Moonlight Gets Schooled, page 7
“What’s the matter, Mister?” she said. “You’ve never seen a naked woman before?”
My mouth was dry, and my sternum was tight. To say Virginia Gamble was an absolute knockout was putting it just a little lightly. If this was her way of intimidating men and boys, she was sure doing a hell of a job with it.
“Sorry,” I said after along beat. “I’ll go get the booze.”
She brushed up against me on her way back into the bathroom.
“Oh, and can you pick me up a pack of Marlboro Lights too?” she said.
When she closed the bathroom door and locked it, I felt a pang of disappointment in my heart.
“Oh fuck,” I said to myself. “I’ve gone and done it again. I’ve fallen in lust with a woman I should stay a million miles away from.”
Way to go, Captain Headcase…
I left the room knowing that a beer and shot would the perfect poison right about now.
15
A liquor store that I frequented on occasion when I was in the area was located right up the road. It was once owned by a guy who grew up in Cape Cod. But he sold it to a family of Pakistanis right off the boat and moved back to the Cape. I pulled up to the store, got out, and went inside.
The joint was empty, but the owner was seated behind the counter. He was talking on his smartphone with someone from the old country. The language sounded like Chinese to me. But of course, it wasn’t. I waited until there was a pause long enough in his conversation for him to acknowledge my presence.
“Can I help?” he said while looking up at me. His voice was heavily accented.
“Pint of Jameson,” I said. Then, “No wait. Make that two pints.”
“Of course,” he said, retrieving the two green bottles and setting them on the counter.
He told me how much they cost, and I paid for them with some plastic. He placed both bottles in separate bags and bid me a thank you and a goodbye. I made my way out of the store and walked to the adjoining Mobil gas station, and I picked up a twelve-pack of Budweiser cans. I carried everything back to the Jeep and set it on the shotgun seat. Then, I drove back to the Days Inn and parked in the same space I’d parked in earlier.
As I got out and grabbed the booze, I realized I’d forgotten Virginia’s cigarettes. I thought about going back out for them, but then I whispered, “Fuck it,” to myself. For all I knew, she’d flown the coop while I was gone. Like I said, there was nothing keeping her here. No laws anyway. Soon, however, the law would be requiring her presence in an APD interview room. It was my job to make sure she got there safely and undercover.
Back in the room, I could hear the shower still going. I set the packages on the small round table set under the front picture window and made my way to the bathroom.
“All okay, Virginia?” I said.
For what seemed like a long beat, there was no response.
But when she said, “All as good as can be expected,” I felt a sigh of relief. It was at that moment I knew I had to place a call to Miller to let him know I had her. Making my way back outside, I called the detective. He answered only after a couple of rings.
“How did Arbor Hill go?” he said in the place of a hello.
“The eagle has landed,” I said.
He took a moment to breathe. That’s when I pictured him seated behind his desk, his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up to his elbow, his gun set out on the desktop beside his laptop, his trench coat hanging on the hat rack a few feet away. Maybe he’d even be enjoying an early afternoon finger or two of Irish whiskey.
“Things are heating up,” he said. “I don’t know if you saw the news yet, but one of the kids has lawyered up and called for a press conference.”
“Looks like somebody wants to make a little money off of Virginia’s, ummm, generosity,” I said.
“If that’s what you wanna call it,” he said.
“You want I should bring her in right away, Miller?” I asked.
“Hang on to her for a bit,” he said. “This place is already getting to be a zoo. I might want you to wait until dark to bring her in. That means keeping your good eye on her every move in case she decides to skip town.”
“She’s with me at the Days Inn you are so graciously paying for,” I said. “She asked me to bring her some beer, whiskey, and cigarettes. I forgot the cigarettes.”
“You must be slipping in your old age,” he said.
“You’re older than me,” I said.
“I’m just more mature than you,” he said. Then, “Let’s see how this press conference goes and how much pressure there is to bring Mrs. Gamble in for questioning and how much national and even international attention the case if going to garner. By the way, I assume you gave her the news about her husband. How’d she take it?”
“She smiled and said she couldn’t believe the dull bastard hadn’t done it sooner,” I said.
“See what I mean about a woman driving a man to suicide?” he said. “There’s laws against that now.”
“You ask me it would be tough to prove,” I said. “Maybe he was just depressed, and life was really dull for him and that’s all. Men blow their brains out all the time. Just look at me.”
“You survived.”
“Sort of,” I said. “Okay, I’ll hang on to her until you give me the word to deliver her to the Central Avenue Precinct later on.”
“When you do, make it the back door,” he instructed. “The press will be swarming the place.”
“Back door,” I repeated. “Got it.”
“Oh, and Moon,” he went on, “there were reports of gunshots down on the corner of Clinton and Lower Lark Street. You, by chance, wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?”
“Why, Detective Miller,” I said, “I’m surprised at you assuming I might become unhinged when it comes to confronting an army of hostile Mexican gangbangers.”
“Exactly what I thought,” he said. “I can only assume their carcasses are swimming with the fishes in the Hudson by now. But their boss, Andres Solimonca, he ain’t gonna just roll over and play dead.”
“He took one in the thigh,” I said. “I don’t think it killed him, but it might have really pissed him off.”
“Watch your back,” Miller warned. “These are not nice people and by using the word ‘people’ I’m being generous. Looks to me like you’ve stirred up a real hornet’s nest.”
“That’s what I’m best at,” I said. “Stirring up hornets.”
“Make sure you have enough bullets,” Miller said.
“Copy that,” I said.
He hung up.
16
Back inside the hotel room, I saw that Virginia was seated on the bed, her back leaning against the headboard. She had an open beer set on the nightstand along with a toothbrush glass that had maybe a finger of amber-colored whiskey in it. She was wearing a white bath towel, turban-like, around her head. A second white towel covered her torso. She drank some beer contemplatively.
“It dawns on me, I don’t know your name,” she said.
I told her.
“Well nice to meet you, Dick Moonlight,” she said. “Thanks for the booze.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “We’re sharing it, remember?”
To my left, the flat-screen TV was going and the local Spectrum twenty-four-hour news was going. The volume was muted so I could only see Skinny Sean, who was dressed neatly in his Catholic Brothers Academy uniform standing at a podium before a crowd of reporters. A middle-aged man stood behind him who I recognized as the lawyer, Joey Goldberg. The head-shaved, pot-bellied, but meticulously dressed attorney was what you and I know of as an ambulance-chasing hot-shot lawyer. The guy could sniff out a scandalous court case from a dozen miles away, especially one that might garner national attention.
“Don’t you wanna hear what the kid has to say?” I asked.
“Not really,” Virginia said. “I fucked him, and some of his friends, on a bunch of occasions. That’s what he’s going to say, isn’t he?”
I looked at Sean mouthing away at his story while his stone and glass academy building loomed large maybe thirty feet behind him. This was a bad day for the school, but it would be an even worse day for Virginia, and yet she seemed entirely unaffected by it.
“At least you admit to it,” I said. “Did you know this kid on the TV is underage?”
“I didn’t exactly look up his birth certificate when he was feeling me up inside my car,” she said. “But I’m not stupid either.”
“Why take the chance?” I said. “You see that lawyer? That’s Joey Goldberg. He’s not only going to see that you’re busted, but he’s gonna sue your pretty ass off in civil court also. Anything your husband leaves you is liable to go to the underage kids with whom you had, let’s call them, relations with.”
She drank some more beer and then followed up with some whiskey. Her hands were perfectly steady, and not a single worry or anxiety seemed to be plaguing her. I mean, it was almost as though things were playing out exactly as she planned or scripted them, her husband’s suicide included.
After a beat, she picked the remote up off the bed, and clicked the TV off. She looked into my eyes with her big brown pools and smiled, dare I say it, warmly. She pulled off the turban and shook out her beautiful thick dirty blonde hair.
“You didn’t happen to remember my cigarettes, now did you…Dick?” she said.
I don’t know why her words made me feel bad. When I say feel bad, I actually felt my stomach go tight. Maybe it was the way she spoke her words, soft but alluring. Or the way she looked not at me but into me with those eyes of hers. Or was it the look of her luscious body and thick hair that was slowly but surely gaining total control of me. Or, what the Christ, maybe it all had something to do with me being a headcase. Captain Headcase!
“I forgot them,” I said. “If you’d like, Virginia, I can get back in the Jeep and go get them for you.”
She pursed her lips, and slowly removed the towel that was covering her torso and revealed her beautiful nakedness.
“Cigarettes aren’t important right now,” she said. “But do you know what is important?”
I swallowed something dry, and felt my temples begin to pound. I also felt myself growing hard as a rock. No doubt in my mind that Virginia could see how happy she was making me.
“What’s important?” I asked.
“Number three,” she said. “It’s time to reveal the third thing I want from you.”
“Tell me,” I swallowed.
“Your cock,” she said.
Against my better judgment, I jumped at the chance.
17
We rock ’n’rolled for over an hour, she pleasuring me from all sorts of positions I didn’t even know were humanly possible. It was like a circus act more than a sexual act. It certainly wasn’t making love. Love didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with it. She wanted to be spanked, and slapped, and pinched. She wanted to be bitten and scratched. She wanted to do the same to me, too.
At one point when she ran her long fingernails down the length of my back, scraping off some dermis while she was at it, I actually uttered an “Ouch!” But she just smiled slyly…no that’s not right. More like she smiled the way a devil would smile…and she said, “What’s the matter, Dick Moonlight? You can’t take it?”
“I can take it, baby,” I said. “I can take anything you dish out.”
By now I’d worked up a sheen of sweat and so had she. Her skin glistened in the sunlight that poured in through the open window shades. In all our fury to fuck one another, we’d forgotten to draw the blinds. Or maybe that’s the way she liked it. Maybe she was an exhibitionist. A voyeur. Maybe she liked pain. Maybe she was an addict. A sex addict. For certain she was a sex addict.
When she told me to wrap my fingers around her neck and squeeze, I sensed we were about to enter into dangerous territory. I did it anyway. It turned me on when I did it.
“Choke me,” she said, while I entered her. “Choke…me.”
I pumped her hard while I squeezed my hand around her neck. I knew she couldn’t breathe but she didn’t seem to mind. She seemed all the more turned on. I pumped faster and faster and she moved in time with me, and I never once let go of her neck, until we both exploded at the same time. It was my second time that afternoon, and it was better than the first time.
That’s the kind of talent she had. The power. Power over me.
Releasing my hold on her neck, I rolled onto my back and breathed. I had to be careful of my brain during moments like this when blood and adrenaline was speeding through my veins and capillaries. It could cause my brain to swell just enough to move that small fragment of bullet. If that happened, I could easily slip into a coma or I could die.
Slipping out of bed, I went to my gym bag, dug for the bottle of Advils I’d packed earlier. I opened the bottle, shook four pills out into the palm of my hand, then tossed them into my mouth. Then, I opened a beer and washed down the pills with a deep swig.
“You got another one of those, Moonlight?” Virginia asked.
I grabbed another beer, carried it around the bed, and set the full can on the table beside her empty one. I also poured her another shot of whiskey. Raising the pint to my mouth, I stole a swig. The alcohol began to calm me down while the Advils prevented any kind of swelling in my brain. It was a hell of a way to live, but what choice did I have other than to die?
“You’re a wonderful lover, Moonlight,” she said, as she broke the tab on the fresh beer. “I should know. I’ve had lots of men.”
“And boys,” I said.
She drank a little and set the beer back on the nightstand.
“Do me a favor, would you?” she said.
“Sure, baby,” I said.
“Hand me my jeans.”
I did as she asked. She dug into one of the hip pockets and pulled out what was left of an old pack of Marlboro Lights, along with a lipstick red Bic lighter.
“You mind?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said. “I used to smoke. I’m glad you have a couple left over. My head, it can’t always be trusted to remember things.”
She stared at me while she lit up, and for a second, I thought she was going to ask me what my problem was. Instead, she asked me something else.
“You mentioned that I fucked several boys,” she said. “You say it with more than a little moral judgment wrapped around it.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You’re a beautiful woman. You don’t need to bed down underage kids.”
I drank some beer and sat on the bed beside her, my back pressed against the headboard.
“Let me ask you something,” she said. “How did you feel about sex when you were sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen?”
“The truth?” I said.
She smoked a little. “The truth.”
“Couldn’t get enough of it,” I said. “It was all new territory to me and I loved girls.”
“And did you have any older female teachers or older women you knew who you wanted to have sex with?” she asked.
Reaching out, I gently took hold of her cigarette without asking permission and stole a drag. The nicotine rush immediately entered my bloodstream. Handing her back the cigarette, I exhaled blue smoke toward the ceiling.
“For sure,” I said. “Maybe a teacher here and there. Maybe a neighbor.”
“So then,” she went on, “if you could have, would you have?”
“You mean had sex with an older woman?” I said. “Hell yes. All us guys talked about it. You know, if we had the chance. A few guys actually bragged about fucking an older married woman. But I think they were lying.”
“So then, you wouldn’t have felt violated or raped or anything like that if it had truly happened to you.” It was a question she had the answer to. Or so I could only assume.
I turned, stared at her over my shoulder.
“I think I would have really appreciated it,” I said. “But the law’s the law and it’s still illegal.”
“I knew I was doing those boys a favor,” she said. “And I knew it was also wrong. But I liked them. They seemed to need sex the way some people need air to breathe, or food in their bellies. It was a basic need to go on surviving. And I provided that, and in turn, they gave me great pleasure. Kinky pleasure, I guess you’d call it. But innocent pleasure too.”
“That kid, Sean,” I said. “He and his buddy, the big kid.”
“Wilbur,” she said.
“That’s him,” I said. “They seemed like bullies to me. I actually punched Wilbur just this morning after he dissed me.”
“You didn’t,” she said with wide eyes.
She drank a little whiskey, this time from the bottle. When she was finished, she handed the bottle to me. I also stole a drink.
“Hey,” I said. “He’s a lot bigger than me and he had it coming.”
“You’re right,” she said. “He probably had it coming. You did the right thing. But trust me when I tell you those boys are just babies. Even the ones who are of legal age.”
I’m not sure why, but in my fragile brain I saw the black student. Drew.
“There was a black student I met,” I said. “Drew. I met his father also. Did you?…”
I allowed the question to trail off like the cigarette smoke inside this no smoking room.
“I would be lying if I told you I never showed interest,” she said. “I happen to enjoy black men.”
“But he refused?” I asked.
“He refused and I respected,” she said.
I stole another sip of beer.
“You’re into your sex,” I said. “More than most women I know.”
“Oh hell, Moonlight,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an addict. Marvin could never keep up with me nor did I want him to. He disgusted me.”
“Then why marry him?” I asked.
“Guess,” she said.
“Money,” I said.
“And stability, and a house, and a car, and a country club, and a life that was so boring I thought for certain I would drop dead because of it,” she said in one long breath.
