Click on the photo below for the first in a string of four articles on "Hometown by Handlebar" on the history of Dr. Holmes and his building in Fort Worth.
Showing posts with label Fort Worth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fort Worth. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2015
"When Mr. Mudgett Came to Cowtown" - A serial killer flirts with Fort Worth
Herman Mudgett, also known as H. H. Holmes, doctor and serial killer, built a murder castle in Chicago, wherein he killed anywhere from 25 to 60 people between 1889 and 1892. In 1893, he began construction on a similar building on "inherited" land in downtown Fort Worth. Already pursued by law enforcement, he fled the city even before his new building was completed.
Click on the photo below for the first in a string of four articles on "Hometown by Handlebar" on the history of Dr. Holmes and his building in Fort Worth.
Click on the photo below for the first in a string of four articles on "Hometown by Handlebar" on the history of Dr. Holmes and his building in Fort Worth.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Flashback - Dix & Tom - [excerpt] - Trinity Bluffs
Tom didn’t see Dix come in. He had no idea anyone else was there until Dix dropped himself into the chair on the opposite side of the desk, rattling everything on the desk with the force of his resignation.
“Jesus, Dix …” Tom studied his expression. It wasn’t a “back three months from France and still can’t find a damn job” face or a “my old man is still a bastard” face, or even a “someone from our old platoon died” face. Someone or something was dead, though. They were only back from the war for three months. You don’t forget that expression in three months or even three years. They didn’t see as much death in the AEF Signal Corps as the regular infantry, but they saw their share.
When Dix reached into his suit coat and pulled out a pint bottle, Tom knew before it had reached Dix’s lips what this was about, or at least who it was about. “So – what is she doing now?”
“It’s what she’s saying.”
“And what’s that, pal?”
“She’s saying I’ve changed, Tom. I’m not the man she married, or the man she thought she married. Something happened to me ‘over there’ and she doesn’t know who I am anymore. She keeps asking me about “shell-shock. She acts like it was handed out in our rations like cigarettes.”
“So, she says something must've happened …?”
“Yeah, Maybe some terrible telegraph-related catastrophe that scarred me forever, and left me an alien in her eyes.”
“Yeah, that happens. Signal corps can be murder, you know. That’s why guys were always fighting to get out of it and into the trenches.”
“So I’m crippled, shell-shocked … I guess …” Dix’s hands flew out wide in sheer astonishment. Then, having nothing else to do, they landed back on Dix’s thighs, having nothing more useful to do or insightful to express.
“You’ve heard that bunkum from her before, Dix.”
“I have.”
“And it’s different now because …?”
“Phil Cicero.”
“That little redhead 4F prick who does piano lessons out in Poly, and the church organ on Sundays? That jerk was a problem from the get-go.”
In a lilt intended to echo Rachel’s, Dix answered, “You don’t understand him, Dixon. He’s a piano virtuoso. He has the soul of a poet.” He underscored the tribute by uncapping his bottle again, lifting it high, and taking another shot. “I’ll have you know …”
“What?”
“I forget. She’s ‘had me know’ a lot of shit about him.”
”Uh-huh”
“Some horse shit about how amazing he is, how much promise he has and how close he is to realizing it, if only someone would help him.”
“Yeah. So she’s screwing him?”
“Their friendship is too pure for that. That’s what she says. And he’s probably so doped up on reefer all the time that he couldn’t get it up with the help of a Corps of Engineers crew. That’s what I says.”
“So he’s pumping the ol' church organ and not her, huh? I can see why the little lady would be frustrated with old Dusty Rusty.”
The bottle emerged once again. Dix shook it, finding it lacking in weight and sensual splashes. He shook it a second time, up by his ear this time, just to be sure. He carefully stood it upright on Tom’s desk, and it very predictably fell over.
Without taking his eyes off his friend, Tom hauled a desk drawer open. He scooped up a clear bottle and lofted it across his blotter, dropping it neatly into the empty spot that Dix’s own bottle had just tumbled from.
It was gin – cheap gin at that, but Dix had left the point of caring behind about six ounces ago. He poured a three-count into his upturned mouth, then set the bottle gingerly back where it came. It proved more stable than his own bottle.
They sat there for a time, saying nothing.
“So, if he’s so great, Dix, why can’t he hold down a job?”
“Because he’s an addled, unstable, mama’s boy? And by that, I mean he’s sad and misunderstood and just needs a little support, like artists do. I hear tell from other people, though, that he hears voices telling him bad things to do.”
“She still supporting him on your dime?”
“She says she’s not … but I could be blind at this point. If she is, she’s pretty damn sneaky. I haven’t noticed anything missing from the bank account lately.”
Tom shrugged. “Guess she’d have to be pretty sneaky …”
Dix nodded.
“So she hasn’t screwed him yet.” Tom declaimed, like a lawyer driving his point home to the jury, eyes drilling into his listener. It wasn’t a question but a challenge – tell me I’m right, if you genuinely believe.
“Maybe not with her body. She says there’s something pure in him that she wants to protect. Something pure and innocent and good like ~”
“~ you before the war …”
Dix’s eyes tracked toward Tom’s on a wobbly trajectory. When they met, his expression was clear – it no longer mattered. Even if her body hadn’t yet screwed Phil, every other part of her had.
“Uh, yeah – guess so – me before …” He said it, but neither of them meant it. He was a good guy – a standup guy – but not even Rachel would have confused him with someone pure and innocent before the war or after. Hell, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been pure and innocent since fifth or sixth grade.
“Hey, Dix, you remember that time in the school cafeteria when you and Mary Ellen got caught by that old lunchwoman …?”
Alright, so maybe it was fourth grade that he hadn’t been innocent since. All he was doing was trying to get a peek at Mary Ellen’s panties, but that was as good as whoring to the lunch lady, who was deaconess in the Eighth Avenue Missionary Holiness Temple. She about had an apoplectic fit and called in everyone from the Principal and Vice Principal to both of their parents and gave a full thirty minute accounting of their thirty second adventure.
“So, what’s your plan here, Dix?”
“When I’m very sure I’ve had enough to drink – either this month or the next, I’m going to sue for divorce, if she doesn’t beat me to it. She might. She’s sober as a judge. More sober, actually.”
“You’d better beat her to it, brother, whether you’re sobered up enough by then or not. She didn’t bring down this bear without already knowing how to skin and dress him. You’ve got to hit her and her little boyfriend with ‘alienation of affection’ or you’ll be paying her for the rest of your life.”
Dix knew Tom was right. Rachel wasn’t spectacularly diabolical – or at least hadn’t been particularly so in the past, but she’d never been a woman to leave things to chance either. Even now, with a pint in him, he realized that all of this meant that she already had her own steps unfolding and he’d be a fool to think he wasn’t already behind the cue ball. No telling how much groundwork she’d already laid, but it was probably substantial.
That thought sobered him as much as anything could. She had told him specifically and repeatedly that “this all developed in the weeks since you came back” but he should have realized the words were lies even as they were gliding off her tongue. Some portion might only be weeks old, but her drift started on this side of the Atlantic, before the war. Once it took root, it festered and fermented in the free time she’d enjoyed in his absence. What he’d taken for shyness due to their separation was really a growing secretiveness on her part.
From across the Atlantic, he’d asked her several times in letters if anything was wrong, and her slow replies always included words like “let’s not deal with it now” and “we’ll sort it all out when you’re finally home.” It was supposed to make him feel reassure, but the long-shadowed truth was that it she was just stalling until she could finally apply her long-hatching solution to the problem of him.
“Jesus, Dix …” Tom studied his expression. It wasn’t a “back three months from France and still can’t find a damn job” face or a “my old man is still a bastard” face, or even a “someone from our old platoon died” face. Someone or something was dead, though. They were only back from the war for three months. You don’t forget that expression in three months or even three years. They didn’t see as much death in the AEF Signal Corps as the regular infantry, but they saw their share.
When Dix reached into his suit coat and pulled out a pint bottle, Tom knew before it had reached Dix’s lips what this was about, or at least who it was about. “So – what is she doing now?”
“It’s what she’s saying.”
“And what’s that, pal?”
“She’s saying I’ve changed, Tom. I’m not the man she married, or the man she thought she married. Something happened to me ‘over there’ and she doesn’t know who I am anymore. She keeps asking me about “shell-shock. She acts like it was handed out in our rations like cigarettes.”
“So, she says something must've happened …?”
“Yeah, Maybe some terrible telegraph-related catastrophe that scarred me forever, and left me an alien in her eyes.”
“Yeah, that happens. Signal corps can be murder, you know. That’s why guys were always fighting to get out of it and into the trenches.”
“So I’m crippled, shell-shocked … I guess …” Dix’s hands flew out wide in sheer astonishment. Then, having nothing else to do, they landed back on Dix’s thighs, having nothing more useful to do or insightful to express.
“You’ve heard that bunkum from her before, Dix.”
“I have.”
“And it’s different now because …?”
“Phil Cicero.”
“That little redhead 4F prick who does piano lessons out in Poly, and the church organ on Sundays? That jerk was a problem from the get-go.”
In a lilt intended to echo Rachel’s, Dix answered, “You don’t understand him, Dixon. He’s a piano virtuoso. He has the soul of a poet.” He underscored the tribute by uncapping his bottle again, lifting it high, and taking another shot. “I’ll have you know …”
“What?”
“I forget. She’s ‘had me know’ a lot of shit about him.”
”Uh-huh”
“Some horse shit about how amazing he is, how much promise he has and how close he is to realizing it, if only someone would help him.”
“Yeah. So she’s screwing him?”
“Their friendship is too pure for that. That’s what she says. And he’s probably so doped up on reefer all the time that he couldn’t get it up with the help of a Corps of Engineers crew. That’s what I says.”
“So he’s pumping the ol' church organ and not her, huh? I can see why the little lady would be frustrated with old Dusty Rusty.”
The bottle emerged once again. Dix shook it, finding it lacking in weight and sensual splashes. He shook it a second time, up by his ear this time, just to be sure. He carefully stood it upright on Tom’s desk, and it very predictably fell over.
Without taking his eyes off his friend, Tom hauled a desk drawer open. He scooped up a clear bottle and lofted it across his blotter, dropping it neatly into the empty spot that Dix’s own bottle had just tumbled from.
It was gin – cheap gin at that, but Dix had left the point of caring behind about six ounces ago. He poured a three-count into his upturned mouth, then set the bottle gingerly back where it came. It proved more stable than his own bottle.
They sat there for a time, saying nothing.
“So, if he’s so great, Dix, why can’t he hold down a job?”
“Because he’s an addled, unstable, mama’s boy? And by that, I mean he’s sad and misunderstood and just needs a little support, like artists do. I hear tell from other people, though, that he hears voices telling him bad things to do.”
“She still supporting him on your dime?”
“She says she’s not … but I could be blind at this point. If she is, she’s pretty damn sneaky. I haven’t noticed anything missing from the bank account lately.”
Tom shrugged. “Guess she’d have to be pretty sneaky …”
Dix nodded.
“So she hasn’t screwed him yet.” Tom declaimed, like a lawyer driving his point home to the jury, eyes drilling into his listener. It wasn’t a question but a challenge – tell me I’m right, if you genuinely believe.
“Maybe not with her body. She says there’s something pure in him that she wants to protect. Something pure and innocent and good like ~”
“~ you before the war …”
Dix’s eyes tracked toward Tom’s on a wobbly trajectory. When they met, his expression was clear – it no longer mattered. Even if her body hadn’t yet screwed Phil, every other part of her had.
“Uh, yeah – guess so – me before …” He said it, but neither of them meant it. He was a good guy – a standup guy – but not even Rachel would have confused him with someone pure and innocent before the war or after. Hell, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been pure and innocent since fifth or sixth grade.
“Hey, Dix, you remember that time in the school cafeteria when you and Mary Ellen got caught by that old lunchwoman …?”
Alright, so maybe it was fourth grade that he hadn’t been innocent since. All he was doing was trying to get a peek at Mary Ellen’s panties, but that was as good as whoring to the lunch lady, who was deaconess in the Eighth Avenue Missionary Holiness Temple. She about had an apoplectic fit and called in everyone from the Principal and Vice Principal to both of their parents and gave a full thirty minute accounting of their thirty second adventure.
“So, what’s your plan here, Dix?”
“When I’m very sure I’ve had enough to drink – either this month or the next, I’m going to sue for divorce, if she doesn’t beat me to it. She might. She’s sober as a judge. More sober, actually.”
“You’d better beat her to it, brother, whether you’re sobered up enough by then or not. She didn’t bring down this bear without already knowing how to skin and dress him. You’ve got to hit her and her little boyfriend with ‘alienation of affection’ or you’ll be paying her for the rest of your life.”
Dix knew Tom was right. Rachel wasn’t spectacularly diabolical – or at least hadn’t been particularly so in the past, but she’d never been a woman to leave things to chance either. Even now, with a pint in him, he realized that all of this meant that she already had her own steps unfolding and he’d be a fool to think he wasn’t already behind the cue ball. No telling how much groundwork she’d already laid, but it was probably substantial.
That thought sobered him as much as anything could. She had told him specifically and repeatedly that “this all developed in the weeks since you came back” but he should have realized the words were lies even as they were gliding off her tongue. Some portion might only be weeks old, but her drift started on this side of the Atlantic, before the war. Once it took root, it festered and fermented in the free time she’d enjoyed in his absence. What he’d taken for shyness due to their separation was really a growing secretiveness on her part.
From across the Atlantic, he’d asked her several times in letters if anything was wrong, and her slow replies always included words like “let’s not deal with it now” and “we’ll sort it all out when you’re finally home.” It was supposed to make him feel reassure, but the long-shadowed truth was that it she was just stalling until she could finally apply her long-hatching solution to the problem of him.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Dix makes a dark delivery - Trinity Bluffs [excerpt]
[...]
Layla’s back stiffened the moment she saw me, her least favorite ex-husband detective, in her club. Closer, and I might have heard a dull leathery squeak as her tight neck muscles tensed even more. Even across the clouds of cigarette smoke, and amidst the neon bar lights, her radar picked me up around the curve of the bar just as I turned her direction.
She wasn’t happy. That was fine. I wasn’t happy either and I was sure that nobody was going to get any happier by the time I left.
I knew she wanted to throw me out. As soon as she saw me, she turned into a stop sign – red all over, expressionless and rigid. I hadn’t often seen her like that, but however many or few times it was, was enough.
I suppose the time she took to walk around to my bar stool was what kept her from exploding upon arrival. I slipped my jacket off and laid it across the bar next to me. I’m sure it looked like I was bracing for a fight, but it was just hot in there. She was still sitting on a hair trigger as she knifed her body into the space between my stool and the next.
“I don’t know wha~”
“I’m not here because I want to be.” I didn’t bother myself to glance at her.
“Then leave. Tony will be glad to see you out the door.”
“Not out the window?”
“That would be ideal, sure. Unfortunately, Tony’s been having back problems lately. Must be the way he threw the last sorry bastard into that wall over by the hat check station.”
“Layla ... listen … you've ... ” my words sputtered and died. It wasn’t the implicit threat that grounded me. I just got tired sometimes of having the same argument with her. Different terms, different reasons, different places, same anger. Not even necessarily about each other. But our old angers always seemed to get aggravated by each other, and before we knew it there’d be a donnybrook. We’d been married two years, and spent a decade of that fighting. For what it was worth, the same things that made us explode that way made us explode other ways. Ways we both liked. Ways we probably needed. Ways we hated afterward.
“I need to catch you up on some things before they catch up to you. And, I need something from you.”
Her eyes told me the latter might take place in the vicinity of my dead body, if not directly over it.
“Where can we talk … that isn’t right here?”
Her answer was to turn and walk. I didn’t feel like running behind her like an unloved mutt, so I decided to make her actually say something, if she wanted me to move. Ten feet away, she realized that I wasn’t behind her and paused. When I still wasn’t behind her five seconds later, she turned. “Are we doing this or not?”
I slipped from my stool, hooked my finger into my jacket collar and slung it over my shoulder, nodding for her to proceed. She walked on. I caught up and took her elbow in my free hand. I could feel the quiet rage wafting off her and trailing in her wake.
“Nothing ever changes, does it?
“There is one favor you can do for me, Dix.”
“Which would be?”
“Go to hell. Sooner than later.”
“Been there – two years worth, remember?”
She tried yanking her elbow from my grip, but that didn’t happen.
“That’s not how this game goes, sister.”
We snaked through her half-open office door, which I kicked shut. I latched it as I spun her to face me.
She was ready. She added her own strength to the momentum she'd picked up being spun on her heels, and managed to deliver a solid slap across my left cheek. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of letting myself wince too much. Still, it made my eye water and my ear ring – plus, I dropped my jacket and tangled one of my heels in it.
She lifted her chin defiantly. My hand slipped in right under her chin and fitted itself to the curves of her throat. “So that’s how this game gets played?” I said.
“You said you have something you n~”
“Uh-uh – after …”
One of us shuddered. I think it was her. We’d both been here before, just in other places and for other reasons. I pressed her against the wall, then pressed myself hard into her. Her lips parted and any doubt I had was gone.
Our mouths met; our tongues danced. Her fingers glided down my shirt, following the trail of my tie, and found what they were looking for just south of my belt. My fingers blazed a similar trail, dipping down to her waist and gathering her dress up in six inch bursts. Her wardrobe took a loss against its bottom line as my fingers yanked a rift, one side to the other, in her panties. Fortunately for her, her stockings were thigh highs and her garter belt was in the way of nothing.
She freed me from the confines of my pants with similar dexterity. I plunged into her wetness with a force that drove a grunt from both of us, and a bang from the wall.
My hand at her throat kept her breath ragged and her face a rich, deepening pink but at the slightest sign my grip was lessening, she leaned in to my fingers. How could I deny such resolve?
I could write pretty paragraphs about being sheathed within the flower of her womanhood, but that quaint and idyllic meadow land was nowhere close to the place we were. Animals would have been embarrassed by our escapades.
It was a dark and savage fucking we were inflicting on each other. Every time my hand tightened on her throat, her nails raked down my back. She may have spared my underwear, but prospects didn’t look good for my last pressed, white shirt. Even if it survived intact, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be streaked in blood.
One leg on the floor, she wrapped the other around my right hip. Each time I seemed about to withdraw, her muscular thigh pulled me back in. I could have stood still and simply allowed her to drive me back up into her, gravity and her leg being the active agents, but I’ve never been much for just standing there, particularly when sex was involved.
We rode as hard to our climax as any Kentucky Derby winner, and it was all I could do to keep us both standing as we caught our breaths. Her one standing leg would hardly hold the both of us, and she was using the other to not slide down my body. I dropped my hands down to her waist and re-gathered my energy. She dipped her head to snuggle in between my shoulder and neck. The next thing I knew, she was biting – hard – on my shoulder. Nothing unusual there. It was her habit to mark her conquests thusly, new or not.
A long time passed. Maybe a week; maybe two. Finally, she pressed her hands against my chest.
“Off me, damn you.”
I leaned back to allow her egress. She straightened her skirt as she walked slowly and deliberately around to the far side of her desk.
She didn’t sit, but then neither did I. Neither of us were at ease enough to sit. Dazed, yes. At ease, no. But then, even when we were married, it sometimes took us hours to wind down afterward, warily walking around about the other like wrestlers. Neither of us trusted the other. More to the point, neither of us really trusted ourselves.
She was fascinated with her desktop and with the way her fingers seemed to wander aimlessly across it. With no clues available on her face, I took to watching her fingers, too.
Another week passed, by which time we had both grown disinterested in her fingers.
“For God’s sake, Dix. Tell me what you need to tell me; ask me what you need to ask me. Make it the Western Union version. Then get the hell out of my bar.”
“Layla, someone put the finger on you as a mob stool, and they know enough about you to make it ring true. Me, I’m sure it’s all gas, but what I think doesn’t help. I’m working a job for Evelyn Conklin and I think there might be a link. Have you ever heard of a guy named Cyril Anderson?”
She shook her head. It didn't ring a bell, but it rang something close.
“Maybe know him as Chip?”
She dropped into her chair, like a bird from a tree, and buried her head in her hands.
“You better tell me the long version, Dix.”
[...]
Layla’s back stiffened the moment she saw me, her least favorite ex-husband detective, in her club. Closer, and I might have heard a dull leathery squeak as her tight neck muscles tensed even more. Even across the clouds of cigarette smoke, and amidst the neon bar lights, her radar picked me up around the curve of the bar just as I turned her direction.
She wasn’t happy. That was fine. I wasn’t happy either and I was sure that nobody was going to get any happier by the time I left.
I knew she wanted to throw me out. As soon as she saw me, she turned into a stop sign – red all over, expressionless and rigid. I hadn’t often seen her like that, but however many or few times it was, was enough.
I suppose the time she took to walk around to my bar stool was what kept her from exploding upon arrival. I slipped my jacket off and laid it across the bar next to me. I’m sure it looked like I was bracing for a fight, but it was just hot in there. She was still sitting on a hair trigger as she knifed her body into the space between my stool and the next.
“I don’t know wha~”
“I’m not here because I want to be.” I didn’t bother myself to glance at her.
“Then leave. Tony will be glad to see you out the door.”
“Not out the window?”
“That would be ideal, sure. Unfortunately, Tony’s been having back problems lately. Must be the way he threw the last sorry bastard into that wall over by the hat check station.”
“Layla ... listen … you've ... ” my words sputtered and died. It wasn’t the implicit threat that grounded me. I just got tired sometimes of having the same argument with her. Different terms, different reasons, different places, same anger. Not even necessarily about each other. But our old angers always seemed to get aggravated by each other, and before we knew it there’d be a donnybrook. We’d been married two years, and spent a decade of that fighting. For what it was worth, the same things that made us explode that way made us explode other ways. Ways we both liked. Ways we probably needed. Ways we hated afterward.
“I need to catch you up on some things before they catch up to you. And, I need something from you.”
Her eyes told me the latter might take place in the vicinity of my dead body, if not directly over it.
“Where can we talk … that isn’t right here?”
Her answer was to turn and walk. I didn’t feel like running behind her like an unloved mutt, so I decided to make her actually say something, if she wanted me to move. Ten feet away, she realized that I wasn’t behind her and paused. When I still wasn’t behind her five seconds later, she turned. “Are we doing this or not?”
I slipped from my stool, hooked my finger into my jacket collar and slung it over my shoulder, nodding for her to proceed. She walked on. I caught up and took her elbow in my free hand. I could feel the quiet rage wafting off her and trailing in her wake.
“Nothing ever changes, does it?
“There is one favor you can do for me, Dix.”
“Which would be?”
“Go to hell. Sooner than later.”
“Been there – two years worth, remember?”
She tried yanking her elbow from my grip, but that didn’t happen.
“That’s not how this game goes, sister.”
We snaked through her half-open office door, which I kicked shut. I latched it as I spun her to face me.
She was ready. She added her own strength to the momentum she'd picked up being spun on her heels, and managed to deliver a solid slap across my left cheek. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of letting myself wince too much. Still, it made my eye water and my ear ring – plus, I dropped my jacket and tangled one of my heels in it.
She lifted her chin defiantly. My hand slipped in right under her chin and fitted itself to the curves of her throat. “So that’s how this game gets played?” I said.
“You said you have something you n~”
“Uh-uh – after …”
One of us shuddered. I think it was her. We’d both been here before, just in other places and for other reasons. I pressed her against the wall, then pressed myself hard into her. Her lips parted and any doubt I had was gone.
Our mouths met; our tongues danced. Her fingers glided down my shirt, following the trail of my tie, and found what they were looking for just south of my belt. My fingers blazed a similar trail, dipping down to her waist and gathering her dress up in six inch bursts. Her wardrobe took a loss against its bottom line as my fingers yanked a rift, one side to the other, in her panties. Fortunately for her, her stockings were thigh highs and her garter belt was in the way of nothing.
She freed me from the confines of my pants with similar dexterity. I plunged into her wetness with a force that drove a grunt from both of us, and a bang from the wall.
My hand at her throat kept her breath ragged and her face a rich, deepening pink but at the slightest sign my grip was lessening, she leaned in to my fingers. How could I deny such resolve?
I could write pretty paragraphs about being sheathed within the flower of her womanhood, but that quaint and idyllic meadow land was nowhere close to the place we were. Animals would have been embarrassed by our escapades.
It was a dark and savage fucking we were inflicting on each other. Every time my hand tightened on her throat, her nails raked down my back. She may have spared my underwear, but prospects didn’t look good for my last pressed, white shirt. Even if it survived intact, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be streaked in blood.
One leg on the floor, she wrapped the other around my right hip. Each time I seemed about to withdraw, her muscular thigh pulled me back in. I could have stood still and simply allowed her to drive me back up into her, gravity and her leg being the active agents, but I’ve never been much for just standing there, particularly when sex was involved.
We rode as hard to our climax as any Kentucky Derby winner, and it was all I could do to keep us both standing as we caught our breaths. Her one standing leg would hardly hold the both of us, and she was using the other to not slide down my body. I dropped my hands down to her waist and re-gathered my energy. She dipped her head to snuggle in between my shoulder and neck. The next thing I knew, she was biting – hard – on my shoulder. Nothing unusual there. It was her habit to mark her conquests thusly, new or not.
A long time passed. Maybe a week; maybe two. Finally, she pressed her hands against my chest.
“Off me, damn you.”
I leaned back to allow her egress. She straightened her skirt as she walked slowly and deliberately around to the far side of her desk.
She didn’t sit, but then neither did I. Neither of us were at ease enough to sit. Dazed, yes. At ease, no. But then, even when we were married, it sometimes took us hours to wind down afterward, warily walking around about the other like wrestlers. Neither of us trusted the other. More to the point, neither of us really trusted ourselves.
She was fascinated with her desktop and with the way her fingers seemed to wander aimlessly across it. With no clues available on her face, I took to watching her fingers, too.
Another week passed, by which time we had both grown disinterested in her fingers.
“For God’s sake, Dix. Tell me what you need to tell me; ask me what you need to ask me. Make it the Western Union version. Then get the hell out of my bar.”
“Layla, someone put the finger on you as a mob stool, and they know enough about you to make it ring true. Me, I’m sure it’s all gas, but what I think doesn’t help. I’m working a job for Evelyn Conklin and I think there might be a link. Have you ever heard of a guy named Cyril Anderson?”
She shook her head. It didn't ring a bell, but it rang something close.
“Maybe know him as Chip?”
She dropped into her chair, like a bird from a tree, and buried her head in her hands.
“You better tell me the long version, Dix.”
[...]
Thursday, October 23, 2014
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