The Master Ring
Chapter 4
I came to a little while later. Sean the bartender was pressing wet towels against my back and looking me over with clinical detachment.
I groaned. “Will I live, doc?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You ain’t gonna be happy about it tomorrow though, mac. Your back’s a mess.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said, slowly sitting up and trying not to throw up. “I hope it doesn’t mean the end of my modelling career.”
“Don’t worry, mac. It don’t interfere with your kind of beauty.”
“Glad to hear it. Can I have something to drink, please?”
He handed me a warm bottle of water. “Here. Don’t overdo it. Unless you wanna puke some more.”
“No worries,” I said, accepting the bottle. “I’m not hooked on it or anything. I just need to wash the taste of blood out of my mouth.”
He shook his head. “You’re a hard case, ain’t ya? You really shouldn’t mess with Miss Hannah, you know.”
“I don’t know about that. She kinda grows on a guy. I should have brought flowers, though.”
“You’ve lost your sixes, haven’t you?”
“You saying I should bring candy instead?”
He shook his head and sighed. “Can you stand?”
“Eventually. Help me up, will ya?”
He helped me to my feet. I hurt all over and I knew it was nothing compared to how I was going to feel tomorrow. I pulled my shirt back over my head and Sean eased it down my back.
Sean gave a whistle. “You must have boiled her crabs good, mac. Was it worth it?”
I shrugged. “Probably not. I just wanted to meet a girl.”
“You’re a strange piece of cheese, mister. Why would that boil her crabs?”
“The girl’s name is Allison. Miss Hannah took my questions personally, it seems.”
He hesitated only slightly, but it was enough. He knew something.
“Oh, yeah?” he said, too casually. “What makes you think Miss Hannah knows her?”
“I’m a detective,” I said. “It’s my job to know these things.”
“So why is it so important you find this girl, mac?” he said, helping me down the hallway. “I mean, look at you. And it ain’t gonna get any easier. Why are you trying so hard to find this girl?”
“Because I have something that belongs to her,” I said. “Something I was given with specific instructions to personally hand it to her.”
That got him thinking. He was quiet as we entered the bar area. Slab was nowhere to be seen. Then, still trying to sound casual, the barman said, “So, what, like an inheritance or something…?”
I groaned as if my injuries were hurting me. Then I said, “Something like that. Just a…well, let’s call it a piece of jewelry. Part of a set, you might say.”
He was quiet as we got to the front door. Then he surprisingly decided to help me through the front door.
“Thanks, Sean, but I can make it to my car on my own.”
He spoke without moving his lips. “I know, but I don’t want anybody to hear what I’m about to say. Are you really trying to help Allison? Because I think she’d really appreciate the…piece of jewelry.”
“And I want to give it to her. But Miss Hannah doesn’t seem too anxious to let me speak to her.”
Sean was quiet again. Then he said, “Look, maybe I can help.”
“Oh?”
“I can’t say anything now, but come back tonight after 10pm. Miss Hannah should be gone for the night by then.”
“After 10pm,” I said, nodding in my best secret agent fashion.
“Probably a good idea not to park where anybody can see your car, though,” he said. He pointed to a decrepit boat sitting on a trailer behind The Cat’s Meow. “See that boat?”
“Yeah, I see it,” I said, trying to make out the name. “Why’s it called The Reagan?”
“I got it from an old navy salt who had served on the Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier,” he said. “He gave his boat the same name and I kept it.”
“There’s a lot of rust on your boat there, bub.”
“Yeah, it needs some work. Anyway, when you get here tonight, park behind that boat so no one sees your car. Got it?”
I nodded. “Park behind Sean’s rusty Reagan. Got it.”
“See you then,” he said. He turned toward The Cat’s Meow, then paused and turned back to me. “And you better be on the level, mac.” Then the barman turned and walked back into the bar.
So maybe the trip would turn a profit after all. Hannah may not have been the key I was hoping for, but stumbling across the barkeeper who carried a torch for Allison was a stroke of luck.
Somehow I made it back to my office.
By the time I got there, the blood on my back had dried and my shirt was stuck to me. I was chain-smoking by now and my hands were shaking. But I was in for another surprise.
“My goodness, Jack, what happened to you?!”
“Hello, Veronica,” I said, unlocking the door and following her into my office. “I was accosted by an encyclopedia salesman. The real pushy kind.”
She slowly peeled my shirt off my back. I only stopped her twice so I could take a slug from my bottle of bourbon. By the time she was done, several of the wounds were freely bleeding again.
“Oh, Jack. Do you have a first aid kit? You really should have your back looked at by a doctor. What caused these wounds?”
I took another slug from the bottle. “A whip, believe it or not. Anyway, I just need some rest. Clean it, slap on some Band-Aid’s, I’m good to go.”
She looked at me like I was crazy, but she gathered the few medical supplies in my office and did her best. Finally she stepped back.
“That’s all I can do for you,” she said. “Are you sure you want to do it this way?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I have too much to do. Now let’s talk about the case.”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s.”
So I gave her the rumpus on the trip to Crosswinds, although I didn’t give her the specifics. Wasn’t time yet. I also held off on giving her any details about The Cat’s Meow, not even telling her the name of the joint. If she started trying to backseat drive, it could put me in a bad spot and I had no intention of crossing Miss Hannah again if I could help it. Veronica was just going to have to trust me for a little while.
“You’re not telling me everything,” she said, pouting.
I eased myself into a prone position on the couch in my office, a towel between me and the couch, “No, I’m not. It’s for your protection as well as mine. And I’ve had a bad day, so let’s not argue about it, okay?”
She walked over to me, those incredible hips rolling as she moved. She dropped to her knees next to the couch and positioned those plump red lips inches from my ear. Then she whispered, “You’re not getting discouraged, are you?”
My eyebrows rose. I opened my mouth to reply, but she silenced me by pressing those soft lips against mine.
We kissed for several seconds. When she pulled back, she placed a thin, feminine finger over my lips.
“Shhhhh,” she said. “Don’t spoil it by talking. Just lay back and relax, all right? Let me take care of you.”
And that’s exactly what she did. She removed all my clothing piece by piece, leaving only my shirt in place. Then she methodically stripped off her own clothing piece by piece as well. I watched Veronica Westwood slowly become naked in my office, slowly revealing that spectacular body, and I suddenly realized that perhaps today wasn’t as bad a day as I thought.
I was crazy hard already. Veronica put a leg over my hips and straddled me. Then she slowly lowered herself onto my thick, painfully hard cock.
Earlier in the day I had been beaten by thugs and whipped by a dominatrix and I had endured it all without a sound. But when Veronica Westwood took my entire cock inside her, when she slid down my rod until I could feel her sex tickling my balls, I let out a groan that shook the pictures on the wall.
Afterward we shared a smoke. Then she got up and dressed.
“You need your rest,” she said, “so I’m going to go. But please keep me updated on what you learn tonight, okay?”
“I’ll do that,” I said, feeling sleep starting to overtake me.
She cupped my cheek with her hand, then gave me a quick kiss. “Hopefully you won’t have to be beaten again for this to happen next time.”
I groaned my agreement as sleep overtook me. Moments later I was sleeping like a rock.
Until the knock on my office door woke me up.
I sat up with a groan, my back a fiery reminder to move more carefully. A glance at the clock told me I had slept for several hours. I struggled into my pants and stumbled to the door.
Veronica had locked the door behind her when she left. Smart woman. I unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hello, Jack,” said Lynn.
It took me a moment to recognize her out of context. She was dressed in the same clothing she’d been wearing when I met her in front of my old trailer at Crosswinds Trailer Park, but seeing her here in my office was still an odd wrench.
“Hello,” I said.
She looked me up and down. “What happened to you?”
“Someone wanted my lunch money.”
“You should have given it to them. You don’t look good.”
“I’ll brown bag it next time.”
She shook her head. “May I come in?”
“Sorry,” I said, stepping to the side and waving a hand in a vague gesture of welcome. “Come on in.”
She entered the office, but stopped in the middle of the room and looked around.
“It works,” she said. “Fits you.”
“Thanks.”
“Nice desk,” she said. “Clean. Is this where you had sex?”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Did you have sex on this desk? I can smell it.”
“No, I didn’t have sex on the desk. Sorry to disappoint you.”
She walked over to the couch and wrinkled her nose. “Never mind. I know where you did it now.” She looked at me critically. “The desk would have been sexier, you know.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“You should,” she said. “Sometimes a girl just wants a guy to push everything off the desk and take her.”
This case was a frickin’ cuckoo clock. “Thank you for the advice, Dr.Ruth.”
“Was it another guy? It doesn’t smell like another guy.”
This bird! Geez. “No, it wasn’t another guy.”
“There’s no shame in it if it was.”
“IT WASN’T ANOTHER GUY.”
She actually looked disappointed. “That’s too bad. Two guys having sex is kinda hot.”
“I’ll try to be more open-minded in the future,” I said. “Now, did you come by for something specific or just to inquire about my sex life? Come to think of it, how did you get my address?”
Lynn ran a finger over my dusty blinds and shook her head in disapproval. “Google. How else would I have gotten your address? I’m not a mind-reader, you know.”
Sigh. “Point taken. What I should have asked was why did you get my address?“
She started to sit on the couch, then changed her mind. She walked over to my desk and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
“I want to work for you,” she said.
“I’m not hiring,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”
“You don’t have to pay me. I just want to learn from you.”
“I’m not hiring. Thanks anyway.”
“Why not? It wouldn’t cost you anything.”
“I don’t play well with others.”
“I wouldn’t get in the way.”
This day was getting crazier by the minute. “I have to move fast a lot of times. I don’t always have time to explain things.”
“I don’t need my hand held.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know anything. You’d be starting from the bottom and I don’t have the time or patience for an apprentice.”
“I can make myself useful.”
“How?”
“I can dust your blinds, for one. And answer the phone. I can’t imagine your phone skills are any more tactful than your conversational skills. I can also do surveillance for you.”
“Surveillance? What would you know about surveillance?”
“I take very good notes. Would you like to see a sample of my work?”
“I seriously doubt you could...wait, what do you mean by ‘a sample of your work’?”
For the first time I noticed she was carrying a spiral notebook. She held it out for me to peruse.
“You were really interested in lot 17, so I did surveillance on them for you. I catalogued each visitor according to gender, hair color and tattoo, so you could set up a data base if you wanted.”
I looked over the list. Tonya was a surprisingly popular girl. There were no surprises here...except perhaps one.
I looked at Lynn and tapped an entry in her notebook. “Are you sure about this one?”
She gave me a look.
“Of course you are,” I said. “Sorry.”
“No problem, Jack. So it’s good?”
“Not bad.”
“See? I can help you. I can also watch your back.”
“My back’s fine.”
She gave me a look. “I’m not so sure about that, Jack. I think you’re the kind of guy that sticks his head inside a cannon and lights a match to see what’s there.”
She had me there. “All right, we’ll give it a trial run. If you get in the way or interfere with a job even a little bit, you’ll be right back out again. You do what I tell you and you do it the way I tell you to do it. Do we understand each other?”
“Sure.”