Kiss the Girls

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THE GENTLEMAN CALLER

HE WAS the perfect Gentleman. Always a Gentleman. Always unobtrusive and polite.

He thought about that as he listened to the two lovers talking in sibilant whispers as they strolled near University Lake. It was all so dreamily romantic. It was so right for him.

"Is this a good idea, or is this too dumb for words?" he heard Tom Hutchinson ask Roe Tierney.

They were maneuvering into a teal blue rowboat that was gently rocking alongside a long dock on the lake. Tom and Roe were going to "borrow" the boat for a few hours. Sneaky college mischief.

"My great-granddaddy says drifting downstream in a rowboat doesn't count against your life span," Roe said. "It's a great idea, Tommy. Let's go for it."

Tom Hutchinson started to laugh. "What if you do other things in said boat?" he asked.

"Well, if that includes aerobics of any sort, it might actually extend your life span." Roe's skirt rustled against her smooth thighs as she crossed her legs.

"Then stealing off in these nice people's boat for a moonlight ride is a good idea," said Tom.

"Great idea." Roe held her ground. "The best. Let's do it."

As their rowboat left the dock, the Gentleman slipped into the water. He made no sound. He listened to every word, every movement, and every nuance of the lovers' fascinating courting ritual.

There was almost a full moon, and it looked serene and beautiful to Tom and Roe as they slowly paddled out into the glistening lake. Earlier in the evening they had gone out for a romantic dinner in Chapel Hill, and they were both dressed to the hilt. Roe had on a pleated black skirt, a cream-colored silk blouse, silver shell earrings, and her roommate's dress pearls. Perfect boating attire.

The Gentleman's best guess was that Tom Hutchinson didn't even own the gray suit that he had on. Tom came from Pennsylvania. He was an auto mechanic's son who had made it to captain of the Duke football team, and had also managed to keep a grade index bordering on 4.0.

Roe and Tom were the "golden couple." It was just about the only thing that students from Duke and the nearby University of North Carolina could agree on. The "scandal" of Duke's football captain dating Carolina's Azalea Queen made the romance even spicier.

They fumbled with uncooperative buttons and zippers as they slowly drifted on the lake. Roe wound up wearing only her earrings and the borrowed dress pearls. Tom had on his white shirt, but it was open all the way, making a kind of tent as he went inside Roe. Under the moon's watchful eye, they began to make love.

Their bodies moved smoothly as the boat rocked gently and playfully. Roe made tiny moaning sounds, which intermingled with a chorus of cicadas playing shrilly in the distance.

The Gentleman felt a column of rage welling up inside him. His dark side was bursting through: the brutal, repressed animal, the modern-day werewolf.

Suddenly, Tom Hutchinson flopped out of Roe Tierney with a tiny thup. Something powerful was pulling him out of the boat. Before he hit the water, Roe heard him yell. It was a strange noise that sounded like yaaagghh.

Tom swallowed lake water and gagged violently. There was a terrible pain and stinging in his throat, localized pain, but very intense and frightening.

Then, whatever powerful force had pulled him backwards into the lake suddenly released him. The choking pressure left him. Just like that. He was being set free.

His large strong hands, quarterback hands, went up to his throat and touched something warm. Blood was gushing out of his throat and spreading through the lake water. A terrible fear, a feeling close to panic, gripped him.

Horrified, he felt his throat again and found the knife embedded there. Oh, Jesus God, he thought, I've been stabbed. I'm going to die at the bottom of this lake, and I don't even know why.

In the rocking, drifting rowboat, meanwhile, Roe Tierney was too confused and shocked even to scream.

Her heart was pounding so rapidly and fiercely, she could hardly breathe. She stood up in the boat frantically searching for some sign of Tom.

This must be a sick joke, she thought. I will never go out with Tom Hutchinson again. Never marry him. Never in a million years. This is not funny. She was freezing, and she began to grope for her clothes in the bottom of the boat.

Swiftly, close to the boat, someone or something burst out of the black-looking water. It felt like an explosion under the lake.

Roe saw a head bobbing above the surface. Definitely a man's head… but it wasn't Tom Hutchinson.

"I didn't mean to scare you." The Gentleman spoke softly, almost conversationally. "Don't be alarmed," he whispered as he reached for the gunwale of the rocking boat. "We're old friends. To be perfectly honest, I've watched you for over two years."

Suddenly Roe started to scream as if there were no tomorrow.

For Roe Tierney, there wasn't.

   CHAPTER 1   

I WAS on the sun porch of our house on Fifth Street when it all began. It was "pouring down rain" as my little girl Janelle likes to say, and the porch was a fine place to be. My grandmother had once taught me a prayer that I never forgot: "Thank you for everything just the way it is." It seemed right that day—almost.

Stuck up on the porch wall was a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon. It showed the "Butlers of the World" annual banquet. One of the butlers had been murdered. A knife was in his chest right up to the hilt. A detective on the scene said, "God, Collings, I hate to start a Monday with a case like this." The cartoon was there to remind me there was more to life than my job as a homicide detective in D.C. A two-year-old drawing of Damon's tacked up next to the cartoon was inscribed: "For the best Daddy ever." That was another reminder.

I played Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith tunes on our aging piano. The blues was having its sneaky-sad way with me lately. I'd been thinking about Jezzie Flanagan. I could see her beautiful, haunting face sometimes, when I stared off into the distance. I tried not to stare off into the distance too much.

My two kids, Damon and Janelle, were sitting on the trusty, if slightly rickety, piano bench beside me. Janelle had her small arm wrapped across my back as far as it would stretch, which was about one-third of the way.

She had a bag of Gummi Bears in her free hand. As always, she shared with her friends. I was slow-sucking a red Gummi.

She and Damon were whistling along with my piano playing, though for Jannie, whistling is more like spitting to a certain preestablished rhythm. A battered copy of Green Eggs and Ham sat on top of the piano, vibrating to the beat.

Both Jannie and Damon knew I was having some trouble in my life lately, for the past few months, anyway. They were trying to cheer me up. We were playing and whistling the blues, soul, and a little fusion, but we were also laughing and carrying on, as children like us will.

I loved these times with my kids more than I loved all the rest of my life put together, and I had been spending more and more time with them. The Kodak pictures of children always remind me that my babies will be seven and five years old only one time. I didn't plan to miss any of it.

We were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps running up the wooden stairs of our back porch. Then the doorbell rang: one, two, three tinny rings. Whoever was out there was in a big hurry.

"Ding-dong the witch is dead." Damon offered his inspirational thought for the moment. He was wearing wraparound shades, his impression of a cool dude. He was a cool little dude, actually.

"No, the witch isn't," countered Jannie. I'd recently noticed that she had become a staunch defender of her gender.

"It might not be news about the witch," I said, with just the right timing and delivery. The kids laughed. They get most of my jokes, which is a frightening thought.

Someone began to pound insistently against the door frame, and my name was shouted in a plaintive and alarming way. Goddammit, leave us be. We don't need anything plaintive or alarming in our lives right now.

"Dr. Cross, please come! Please! Dr. Cross," the loud shouts continued. I didn't recognize the woman's voice, but privacy doesn't seem to count when your first name is Doctor.

I held the kids down, my hands fastened onto the tops of their small heads. "I'm Dr. Cross, not you two. Just keep on humming and hold my place. I'll be right back."

"I'll be back!" said Damon in his best Terminator voice. I smiled at his joke. He is a second-grade wiseguy already.

I hurried to the back door, grabbing my service revolver on the way. This can be a bad neighborhood even for a cop, which I am. I peered out through the foggy and grimy windowpanes to see who was on our porch steps.

I recognized the young woman. She lived in the Langley projects. Rita Washington was a twenty-three-year-old pipe-head who prowled our streets like a gray ghost. Rita was smart, nice enough, but impressionable and weak. She had taken a very bad turn in her life, lost her looks, and now was probably doomed.

I opened the door and felt a cold, wet gust of wind slap against my face. There was a lot of blood on Rita's hands and wrists and on the front of her green fake-leather carcoat.

"Rita, what in hell happened to you?" I asked. I guessed that she'd been gut-shot or stabbed over some drugs.

"Please, please come with me." Rita Washington started to cough and sob at the same time. "It little Marcus Daniels," she said, and cried even louder. "He been stabbed! It be real bad! He call your name. He ask for you, Dr. Cross."

"You stay there, kids! I'll be right back!" I shouted over Rita Washington's hysterical cries. "Nana, please watch the kids!" I yelled even louder. "Nana, I have to go out!" I grabbed my coat and followed Rita Washington into the cold, teeming rain.

I tried not to step on the bright red blood dripping like wet paint all over our porch steps.

   CHAPTER 2   

I RAN as fast as I could down Fifth Street. I could feel my heart going whump, whump, whump, and I was sweating profusely in spite of the nasty, steady, cold spring rain. Blood was pounding furiously in my head. Every muscle and tendon in my body was straining, and my stomach clenched real hard.

I held eleven-year-old Marcus Daniels in my arms, clutched tightly against my chest. The little boy was bleeding badly. Rita Washington had found Marcus on the oily, darkened stairway leading to the basement in his building and had taken me to his crumpled body.

I ran like the wind, crying inside, holding it back as I've been taught to do on The Job and most everywhere else.

People who don't normally stare at much in Southeast were staring at me as I rumbled forward like a ten-axle semi on the loose in the inner city.

I outpaced gypsy cabs, shouting at everybody to get out of my way. I passed ghost store after ghost store boarded up with dark, rotting plywood that was scrawled with graffiti.

I ran over broken glass and rubble, Irish Rose bottles, and occasional dismal patches of weeds and loose dirt. This was our neighborhood; our share in The Dream; our capital.

I remembered a saying I'd heard about D.C.: "Stoop down and you'll get stepped on, stand tall and you'll be shot at."

As I ran, poor Marcus was throwing off blood like a soaking-wet puppy dog shedding water. My neck and arms were on fire, and my muscles continued to strain.

"Hold on, baby," I said to the little boy. "Hold on, baby," I prayed.

Halfway there, Marcus cried out in a tiny voice, "Doctor Alex, man."

That was all he said to me. I knew why. I knew a lot about little Marcus.

I raced up the steep, freshly paved asphalt drive of St. Anthony's Hospital. "St. Tony's Spaghetti House" as it's sometimes called in the projects. An EMS ambulance rolled past me, heading toward L Street.

The driver wore a Chicago Bulls cap pulled sideways, its brim pointing strangely in my direction. Loud rap music blared from the van, and it must have been deafening inside. The driver and medic didn't stop, didn't seem to consider stopping. Life in Southeast goes like that sometimes. You can't stop for every murder or mugging that you come across on your daily rounds.

I knew my way to St. Anthony's emergency room. I'd been there too many times. I shouldered open the familiar swinging glass door. It was stenciled EMERGENCY, but the letters were peeling away and there were nail scratches on the glass.

"We're here, Marcus. We're at the hospital," I whispered to the little boy, but he didn't hear me. He was unconscious now.

"I need some help here! People, I need help with this boy!" I shouted.

The Pizza Hut delivery man would have gotten more attention. A bored-looking security guard glanced my way and gave me his practiced, flat-faced stare. A shabby stretcher clattered loudly down the halls of medicine.

I saw nurses I knew. Annie Bell Waters and Tanya Heywood, in particular.

"Bring him right here." Annie Waters quickly cleared a way once she sized up the situation. She didn't ask me any questions as she pushed other hospital workers and the walking wounded out of our path.

We sailed past the reception desk, with SIGN IN HERE in English, Spanish, and Korean. I smelled hospital antiseptic on everything.

"Tried to cut his throat with a gravity knife. I think he nicked the carotid artery," I said as we rushed down a crowded, puke-green corridor that was thick with faded signs: X-RAY, TRAUMA, CASHIER.

We finally located a room about the size of a clothes closet. The young-looking doctor who rushed in told me to leave.

"The boy's eleven years old," I said. "I'm staying right here. Both his wrists are cut. It's a suicide attempt. Hold on, baby," I whispered to Marcus. "Just hold on, baby."

   CHAPTER 3   

CLICK! CASANOVA popped the trunk latch of his car and peered into the wide, shiny-wet eyes staring out at him. What a pity. What a waste, he thought as he looked down at her.

"Peekaboo," he said. "I see you." He had fallen out of love with the twenty-two-year-old college student tied up in the trunk. He was also angry at her. She had disobeyed the rules. She'd ruined the fantasy du jour.

"You look like absolute hell," he said. "Relatively speaking, of course."

The young woman was gagged with wet cloths and couldn't answer back, but she glared at him. Her dark-brown eyes showed fear and pain, but he could still see the stubbornness and spunk there.

He took out his black carrying bag first, then he roughly lifted her one hundred twelve pounds out of the car. He made no effort to be gentle at this point.

"You're welcome," he said as he put her down. "Forgotten our manners, have we?" Her legs were shaky and she almost fell, but Casanova held her up easily with one hand.

She had on dark green Wake Forest University running shorts, a white tank top, and brand-new Nike cross-training shoes. She was a typical spoiled college brat, he knew, but achingly beautiful. Her slender ankles were bound with a leather thong that stretched about two and a half feet. Her hands were tied behind her back, also with a leather thong.

"You can just walk ahead of me. Go straight unless I tell you otherwise. Now walk," he ordered. "Move those long, lovely gams. Hut, hut, hut."

They started through the dense woods that got even thicker as they moved slowly along. Thicker and darker. Creepier and creepier. He swung his black bag as if he were a child carrying a lunch box. He loved the dark woods. Always had.

Casanova was tall and athletic, well built, and good-looking. He knew that he could have many women, but not the way he wanted them. Not like this.

"I asked you to listen, didn't I? You wouldn't listen." He spoke in a soft, detached voice. "I told you the house rules. But you wanted to be a wiseass. So be a wiseass. Reap the rewards."

As the young woman struggled ahead she became increasingly afraid, close to panic. The woods were even denser now, and the low-hanging branches clawed at her bare arms, leaving long scratches. She knew her captor's name: Casanova. He fancied himself a great lover, and in fact he could maintain an erection longer than any man she had ever known. He had always seemed rational and in control of himself, but she knew he had to be crazy. He certainly could act sane on occasion, though. Once you accepted a single premise of his, something he had said to her several times: "Man was born to hunt… women."

He had given her the rules of his house. He had clearly warned her to behave. She just hadn't listened. She'd been willful and stupid and had made a huge, tactical mistake.

She tried not to think of what he was going to do to her out here in these bewildering Twilight Zone–type woods. It would surely give her a heart attack. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down and cry.

If only he would ungag her. Her mouth was dry, and she was thirsty beyond belief. Perhaps she could actually talk her way out of this—of whatever it was that he had planned.

She stopped walking and turned to face him. It was draw-a-line-in-the-sand time.

"You want to stop here? That's fine with me. I'm not going to let you talk, though. No last words, dear heart. No reprieve from the governor. You blew it big time. If we stop here, you may not like it. If you want to walk some more, that's fine, too. I just love these woods, don't you?"