Out of the Past (11 page)

Cameron stared at Walters for a moment, then said, “How, indeed. Walters, come have a glass of whiskey.”

“Yes, sir!”

“You strike me as being a smart woman,” Clint told Olivia when they were seated with coffee and pie in front of them.

“Really?” she asked. “Little ol' me?”

“I think a lot of men buy into your act,” he went on, “like your husband.”

She sat back and lowered her voice about an octave.

“Oh, you can bet he bought it,” she said. “But you know what? He's no dope. He bought what he wanted, and I give it to him.”

“And what did he want?”

“A beautiful wife to wear on his arm.”

“And that's it?”

“You mean, do I share his bed?” She shuddered. “No, we have a strict hands-off policy.”

“So what do you do when you want . . . hands on?”

She smiled.

“I pick the hands I want on me,” she said, “but so far I've had nothing but disappointment in Kansas City. There seems to be no men here who know what to do with a woman.”

“That's a shame,” he said. “A woman like you deserves to be handled right.”

“You know,” she said, leaning forward and giving him the full effect of her green eyes, “I've heard stories about you.”

“You can't believe everything you hear,” he said. “Nobody alive can have killed as many men as I'm given credit for.”

“Oh,” she said, “I wasn't talking about your prowess with a gun.”

“Oh?”

“Before I lived here,” she said, “I lived in San Francisco. I met several women who had many . . . nice things to say about you.”

“That's good to hear,” Clint said. “I mean, having people say something nice about me for a change.”

“Oh,” she said, “they were very complimentary.”

Clint leaned over his half-eaten pie and said, “And you're curious, aren't you?”

“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I'm desperate, and you just may be the answer to a girl's prayer.”

“So where do we go from here, Olivia?”

“I'll bet you have a room in the best hotel in town.”

“You'd win that bet.”

“Then I say we go there.”

Clint thoroughly enjoyed escorting Olivia Cameron under the clerk's nose, because he knew word would get back to her husband.

When they got to his suite, she looked around and asked, “How did you rate the best suite in the house?”

“Maybe I scared the clerk,” Clint said.

“You know my husband owns this hotel.”

“I suspected as much,” he said. “Word got back to your husband pretty quick that I checked in.”

“Word gets back to my husband about everything.”

“It doesn't bother you that he'll hear about this?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It will kill him, especially if you and he are doing business.”

“We're not doing business, exactly,” Clint said.

She began to loosen the stays on her dress and slip out of it.

“You see, I believe your husband had a friend of mine killed.”

She stopped just for a second, then stepped out of the dress and said, “Oh, yes? You'll have to tell me about that . . . later.”

She undid her undergarments, let them fall to the ground, and then stood with her hands on her hips.

“You see this?” she asked. “My husband is paying a lot of money for this—and he's not allowed to touch.”

Clint eyed her firm breasts, slender waist, long legs and the bush between her legs and said, “A fool and his money . . .”

If Olivia Cameron was disappointed with Clint's performance, she was making too much noise to notice.

Clint shucked his clothes quickly and took the woman to bed, determined to make sure she had a time to remember. Also, he apparently had a reputation with the ladies in San Francisco to live up to.

Most of all he wondered if Olivia would go home and tell her husband all about her afternoon.

Normally, Clint would have turned her advance down. She was prideful, and she was married, two things he did not like in a woman. But even though he was doing this to get to her husband, there was no harm in enjoying a beautiful woman.

Holding her in bed, he realized she had quite a beautiful mouth. Her upper lip was almost as full as the lower, and when he kissed her it was a wonderful experience. She moaned deep in her throat, slid her hands down his body until she had hold of his erection.

“Oh, God, yes,” she said, sliding her mouth from his, “I want to get a close look at you.”

“Not yet,” he whispered, “first I get to look at you . . . and touch you.”

He kissed her neck, slid his hand over one breast, then the other before leaning down to kiss them. Her skin was pale and smooth, her nipples dark brown. He took one in his mouth, rolled it around with his tongue while he slid his hand down to her moist pussy. He used a finger to part the slick lips and then slid the tip of his finger up and down, making her moan and move her legs. He bit her nipple, then moved to the other one and spent some time there before moving his mouth down, working his way along her body. He tickled her belly button with the tip of his tongue, kissed her belly, moved down farther and nuzzled her pubic bush with his nose. The scent of her wetness was heady and he delved in with his tongue until he could taste her. Her body jerked and she cried out when the tip of his tongue found her clit. He slid his hands beneath her to cup her buttocks and lift her off the bed. This gave him a better angle to work on her pussy with his mouth and tongue until she was writhing on the bed, banging her fists on the mattress, tossing her head from side to side crying out, “That's it! That's it! That's what I've been missing . . .”

Moments later she was sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, catching her breath.

“Finally,” she said, “a man who knows how to touch a woman.”

“I'm sorry you've had to wait so long,” he said, sitting across from her.

“So am I,” she said. “Jesus.” She touched her left breast. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I mean, so much pleasure after waiting so long.”

She stretched her legs out then, put her hands behind her and leaned back. This position thrusted her breasts out and he could see that her dark nipples were still hard. He could also still smell her. The scent of her excitement permeated the room.

“Now,” she said, eyeing him up and down, “it's my turn . . .”

“Me?”

She quickly got to her knees, put her hands against his chest and pushed him over backward until he was lying on his back with his head at the foot of the bed.

She got down between his spread legs and took his hard dick in her hands. She licked the underside of it, stopping just beneath the head when he jerked. She began to suck just the head of his cock, while continuing to flick that sensitive spot with the tip of her tongue.

“You are the prettiest man . . .” she cooed. She slid one hand down to cup his testicles and then took the length of him inside her hot mouth. She held him there for several seconds, then began to bob her head up and down, suckling him wetly.

“Mmmm,” she murmured, as her head began to move faster and faster. He reached down to put his hands on her head, but he exerted no pressure. His hands just rode with her and then he began to move his hips in unison.

Finally, she released him, slid on top of him and guided him inside her.

“Ooooh, yessss,” she hissed as she sat down on him, taking him all the way in. She closed her eyes, said, “This is going to be good,” and then started riding him.

She was right.

It was.

Later they were lying in bed together, knowing that it was time to get dressed and go their separate ways.

“You did this just to get to my husband, didn't you?” she asked.

“That was my initial thought, yes,” he said, “but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.”

“Oh, I know you enjoyed it,” she said, her eyes glittering. “So did I. You've ruined me now for the men in Kansas City.”

“Then I feel bad for the men of Kansas City.”

She sat up, pulled on her underthings and stood up to put her dress back on. Then she went to the mirror to try to do something with her hair.

“You know,” she said, looking at his reflection, “he's a horrible, horrible man who will do anything to get what he wants.”

“That's what I've heard.”

“But he's been nothing but good to me.”

“Then why do you . . .”

“What? Sleep with other men? Well, I do have needs,” she said, then turned and said, “In my own way, I'm as selfish as he is.”

“But not horrible.”

“No,” she said, “not horrible.”

She walked to the bed, reached out and took his hand in both of hers.

“I wonder . . .”

“Yes?”

“Should you get what you want . . . do you think you can do that without . . . killing him?”

“Olivia,” he said, “believe it or not, I'd prefer to do that. But I think that's going to be up to him.”

She nodded, as if she understood, and he squeezed her hand.

“You know, he's very lucky to have someone like you to beg for his life.”

“Well, I have another hope, too,” she said, moving to the door.

“What's that?”

“I hope that if you don't get what you want,” she said, “that he won't end up killing you.”

As she went out the door, he said, “Believe it or not, I'd prefer that, too.”

When Clint came down, he boldly looked over at the clerk, who averted his eyes. He wondered if that man had sent a message over to Cameron that his wife had been there with Clint Adams. Or was he too afraid to give the old man that kind of news?

Walking to the front door, Clint saw Sandy Spillane sitting in a wooden chair, her arms folded across her full breasts.

“I won,” she said, looking up at him. “Katy took Little Sandy someplace safe.”

“Good,” he said, “then I don't have to worry about her anymore.”

“I saw Olivia Cameron leave,” Sandy said. “She looked a little . . . disheveled? Is that the word?”

“Sandy, I can explain—”

She stood up and said, “You don't have to explain anything to me, Clint. What you do with you time is your own business. As long as you don't forget what we're doin' here.”

“I'm not forgetting anything,” he said. “I went to see Cameron and his wife was—”

“You went to see him?” she asked, cutting him off. “Why?”

“I wanted him to know I know,” he said. “I wanted him to know I'm coming for him.”

“So you warned him that you were coming,” she said. “Now he'll be ready.”

“He had his chance,” Clint said. “He had a gun in his desk and his hand was shaking too much to use it.”

“And you think that was from fear?” she asked. “He's an old man, Clint, his hand always shakes.”

“That may be . . .”

“So what are you going to do next?”

“Next I want to talk to the son, Billy,” he said. “He was there, too, and he's pretty drunk. Looks like he's been drunk for a while.”

“Well, supposedly he was really in love with Annie,” Sandy said. She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Where does he live?”

“I'll take you there,” she said. “I can watch your back, and be your chaperone.”

“Chaperone?”

“His wife is very beautiful, too, like Olivia.”

Billy Cameron and his wife lived in a huge house in a section of the city that had plenty of them, but this one— looking like it had been plucked off a plantation in South Carolina—was the jewel of the lot.

“Jesus,” Clint said, “where does the old man live?”

“Oh,” Sandy said, “he's got a big house.”

They approached the front door and Clint knocked firmly. He was about to knock again when the door was suddenly opened by a middle-aged black woman wearing a maid's uniform. Clint was surprised it wasn't a black man in a suit and white gloves.

“Yassuh?”

“I'm here to see Mr. Cameron, please.”

“Mr. Cameron, he under the weathuh at the moment.”

“I see. Well, what about Mrs. Cameron?”

“She here.”

“Can I see her?”

“I'll check.”

She closed the door.

“That reminds me,” Clint said. “You know a black man named Leon, works at my hotel as a porter?”

“No, why? Should I?”

“Well, he warned me about the clerk carrying messages to Louis Cameron,” Clint said, “and he doesn't really talk like an uneducated black man.”

“What are you thinkin'?”

“Does Pinkerton have any black operatives that you know of?”

“One or two.”

“Have you met them?”

“I've seen them.”

“Well, then, maybe you should take a look at this fellow when we get finished here.”

The door opened and the maid reappeared.

“Madam says she'll see you in the study.”

“That's fine.”

“Follow me, please.”

Clint allowed Sandy to enter ahead of him, then went in and closed the door behind them. They followed the maid through the huge entry foyer to a hallway, and then along the hall to the study, where Mrs. Cameron was waiting.