“What do you want?”
She shed the coat, then kicked off her high heels and walked to the couch to sit down. He body was incredible. The only other one even close was Hunter Kincaid, but in a more athletic way. Bond opened the champagne with a pop and said, “Do you have two glasses?”
I nodded instead of speaking because my tongue had turned to stone. Other body parts were following the tongue.
“Well, go get the glasses, silly boy.”
I went to the kitchen and returned with two jelly glasses, the last clean glasses in the house.
She took one, “The Flintstones, very avant-garde.” She poured the glass half-full and handed it to me, then poured her own. She patted the couch beside her and said, “Sit down so we can talk.”
I was so aware that I only had on a pair of gym shorts. She moved closer and I felt her naked leg press against mine from hip to knee. The hairs on my exposed thigh tingled and stood higher. She ran a hand across them, trailed her nails up my hip and to the back of my neck, playing with the hairs. Goosebumps popped up on my arms. My breathing was heavy and the smell of her made my head spin. “Drink your champagne,” she said.
I drank. I turned my head to look at her face, but my eyes were trying to grow out on stalks like a crab’s so I could angle them down and ogle this close, naked, perfect body without Bond realizing I wasn’t looking at her face. The thought of it reminded me of being sixteen and in the back of a car. I felt a small grin start, then grow wider as I thought about it, then I started laughing.
Bond moved away from me and frowned. “What’s so funny?”
I couldn’t stop. I tried to explain, but burst out laughing each time. One thing about laughing like that, it’s contagious. Before I knew it, Bond was chuckling, and then laughing along with me. We went on like that until our sides ached and we tapered off, with occasional hysterical flare-ups that had us wiping our cheeks.
When we stopped for good and caught our breath I said, “What are you doing here, and what’s with the seduction?”
Without our laughing jaunt, we’d be rutting on the carpet and furniture like a pair of supercharged minks, that I knew.
“I wanted to make sure you were on my side.”
“You don’t have to screw me to get that. If something happens to change it, I’ll tell you.” I sipped some Cristal and said, “Who did you think I’d side with?”
“Frank.”
I snorted, “Frank? He may be your husband but he’s an ass.”
“Well, he’s a powerful man, and powerful men get what they want.”
“Not always.” I took another sip and wiped off a drop running across Barney Rubble. “Did Frank say something to you?”
“He hinted that you were working for him, that he’d hired you from under whoever originally hired you. He doesn’t know it’s me, and I thank you for keeping it from him.”
I drained my glass and walked to the kitchen sink where I rinsed the glass and looked at her across the open bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. I said, “If Frank was here I’d tell him right to his face-” the door burst open and Carl Rakes stepped in, followed by Frank Meadows.
“You’d tell Frank what?” Frank said as he rubbed his hands over his knuckles. He looked at Bond and said, “Put some clothes on, bitch.”
Now wasn’t this a fine way to end an evening? Carl stood to the side of the door with his hands on his hips. He was dressed in a black fishnet tee shirt, tight-fitting black leather pants and lace-up work boots. His arms and torso were covered in blue-black prison tattoos. There were skulls and pirates, church cupolas, a portrait of Madonna, one-hundred dollar bills on each pec, and lots of words and phrases with some of the letters looking like backwards E’s and R’s and upside down V’s. The indigo ink highlighted Carl’s muscles like oil on a bodybuilder. His chest and stomach looked hard enough to break a knife blade. Frank said, “Carl, get that sonofoabitch over here.”
You’d think he might ask me to walk over, after all it was my house. When Carl reached the end of the bar I slipped my hand into the sink and grabbed the handle of a meat tenderizing mallet I’d used the night before on a round steak. It was solid aluminum with a handle like a hammer and a head the size of a coke can. The face of the mallet was a pattern of small pyramids, almost like the inside of a waffle maker. Carl didn’t see me hide it behind my leg, and as he came around the bar I made my move.
Carl was fast and leaned back from what he thought was a spinning backfist, but I faked with it and followed around with the mallet and its extra fourteen inches of length and caught him dead center in the middle of the forehead.
There was a loud thock and I felt the impact all the way to my shoulder. Carl dropped in a heap and his body started jerking and quivering. Hondo calls it “Doing the chicken”.
I walked around the bar and said, “Frank, you get this piece of trash out of my house and if you ever come in again, I’ll shoot your sorry ass.”
Frank rubbed his hands harder, like he couldn’t wash something off, “You wait, Baca. You don’t have a clue what you’re getting into.”
He started to say something to Bond, who still hadn’t put on any clothes but I said, “Uh-uh. She stays. Now get him out of here before I call the cops.”
Frank went to Carl and helped him up. The mark of the meat mallet was glowing on Carl’s forehead like a fresh red brand. Tiny pinheads of blood caught the lights and glinted in the deepest parts of the waffle marks like miniature red Christmas bulbs. He wobbled beside Frank to the door and they went out without closing it.
I walked to the door and saw the latch was broken, so moved a chair against it.