Black Cat Weekly #81

Chapter 7-1

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

personally selected by one of the most acclaimedshort stories authors and editors in the mystery

short stories authors and editors in the mysteryfield, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

field, Barb Goffman, for .

byThis is what happened.

We walked along the shadowy hallway from her apartment to the elevator, her blond hair, the color of moonglow, catching stray bits of light from the only two working lamps along the blood-red walls. When she tossed her hair back from her cheek, I marveled at how a simple tilt of her head created a halo around her, turning the dust motes in the air into tiny floating jewels. Then she smiled at me. The way she looked at me through those long green eyes of hers pumped me up plenty, making me feel as if I was the only guy in the world worth her time.

The elevator came, we stepped inside, and then she pressed her body against me, didn’t even wait for the doors to close. She was playful, flirtatious as a fairy-tale nymph as she ran her hands up my bare arms, traced my muscles with her fingertips, and tugged at the shoulders of my sleeveless T-shirt. As if I wasn’t already a tingling nerve, she looked up at me and gave me that Lady and the Tramp smile again before she kissed me, a full, unending kiss of such insatiable craving she sucked up my juice, my air, making me dizzy while she nearly devoured me. I never felt the elevator stop its descent, didn’t see the doors slide open. I didn’t want to untangle from her, not then, not ever.

Lady and the TrampBut I obeyed when she pulled me out into the lobby, her fingers tugging at my belt. Of course I obeyed and stumbled out like a drunk.

The lobby’s dusty floral carpet silenced our footsteps. The dark-red marble walls, dulled by decades of the city’s grit, echoed our every breath.

I held her hand as we walked out into the noisy, crowded street.

Even on steamy summer nights like that one, when the air is nothing but a slab of rubbery heat, city people go places, maybe take in a show, grab a bite, keep on the move. We were going someplace too, but I hadn’t mentioned it. As far as she was concerned, we were just a couple of lovers out for a leisurely walk on a summer’s night under a starry sky and a sultry moon.

The hellish heat didn’t stop me from holding her hand. She didn’t pull away, not even when a hot bead of sweat rolled down my wrist and seeped between our palms and through our fingers. We gave each other sidelong smiles, sidelong looks. Something in her green eyes came at me with the beguiling allure of swaying snakes. Her eyes slithered down my body, finding every bone and nerve, obliterating any consciousness of anyone else on the street. I saw only her. She was so beautiful, so darkly sparkling beautiful, a delicate beauty but with that hint of dangerous power like of one of those ancient goddesses you see in old paintings. Looking at her was like looking at fire through mist.

I don’t know what she saw when she slid her eyes at me. I don’t know if she’d figured out that I was going to arrest her for murder, pull her arms behind her back and cuff her, that it was something I had to do, under orders to do, made me sick to do.

I’d never told her I was a cop, an undercover plant to get the evidence that would lock her up for life. If she’d asked me what I did for a living I had a story ready, but she’d never asked. For a while I’d thought it was strange, her not asking how I make my dough. It’s often the first thing out of a woman’s mouth after she’s looked a guy over. But she wasn’t the usual sort of woman. Nothing mattered to her except whatever she was doing at the moment she was doing it.

So we just kept walking along, strolling easy in the hot, humid night, moving with the crowd. We were quiet; we didn’t need to bother with conversation, just let our entwined hands do our talking until she suddenly said, “Lucky me to fall for a sweet guy like you. That’s what you are, you know. A sweet, delicious hunk of a guy.” The way she said it, with a teasing sincerity inside a voice that rolled out like fog, she gave me the shivers.

I managed, more or less stammering it, “I guess you bring out the best in me.”

“We bring out the best in each other.” Her whisper could dissolve my bones.

She finally slipped her hand from mine, but what she did next made up for the loss. She slid her hand up my arm like she did in the elevator, knowing damn well how much I liked it, which made it twice as seductive. The slide of her hand along my arm roused every nerve and muscle in my body right down into my jeans, igniting every inch of me with need of her. It didn’t matter that her palm, her fingertips, were even hotter than the steamy sweat on my skin. I still shivered.

God, I loved her.

I was in hell. My own private hell. A hell as brutal as the one the law wanted me to lock her away in.

We neared the little neighborhood saloon that had become our bar. She asked if I wanted to stop in for a drink.

“Not tonight,” I said. “Let’s keep tonight to ourselves.”

She gave my arm a quick squeeze, made my blood pump hard and fast under my skin.

I agonized over sending her to prison for life, wondered how I would live without the touch of her, without the earthy scent of her skin, the dizzying wine-taste of her kiss, the wild nights of lovemaking in her bed. And I wondered what kind of nutcase I’d become, a cop crazy in love with a woman who murders.

If I was going to get through this night’s business I knew I had to kick my cop sense into gear. I had to settle down, force myself to ignore the heat of her fingers on my arm, not get distracted by the way the light of the moon and the light of the streetlamps slid along her red polished nails. I had to forget about the hypnotic sway of that red leather handbag swinging from her shoulder and the way it brushed against the red polka dots on her pink summer dress. I had to pay no attention to how the low-cut dress clung to her, found every curve of her. To ignore all that, I had to clamp my jaw so tight I felt my teeth could break.

She said, “I thought about you after you left this morning.”

“Only this morning?” I said, making an effort to tease, keep things light. With my senses on fire, my cop’s nerves stretched tight, it wasn’t easy. “You wound me, woman.”

thisShe really did too. Her tinkling laugh twisted into me like a screw biting through a wall.

“Not only this morning, silly,” she said. “But especially this morning because it’s our anniversary. You came into my life six months ago today.” The day after she’d put a bullet into the head of the Joe Schmo who’d been in her life before me. The day I knew in my cop’s bones that she’d cooked him. It came from something chilly that floated from her, seeped through her erotic heat, something in those gorgeous eyes—a hint of darkness? A too-sharp pinpoint of light?—that cops know are the eyes of a killer. It took me and my squad all these months to get the goods on her, for the forensics mavens to tickle out the evidence she so skillfully smeared up, but we finally locked everything tight. It might’ve taken less time if I didn’t have to be on my guard every minute in case she had a notion to kill me too. I’d long ago stopped looking for a motive for why she killed. She didn’t have a motive. She didn’t need one. Her bone-deep compulsion to kill the men who loved her took care of that. I’ve arrested my share of such women before. The prisons are full of ’em.

onlyBut I’d never fallen in love with one.

I knew there was a g*n in the red handbag that hung from her shoulder like a blood drop. It wasn’t the same g*n she used to kill the guy six months ago. She was smart enough to get rid of that one. Anyway, it was never found. All she’d told me about the .38 snub nose she kept in her handbag was that she carried a g*n because of some incident she didn’t name that happened to her when she was a kid growing up in the rotten-luck part of town. The weapon made her feel safe, especially at night, was all she’d said, the look in her eyes blank, her face hard as stone.

I didn’t have my g*n. Walking around with a g*n wouldn’t fit with my cover in case she asked, but as I said, she never did. The steel bracelets warming up in my jeans, well, they were another story. Fooling around with my jacket one night, putting it on over her n***d body, she found them in a pocket. I’d wanted to kick myself for forgetting to leave them in my locker at the precinct house, where I’d stashed my shield and my g*n before going to her place. But she’d smiled when she handled the bracelets, a slow, curling smile. Then she put them on. She wore them all night. A cop’s wet dream.

We neared a street corner. She tossed her head back, closed her eyes. “Do you feel it?” she asked. “The little breeze coming off the river? Let’s walk over to the old docks. It’ll be cooler there. Darker, more romantic.”

The docks. Not the direction I’d planned.

And then I warmed to it, figured how the setting could work for me. Those old docks hadn’t been used in years, not since the last of the warehouses was boarded up and left to die in peace. There’d be no light from windows to shine on my miserable doings. No snooping citizens around who’d rubberneck or panic, ruining a good arrest. I could lock the bracelets on her without interference, pull my cell phone from my back pocket and call for my squad to pick us up.

Romantic.

I said, “Baby, look there,” and led her to the curb where a pimply kid was selling flowers from a bucket next to a newsstand. “Gimme the red one,” I told him, “and shorten the stem.” I gave the kid a couple of bucks. He clipped the stem of the rose or whatever the hell that red flower was. I only remember it smelled sweet and looked terrific against her heat-flushed face when I slid it behind her ear. The bright red petals against her blond hair made her green eyes seem even greener. I stroked her cheek. I couldn’t help myself. And then I pulled her to me and kissed her. I couldn’t help that either.

The pimply kid snickered, spoiling the moment, killing the kiss.