Corpses in the Cellar (4 page)

She drew her lips away. “I wanna get closer to you,” she said. “Take off your jacket.”

He drew it off, and she was on him before he could lay it down.

“Umm. You feel good. Tight and hard,” she purred, arms around him, body pressed firmly against his. This time he ran his hand
down the length of her from neck to thigh, and she squirmed in pleasure.

“You’ve got the touch, kiddo, you’ve got the touch,” she said, her body sliding up and down his. An odor of sex began to drift
up from her.

“You do all right yourself,” he told her, and kissed her again, this time pushing his tongue past her willing lips, plummeting
into nothingness, then pulling it back up, then pushing it in again.

This time her tongue met his, curling around it, darting away, then flicking back, quick and alive.

He opened his eyes, and saw she was staring at him, her gaze steamy. “Not bad at taking liberties, either, are you?”

“Can the wisecracks, Tawny,” he told her. “You don’t need them with me.”

Her eyes went soft, and vulnerable, and then they closed, and she sought his lips again. Her breath was beginning to come
hard.

He pushed her gently back down onto the couch, and she moaned softly as he pressed his body onto hers. She was sucking his
tongue into her now, hungry for it.

He raised himself, and ran his hand down along the silk of her gown, her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, her belly, down
between and then along her thighs. The negligee began to cling to her in places, held by the moisture that was beginning to
steal over her.

She pulled him back down onto her, fiercely, thrusting herself up against him, undulating, squirming, rubbing, hard against
him, her breath coming in short gasps. “I want you,” she told him.

He said nothing, just worked on her, both hands now coursing over her, slowly, with sure, practiced motions, “Please!” she
breathed.

He ignored her, kept on, the negligee damp, beads of moisture standing out between her breasts. Her lips locked onto his,
her tongue frantic, seeking his out, reaching all the way into his mouth, attacking it.

Her head began to toss from side to side, small cries escaping her. And still he held back, stroking, kissing, and finally
pushing his hand up beneath the negligee, up between her legs.

“Ohhhh!” She shuddered as his fingers went inside her, shuddered as they were coated with the thick, steaming fluids that
filled her, shuddered as they drew out and up toward the mound where her pleasure was seated, up and then away, up and then
away.

“Please,” she moaned. “Please. Take me.”

He pulled the negligee off her, slowly, caressing her as he did so, then stood and removed his clothes. She lay there panting,
waiting, and then, impatient, sat up and grabbed for him, squeezing hard, desperately, and then, ecstatically, plunging her
mouth over him, sucking him up inside, lips tight around him, then loosening, and pulling up, and then pushing down, the moistness
of her mouth a twin to the pulsating passage between her thighs.

He reached out with both hands and grabbed her head, held it in place against him for a moment, then gently guided it downward,
back against the couch.

“You’re the best I’ve ever had,” she breathed, weakly, “and I haven’t even had you yet.”

She fit him like a glove. He slid in easily, every millimeter of her making contact with him, coating him with her liquid
heat, as he plunged to the hilt, and then slowly drew backward.

“Ohhh…” she gasped, and her fingers dug into his back.

He went in again, slowly, revolving his hips as he did so, giving it to her in all directions, forward, backward, sideways.
She moaned with pleasure, as she reciprocated, grinding against him, meeting him as he moved into her, pulling away as he
drew back, undulating her hips counterclockwise to his. He could feel the heat of them rise with each thrust, each withdrawal.

Her nails raked his back, and her teeth gnawed at his shoulder, all the while small sounds escaped her, he barely aware of
them as all of his sensations centered more and more on the liquescent space between her legs.

He seemed to keep expanding as he continued on, tightening, tightening, feeling her softness inside yielding to him, yet clinging,
hotly, wetly. Her body was beginning to jerk irregularly, and her breath came in deep, quick gasps. He picked up the tempo,
and she responded, automatically, unthinkingly, lost to everything but the pulsing of her body.

Now the spasms came more quickly, and he felt an irreversible force building up in himself, felt the beginnings of the gushing
that was soon to come. Their sweat-streaming bodies slap-slapped wetly against each other as the final moments began, all
of her straining against him, fingers digging into his back, deeply, deeply, a long, sensuous cry issuing from her lips, his
shaft filling her, ramming her, driving in, with sledge-hammer speed and force.

And then for an instant they hung together, bodies arched, and then drew away, and then came together and drew away again,
and came together once more, and then collapsed, and sagged, she sinking back down deeply into the couch, he rolling off to
the side next to her.

“Hey, Mister Insurance Man”—she smiled at him, dreamily—“I like your policy.”

He smiled back, and then they lay together silently, his arm under her head, one of her hands resting lightly on his bicep.

“I wish I could ask you to stay for dinner,” she said, when he finally rose.

“Another time, maybe,” he told her. “I’d have to know you for a while before I could pay any attention to the rest of my appetites.”

Maybe it was her laugh that covered up the sound of the opening door. Whatever it was, they didn’t hear it.

“Hey, Toots,” came the voice, rough and loud. “Where are ya? In the can?”

“Oh Christ.” Tawny looked at Lockwood. “I hope you can fight as well as you can…”

A head popped into the room. The face was swarthy, and rough, and when it saw The Hook, ugly.

“Hello, Vinnie,” Tawny said, casually employing her best drawing-room accents. “Have you ever met the meter-reader?”

Vinnie Griese looked at the woman, every inch of her stark naked, and his visage darkened and contorted. “You little bitch!
You tramp!” He swung at her, but found his arm stopped in mid-motion.

“Cool it, Griese,” the detective told him.

“Who the fuck are you?” the gangster snarled, wrenching his arm free.

“Bill Lockwood,” the answer came back, voice unruffled, demeanor as calm as if strolling the Boardwalk at Coney Island. “I’m
here investigating the fire at The Palms.”

Confusion registered on Griese’s features, and then he growled, “Okay, joker, I’ve had enough!”

“I’m not joking. Here’s my card,” Lockwood said, his hand reaching inside his jacket pocket, but lightning-ready to fend off
the fist that came roaring in at him.

“I take it you’re not interested in my ID,” he told Griese, as he sidestepped, and parried a second punch.

“I’ll kill you!” the mobster yelled, boring in at him again.

“Watch out for the stinking lamp! You’re gonna break it!” The Hook heard Tawny shrill, as this time a blow to the midsection
doubled him up, and he slammed against a table. Damn. Griese could punch.

He partially slipped a blow to the head, Griese’s knuckles sounding against the side of his skull, and immediately countered
with a straight right to the chest, feeling satisfaction as he heard the whoosh of air coming out of Griese’s lungs.

The thug fell against him, clinching, trying to gain time as he fought to suck oxygen back into his deflated wind sacs. The
two of them rocked against a table, and it fell over.

“Damn you! Damn you!” Tawny Tourette was raining blows on both of them, snapping her hairbrush down hard, then a moment later
crashing to the floor as she was thrown off-balance by the struggling men.

Griese had his breath back, and was jabbing in at Lock-wood’s ribs, leaving his own midsection wide open. The distance was
too close to do any real damage, but The Hook went for it, once with the left, again with the right, and then threw up both
hands, and pushed Griese back, breaking the clinch.

Griese gave a howl of rage, and came in at him once more, but this time Lockwood was ready. He feinted with a right, then
with a left, throwing the gangster off-balance, then came in again with a right that Griese took as another feint, much to
his dismay a millisecond later, as the fist crashed into his face, the cheek on one side flying out in compensation as the
other was compressed by the force of the punch. Before he could recover, another blow came in, boloing up into his stomach,
knocking the wind out of him for the second time.

Griese was looking stricken, but not finished, as Lock-wood’s eyes flicked toward the girl.
“Coup de grace,”
the detective explained, and then whipped in the famed left hook that had given him his nickname.

Griese went down, all the furniture in the room jumping an inch as he hit. Once on the floor, he looked as if he’d been planted
there permanently.

Lockwood looked at Tawny, and she back at him.

“Isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to brush your hands off and straighten your tie?” she asked.

Lockwood gave a short laugh. “Looks as if you’ve got troubles. I can take him out of here, but you’d better get your key back
from him first.”

“Good idea,” she said, then bent over the fallen man.

A moment later, as she stood by the door watching Lockwood haul her lover away, she told him, “You know, you
can
fight as well as you can…” she paused a moment, then concluded, eyelids lowered suggestively,
“Almost.”

Eddie Black was on the day shift today, and Lockwood had decided to see him first. So far the case was going nowhere, he mused,
as he walked down toward the cop’s beat. Grand himself, his wife Debbie, Tawny, none had been of any help, nor had Griese
last night after he’d recovered consciousness on the sidewalk outside the chorus girl’s apartment.

“I’m tellin’ you nothin’,” he had said. “Except to tell you your life’s not worth a used scumbag.”

Lockwood had heard that song before, and wore the threat lightly. He was used to handling Griese’s type, and was reasonably
confident he could do so again. And if he didn’t… well, Lockwood thought, why ruin the remaining pleasant moments by brooding
about that.

Black was half a block away when Lockwood saw him. He was in front of what remained of the Palms, staring at it. As he approached
the patrolman, Lockwood saw he was as handsome as he’d remembered him, in the way that so many of the black Irish were. Sharply-chiseled
features, skin drawn tight over the bones, eyes piercingly blue, all combined with an aura of affability that just barely
hinted of a darker, more volatile nature lurking right below the surface.

“Eddie Black?”

The cop, still concentrating on the charred nightclub, wheeled around. He regarded Lockwood blankly. “Yeah?”

“My name’s Bill Lockwood. Transatlantic—”

“Right,” Black cut him off. “Brannigan told me you’d be coming around.”

“Good,” Lockwood said. “I just have a few questions.”

“Do you mind if we walk?” Black asked. “I’m supposed to be patrolling this beat.”

“Sure.” Lockwood shrugged. “I just figured, since you’d been standing here looking, from the time I spotted you…”

“It wasn’t an easy thing.” Black’s eyes flared momentarily, then subsided. “All those dead people. I don’t want to think about
it, and yet somehow I’m drawn…”

“I understand,” Lockwood said, as they began to amble westward along the block.

He took out a Camel. “Sorry I can’t offer you one,” he told Black, knowing the rules about police officers smoking on duty.

Black shrugged. “You get used to it after a while.”

Lockwood lit up. It was the first one of the day, and it had that fresh, clean taste that cigarettes only very occasionally
had. He savored it a moment before speaking. “They tell me you were the first one to spot the fire.”

“That’s right.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know exactly,” the policeman admitted, sheepishly. “I was a little too excited, I guess. First one I’d ever had,
and it wasn’t till after the firemen got there that I remembered to look at my watch.”

“But about three-thirty
A.M.
?”

“That’s what I figure. Of course, in a situation like that, time can telescope in or out, and there’s no way you can tell
which direction it’s going. I’ve found that out over the years.”

“Was anyone else around when you saw the fire?”

“No. In fact, I didn’t really see fire. Just smoke, coming out around the doors.”

“What about the people? Could you hear them?”

“The people? You mean the ones inside? No. Not a sound. Just smoke. I just saw the smoke.”

“You have any trouble getting in?”

Black waved back to a shopowner. “You kidding? You saw the place. As soon as I opened the doors, the flames leapt out at me.”

Lockwood considered Black quietly. “And no trouble opening the doors?” he asked, after a moment.

“No. Except the handles were hot. That’s all. But not so hot I couldn’t grab them, at least for the instant or two it took
to pull them open.”

“And no bodies on the stairs.”

“No. Of course not.”

“Why of course not?” Lockwood was studying Black closely.

“Why? Hell, you saw the bodies! They were all down in the middle of the cellar.

“They’d been placed there.”

Black’s pupils dilated. “What?”

“The people in that fire died on the stairs. Someone moved them later.”

Black stared at him. “I’m telling you, they weren’t there,” he said after a while.

“But there were flames coming out of the doorway?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Mmm.” Lockwood studied the sidewalk as they continued on. “Okay, how about this? You didn’t hear any screams, you say, when
you spotted the fire. Did you hear anything else?”

“Like what?”