Frank Driver, Private Eye

There must have been some sort of school for rich broads. Who knew what went on in those boarding schools of theirs? Whatever it was, she knew her way around a man better than I knew myself. Trust me. I knew myself pretty well.

Her mouth enveloped me and all I could feel was warmth. Everywhere. She suckled and licked and caressed. She had me all mixed up. When I thought she was just hanging at the edge of the tip, I opened my eyes and saw she had me all the way in.

Then she did... things... with her throat. Warm, comforting things. Things that made you forget the grind. Forget the rain. Forget that you were sitting on the edge of a third-hand desk on the third floor of a third-rate dilapidated office building. Things that made you realize there was still joy to be had in this world.

Right then, I didn't care about anything other than what she was doing. I felt her coaxing and relaxing. Pulling and releasing. My body realized what she was doing before my brain did, and I felt a familiar rush beginning to build.

"Mrs. Walker," I moaned. I was trying to warn her, but it came out as moaning approval.

However she interpreted it, she didn't stop. I felt like I was caught in an ocean tide, ebbing and flowing. Back and forth. Up and down. In and out.

All at once, a tipping sensation turned my loins upside down, and a whoosh surged through my pelvis. I opened my mouth to speak, but no sounds would come out. No air. No breath. I couldn't talk at all. I wanted to watch what she was doing, but for some reason all I could see was the ceiling.

She gripped me with both hands, holding me in place. Little encouragements with her fingers and palms. I filled her mouth, probably more surprised than she was.

I looked down at the top of her head. Her beret hadn't moved, her hair was still perfectly coiffed. My hands were gripping the sides of my desk as if my life depended upon it.

Realization dawned on me that it was coming to an end. I didn't want it to end. I wanted to stay in her mouth forever. That feeling of complete orgasm, where everything else disappears except for that one moment of ecstasy. It was about to go away.

Mrs. Walker let me down gently, thank god. She didn't just rip her mouth off me and spit into the trash bin at the side of the desk. She cradled me until I was spent, and then slowly released me back into the open air.

Carefully, she tucked me back into my boxers, and then zipped me up. I watched, fascinated, as she buckled my belt. Before I knew it, I was back in place.

She sat back on the chair. She reached into her purse and pulled out her lipstick and a compact.

"Please remember," she said, applying the rich red color to her lips. Oh boy, those lips. "I only have until Monday morning."

Monday morning. She would either be going to jail or I'd be getting my second bonus.

I really, really wanted that bonus.

Chapter 2

As much as I wanted to enjoy a nice nap after Mrs. Walker's visit, I couldn't afford to rest. I only had two days to find her husband's killer before she had a date with the slammer.

After she left, her perfume lingered in my office like a stowaway. The wolf in me wanted to grab her on her way out, pull those swaying hips back against me and start panting in her ear.

I picked up the phone. "Keystone-451," I told the operator. A few clicks and whirrs later, the gruff voice picked up.

"Murphy," he said.

"Murph, Frank Driver."

A sigh. "How's it goin', Frank?" The Irish lilt was all but gone, but get that legendary temper up and that brogue would be heavier than a Jeep. He'd be impossible to understand.

"Same old, same old," I replied.

"That bad?"

"It's the life," I said. "Can you meet?"

A pause. "It's eight o'clock, Frank. Can't it wait until Monday?"

"No, my client will be arrested then."

Another pause. "Walker?"

I shouldn't have been surprised. Knowing what was going on at the precinct was the exact reason I called Murph in the first place.

"So can you meet?" I repeated, not giving any clues.

"Okay. The usual. I'll get my shoes."

I hung up the phone, checked my piece and reholstered. I stood up and adjusted myself. She hadn't quite put me back where I was when she was finished. Who was I to complain? It was a nice, warm feeling, and the last nice, warm feeling I'd have all night. Likely longer.

My hat and trench were still soaked. Putting them back on instantly made me miserable. Sigh. Post orgasmic bliss is fleeting. Easy come, easy go.

I strode past Billy, or Bobby, no, Billy, and endured the gushing over the beautiful dame with the ruby red lipstick that he had seen leave my office. Muttered something about client privilege, but knew the kid was thinking. He had a strong imagination. Might be a writer someday.

On the street, the shoeshine boy was long gone. Smart. No point in catching cold and losing work later. Made me wonder just what I was doing.

Thinking with your private dick, I said to myself. Guilty as charged.

The diner wasn't far, so I didn't have much time to inventory what I knew. Three dead guys. All killed the same way. Razor thin slice across the throat. One murder is a curiosity. Two is a trend. Three deserves a name and the papers get the right to choose it.

The Slicer-Dicer Murders.

It conjured images of mutilated bodies in pieces, but if you read past the headline it wasn't anything so dramatic. Just three dead guys with their throats cut.

Well, two guys and Mr. Walker.

Murphy was sitting to his back against the wall in the corner booth, as usual. He saw me, and then went back to spiking his coffee.

"What can I get ya, hon?" the rotund waitress asked from behind the counter.

"Coffee, black. Thank you," I said.

She grabbed the pot and a mug and brought it to the table. "Anything else I can get ya, sweetie?" she asked.

The oil rig sludge slopped into the cup. "No, thank you."

"Suit yourself, hon," she said, and turned on her heels.

Murph offered me his flask. I waved him off, and then tasted the muck. I waved the flask back over. He handed it to me without comment.

"So she came to you, too," Murph said, taking a sip from his mug and wincing.

I raised an eyebrow. "'Too'?"

"I hear she's been all over town looking for someone to take her case."

Well, that's a lot of cigarettes. I guess I was the only sucker that caved.

"Why hasn't anyone taken the job?"

"Because she's dead to rights, Frank."

I realized that I hadn't bothered to ask for her side of the story. Neat trick. She waved my wand, and magically the brain disappeared.

"Who else did she try?"

"Cutlip and Beauregard," he said. "They said she tried to get them to take the case by offering them a... wait. Frank, you didn't!"

I made a show of appreciating the spiked sludge and said nothing.

"On second thought," he shook his head, "Don't tell me. I don't want to have to testify against you."

Dammit.

"What can you tell me, Murph?"

"What do you know so far?" he asked.

"Only what's in the papers."

"Yeah, well, the papers don't know shit from Shinola," he grumbled. "Always making my life difficult."

He braced himself. "It ain't just three lads, Frank. There's also two slags. Prostitutes."

"Three lads and two slags?" I repeated. The rhyme just rolled off the tongue. "Connection?"

He looked at me like I had seven heads. "For feck's sake! Do I look like a rookie to you?" he snarled. "Of course there's a connection."

"So you think Mrs. Walker killed five people, Murph?" I challenged. "I've seen her. Not likely."

"I didn't say I thought that, Frank, just that she was caught dead to rights," he said.

"Okay, fine. Go on."

He looked around the empty diner and lowered his voice. A habit born from living in a nation paranoid from the war. Loose Lips Sink Ships.

"Neighbors heard a scuffle, and shouting," he said. "Beat patrol was passing by, and got called up. Broke down the door. Mrs. Walker was standing over the Mister with a knife and blood on her hands.

"She claims that she was just coming home when she heard the same noises and ran into the house and found him there. She tried to stop the bleeding with her hands, but then she realized that there was someone in the house. Said she ran to get a knife to protect herself and then went back to her husband. When the beat cop got there, the Mister was dead and she was standing there."

I shook my head. That was bad.

"They took 'er in, but let her walk without even stepping foot in a cell. 'Er own recognizance'," he said.

"You think she did it?" I asked.

He shrugged. "The MO is the same for the Slicer-Dicer, but she was the one with the knife, so..." he let the thought drop.

"Tell me more about the Slicer-Dicer killings."

"We're trying not to give the papers too much," he said. "So don't spread it around, k?"

I nodded. We had an agreement. Still, he had to say what he had to say. "Shoot," I prompted.

"Far as the precinct can tell, there's no real pattern. Three lads, two birds. All with their throats slit." He pronounced "throats" as troats.

He paused as the waitress came over to refill our motor oil. She hovered. Murph glared at her until she waddled away.

"Anyway," he continued when he thought she was out of earshot. "One guy was a mechanic. Another was a doctor. Then there was Walker. No apparent connection between them directly. No poker buddies, didn't live anywhere near each other."

"And the hookers?"

He shrugged. "Tough to say. They don't really talk to cops."

I nodded. "Tell me more about them."

"Small. Blonde."

"Which one?"

"Both."

Hmmm. An idea was forming. One that I didn't like at all.

"You think he has a type?" I asked.

"Hard to say," he shrugged again. "No one wants to see a third to find out if it's coincidence or a pattern."

"Any photos?" I asked, hopefully.

His face set in a grim pose. He glanced over at the waitress who was busy wiping the same spot on the counter closest to us. "Hey toots," Murphy called to him. "How 'bout a piece of pie?"

"We're out of pie," she pouted.

"Go make some," he gruffed.

She finally got the hint, and went into the back.

Murph reached beside him and pulled out a large envelope. As he passed it to me, he opened his mouth but I cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "I never saw anything, and you never showed me anything."

He closed his mouth and nodded. As I said, we had an understanding.

I pulled out the case files and the photos. George Hurrell it wasn't, but I could see what I needed to see.

The first file was the mechanic, complete with greasy overalls. He had been found in his own shop, and it looked like he hadn't put up much of a fight. Nothing seemed too disturbed, nothing on the floor.

The doctor was fat. The slice had cut under his double chin, making him look like he had a second smile. He was in his office, medical equipment scattered around. This one looked like he hadn't gone down easy. Stethoscope and tools lay on the floor. He had fought, and lost.

Last, there was Walker. Photos showed a well-groomed man, handsome, about thirty-five years old. Playboy. He lay on his side, blood disturbed by the prints of high heels. Fine parquet flooring seemed like an ironic tableau for his final pose.

Look at me being all fancy and poetic.

The girls looked like they could have been sisters. Blonde hair came down to their shoulders, thin, too much makeup. One still had her eyes open, caught in surprise.

"Dammit," I said out loud.

"You know 'er?" Murph asked.

"Sort of. Had a case of a cheating husband. She was the cheatee."

Murph nodded. "That's useful."

"I know her haunting grounds," I said. "It's over in the Basement District."

Murph eyed the payphone booth. "I'll call it in. That's close to my patch, anyway."

"Look," I said. "Wait until tomorrow."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"It'll give me a chance to close my case," I said. "Besides, if I wasn't here, you wouldn't have known until then anyway."

He stared at me for a long moment. "Okay, Frank," he said. "But this puts me on the line."

"You've been on the line before," I said. I instantly regretted it.

His eyes went past me for a moment. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about being stuck in that Japanese POW camp in January, two years ago. The guards had started pulling POWs out of the holes they had been kept in and lined them up to execute them. Murphy had survived the Bataan Death March only to be brought to the Japanese firing squad at Cabanatuan.

During the raid, I was the one who shot the guard who was going to shoot Murphy. Since then, I had never used that moment to my advantage, but now I think he thought I was trying to lean on him. When I said what I said, I had been thinking completely in the moment. I had forgotten the broader historical context between us.

Dammit.

His eyes returned back to mine, colder. Harder. "Sorry," I mumbled. "That was the wrong thing to say."

He softened at that. Good. No hard feelings. I hoped.

"Fine," he said, finally. "I won't call it in until morning."

"Thanks, Murph," I said. I wanted to apologize again, but didn't. Once was enough. Good talk.

I dropped the dimes on the table and left. The Basement District was fifteen blocks away. Not a pleasant walk in the best of times, but damn dangerous at night and practically suicidal in the rain the closer you got. Mrs. Walker was paying expenses tonight, though, so I waited under the awning while I hailed a cab.

Friday night. You'd think cabs would be everywhere. They were, but they were all taken. Twenty minutes later, I finally found a cab that was in service.

"You sure, buddy?" the cabbie asked in astonishment where I told him we were going. "Your funeral."

Fifteen minutes later I paid the man and stepped out onto what used to be a sidewalk. "Hey handsome," came a shout. Time to go to work.

Chapter 3

I stepped over to the shivering girl with a red wig and a mole on her cheek. Only the most hard up girls would be out on the street on a night like this. She stepped up to me and put her finger on my chest, trying to be sexy.

The broad reeked. It took everything I had not to turn and retch into the gutter. Not that you'd notice anyway.

"Five dollars will get you the best night of your life, sugar," she tried to purr. Instead it came out as more of a gravely choke. It was impossible to tell her age. She could be in her twenties, she could be in her fifties. I was betting more the latter, but it was likely more the former. Girls around the Basement District didn't walk the street long enough to make it into their fifties.

"Can't tonight, sugar," I said, making my intentions clear. "Need to find someone."

Her expression changed like a light switch. "No?" she challenged. "Then screw you. You ain't got nuttin' on me, cop." She spat the word more violently than her last john's load.

"I'm not a cop," I said, suddenly concerned that she might scare away witnesses if they were within earshot. "I'm a private eye. I need to know what happened to Pixie."

She snorted. It came out sounding like a Jeep horn. "Fat chance, Mr. P.I."

I fished into my pocket. "I got five dollars just for information," I said. "And you won't even have to get your knees wet."

I waved it in front of her nose. She snorted again, but looked around before snatching the bill. I knew the drill. She was looking for her pimp. If he caught her sneaking cash, he'd beat that mole right off her face.

"I don't know much," she said. "But you might want to talk to her roommate, Trixie."

"Pixie and Trixie?" I knew she was putting me on.

"Hey, it was their shtick," she shrugged. "Their apartment is right over there. Two doors down, three flights up. 3C."

"You don't know much about them, but you know where they live?" My detector was on the rise.

"Look, you got the information you paid for. Now get lost before you cost me more business," she snapped.

She wasn't lying. She was the only girl out on a night like tonight, which for her was good for business. Less competition. Plus her pimp was probably not far away and getting angry that she hadn't closed the deal.

I nodded at her, and made my way to the walk-up she indicated.

Christ. Pixie and Trixie. Just what I needed.

Chapter 4

The front door was ajar. My warning radar started its sweep. My gut started talking to me, and I drew my .38. The warped wooden stairs barked as I climbed, my shoes leaving small Atlantic Ocean-sized puddles. My socks were still soaked. A radio was playing a Glenn Miller tune somewhere upstairs.

I got to the first floor, when I heard the scream. The Chattanooga Choo Choo came to a halt as the radio clicked off and deadbolts clicked on. I began taking steps two at a time, trying to keep good trigger discipline as I raced upwards. Army training dies hard, and I was up the extra flights in no time.

Apartment 3C was right in front of me, a sliver of light flickered rapidly through the keyhole. Tucking my shoulder, I barreled into the door and sent it off a hinge. The pain was intense, and caused me to wince and drop my aim.

I stumbled over something and sprawled out in a faceplant in the hall. My gun hand opened and the revolver clattered out of reach.

Dammit.

It was then that I looked up and saw Trixie. The streetlight lit up her face in an otherwise pitch-dark room. Her name suited her. She was a small girl, maybe 105, buck-ten pounds soaking wet. Her hair was short, blonde, and she had a cute upturned nose. Upturned to the ceiling.

She was two feet off the ground.

Her assailant stood behind her, feet planted shoulder-width apart, a garrote wrapped around her neck and lifting her straight up in the air. He held her in front of the light, keeping him in total darkness.

"Hey!" I shouted. That's me. Mr. Eloquence.

I needn't have bothered. My catastrophic entrance definitely got his attention. He glanced in my direction, and then redoubled his efforts to kill Trixie.

I clamored to my feed and lunged at him. He was a good fifteen feet away, though, and my soaked shoes couldn't find purchase on the floor. My foot went in an entirely different direction than I wanted.

Still, I managed to move forward. Trixie was turning red, asphyxiation and stress bringing her face to an unnatural color. She was clawing at the wire at her throat, her eyes bugged and frightened. Rivulets of blood appeared under the wire. She was out of time.

I managed to get one leg to move forward, and I had to decide. Gun or man. I chose man.

My good, stable leg propelled me at him, but I was off-balance with no traction. The murderer twisted and hurled Trixie at me as easily as throwing a baseball. The girl may have been small, but she hit me harder than a freight train. We both went down like two sacks of potatoes.

Trixie's body was dead weight and fell on me at the wrong angle. I collapsed onto the floor, my good leg buckling underneath me, bent, and with absolutely no leverage whatsoever.

The hulking mass of the Slicer-Dicer lurched from the shadows at us. With one arm pinned to the floor under my own weight, and the other locked underneath Trixie, I knew I was about to get curb stomped.

Then Trixie inhaled a long, ragged and painful breath. And screamed.

The noise pierced the air in the apartment as loud as a train horn. Slicer-Dicer turned and held his hands to his ears. I wasn't so lucky. I was right next to her. I turned away out of sheer reflex.

Slicer-Dicer ran past us and out the door. Desperate, I tried to twist to catch him as he entered the hallway light. My body was too twisted on the floor, and Trixie's weight kept me from being able to right myself. He got away.