New Title 1 (15 page)

“Holy shit,” Dare muttered.

—revolver and rubber glove. She slipped the glove on, cocked the revolver and got down on one knee, and put the gun to Slick Dare’s mussed head.

“What the hell kind of ringrat are you?” his voice grated.

“The kind that doesn’t fuck around.” More power, more sweet violence humming through her blood. Holding the gun to Dare’s head made her breasts ache, the swampy, damp excitement rising like high tide. But she mustn’t get carried away. “I want to know—exactly—where this storage garage is.”

Dare knew she wasn’t kidding. His eyes shut, he chewed his lower lip as he strained to remember.

“Come on, Slickie. The clock’s running down, and in a couple more seconds that bell’s gonna ring.”

“Route 29,” he finally blurted. “That’s it, I’m sure. I mean, I don’t know exactly where, but I remember we were on 29 all night. It shouldn’t be hard to find it, just look in the phone book for any storage garages off 29 between Waynesville and Roanoke. If I knew exactly where it was, I swear to God I’d tell you.”

She looked at him, then uncocked the revolver. “Yeah, I guess you would.” Setting down the gun she pulled a small bottle of lotion from her purse, slopping it liberally on the glove as she flexed her fingers and made a fist. “There’s just one more thing, champ, you’re going to get a little reward. Bend over and spread ‘em, cause now as you like to say we’re going to go to school… And if you tell anyone about any of this, not only will I track you down and kill you, but I’ll wait for a few months while your career goes in the toilet. After all, how will the articles in the wrestling sheets read, ‘12-Time World Champ Beaten Up and Fist-fucked by Ringrat?’ That’ll really help with endorsements, won’t it?”

“I believe you,” Dare sobbed as he bent to comply.

««—»»

Straker flicked his butt when he heard her high heels ticking across the silent parking lot. “Where have you been?”

Preoccupied, she dug the judo stick key ring out of her purse. “You know where I’ve been; I was getting some answers from Dare.” She unlocked the car very casually, got in, unlocked his side.

“For three hours?” he objected when he slid in next to her.

“Some things take time.” She started the car, pulled away. “How’d it go with you and Ghoula?”

Straker simpered. “I didn’t find out anything on Goon or Felander. When we were…done, she threw me out. I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life.”

Melinda chuckled half-heartedly at the wheel. “She took your business, then threw you out?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s no big deal.”

Straker glared in the dashlight. Her nonchalance infuriated him. He at least expected her to be mad for failing in his objective. “I just did sixty-nine with Jabba the Hut, and all you can say is it’s no big deal?”

“It happens sometimes. You work someone hard, then they don’t talk. But at least you tried. You went in there and gave it your best shot—”

Boy does she know how to make a pun,
Straker thought.

“—and I’m proud of you for going the extra mile.”

Well, at least that was some consolation. The sideglance nagged at him, however. The way she looked in the soft glow of the dashboard, the way her thighs splayed on the seat, the nipples jutting through the halter. It was that quick, his desire a hair trigger. Never mind that he’d already had half a dozen orgasms already today.
I need to beat off again. Bad.
Her breasts jiggled minutely over a pothole; her sleek hands gripped the wheel, and all he could envision was those same hands on him. What would it feel like? The sensation of being touched by her?
I’d come in my pants,
he knew.
Just like that. One touch and my Fruit of the Looms’d be full of my cock-snot, my joy juice, my wax,
he remembered Jan Beck’s ungainly reference.
Come City…

“Why are you always staring at me?” she asked.

“I’m not staring,” he lied. Thank God it was dark—she couldn’t see him blush.

“You’re blushing.”

“No I’m not!” he fired back. His mind raced. He could see the creamy white thighs, the denim skirt cut so high her crotch was nearly exposed. “I couldn’t help but notice. What happened to your stockings?”

Another nonchalant chuckle. “I left them there.”

This burned him. “Oh, so the Wonder Boy was so good you felt the need to leave him some trophies?”

“You don’t know the half of it. But none of that matters.” She glanced at him once. “That over-the-hill son of a bitch told me everything, Captain Straker.” Then, quite uncharacteristically, she patted his thigh.

Straker nearly turned his shorts into Come City.

“This case will probably be over by tomorrow,” she said.

««—»»

They stopped at a motor lodge along Route 29. “Look,” she’d explained, “I’m too tired to drive you back to your HQ tonight. I’ll get us a couple of rooms here on my expense account.”

“Just get one room,” Straker hastened. “We shouldn’t squander money.”

“I’ll get us two rooms, Captain.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Two rooms. Two, as in separate.” But when she came back from the night desk, she was frowning. “Looks like you got your wish, Captain. There was only one room left.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” he replied, his heart racing now. But what did he expect? He knew he wasn’t going to put the make on her.
Maybe it’s just…proximity,
he guessed.
Just being around her…

“The Mayflower this ain’t,” he commented when they entered the motel room. “But— What a great couch!”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Instead she hurried to the nightstand and opened the phone book. Straker lounged back on the couch, flicked on the TV with the remote, all the while eyeing her as she prowled the listings. She kicked off her high heels, curling her toes unconsciously in the carpet. Straker wished
he
could be the carpet.

“What are you looking up?”

She chewed on a pencil end, running a glossy nailed finger through the phone listings. “Midpoint,” she said more to herself. “Waynesville and Roanoke…”

“What?”

“What towns are roughly midpoint between Waynesville and Roanoke along Route 29, Captain?”

“I don’t know. Tylersville, maybe. Big Stone Gap.”

“Yes! Here it is!”

Straker’s brow crumpled. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Something Dare told me,” she muttered and stood up. She closed the phone book. “Goon and Felander have a storage garage in Big Stone Gap. All the evidence you’ll need should be there.”

This information cruxed him.
Storage garage? Evidence?
But before he could ask, he winced when she bent over and poured herself a glass of water. The red panties peeked at him, satcheling the extrusion of her vulva like a neat little parcel.

“I think I know where they are, you can take it from here, Captain.”

“Bullshit,” Strkaer said. “What about your story? Don’t you want to be there when we take him down?”

“That’s not the way I am, Captain. I don’t regard a grievous murder investigation as a way to accrue brownie points. I’ve got all the material I need now except for the follow up to the actual arrest, and I can get that from your report.” She smirked out of place, then grimaced at the glass of water. “This water’s terrible.”

“They probably pump it in straight from the nearest creek,” Straker posited. “But don’t change the subject. We’re in this together. When I bust Goon, I’d like you to be there.”

“I’m too tired to argue.” She pulled out some bills from her tiny purse. “Do me a big favor, will you? Go to that all-night Qwik-Stop across the road and get me a Coke.”

“Not until you promise me that you’ll come along for the finish.”

“All right!” she flared, and thrust the bills at him. “Just get me a Coke, and get yourself something.”

“Thanks, Mom. Can I buy some models too?”

She smirked again, bone-weary. “Don’t forget the key. I’m taking a shower.”

Just that word—shower—filled Straker’s penis with blood. Because the word brought an image: Melinda in the stall, naked, all fresh skin, big tits and long legs, shining in the cascade.

Straker grabbed her judo stick with the keys on it and sulked out, checked to make sure the door locked behind him. He crossed the dead highway, the motel’s sign throwing his long shadow before him. Each step he took toward the Qwik-Stop, though, brought a more pristine image of her. Was it her complete inaccessibility that taunted him so? No, just her beauty. Just her sheer, raving, unadulterated beauty…

At the Qwik-Stop he was reminded that this state had no liquor curfew.
I could really use a drink,
he decided.
After doing the box lunch with Ghoula? I could use several.
He picked up a six-pack of Bud and a 2-liter Coke, then paused. He knew the rube at the register was gaping at his ludicrously tight jeans and wrestling tee, but he didn’t care.
Maybe if I spiked her Coke up a little,
he considered.
Maybe that would loosen her up. Hmmm…
He picked a half-pint of Everclear 190-proof grain alcohol off the rack, paid the eyeballing rube, and left.

The shower was still running when he got back.
Boy am I a shit,
he thought, and quickly clunked ice cubes in a glass, splashed in two fingers of Everclear, then filled the rest with Coke. A test sip proved that the grain had no taste at all. Then he plopped down on the couch with a beer, switching TV channels with the remote.

On the floor her small travel bag sat opened. SKIN SMOOTH read a box on top. He’d seen commercials for the same product, a depilatory—hair remover. Beneath that was a contact lens case, and beneath that lay tubes of vaginal lubricants, but he noted nothing in the way of birth control. He was tempted to actually root around in the case but figured it would be just his luck to get caught.

 
Mind your own business,
he ordered himself, then went back to the TV remote. Toward the end of the dial…

Give me a break!
Wrestling blared on the screen: Slick Dare landing a belly-to-belly suplex on a silly, face-painted Venom, who reportedly made 1.5 million a year. Dare mussed Venom’s pretty boy blond hair, then mussed his face paint. “Kick his ass!” he shouted at Venom.

The shower squealed off. The bathroom turned Melinda’s voice into a sharp echo. “What did you say?”

“Wrestling’s on. Can you believe it? Four in the morning and they got this shit on the tube. What kind of a moron would watch wrestling at this hour?”

“Who’s watching it now?” she came back.

Funny.
“I’d just love to see somebody clean Dare’s clock.” He couldn’t get rid of it—the absurdity. Right now there was a man on television who’d had sex with the woman in the shower only hours before. Jealous? Yes. Straker was insanely jealous.
I should be the one having sex with her,
came the cruel thought.
Not this asinine bleach-blond muscle rack.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he dared.

“No.”

“I mean, you were with Dare for three hours. Did you—”

A wearied sigh echoed from the bathroom. “No, I didn’t come, if that’s what you’re dying to know. I never do with wrestlers.”

Straker’s brow propped right up. “But you’re the one who said these guys were hot.”

“Oh, they’re attractive, sure. Lots of muscles.”

Straker felt his bicep, then slumped in despair. It felt like he didn’t even have one.

Just then she emerged from the bathroom, a long towel cocooned her from breasts to thighs. She must not have washed her perfect white-blond hair though, for it hung shiny and dry to her shoulders. In fantasy, he saw himself unwrapping her like a package of immaculate flesh, then burying himself in her, being cocooned himself by her arms and legs.

I need to beat off again. Bad.

“Thanks,” she said and sipped her jimmied Coke. “God, that’s good.”