The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told (32 page)

“Jones, or Smith, or something. Is it important?”

“Let’s make it Smith-Jones, then.”

“Sure! That’s high-tone enough. And may I call you Rebecca?”

“I prefer Becky.”

“All right.”

The chauffeur was standing with the limo’s rear door open. His face was shadowed by his visor, but I could make out a firm jaw and a bucketlike skull.

“Let’s not stand out here talking,” she said, suddenly glancing about, almost furtively.

“Why not? You’re not mistaking a member of the Smith-Jones clan for the sort of riff-raff you don’t care to be seen with?”

“Please get in. What is that you have there?”

“Just my old kit bag. I don’t go anywhere without my old kit bag—it contains what few possessions I still have.”

“Fine. But do please get in.”

The chauffeur moved forward, and I had the feeling that if I didn’t get in, he’d toss me there.

“Ladies first,” I said, bowing, gesturing, and she quickly ducked in.

I followed. The leather seats smelled new; they were deep and comfortable—like living-room furniture, not the backseat of a car.

“Mr. Smith-Jones, I wanted to express my gratitude to you, this evening.”

She was unpinning the black hair; it fell in cascades to her shoulders. She shook her head and it shimmered and brushed her shoulders, flipping up at the bottom.

“Gratitude?” I asked. “For what?”

“For your help, these last several days.”

“In the kitchen? Jeez, lady . . . Rebecca . . . Becky . . . it’s only fair. You’ve been always good to guys like me, down on their luck, making sure we get a square meal once in a while.”

“I’ve known adversity myself,” she said solemnly. It sounded silly, but I managed not to laugh.

“So . . . uh . . . how exactly do you intend to express your gratitude?”

She touched my hand; she looked at me with those iris-less dark eyes. She seemed about to say something provocative, something sensual, something seductive. What she said was: “Food.”

“Food?”

“Food. Real food. A real meal. Prepared by a five-star chef.”

“No kidding. I had something else in mind . . . ” I grinned at her lecherously, and she just smiled. “ . . . but I’ll settle.”

She didn’t let it go.
“What
else did you have in mind, Mr. Smith-Jones?”

I sighed. Looked down at my tattered clothes. Shook my head. “I shouldn’t even kid about it. How can you look at somebody like me . . . unshaven . . . dirty clothes . . . breath that would knock a buzzard off a dung wagon . . . and think of me in any other way but one of pity?”

She patted my hand. “That’s not necessarily true, Mr. Smith-Jones. I can look at you and see . . . possibilities. I can see the man you were—the man you still are, underneath the bad luck and the hard times.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

Her cool hand grasped mine. “And I don’t think your breath is bad at all . . . I think it smells sweet . . . like night-blooming jasmine . . . ”

She leaned forward; her thin but beautiful lips parted—they were scarlet, but I wasn’t sure she was wearing lip rouge—and she touched her lips to mine, delicately. Then she touched my unshaven cheek with the slender, long-nailed fingers of one hand and stared soulfully at me.

“You’re a fine man, Mr. Smith-Jones. We’re going to clean you up . . . a bath . . . a shave . . . an incredible meal. You’re going to have the night of your life . . . ”

The Radclau mansion was a modern brick castle beyond a black wrought-iron gate; three massive stories, its turreted shape rose against the clear night sky in sharp silhouette, the moon poised above and to the right as if placed there for the sole purpose of lighting this imposing structure.

“This is really something,” I said. “When was this built?”

“Just a few years ago,” she said.

We were around the side of the building now, gliding into a garage which opened automatically for us—whether the chauffeur triggered it somehow, or someone inside saw us coming and lifted the drawbridge, I couldn’t say.

“I recruited one of the top local architects to build something modern that would evoke my family home,” she said.

“Where
was
the family home?”

“Europe.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“Just a little corner of eastern Europe. You probably wouldn’t even have heard of it.”

Maybe I would have.

We stepped from the cement cavern of the four-car garage into a wine cellar passageway that led to an elevator.

“I was never in a private home that had an elevator,” I told her; the leather strap of my canvas kit bag was tight in my hand. The chauffeur—whose bucketlike skull turned out to have two dead eyes, a misshapen nose, and grim line of a mouth stuck on it—was playing elevator operator for us.

“Why, Mr. Smith-Jones,” she said, looping her arm in mine, smiling her wry one-sided dimpled smile again, “I find that difficult to believe.”

The elevator, a silver-gray chamber, rose to the fourth floor and opened onto a red-painted door in a cream-colored plaster alcove.

“We’re in one of the guest towers,” she said. She stepped out into the alcove with me, still arm-in-arm. “These are your quarters . . . you’ll find everything you need, I think. I just guessed on your size. If I’ve got it wrong, just pick up the phone and ask for me. We can accommodate you. Then, let us know when you’re ready to dine . . . ”

She smiled—both dimples this time—and ducked back into the elevator, whose doors slid shut, and she was gone.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, and in the little alcove, it echoed.

The red door was unlocked, and opened onto a vast modern living room—plush white carpet, round white leather sofa, deep white armchairs, sleek decorative figurines, black-and-white decorative framed prints, a fireplace, a complete bar, a radio console, you name it. Everything but the kitchen sink. Everything but mirrors.

Beyond the living room was a bedroom; it was another white room, with one exception: the round bed was covered with red silk sheets. On the wall, over the bed, was a huge, bamboo-framed, sleekly decorative watercolor of a black panther, about to strike.

In the closet hung a full-dress tux—white tie and tails, pip pip. And the size
was
right, down to the black size nine and a half shoes, so shiny I could see my face in ’em, but probably not hers . . .

I tossed my kit bag on the bed, and checked out the bathroom; it was bigger than most apartments. On the white marble counter (and there
was
a mirror in here, at least) I found a straight razor, a brush and cup and shaving soap, and fancy French imported after-shave cologne. Also deodorant powder, and toothbrush and Pepsodent.

She apparently wanted me clean and smelling good, for dinner.

I made sure the guest-room door was locked, and stuck a chair under the knob to make double-sure, before stripping down to take a long, elaborate, very hot bubble bath. After two weeks of the hobo life, I was ready to take advantage of Miss Radclau’s hospitality and soak off the slime.

Dressed to the nines, looking like neither a hobo nor an undercover cop in my white tie and tails, I picked up the phone and said, “Mr. Smith-Jones is ready to dine.”

Within minutes, a knock at the door announced the chauffeur, who was serving as a room-service man this time; he wheeled in a cart with several covered dishes.

“Please wait for the lady, sir,” the chauffeur said, in a voice as dead as his eyes. “Madam is still dressing.”

“Sure,” I said.

It was another ten minutes before another knock came, and I hadn’t even peeked under the dull, nonreflective lids of the hot dishes. I didn’t want to be an ungracious guest.

I answered the door, bowing, with an arch, “
Enchante
.”

But it almost caught in my throat, because as I was bowing I found myself staring into her round, ripe decolletage.

I backed up awkwardly. “You’re sure a sight.”

She floated inside. Madam still looked undressed: her astonishingly low-cut gown was a vivid dark red and clung to her as if wet. Her waist was tiny, her hips flaring, but she was too tall, too longlegged, to have an hour-glass shape; she was wearing open-toed heels that brought her to my eye level. Her toenails were the same bright red as the dress and her lips.

She gestured theatrically to herself, with both hands. “I trust this is better than the apron?”

“Than the apron and the gray uniform,” I said. “Maybe not just the apron . . . ”

Her laugh was long and sultry. She was draped in an exotic, incenselike perfume, which was making me feel woozy.

She gestured with a slender red-nailed hand toward the tray with the covered food.

“Please dine,” she said.

I pulled up a comfy chair that was a little short for the tray; it made me feel like a child. Before I sat, I asked, “Aren’t you joining me?”

“I’ve eaten.”

I doubted that.

“Please,” she said, “I take great pleasure from watching you enjoy yourself. The carnal pleasures are so . . . ”

“Pleasurable?” I offered, lifting a round lid; the fragrance of prime rib rose to my nostrils like a cobra from a snake charmer’s basket, only I was the one doing the biting, sinking my teeth into the tender, very rare, succulent meat.

“I know I promised you the work of a five-star chef,” she said, perched nearby on the arm of the couch, legs crossed, giving me a generous view, hands clasped in her lap, “and that is the work of a master, but . . . I could tell that you had . . .
basic
appetites.”

She rose and switched on the radio and drifted back to her perch on the couch arm. A dance band was playing “Where or When.” She swayed gently to it, her black hair shimmying.

“This is swell,” I said. The prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and browned potatoes were, in fact, delicious. No salad, no vegetable. But what the hell—it was free. So far.

She watched me with what seemed to be genuine pleasure, eyebrows raising as she savored me savoring every bite, her thin, pretty mouth tied up in a cupid’s bow of shared bliss. Why she was getting such a vicarious glow out of watching me dig into the rare roast beef, I couldn’t say. But I had a pretty good hunch . . .

I touched my napkin to my lips, sipped the red wine she had risen to pour for me, in a goblet-sized glass, and aid, “This is a hell of a public service program you got here, lady.”

“I don’t single just
anyone
out, you know.” She looked almost hurt by my remark. “Once in a while, working in that line, serving up soup . . . I see someone . . . special. Someone who shouldn’t be there. Someone who . . . deserves better. Deserves more.”

She leaned in and the incenselike smell of her was overwhelming; her mouth locked onto mine and her kiss as sweet, much sweeter than mere wine . . .

The lights were off, suddenly, as if she’d willed it, and she led me into the bedroom, where the red gown slipped off and confirmed my suspicion that there was nothing, not even the slightest, wispiest step-in, underneath. A window allowed some moonlight to filter and her slender, yet full-breasted, wide-hipped, long-limbed frame was like some artist’s dream of female perfection. And a horny artist, at that.

She drew me onto her bed, and laid me down on it cool silk sheets, and climbed on top of me, to grant my yet another gift. The erect blood-red tips of her breasts were as hypnotic as the intoxicated and intoxicating almond eyes, as she rode me, and I kept waiting, lost in her as I was, with my left hand dropped down along the side of the bed, waiting for her head to dip toward my throat, but it didn’t, and when her face lowered, it was merely to kiss me again, deeply, passionately, as we flew together to some high, fevered place . . .

Maybe she was just some rich-bitch society girl who felt sorry for (and had a yen for) poor down-and-out schmucks like me, or like the poor down-and-out schmuck I was supposed to be. Maybe the suspicions that had brought me here were unfounded. Maybe I was the only dishonest one in this bed.

It had seemed a reasonable theory—what better place for an ancient monster to hide than behind the mask of a modern monster? The mass murderer that the city took the Butcher of Slaughter Run for would be the perfect disguise for a demon of the night.