Don't Call Me Madame Read online

Smoothly he said, “Money troubles?”

  “You just hit a home run, sugar.”

  “Perhaps … I can help.”

  She tossed her hair. The buck teeth gleamed. The beer arrived.

  “How come beer?” he asked.

  “Don’t dig,” she said.

  “Not Scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka …”

  She laughed. “Sugar, I’m gonna tell you something. Cuz, like my girlfriend says, I’m a stickler for the truth — and the truth, I happen to like you. Very much.” She quaffed at the beer, a long quaff, and set down the glass empty. “I dig speed. Dig?” He nodded. “Amphies, you know?” He nodded. “Liquor and speed, for me it’s a bad mix. I jes’ get sick, period. Beer’s different. Goes great with speed. I’m on a high now, sugar. Got a couple of crazy spansules clicking away like a clock inside.” She emptied the bottle into her glass and drank. He ordered another beer for her.

  “That’s a kind of Southern accent,” he said. “I think. Southwest?”

  “You just keep hitting home runs, hey? Dallas, Texas, sugar. Been up here by the Big Apple three months. Moved in with my girlfriend, share the rent and all. Reached my votin’ age three months ago, and came up here. Modeling, you know. I’m registered with the Keith Agency. But it takes time, them things take time till you start earning the real money.” She poured from the new bottle and drank. “You? What do you do for a living, doc?”

  He thought quickly, lining himself up with her. “I’m with CBS. Liaison man. Work with the outfits that do the TV commercials.”

  Her mouth opened. Closed. She drank beer quickly.

  “Jeep, man, could you do things for me!”

  “Could be, possibly, I could.”

  “Man, on them TV residuals a chick can get rich!”

  He teased, “Aren’t you rich, sweetie?”

  “Like this I’m rich. My girlfriend’s apartment, the rent’s two hundred clams a month. This month I ain’t paid her my half yet. Jes’ don’t have it this month to pay.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  She blinked. “Pardon?”

  He took a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet, folded it, gave it to her. She looked at it, looked at him. “What’s that for?”

  “That’s for nothing.”

  She put it into her bag. “Jeeps, maybe you are my dream man.”

  “What would your dream man be like?”

  “Pardon?”

  “If you had to dream up a dream man — what would he be like?”

  “Well, first off, get this straight, I don’t wanna get married. Got things to do, got a life to live, don’t wanna get married yet. So. Dream man.” She took cigarettes from her bag and lit one. “It’s important he’s nice looking. Tall. Gotta be tall. Okay. Now he’s gotta be kind to me, he’s gotta care for me. Care for me like all the way around the barn, you know? Care for me — like he’s gotta like me. And care for me — like to take care of the bread. Look, I don’t want no penthouse on Park Avenue. All I’d like is not to have to worry about the rent, food, clothes, you know? And he wouldn’t have to worry about me running around too much. Honest, my nature, I really don’t like to fuck around …”

  The word had slipped out. She looked abashed, then grinned.

  “Reasonable,” he said. “No extraordinary demands. But what would the dream man be getting in return?”

  She had gold-flecked grayish eyes and they were filled now with a proud assurance. “Sugar, when Peggy Flanagan balls a guy, that’s a guy has been balled!” She drank some beer and grinned impishly. “You got it in your head, maybe, to be the dream man?”

  “Would you accept me?”

  “Would you accept me?”

  “You’re awfully attractive. And with my present troubles …”

  He had decided on his course of action.

  “Jeeps, I’m a real shit, hey, sugar? You with troubles, and me talking my head off. Tell Peggy, baby.”

  He put the key on the table. She looked at the embossed tag: THE TENTH AVENUE MOTOR INN. She said, “You from out of town?”

  “No.” He put the key back in his pocket. He lowered his eyes. “Married, but not working at it for a long time, and today we finally tore it, I walked out for good. Moved into this place, temporarily, while I look around for an apartment.”

  “Hey, you poor bastard,” she said softly.

  “That’s why, tonight, at loose ends, I was stumbling around …”

  “Jeeps, how things work out. I’m so damn glad now I went to that creep-joint.”

  The two guitars and the piano segued from Spanish music to American music.

  “Would you like to dance?” he said.

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Her body was lithe, soft, strong, resilient. The floor was crowded and she pressed to him. They were cheek to cheek and she was naughty, subtly doing bumps and grinds, and he reacted.

  “Sugar, you’re getting me hot,” she whispered at his ear.

  “Love you,” he whispered at hers. “God, your thing there.”

  “Like it?”

  “Driving me crazy.”

  “Honey, I want you.”

  “Sugar, you got me.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  In 202 of The Tenth Avenue Motor Inn he twisted the lock and she twisted into his arms, holding him, kissing him, her tongue, hot, sinuous, exploring his mouth. Her hand went down between his legs and her lips came away from his. “Jesus, what you got there! Jesus, a monster. Man, a cock like a rock!”

  “Better to fuck you with, my dear.”

  “Baby, you are not gonna fuck me.”

  She broke from him, went to the radio, turned it on, turned the dial and found her station.

  It’s always the same, he thought. In all hotel rooms in every city all over the world the music that pumps from the radio is, somehow, always the same.

  “Jeeps, no beer,” she said suddenly.

  He said, “And no refrigerator.”

  “Warm beer’s no better than no beer at all.”

  “You want beer?”

  “Sugar, you catch on quick.”

  “Right. Hold the fort. I’ll go get some.”

  “Dream man, you’re a dream man.”

  When he came back, carrying two six-packs of Miller’s, her dress was hung away in the closet and her hair was pinned up high on her head. She was wearing tiny little green panties and a tiny little green brassiere. Her naked legs were long and smooth, her titties deliciously small, her rump high, round, plump and firm. Jesus, a woman! She was all woman!

  She pulled the tab from a can of beer, drank from the can.

  Then she went to her bag and took out a pill box.

  “Speed,” she said. “I gotta get back on my high.”

  He took out his snuffbox. She laughed.

  “You and me with boxes,” she said. “What you got there?”

  “Speed like you’ve never had before.”

  “What is it?”

  “Happy dust.”

  “Coke?” The gold-flecked eyes were avaricious. “Are you saying cocaine?”

  “I’m saying.”

  “Oh yeah, man, gimme. Four times in my life I’ve had coke, and each time I climbed the walls, baby. Jesus, dream man, where did I find you? Jesus, coke! Oh shoot, baby! Coke makes out my amphie-spansules to be like aspirin tablets.” She put away her pill box.

  “Gimme, tall-boy. Send Peggy up the wall, baby. Gimme gimme gimme!”

  He gave her. Plenty. A big sniff up each nostril. And he sniffed, and pocketed the snuffbox, and she drank beer, and almost immediately the drug was working. “Oh, man,” she breathed. “Baby, lover man.” And tore off her panties, and flung away her bra. “Sugar, I’m going to ball your nuts off. I am going to ball your nuts off!”

  Her delta of pubic hair gleamed blonde. The areolae of her small, full, uptilted breasts glistened pink. And his erection was a turret distorting his trousers. And she came to it
and tickled it lightly. “Get off the clothes.” She was panting. “Get naked for your Peggy.”

  He undressed, neatly hung his clothes in the closet, and when he came back she was sitting on the edge of the bed. The drug was working. Her eyes were wild.

  “No fucking,” she said. “D’ya mind?”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid to fuck. I don’t take the pill. I’m afraid to get knocked up.”

  “All right.”

  “But baby, I suck. I’m the best. I love to suck and be sucked. Do you know how, sugar? Do you know how to suck a cunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love it. That’s my thing! Sucking.” She laughed. “Orally oriented, dig?”

  “Dig.”

  “But first you, sugar. Baby, I’m the greatest. In all of Dallas, Texas, the greatest cocksucker is this here Peggy Flanagan. If I dig a guy, if I go for a guy …” She stood up. “Tell me you care for me. Please. Crazy? Tell me you care for me.”

  “I do. I care for you.”

  She pressed close to him, stood on tiptoe, hinged her crotch over his unrelentingly erect penis, kissed his ear. “I’m gonna lap you, Sugar. I’m gonna rim you, ream you, I’m gonna give you a trip around the world. And, baby, while I’m eating you, I come and come, I go crazy. Tell me you love it.”

  “I love it.”

  “Come with me.”

  “Wherer?”

  “Peggy’s gonna wash you, Sugar. Peggy’s gonna make you all nice and clean.”

  She led him to bathroom. She went with him under the shower, soaped him, soaped deeply into every crevice of his body, then wiped him with a towel, wiped herself, and took him back to the bedroom and pushed him to the bed. “On your tummy.” Her voice was husky. “Lay on your tummy, sugar. Yeah, just like that.”

  He lay prone and she was over him, her breath sobbing, and the tip of her tongue flicked at his ear. And then the other ear. And then down along his spine, slowly licking down, and then her hands opened the cheeks of his ass and her tongue entered his anus, darting, flicking, rimming, reaming and a thrill like a chill shivered through him. And she maneuvered his body, turning him, her head coming up between his thighs, and she gently licked his scrotum, and gently, hotly, wetly pulled one of his testicles into her mouth, and then released it and took in the other, and then maneuvered him again and he was flat on his back and her tongue was gliding along the underside of his penis, and then her mouth opened over the head and the tip of her tongue was excruciating at the aperture, and then her hands were gripping his buttocks, fingernails piercing the skin as she pulled him into her, engorging the shaft all the way to the root, and then she was sucking, deep, in and out, her head rising and falling, bobbing up and down like a skiff in a storm, and noises emanated from her, ecstatic little noises, appreciative noises like those of a gluttonous child licking a delicious lollipop, and then his orgasm came, semen ejaculating in powerful spurts, and she engulfed it all, swallowed it, and then neatly licked away every droplet of excess. She moved up along his body. She kissed the tip of his nose and then lightly his lips. His arm went around her and they nestled close and lay exhausted.

  After a time she said, “Good? Was I good, sugar?”

  “The best.”

  And then after a time: “Will you do me, baby?”

  “Sure.”

  “But first I’m gonna get clean for you, real sweet and clean from head to foot.”

  She got out of the bed, and he went with her into the bathroom. He hinged down the cover and sat on the commode while she drew a bath. The head of the tub faced the doorway. He knew how he would do it.

  She slid into the warm water. She giggled, “Sugar, don’t jes sit there lookin’ at me like that.”

  “Yeh,” he said.

  “Baby, can I have another sniff of your crazy stuff?”

  “You bet.”

  He went out and to the closet and clicked open the knife. He padded to the bathroom and stood behind her.

  “That you in back of me, sugar?”

  He chuckled. “Well, who else?”

  “Got stuff?”

  “Close your eyes. When I tell you to sniff — sniff.”

  “You’re the boss, dream man.”

  She closed her eyes. His left hand grasped her hair and pulled her head back. His right hand wielded the knife.

  Her throat gaped. The water got red.

  He pulled her from the tub, laid her on the tiles of the toilet floor. The knife ripped into her wet belly …

  TWELVE

  CHAMBERS had Sunday brunch with Sandi Barton in Charley O’s.

  Sandi the beautiful. Pert. Blonde. Expensively dressed in simple casuals. Shining. Glowing. Incandescent enthusiasm.

  “Peter, I’m in. In! Mark’s new play. I’m absolutely certain now. In!”

  Glumly. “Mark’s new play.”

  “Black Mass at High Noon.”

  “Would somebody repeat that, please?”

  “Black Mass at High Noon.”

  “What in hell does that mean?”

  “Who cares? That’s the title. He’s now working on the second draft. The play, not the title. MacDonald Bernstein has the option on the first draft, and Bernstein’s angels have already put up the money, and the opening date is set for October. And I’m in. Definitely. The second female lead. I’m the ingenue.”

  Mark or no Mark, play or no play, you sure are, Chambers thought Ingenue. You look it, you express it, every inch of you. Ingenue means a young woman who is ingenuous, and ingenuous means innocent, artless, unworldly, naive. But ingenious, similar sounding, entails the opposite. Ingenius is the adjective for ingenuity, and ingenuity has to do with sharp skill, cleverness, resourcefulness and somewhere within that welter of similar-sounding words lay the description of his vis-à-vis bubbling over her champagne-brunch of Piper Heidsieck and a ham omelet. Sandi Barton, inconsistent. The ingenuous, ingenious ingenue. “Where does he get the time?” Chambers inquired of the ingenious ingenue.

  “What?” She frowned. “For what?”

  “For first drafts and second drafts …”

  “What the hell kind of a catty crack is that?”

  He closed his eyes, nodded, opened his eyes. “Jealous,” he said.

  “Don’t be. He’s a nice fella, and that’s about it. A nice fella.”

  “Honey, aren’t I a nice fella?”

  “You’re the nicest.”

  “But for me it’s got to be a hundred bucks. For him …”

  “He’s going to launch me on my career. Can you launch me?”

  “I’m launching you. We’re having our launch together. On Piper-Heidsieck and ham and eggs.”

  “Not bad,” she said. “Pun my word it ain’t.”

  And after launch he took her home and he went home and the phone was ringing and it was Richard V. Starr. “Pete, can you come over here?”

  “Over where?”

  “My apartment.”

  “Why not? When?”

  “Soon as you can make it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” Starr hung up.

  Chambers sighed, lit a cigarette. Never on Sunday does not apply to the private eye. Not when the client is Richard V. Starr who will peel off sixteen thousand bananas. If the guy wants his eye on Sunday …

  He changed his shirt, went out to a cab, and on the eighth floor of 940 Park laid his thumb on the mother-of-pearl button. He was peeped at through the peephole, and the three locks snapped open, and the three locks snapped shut. Richard V. Starr, immaculate in white shoes, white socks, white slacks, and white shirt, led him to a study. He sat behind a mahogany desk, and Chambers sat in a mahogany armchair. Starr lit a slender panatela.

  “Listen to the radio today?”

  “No.” (I was out working my points with the most unwhorish of whores, Miss Sandi Barton, ingenue.)

  “It’s happened again.”

  “What?”

  “What happened in the Hotel Shirley.”

>   Jesus, no.

  “A girl was found this morning in a room in a motel on Tenth Avenue. Same story, same situation, a duplicate of the other. Throat cut, stomach eviscerated. I checked it out, Peter, and most circumspectly, I assure you, with certain connections I have in the police department. It’s exactly the same story, including the cannibalism. That aspect won’t reach the public prints, and the whole thing happened too late for the Sunday papers. But tomorrow there’s going to be one hell of a stink in this town.”

  “I agree. Two shots like that — and so quick together.”

  “Epstein? You talked to him?”

  “Lawyer privilege. The learned justice wouldn’t accept what I told him. Gave him the whole bit on the kid — leaving out the … the personal family angle — but he rejected my information as hearsay. From you to me to him: that’s chatter, conversation, pure hearsay unsupported by any corroboration. And he doesn’t trust you one little bit. Your wife poisoned his mind. You’re some kind of freak, a monster. She’s dead and the boy has no will. If you can commit him, put him away as insane, you stand to pick up thirty million bucks. Therefore Epstein hangs on to privilege. Without hard facts implicating the boy — incontrovertible, evidentiary facts — Epstein shies away from any cooperation whatsoever.”

  “A good man, a good lawyer, a sober legalistic mind. I can’t fault the man. Now what about you? I assume you’re proceeding by other means.”

  “I sure am.”

  And he let it lie there.

  Does Macy tell Gimbel?

  Part of the mystique is the aura of obscurity. A private eye earns his bread in that aura of obscurity.

  “I have my means and my methods. My job is to get him before the cops get him.”

  “That’s your job.”

  “It may take time, but I won’t miss.” (I can’t miss. The cops will be running up and down blind alleys. Not me. I know who he is, the cops don’t. I know whom I’m looking for, the cops don’t. I have a lead, the cops don’t. And I’ve got the best guy in the business, Felix Budd, following up on my lead. The cops don’t have Felix Budd.) “Figures to take time, but no matter the time, I’ll bring him in before the cops get to him.”

  “Yes.” Starr stood up.

  The tycoon was dismissing the underling.

  Chambers stood up. (Fuck you, tycoon.)