Take the Heat

“Yeah, I see exactly what you mean—and please, call me Mike.”

“So you think you can do it for me, Mike? Kill the lousy son of a bitch?”

Her voice had risen, thick with passion and contempt, and I shushed her, afraid of anyone overhearing even though I’d picked the booth farthest from the counter for our little rendezvous. Glancing round, I saw that no one was paying us the least mind, and I relaxed a fraction.

I’d chosen to meet her at Nardiello’s for a couple of reasons. First, the diner was always quiet in the middle of the day, with less chance of any prospective client being spotted in my company. Second, they did the best damn apple pie in the state, so at least I’d get to eat well if Luanne Palmer turned out to be a no-show. God knows I’d had enough of those over the years: fantasists and time wasters who poured their hearts out over the phone to me about the man who just had to die, but lost their nerve at the last moment or couldn’t come up with the necessary green to turn that fantasy into reality.

But when Luanne had come clicking into Nardiello’s on those sky-high heels, body hugged by a cute polka-dot blouse and black pencil skirt and eyes disguised behind dark glasses, I knew everything about this dame was serious. The wiggle in her walk had my cock lurching to attention in my underwear, and when she’d sat down opposite me, I’d caught a whiff of a perfume that spoke of midnight and sin.

Preliminary introductions concluded, she’d assured me that no one knew she’d come here. Her husband was away on business, and she’d told the maid she was going into Charleston for lunch with an old girlfriend. Almost before the waitress had finished taking our order, Luanne had launched into a story I could have recited for her, I’d heard it so many times before. She’d been married straight out of high school to an older guy who satisfied all her material needs but not her physical ones. It was an arrangement that should have worked—he had the wife who made heads turn when she walked into a room on his arm, and she had financial security and high standing in the community. For most women, that was enough. But not Luanne.

“You know, I can’t remember the last time he touched me.” She sighed. “And I can probably count the number of times we’ve fucked in the last couple of years on the fingers of one hand.”

It seemed wrong for someone so ladylike to use a word as downright filthy as fucked, but I couldn’t deny I didn’t like the effect it had on my cock.

“Some gals wouldn’t have a problem with that,” I pointed out.

“Maybe so, Mr. Mac—Mike. But I have urges, you know? An itch that needs to be scratched.”

And it was being scratched; I was all too certain of that. This was always the unspoken part of the story: some guy stepping in to provide the services Hubby no longer would, or could. Sometimes it was the pool boy, sometimes an old high school boyfriend. But he was always there, waiting for the day the sole impediment to their new life together had been permanently removed.

I watched the ice cream melt on top of my pie, sticky yellow rivulets trickling down the crisp pastry. “Pardon me for asking, but have you considered getting a divorce?”

Luanne shook her head. “Donnie would never agree to that. He’s very old-fashioned in these matters. Marriage is for life, as far as he’s concerned.” She paused to suck up her root beer float through a straw, her bubble-gum-pink gloss almost demanding to be kissed right off those pouting lips. “And so I thought if I can’t shorten our marriage, then the only thing I can do is shorten his life.”

Put like that, it seemed almost logical. But I needed people to keep making this kind of decision. They kept me in business.

“Plus,” she continued, “Donnie has a big life insurance policy, and I’m the beneficiary. So even after he’s gone, he’ll still be keeping me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed.”

“How did you find out about me?” I asked, forking up a piece of my pie. Catching sight of my reflection in the diner window, I saw sweat beading above the collar of my shirt. Even this late in September, the temperature was still in the nineties, and the slowly turning ceiling fan was doing nothing to cool me down. Unseasonable heat like this could make a man—or woman—do something they might later regret. Luanne Palmer didn’t strike me as a woman who had any regrets about her decision, but I had to make sur

e. Once the deed was done, she wouldn’t be able to change her mind.

“Oh, you come highly recommended, Mike. Highly recommended. All you need to know is that Marcie Willington is a good friend of mine.”

I knew Marcie all too well. Nine months ago, she’d asked me to sort out her own marital problems. A few days later, her husband and I had gone out for a friendly game of golf together. Only one of us had completed the round.

“Well, that just leaves one last question. I hate to be indelicate, but do you have the cash?”

Reaching for her purse, she took out a fat brown envelope. She pushed it across the table toward me as if it was red-hot. “Just like we agreed. Half now, and the rest when the job’s done.”

I didn’t bother to count it, just tucked it in the inside pocket of my jacket. Nothing was guaranteed to draw more attention to yourself than rifling through a pile of unmarked twenties in public.

For the first time, she turned the questions on me. “So how—how does this work, exactly? Where are you going to do it?”

“Look, Luanne, for your sake it’s best if you don’t know too much. If the police come asking questions—and they will—you don’t want to let slip anything that might connect you to his disappearance. All I need to know is whether there’s anywhere he goes on a regular basis, anywhere I might accidentally bump into him.”

She sipped her drink, flipping through some social calendar in her head. “Well, he does like to go to the Elliot on Fridays, meet with clients there. It’s that fancy hotel on the edge of town, you know it?”

I shook my head. “No, but I’ll find it. I just need to know who I’m looking for.”

Her icy demeanor cracked, and it struck me, beneath the artfully applied makeup and the expensive clothes, just how young she really was. Too young, I couldn’t help thinking, to be wanting her husband dead. But business was business; I didn’t judge and I didn’t condemn. I knew there were parts of any story I would never be told, and to keep my conscience clean, that was the way I liked it.

“Of course.” Opening the purse again, she handed me a snapshot. I knew what to expect: some fat slob, a good twenty years older than his wife, who’d let himself go to seed while expecting her to keep her figure trim and her grooming impeccable. Donnie Palmer was none of those things. His smile was that of a matinee idol, his dark hair cut in a boyish style. If anything, the average observer would consider him even more attractive than Luanne. Something about this whole scenario didn’t quite add up, but my client wanted him out of the way, and what my clients want, they get.

“Can I keep this?” When she nodded, I tucked it in my wallet.

“Just one last thing…” Luanne lowered her voice, forcing me to lean closer to her. Her blouse was open one button lower than was strictly necessary, even in this heat, and I caught a glimpse of the tops of her breasts, cradled in a cream lace bra. Beneath the seductive perfume she wore, I smelled pure female, ripe and intoxicating. How Donnie Palmer could ignore this simmering little sexpot, I had no idea, but all too often you failed to see what was right under your nose.