Shetani's Sister (12 page)

“Shit, raise up a little so I can stick it in,” he gasped.

She invaded his inner coat pocket and lifted out his wallet. She rhythmically rammed her bosom against his chest in sync with the humping action of her trap against his rod. She used both hands behind his head to remove a roll of bills from the leather. She fired her tongue tip into his ear at the instant that she put the leather back in the pocket.

“Let's go to a motel,” she panted. She stuck the bills into her vaginal stash as she flung herself out of the saddle.

He shakily zipped up his pants. “I'll drink to that,” he said as he keyed on the engine.

“Wait a minute, sweet dick. I have to pee now,” she said as she opened the door and left the car.

“Hurry up!” he said as she moved to the rear of the car.

She crouched and dashed with shoes in hand into a side street adjacent to the club.

Two minutes later, a white pussy-chaser in a Corvette picked her up. She was too drained to take a shot at his leather.

He dropped her off in Hollywood. She wrote a phony name and telephone number on a slip of paper and dropped it on him.

She took a cab for the Hollywood Hills. On the way, she counted six bills of Roger's greenstuff.

Minutes later, she sat on the side of her bed, staring at the Memory Lane pic. She knew that Shetani had never planned to fire Petra. He had conned her into a thieving tour of the Midwest.

She shivered as she remembered the bloody face of the trick when he fell dead at her feet.

Now she was wanted for murder. She had a vision of herself, wrinkled and white-haired in a Wisconsin prison. Shetani was to blame, she told herself.

Rage possessed her. She stared stonily at his image and shaped a psychotic smile. She hated him with so much venomous passion that she raced to the bathroom to vomit bitter bile.

She rinsed out her mouth and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. He had betrayed and tricked her. She vowed to get revenge. She would do anything to destroy him.

She was happy that Tuta was his pet. She hoped he was in love like a square-ass sucker. She'd seduce Tuta to release her sexual tension. She'd teach her how to steal. Tuta would feel stronger and need Shetani less. She'd do everything she could to make him lose Tuta. She would also poison Petra's mind against him with the pic. That move would have to be made with great caution, for she sensed that Shetani could be deadly when crossed.

I'll make the move on the snake bastard soon as I feel Petra is right for it, she raved audibly.

Suddenly it hit her that her medicine was in low supply. She suspected that Shetani considered her a liability because of the murder beef against her. He could avoid a harboring charge if he could waste her with poisoned dope.

She went to the open door. She started to step out. She heard Froggy, Shetani's ex–car polisher, croaking a pop tune. With Shetani's car in storage, Froggy was the mansion gofer.

She watched him disappear down the staircase before she stepped into the hallway. She went directly into Shetani's bedroom. She stood in the half-darkness and heard the thump of her heart. She went to turn on the dim light of a lamp on the table at the end of the sofa. She dropped down on the sofa. Her eyes darted about the room for his possible skag stash. She had to be careful that she didn't tear up the room looking for the stash, she thought. In this case, she knew it wouldn't be necessary. She knew that most veteran underworld people chose easily accessible stash places.

She went to examine a five-foot nude-figurine plaster lamp. She got on her knees beside it. She thumped the base with her finger to see if it was hollow.

She went to the wall heater. She stooped to see that the pilot light was off. She slipped off the heater cover. She hand-swept inside it and replaced the cover.

Her eyes zoomed to a pair of large speakers atop a stereo cabinet. She inspected the back of one and then moved to examine the other. She discovered a hairline groove in the back of the second speaker. She slid the rear panel back to reveal a kilo and a half of China white. Shetani's dope kit lay beside it.

She took two C-note bills of the Roger sting from her bosom. She overlapped them and dumped a pile of white onto the bills. She folded them into a package for her bosom. She slid the back of the speaker into place. She switched off the lamp and hurried, full of dope-fiend ecstasy, back into her room.

Rucker and Opal Lenski, Crane's aunt, were having lunch with the Cranes at a Wilshire Boulevard restaurant. Opal had flown in the day before for a short visit with Rucker. The trip and a hired nurse gave Opal relief from the strain of caring for her mother, who was ill at home.

As their waiter served chocolate mousse, pudgy Millie glanced at Crane and exclaimed, “I can't!” Then she laughed and said, “I will.”

Rucker and Opal laughed. Crane's gaunt face was a chalky blank mask in the candle glow.

“Mil, you really shouldn't,” he said in a punitive tone.

“Oh, Leo, give her a break. You heard her say she's been on a thousand calories a day for almost a month,” Opal said sweetly.

Crane halted Millie's second trip to her mouth with a firm palm against her wrist. “No more, Mil. Let's go,” Crane said harshly as he shoved the dessert plate to the center of the table.

He stood. Millie's heavily made-up Pekingese face was twisted by humiliation and anger as she stared up into his face. He took hold of her arm. She stood, her rosebud mouth twitching.

“Thanks, folks, for the lunch and company. Have a pleasant trip home, Aunt Opal,” Crane struggled to say cheerfully.

Opal smiled. “Thank you, Leo.”

Rucker said softly, “We enjoyed seeing you both.”

“I'm sorry,” Millie said feebly, with her eyes fixed on the carpet, as they turned away from the table.

Rucker and Opal finished dessert in silence. Opal sighed. “Oh, Ruck, I'm so sorry to see those kids in such trouble.”

Rucker toyed with his wine goblet. “It's tough going for them…I'm worried about Leo.”

Opal looked at her face in a compact mirror. “He does look bad. Maybe he isn't an ideal husband…He is a good cop, isn't he, Ruck?”

Rucker looked into her luminous dark eyes for a moment. “He was one of the best.”

She entwined her fingers. “ ‘Was' Ruck? Is he in trouble with the department?”

He touched her hands. “No, not yet.”

She groaned. “Oh Jesus.”

Rucker held her hands. “Darling, please, don't worry. I'm trying and hoping to take care of him and his problem on my own.”

“I have been his loving mother since he was ten. My sister Ellen, his mother, and his father died in a car crash. I took care of him. I saw him through some scary near-collisions with law and order before he straightened out. So don't sugar-coat his present troubles for me, Ruck.”

He smiled. “Mother dear, Leo confided the downside of his early life to me shortly after we became partners in the Seventy-seventh Division.” Rucker leaned toward her to half whisper, “He's hooked on cocaine, and he could be guilty of criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.”

She gasped. “You mean, he could go to prison?”

Rucker nodded. “At worst, he could. As I said, I'm trying to save him from that…Do I have your promise not to say anything to him about our conversation here today?”

She nodded. “I won't say anything to him. After all, Ruck, I know that you love him, too. I know you'll do everything possible to help him.” She looked at her watch. “Ruck, the past thirty-six hours have been so sweet with you. I just know you've stopped drinking forever. I can't be this happy until I see you again.”

He feather-stroked the back of her hands with his lips. He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Knowing you feel this way will keep me happy until I see you again.”

They left the restaurant for the airport. As a skycap was taking Opal's bag from the Lincoln's trunk, Rucker said, “Give Rebecca my love, and tell her I'm rooting for her speedy recovery.”

They kissed goodbye. Rucker watched her until she disappeared into the terminal.

Rucker drove to the station to brief the 3:00-to-11:00-p.m. shift. He parked the car and entered the station. He stepped inside the briefing room.

Crane avoided eye contact with him during the routine ten-minute briefing. Then, as usual, Rucker handed each squad member a listing of current squad and regular vice-car licenses. He followed the squad to the parking lot and entered a Thunderbird undercover car. He was about to start the engine when it hit him that the license list he had just passed out was the key to trap Crane.

He drove off the lot, refining the trap that he would set at Crane's next briefing.

That evening, at midnight, Pee Wee relieved herself. She had decided she would sound out Petra before she confided Shetani's sucker antics with Tuta. She knew strong Petra wouldn't rush to Shetani in a jealous rage. She was leery because of Petra's well-known loyalty to him. She had to gamble that Petra wouldn't finger her as a snitch. She smiled wickedly as she got off the throne and flushed the toilet.

At 2:30 a.m., Tuta came into the bedroom after getting her bedtime skag shot.

“Shit, girl, you almost look as fresh as you did when you got down,” Pee Wee exclaimed.

“Thanks. I had French tricks all night,” Tuta said as she slipped out of her lemon shoes and minidress.

Pee Wee's heart leapt out of rhythm at the voluptuous vision of Tuta's nude body. She lay atop her bed and felt fiery springs of passion flood her head as she watched Tuta go into the shower.

Shortly, Tuta came from the bathroom in a black silk-and-lace bikini.

“You must have a date with the Master himself,” Pee Wee cracked as she watched her sit down and start to make up her face.

“Yeah, Wee; only thing is, he don't know it yet.”

Pee Wee giggled. “You mean you gonna try to fuck him just like that?”

Tuta sat motionless for a moment. “I mean he's gonna get me off this mornin' or else.”

Pee Wee laughed. “Don't jive me, baby. You ain't gonna split from no righteous China white for dick reasons.”

Tuta smiled. “I got a regular trick who deals China white. What the fuck, I'm a gorjus bitch. Daddy's gonna get me off or I'm gonna get in the wind.”

Pee Wee shook her head in puzzlement at it all. Why wasn't Shetani fucking his pet? she asked herself.

Moments later, Tuta stood in full radiant makeup. “See you later, Wee,” she said at the door.

“I hope you score, baby. You better at least pick up that phone and call him first. You know it's against the rules to go to his door after midnight with no appointment.”

Tuta said, “I'm just gonna be a pure little bitch.”

Pee Wee went to the doorway and watched Tuta wiggle her way to Shetani's door.

Inside his bedroom, Shetani received the night's take in seventeen envelopes from Petra. They stared at each other at the sound of Tuta's knock at the door.

Shetani jerked his head toward the door. She went to peer through the peephole.

“It's Tuta. You must be expecting her,” Petra said as she glanced at him over her shoulder. He nodded. She opened the door.

“Excuse me, Petra, I didn't know you were here,” Tuta said as she looked over Petra's head at the hardening face of Shetani.

“Honey, come in. I'm leaving,” Petra said as she stepped aside for Tuta's entry.

“She looks like centerfold stuff, doesn't she, Master?” thirty-year-old Petra said wistfully as she paused to survey Tuta's teenage splendor.

Petra left the room and shut the door.

Shetani glared at Tuta as she sat down beside him on the bed. She started to rest her head on his shoulder. He moved away.

“Master, I'm sorry I broke your rule. I needed to talk to you, body to body.”

He threw a robe around her shoulders. “Silly bitch. Don't break no more rules.”

She flung the robe off her to the carpet. “I'm not silly! I'm just a human ho that's gonna get sick if her man don't get her off.”

His hellish eyes burned through her as he sat like Satan, sculpted in black granite.

She broke the silence. “What's wrong with me, Master? All my tricks tell me how sexy I am. I'll change my hair, perfume, anything, to make you want to make love to me.”

He sprang to his feet before her. “Don't pressure me for my dick, cunt. No bitch tells me when to fuck. You got that?”

She fell to her knees. “Okay, Master. Just let me suck it a little. I've got tricks comin' from the Valley twice a week for head. Let me show—”

“You stinking low-life ho,” he thundered to cut her off.

She stared up at him with extravagant surprise and disbelief on her face. She screamed, “It's fuckin' true I'm a ho. I'm proud to be a ho. I'll die a ho!”

He swung a violent backhand against the side of her head. She collapsed on the carpet, quivering. She scooted up to a sitting position against the bed frame. She held the side of her face.

“Master, I bet you ain't got no dick,” she said in a shaky whisper.

With one hand he reached into his pajama pants and jerked out his long, limp penis. He seized her hair with the other hand. “See! Look! Now you know, bitch, I've got a dick.”

He dragged her to the door and flung her into the hallway. He slammed the door.

Pee Wee rushed to help her into their bedroom.

“He's stone crazy. Like I told you, Wee, I'm gettin' in the wind,” Tuta sobbed as Pee Wee held her in her arms on a chaise.

“Yeah, lil baby, he came down on your ass like a square. When you splittin'?”

Tuta turned up her emerald eyes. “Tomorrow, after I make some bread.”

Pee Wee tenderly kissed her bruised cheek. “That's not soon enough. When he gets up, he could lock you in that cell in the cellar.”

Tuta trembled. “How…What am I going to do?”

Pee Wee squeezed her close to her bosom. “You lucky little sweet-eyes. You got me. We'll pack your stuff, then we'll get you a cab to a hotel room before he gets up.”

Tuta said, “But I'm almost broke. I couldn't even…”

Pee Wee's lips against hers interrupted the sentence. “I'm splittin' soon. I'll give you the bread for the cab and a pad that we can share. I'll teach you how to be a superstar thievin' ho. I'm gonna bring a kilo of boss China white with me.”

Pee Wee's tongue riffled through a downy forest of hairs at the nape of her neck without touching the electrified skinscape.

Tuta hissed with pleasure and flung her thighs open in the throes of the thrill. Their clashing pygmy tools fired the furnace of their tender cannibalism.

Consumed, they lay panting, with dewy bodies glistening. “We gonna be so happy together. Ain't we, lil baby?” Pee Wee whispered in the moonlit stillness.

“We gotta be, Wee. We ain't got nobody but us,” Tuta softly answered.

Half an hour later, Tuta went to sleep. Pee Wee went to shower. Coming back to bed, she glanced out the window. She stopped to stare at the ghostly figure of snow-blonde Petra in a white flowing robe. She strolled trancelike in the flower garden, with her arms folded.

Pee Wee threw on a robe and, with the Memory Lane picture in her pocket, went to the garden.

“Hi, Petra. I couldn't sleep, either. I hope you don't mind me buttin' in,” Pee Wee said breezily as she sat down on a wrought-iron bench beside Petra.

The red eye of Petra's cigarette waggled a welcome signal. “Not at all, Pee Wee.”

Pee Wee gazed up at the star-pocked sky. Petra laughed. “Lady, beware of heavenly awe. You might become born again.”

Pee Wee rammed her hands into her robe pockets. “I ain't in danger of that…I always think about Mama when the stars pop out. She believed in heaven and hell and the rest of the sucker fairy tale. She left me alone forever when I was twelve. She died with calluses everywhere, maybe even on her soul.”

Petra's face softened. “What did you do after…?”

Pee Wee sighed. “I bunked in a junk car and stole food from markets. A coupla weeks after Mama left, a store pig busted me on the sidewalk with my bloomers fulla bread and cold cuts. Big Cat's bottom woman hipped me how to steal. No, I ain't in no danger of bein' born again.”