Kiss of Noir (29 page)

“I met Payne long, long ago…” Julia began.

“Why don’t we move to a booth?” I smiled, picking up both of our drinks. “Cozier.”

Julia shrugged and followed.

When we settled, I prompted, “You met Payne long ago.” I puffed hard on my cigarette.

“Ah, yes. I’ve known her for a hundred years. She was just a puppy. She was in college and working her way through LSU. What a dear. She was such a cute young thing, as delectable as dessert and twice as sweet. We struck up a friendship and it got so she would just do anything for me.” Julia grinned, sipping her drink.

“So you met her when she was a dealer in a casino while you gambled your husband’s money. You blinded her with your voracious cunt,” I amended. “Continue.”

Julia giggled, squeezing my thigh. “You do understand me, Nora. I like that.”

“Get on with it,” I snarled, not wanting to agree with how well I comprehended crazy women. They were, with all their unpredictability, volatile personalities, danger and lust, as clean and easy as a road map to me.

“Well, we were associates for several years.”

“Pussy partners.”

“And when she graduated a full-fledged engineer, I gave her a rec and she began working for one of my husband’s companies.”

“You bullied him into giving her a job she didn’t deserve and you two continued your nasty affair.”

Julia tittered. “Oh, how you do prattle. I taught her all I know.”

“That should’ve taken about, what,” I said, rolling a cigarette. “Fifteen minutes?”

“Step lightly,” Julia said, and although she was pleasant, her teeth showed. Her cigarette had gone out because she had merely played with it. She held it out to me and pulled a pouty face so I would relight it. As I was doing so, Julia continued. “Payne attends all the company functions, so I make sure I’m there too. The Christmas party is the best. To this day, I soak my drawers just smelling a pine tree.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “The sweetest panty pudding ever, I’m sure. Is that a yeast infection or are you just glad to see me?”

“You know it,” Julia said and then her voice went silken. “You remember.” She stroked my arm.

“Get your demon hands off me. I don’t even know why I’m here. I must be insane.”

“You’re here because you want to know
why
. And because you’re angry,” Julia said, hanging on my shoulder and blowing into my ear. “The eternal downfall of the weak and the good. Pursuit of
why
.” She chuckled. “Well, I can’t help you understand, but I can help you with your big, black cock.”

“Back off, skank. My cigarette comes closer to getting me off than you would.”

“Even hell doesn’t have as much fire as I do when I’m refused.”

I faced her, utterly unimpressed. “I fuck who and when I want. And that’s a short list right now and you ain’t even a runner-up.”

Julia ignored this and caressed my shoulder with the new tattoos. “Who’s Max?”

“Someone long dead,” I lied to keep Julia’s dirty fingers off the topic.

“And she broke your heart, so now you wear her name as a scar of honor. How precious.” Julia clapped.

“Shut up, bitch.” Julia threw the rest of her drink in my face. I stared at her, exasperated. “You ruined a perfectly good smoke. Now what do you want?”

“You know what,” Julia said, her eyes blazing.

“No.” I grinned. “Suppose you tell me?”

“Suppose you take a wet and wild guess?”

I dropped her soggy cigarette to the table. “I won’t.”

“Fuck me,” Julia breathed, her hips wriggling in her seat and her bosom heaving.

I looked her over and let my mind wonder about it. First, I would refuse to kiss her. I would grab a fist full of Julia’s hair, force her to stand and then push her down to all fours.

“Get down there on the bar floor like the dog you are and lick my boots,” I would tell her.

Julia, panting, eyes sparkling and round rump high in the air, would bend to comply.

“No.” I would step away. “First take off your skirt and panties. Not your blouse and bra, just expose your bitch parts. And lick me clean. I’ve been in the Quarter.”

Julia, scowling, would hesitate. I would cup my own crotch and wag my finger. Julia would whip off her clothes and put her mouth on my boots. I, in spite of my grief and rage, always enjoyed seeing eager ass wagging in the air, aching, waiting…

While Julia licked hard and fast, I would bend over her soft big butt and slap as hard as I could. Julia would cry out, but would keep working. I would continue to hit her, enjoying the sight and the sound. “You finish too fast, you won’t get any.” Julia whimpered and slowed her bobbing head. “No. I’m not going to. Not this time,” I said almost to myself. “I’m different now.” I dropped my hands and stepped over the whimpering figure of Julia. “Get up. Dress your sorry ass. I never want to smell you again.” I strode away, my head high, my heart thumping. My fantasy dissolved. I was in the booth with Julia.

Julia still stared at me, waiting for my inevitable assent. I had to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Nope, hot pants, you’ve gotta find another damn fool to mess with you.” I swallowed the damp washcloth lodged in my throat. I felt Julia’s drink dripping from my jaw and drying sticky around my eyes. “I’ll never be that desperate again.” The images of Cleo, Ellis, Sayan, and Drew gave my lustful jellybones strength. “You’re pure poison. You’re garbage and I’ll never dabble with a trashy slut like you again.” Just then I knew I wouldn’t kill Julia or even hurt her. The last time I hugged Ellis before I left, I could smell the clean scent of healing on him already. I wanted that too. I was tired of dirt and squalor and filth and games and bad decisions.

Julia’s face blanched and tightened. Her crossed cat’s eyes smoldered with scorned shame. She left the booth and the bar without another word.

“Guess I’m buying the drinks,” I said to myself and shrugged, ignoring my trembling hands. I sat for another half an hour, lost in a tipsy trance, finishing my own Guinness. Finally, I dabbed my face with the tiny, sodden bar napkin. I paid and left, walking quickly to my car, still with no idea what I was doing or where I was going.

Three men stepped out of the mouth of an alley, blocking my way. I could just see my car less than a block away.

“Hey, guys. I don’t want any trouble.” I held up my hands and tried to sprint away. They grabbed me and dragged me deep into the alley without a sound. One took my gun.

“You want money? Credit cards? I’ll give you my wallet and my watch. C’mon now, this ain’t cool.”

One punched me in the stomach, causing me to double over the sudden knot of agony. All my Guinness came up and splashed on the man’s shoes.

“Quiet,” the man said, impervious to the vomit.

Heels echoed in a slow staccato. I turned and saw Julia. She was grinning and smug. She leaned against the wall and very slowly and deliberately removed a cigarette from her purse, lit it, and exhaled.

“Oh, my God, you filthy cooze! All this because I wouldn’t fuck you? Come on!”

“I warned you, Nora. You’re a worthless, uppity nigger and you need to be brought down a few notches.” Julia dropped the partly smoked cigarette and ground it beneath her expensive shoes. “I’m going to have pleasure tonight one way or another. And this way will be just fine.” Julia shrugged, smiling.

“You’re gonna kill me too? Just like you did Cleo?”

One thug clopped my ear, hard. I dropped to the ground, hearing the ocean and shaking my head. I remained on my knees, knowing if I stood, I would only be knocked down again.

“Cleo?” Who the hell is Cleo?” Julia demanded. The sacred name should’ve burned her infidel tongue.

“My uncle. You went to the pawn the night of the storm and shot him because you thought he was Ellis. Don’t you read the papers?”

“I don’t
read
the papers, I am
in
the papers.”

“So you did it, didn’t you? Tell me before I get the shit kicked out of me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“That’s a damn lie.”

Julia dismissed me. “Okay, boys. Beat her ass. Make it good. I am urgent hungry tonight.” She crossed her legs at the ankle and her arms at her bosom as if waiting for the theatre.

I remembered curling into a comma, feeling the first blows, but not much after that. I realized when I felt a boot smashing into my mouth that evil is faster and quicker than good.

I tried to move but it was too great an effort. I opened one eye. The other was gummed shut. Blurry streetlights shone in the dark distance. Sirens wailed over someone else’s problems. Traffic noise told me that I was flat on my stomach in an alley.

“Jesus,” I muttered through my swollen lips. I tasted the dark iron of my own blood. The asphalt was wet and gritty under my cheek. Garbage smells: rotten bananas, dog shit, bad fish assaulted me further. For a second, I thought I would vomit again, but willed it back. I tried breathing deeply and decided I had at least one broken rib. A large shadow darted. A cat or a cockroach, I grimly tried to smile.

Little by little, I turned myself on to my back. “Aaaahhh!” I groaned as I lay there, staring up through the buildings at the stars, so far away and indifferent.

Remaining on my back, I fumbled in my pockets until I found my cigarettes and a wooden match. After my adventure in Tulsa, I had resigned myself to buying cigarettes on the regular. All foolishness of quitting was gone. I flicked my thumbnail across the head of the match and it exploded into tiny fire. I lit my cigarette and inhaled shallow. My crotch felt cold and wet so I touched my pants.

“Lord God, I done pissed myself!” I whispered, shaking my head, my shaven skull rolling back and forth on the ground. Cleo murdered, me, unemployed and homeless. Life was right on track.

And there, laid out on my back in the French Quarter, I started laughing. It started out small and grew to a ripe richness, floating out to mix with the traffic noise.

I eventually stood, and shaking, bleeding, my breathing short and ragged, I limped out of the alley. I unbuckled my wet slacks and left them at the entrance. I found the .38 on the lid of a trash barrel and I tucked it into the waistband of my boxers. My underwear was wet too, but not as heavy as pants, and I had long since stopped caring what I looked like or who saw me. I got to my car and drove to the pawn. I had to find some answers. Not knowing was the snag that kept me from being free. I would give my life for the answer to this one and I didn’t give a flying shit what happened to me anymore. Let the killer come for me too. I tore through the crime scene tape and let myself inside. No one had been here since it happened; the awful scene was frozen in time. I stopped by the fridge and got a beer as fortification. I tried to light a cigarette but my hands shook so badly and my eyes swelled so that I couldn’t smoke. I got a battery lantern from the storm supply closet because even if the power was hot, I didn’t want the lights on, and carrying my bottle, I held my breath and averted my eyes as I carefully stopped over the blood stain to get to the back room. In that mountain of dirt Ellis collected, there had to be something.

I set the lamp on one of the filing cabinets and looked around. There were eviscerated envelopes everywhere and no blood, so there had been no struggle in here. How would I ever find anything in this wild mess?

I wouldn’t. I went to the safe. It was securely locked. Damn! I tried to guess the combination. Ellis’s birthday, Sayan’s, mine, their anniversary, the pawn street number. I tried Cleo’s birthday and heard a deeply satisfying click. I swung the thick door open and pawed randomly through the envelopes, willing the right one to catch my eye. My hand stopped on one marked PP. I tore it open and poured the papers on the floor. There she was in all her glory—Payne Phillips. Crooked undercover New Orleans police officer. Drug busts and “lost” evidence and missing property and a very healthy gambling debt. Jesus Christ. And Johnny Fallana gave Ellis all the info. So was Johnny dead now too? I held my head in my hands. Mother Mary, I thought this shit happened only in the movies. Well, nothing left to do but go see Payne for the coup de grâce. I patted the gun and drove by Johnny’s house, since it was close to the pawn, to see what was up. Attached to the trees were pieces of crime scene tape fluttering and flapping in the wind. His house was dark and looked deserted. I called Ellis. “Do you have Payne’s address? Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t do this, Ellis. Gimme her address.”

“Nora, don’t do anything foolish, hear? The police are all over this thing.”

“Fuck that! Gimme her goddamn address!”

“I can’t. I won’t. I gave you that gun to defend yourself, not to kill. Nora, for real, you don’t want to do anything you’ll—”

I hung up. I drove to Filly’s house and pounded on her front door until she answered.

“Nora,” Carol said coldly. “What do you want?”

“We’re going for a ride.” I grabbed her and dragged her to my car.

“Wait, I’m in my nightgown. I need to lock up.”

I shoved her in, locked and slammed the door. She stayed put. When I got in, I demanded, “Where does Payne live?”

“What?”