The Pulptress (2 page)

“
Only two,” his whisper
sounded like gravel shuffling around in his flabby cheeks. “The old
guy over there, against the left wall. Lots of white mustache on
his lip and lots of brunette at his table. Looks ex-military or
cop. And the other one,” he gestured with at least two of his three
chins toward the door. “Dude sitting by himself, four tables in on
the right from the front door, brandy snifter in front of him. He
could be trouble.”

“
Got it,” the lanky ruffian
confirmed as he took a step away from the bar, his little buddy
falling in behind him to the left. They both hesitated, waiting for
the last cog to turn in their well-oiled machine. It did a second
later as the front door opened again and two men entered. The first
one through was tall, broad shouldered and blonde with the tanned
face of a 1950s matinee idol, while the red headed man closing the
door came up to his partner’s shoulder and was smaller in stature,
built like a well-trained jockey with the look of a switchblade
knife ready to spring open. Both wore lavender suits.

“
Okay,” that ugly thin
lipped grin twisted the skinny goon’s narrow face again, “time to
get our boy home to his new boss.”

The odd looking pair of men
navigated the obstacle course of glass and chrome chairs and tables
between them and their quarry. The two men behind the obviously
intoxicated and involved man and woman did the same, the matinee
idol crossing to the left, the other countering and taking up the
right flank. Both teams of two stopped with about five feet between
them and the man they intended to leave with.

“
But Deucey, baby,” the
curvy, svelte blonde bombshell said in a high pitched twitter,
enough alcohol in her words that ‘s’ already slurred into ‘sh’, “I
don’t wanna drink anymore. “ She hung on her consort’s neck, a
fetching, evocative charm any man would want on his bracelet, her
well-muscled, pale skinned body barely concealed by the scraps of
crimson and black that made up the Fortier original dress she wore.
“And nobody’s dancin’ in here, baby.”

“
Not yet, darling,” the man
in the charcoal gray Armani suit replied, doing his best to stay on
his own two feet while trying to wrangle the tittering and
tantalizing lady from around his neck. His posture and the flush of
his cheeks gave away that he’d spent the last few hours swimming up
Whiskey River, but that was all that betrayed his inebriation. He
stood up to as much of his full six feet as possible, his lady
still hanging on with one arm, her head thrown back and the other
arm dangling at her side, gregarious giggles still bubbling from
between candy apple red lips. Drunk though he may have been, Thomas
“Deuce” Kane’s deep hazel eyes reverberated intelligence and
awareness as he took in the two men in pastel colored suits in
before him. “Looks like these gents may want to punch my dance
card, though.”

The blonde tried her best
to focus on the men encircling them. Whatever she saw only made her
snicker even more. “You might be right, Deucey. They’re all wearin’
the cutest shade of pink.”

“
Mr. Kane,” shrilled the
knobby jointed skeleton of a man in front of him, “Mr. Lannigan has
dispatched us here to your favorite late night libation location to
renew his previous offers.”

“
Oh no, you don’t!”
Struggling against gravity as well as her own chemically induced
limitations, the vivacious blonde let go of Kane's neck and
promptly fell sideways onto the floor. Instinctively Kane and all
four of his assailants twitched as if to bend to help her up, but
she was amazingly back upright, even though unsteadily, on her red
high heels before any one of them could extend a hand. She faced
Kane and poked him with a long red nail. “You said no business
tonight, Deucey. You promised!”

“
I did indeed, dearest
Tori,” Kane said, his face mottled with colors from ashen gray to
embarrassed scarlet, “but these are the sort of gentlemen you don’t
plan for.”

“
Indeed,” spat the rotund
man wobbling back and forth on pudgy limbs just behind his thin
friend. “And Mr. Lannigan has no concern for your partying,
promiscuous playboy antics, Mr. Kane. He wants the other side of
you.”

“
Yes,” Kane sighed, “So many
do, it’s a curse of being filthy rich and one of the smartest men
treading earth.” He laughed at his own arrogant compliment, Tori
providing accompaniment with her continual chittering. “But again,
I’m sorry, fellows,” Kane said, actually sounding as if he simply
hated to disappoint the four men, “but I’m afraid the answer is the
same here in one of New York’s finest hotels as it was in Mr.
Lannigan’s office a week ago. I have no need to work for anyone or
to even work at all. And although Mr. Lannigan is a rather
interesting man at the very least, his disregard for legality
bothers me somewhat. So, no.”

“
No,” hissed the bony
hoodlum, his skeletal knuckles cracking as he rolled his fingers
into fists, “was an answer Mr. Lannigan tolerated at your first
meeting. It is not one he will allow us to accept tonight, Mr.
Kane. You’re coming with us.”

“
Deucey,” Tori chirped
excitedly, placing her pale ivory hands seductively on Kane’s
chest, “I do so wanna dance. But,” she exclaimed, giving her escort
a playful, but hard shove backwards, “not with you!”

What unfolded in the next
few seconds in vivid living color could only be described as paying
homage to those old classic black and white screwball comedy fight
scenes from the likes of Claudette Colbert. Deuce Kane fell back,
his well-muscled arms flailing. The jockey switchblade tried to
avoid the collapsing millionaire by stepping back and to the left,
but he wasn’t fast enough. Kane crashed into him on his way to
landing on his back on the barroom floor. The little ruffian yelled
out as he took a flying slap to the temple and collided with a
table. The man seated there predicted what was about to occur and
slid an ebony hand across the table, taking and lifting his brandy
snifter gingerly, and let the unconscious man come to rest before
him.

As her hands left Deuce’s
chest, Tori spun about like a whirling dervish, set her crystalline
blue eyes on the matinee idol in lavender, and shouted, “It’s you I
wanna dance with!” Before he could accept, refuse, or slap her
down, Tori’s long arms encircled his neck. With fleeting thoughts
of not minding the embrace, the good looking hood raised his hands
and pushed against her, muttering “Lady, leggo!” three or four
times.

“
Oh,” Tori squealed
excitedly, “you dance divinely! Swing me! Swing me!”

“
Enough!” belched the round
stringy haired man, his hand sliding into his colorful jacket for
the polished silver pistol hanging from his shoulder. Before his
frankfurter fingers even felt the cold steel of the gun, he was
caught off guard by what happened next. Although the criminal with
the Van Heflin face seemed to be arguing with his new paramour’s
advances, he now appeared to be complying. He jerked forward and
suddenly Tori was airborne, her toned, shapely legs fanning through
the air, a comely top spinning from the pivot her current dance
partner provided.

The gangly crook took the
first hit, a high heeled shoe to the temple. He opened his mouth to
gasp or shout or something, but unconsciousness fell over him
quickly. All that crawled out over his paper like lips was a
weakened, defeated breath.

Cursing as his front man
folded like a sheet in a storm wind, the big bellied man went down
on one knee to avoid the return trip of Tori’s high flying heels.
As he hit the floor, though, he saw the only other of his team
still standing, the good looking kid with sparkling eyes and a
killer smile, drop to the floor as if suddenly overcome by sleep.
His head dipped forward first, those enchanting glimmers of his
fluttering shut, and then the rest of his athletic build followed,
crumpling on the floor like discarded laundry.

As he fell to the floor,
Tori, no longer with a neck to hold, flew full body through the
air, almost as if she’d been thrown by the Errol Flynn wannabe
before he took an unscheduled nap. Rolling up into the ball he
already so much resembled, the last remaining attacker hoped for
the best. What he got instead was all the blonde and expensive
dress he could handle, a torpedo of tantalizing beauty. And, just
like his cohorts, a shroud of darkness pulled over him as he
unfurled on the floor, knocked completely out.

Sitting upright by now,
Deuce Kane guffawed and slapped his right leg hard as he watched
the comedy of errors explode before him. Tori climbed up off the
floor, tripping over the thick dead weight the fat man had become,
and stumbled heel over heel into the table where the nervous jockey
type thug had landed. She glanced up, confused at first, and saw
the man who’d been sitting at the table. He looked at her with
amused coppery eyes and a mischievous grin adding mirth to his
dusky features. Tori giggled at him and pushed away from the table,
finally back on her own two feet. As she did so, the short man on
the table started moaning, trying to raise his head up. The black
man, still holding his brandy snifter up off the table, patted his
unwelcome guest on the shoulder, saying in a rumbling voice, “Stay
down, old man. Rest.” Apparently taking the advice, the formerly
tightly wound henchman dropped back to the tabletop, out cold once
more.

Tori, steadying herself at
long last, looked around at the carnage her dancing display had
caused. Most of the patrons in the bar were on their feet, clapping
and laughing at what some assumed surely had to be some sort of odd
impromptu theatrical production. “Oh dear,” Tori sighed, playfully
flinging a pale hand to her crimson lips, “did I do
that?”

“
Indeed, you did, my dear,”
Deuce Kane roared as he, using a table on one side and a chair on
the other, pushed himself up off the floor. Rolling his shoulders
and pulling at the epaulets of his suit coat, he then wrapped an
arm around the blonde beauty’s waist and whispered loud enough for
the entire bar to overhear, “Now, let’s go up to my room and see
what else you can do.”

***

An hour and forty seven
minutes later, spoiled socialite Tori Tenace stepped quietly out of
the 32nd floor Penthouse door of the Morriston Plaza Hotel and into
the foyer. Her blonde hair was wilder now, an aroused mane of gold.
A Fortier purse that of course matched her expensive frock hung
from her arm, having been left many hours ago in Deuce Kane’s room.
Before closing the door, she turned and leaned coquettishly back
into the darkened room. “Good night, Deucey,” she twittered, still
‘sh’ing her ‘s’s, “I’ll see you soon. Enjoy your trip, big boy.”
Winking a heavily mascaraed eye, she pushed the door shut and
staggered across the foyer to the elevator door, its silver surface
shimmering with reflected fluorescent light causing the tipsy jet
setter to wince.

Fumbling around the buttons
inset in the wall, a finely crafted nail finally brushed the ‘DOWN’
button and, as if waiting on Tori, the door whirred open, uniformed
elevator man and all. She grinned and blew a kiss at the young
freckle faced kid as she weaved into the car and relaxed in the
corner, the doors sliding shut behind her.

Twelve floors down and a
minute and a half later, Tori ambled clumsily out of the elevator
car, turned to glance over her shoulder, and left her already
blushing elevator man with another air kiss, letting this one
linger a bit longer. The kid’s sweat heavy brow and wide eyes
disappeared as the elevator door closed. Shrugging her shoulders
and chuckling, Tori Tenace tussled with the clasp on her purse as
she walked three doors down from the elevator, lazily leaning to
the right. Finally opening the purse, she liberated her room key
card from its confines and slid it into the slot for Room 1204. The
lock hummed and buzzed ever so slightly and Tori Tenace pushed the
door open, still mumbling like a drunken woman with too much money
and no responsibilities would at nearly three in the
morning.

When the door closed tight
in its jamb behind her, the woman stood up straight, her shoulders
cocked back. With the grace of a dancer, she kicked off one high
heeled shoe, following it with the other without so much as a
misstep. A smile still adorned her exquisite features, but it was
no longer the goofy grin of a besotted beauty. It was the knowing,
confident grin of a hero. Tori Tenace was no more.

Only the Pulptress
remained.

She glided across the
luxurious hotel room, effortlessly shedding the expensive dress and
leaving it on the floor behind her like an unwanted skin. Of all
the roles she’d created to be able to blend in anywhere in the
world, Tori Tenace was her least favorite. She turned sharply, but
delicately into the bathroom, low subdued lights coming on as she
entered. Tori was too faux, too plastic, she’d determined that two
years ago when she first established most of her alternate
identities. Not that all of them were any more authentic, but
Tori’s entire persona was everything The Pulptress was not. Still,
she was a necessary evil sometimes. Like this one.

She turned to face the
mirror that took up the entire wall in front of her. On the marble
tiled counter under the mirror was her ‘Body Box’ as one of her
mentors had called it so many years ago. It was handcrafted from
pine wood and varnished a dusty gray. It was about twelve inches
high and ten inches deep. She flipped open the left side first,
laying it flat on the counter, then the right. Arrayed in front of
her were various powders, vials of liquid, and other assorted
chemicals and treatments. Every single one of them held a very
specific purpose, and although they each were different, their use
was the same. To make The Pulptress someone she was not.