairless, and tan. The camera continued to pull back until the full bodies of the two men filled the frame.. The man being squeezed was young—maybe in his early 20s, possibly even as young as 19. He was wearing a tight pair of purple square cuts. Even as he tried to shift his position and slapped at the legs wrapped around his head, his erection was clearly visible.

“
Come on you little bitch,” panted the man with the advantage. “Give up or I’ll crack your skull.”

“No way,” the younger man said. He let out a howl as the other man applied more pressure.

The boy was beautiful, certainly, with no body fat to obscure the muscle in his gleaming body. But it was the other wrestler the man with the remote liked best— his curly black hair and bright blue eyes, the small patch of wiry black hair in the center of his sculpted pecs, the wet hair under his armpits, and the hard muscles in his legs.

Cody Dallas, gay wrestling superstar.

He owned all 12 of the tapes Cody appeared in; he knew them frame by frame. The scene he was watching now, in the match between Cody Dallas and Jay Robbins, was one of the hottest. Somehow, Jay managed to overcome the strength of Cody’s powerful legs; in about another half minute he would manage to escape for a brief moment. But he wouldn’t be free for long. Cody would eventually get him down again, tie up his legs, and flip him into a Boston crab. Jay would hold out for a few moments, suffering beautifully, resisting mightily, before finally surrendering. Jay lost two straight falls, and after the second submission, Cody stripped him of the purple square cut, straddled Jay’s face and pulled it up into his crotch. No doubt after the match Cody fucked Jay Robbins until he screamed with pleasure.

It was, he thought, too bad it happened off-camera. He would have gladly paid more to see that.

His cock was fully hard now. He slipped his hand under the elastic waistband and stroked himself. Jay was still moaning on the screen.

He imagined himself in the same position; Cody’s legs of steel around his head, demanding a submission from him, his ears ringing, the blood rushing to his head, refusing defiantly to submit to the pressure.
“Come on, you little bitch,” he heard Cody whisper into his ear. “You know you’re going to—why make it harder on yourself?”

But he would hold out even longer than Jay, because he’d want Cody’s legs around his head forever. He’d never want Cody to let go. That was his chief fantasy; to wrestle Cody, to take on the video superstar.

He knew he couldn’t beat Cody in a wrestling match. Cody was too skilled, too strong, too talented.  But it sure as hell would be fun to try—to be that close to him, to feel his skin, to smell the funk of his sweaty armpits, the must from his crotch.

The sound of a vehicle out front interrupted his reverie. He hurried back to the window and cracked the blinds a bit.  The little mail jeep had stopped at the foot of his drive. Today it was the girl with the lazy eye, in her uniform of blue shirt and darker blue shorts and a pith helmet. She wiped sweat out of her eyes as she searched through a white plastic tub and finally retrieved a couple of envelopes.

Pay dirt. One of them was a manila envelope, which could only be the new Cody Dallas tape.

His pulse racing with excitement, he grabbed a pair of sweatpants and stood at the front door. He waited for the jeep to pull off so he could run down the driveway and claim it at last. He’d cursed himself since he ordered for not paying more for overnight delivery. Every day he’d waited he’d berated himself, watched Cody’s older tapes and fantasized about the new one on its way.

 Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the girl with the lazy eye got back into the jeep, pulled out of the driveway and disappeared around the curve in the road. Barefoot, he ran down the driveway, opened the mailbox and pulled out his prize.

Yes, it was from Full Nelson Productions.

He tore it open right then and there, not caring if someone came driving along to see him, standing there in just sweatpants in the hot afternoon sun. Like all Full Nelson’s tapes, this one was in an unmarked tape box. He slid it out and read the label on the cassette.

Musclestud Challenge 12:

Jay Robbins vs. Kevin Marshall

Shayne Goodwin vs. Jamie West

Gunther Schmidt vs. Max Mann

Cody  Dallas vs. Mark Miller

As usual, they saved the best for last.

Humming to himself, he managed not to run back up the driveway and into the darkness of the house. Once inside, he peeled off the sweatpants and hit the eject button on the VCR. He took out the old tape and slid in the new one. He walked back to the couch and slid his underwear down and off. His hands trembled with excitement. He’d been looking forward to seeing this tape since he’d first seen it advertised on Full Nelson’s website last week. Mark Miller was tough— a good looking blonde with a great attitude and a body to match. On the website, the bout was billed as a “Battle of the Unbeatens—the match you’ve all been waiting for.”

The Web page for the match featured some incredibly hot action shots from the match. After he’d ordered it, he found himself going back to the Web page time after time, getting aroused, beating off until he came with a shout, his body trembling. He closed his eyes. His heart was racing.  It was time.

He hit play on the remote, and the usual cheesy music began as the tape rolled. He hit fast forward to get through the opening credits. The television screen flickered as the first match began—Jay Robbins got his ass kicked, like he always did, this time he wore an orange Speedo as he got tossed about and finally beaten by Kevin Marshall, an imposing black muscleman in an incredibly brief white bikini. Even in the fast forward mode, he could tell Jay suffered magnificently, as he always did. When that match was over, Jay lay broken on the mat, Kevin Marshall flexed, his foot on Jay’s prone form.