Payment in Kind Ch. 02

Her life had an unquenchable emptiness to it, but at least it was her own.

Part Two: The Investigator

Terry Clavell looked up from the old microfiche reader at the Sandstone County library. These Goddamned things were nearly impossible to read anyway and the crummy overhead florescent lights from the dumpy little library made them even worse. He'd been at it for a day and a half and his neck and back ached like hell and his eyes were shot. At 42, none of his work was quite as easy as it used to be.

It was a risk to come to Sandstone at all, but he had no option. Terry Clavell had several ironclad rules as a private detective, nearly all of which had been forged in his 18 years as a Texas Ranger: don't ever turn your back on a prisoner--even one cuffed, never trust a man who wears a tie, and most important, never approach a subject you were posturing without knowing every damn thing you can learn about her. One slip of the tongue could blow an investigation, either by making the subject wary of his pretextual identity, or by putting her off.

Terry had natural advantages on assignments like these. He was tall, blonde, fit, muscular, and ruggedly handsome in a traditional Texan sense. And, when the occasion merited it, he was also hung like a horse, which didn't hurt any. This target, a spinster woman who worked for the Dediers, was older, had no steady relationships that anyone knew of, and lived a very lonely existence. That profiled well for what he was about to do. She also appeared to be extraordinarily conservative in dress and spending habits, leaving herself open to having someone like Terry sweep her off her feet simply by spending a few dollars and shining the spotlight of his good looks, and even better bullshit, her way.

But he was now learning that this target came with a basket full of red flags. She had known only one employer, the one his work would target. Though she tried to hide it, she was wealthy by Sandstone standards. Her home and car were completely paid for, and she carried a six-figure balance at the local bank built up over many years. But most interesting to Terry, the target had been licensed at 19 to carry a 9 MM Beretta handgun, and by all indications, she still carried it. What had caused a 19-year-old girl to suddenly buy a Beretta? Terry was so curious that he pretexted the local gun range to see if he could find out any information about her, and was successful. He pushed the owners' buttons by telling him he'd never seen a woman who could shoot worth a damn under pressure and the old man went off on him, pulling a series of target silhouettes from a tall file cabinet with Hawthorne's name on them. Her pattern was dead center between the eyes, even at 30 yards, with less than an inch spacing between the bullet holes that dotted the paper figure's forehead.

It wasn't unheard of for a woman to carry a handgun, particularly an older single woman living in Texas, but the kind of proficiency and familiarity this one showed to the art was unusual. When Terry asked about the woman who had shot the pattern the old man just told him that "still waters run deep," which made Terry even more curious, but when he pushed further, the old man clammed up. If there was more to the story, he'd not be able to uncover it without risking having the old man tip off the target early the next time she came by the range.

But Terry was worried about more than that and, unfortunately, his trip through the local papers had told him very little. This woman was crazy smart and very wary. Double valedictorian, she had an MBA and a little Phd. level work and had published two obscure pieces on accounting for accelerated oil and gas depreciation. Though he'd tried, she wasn't susceptible to a trash drop. Her trash contained wrappers, a very few pieces of unused food, fruit peels and so on, but not a single document of any kind. One late-night gathering of the trash finally revealed the explanation--a bag full of shredded paper, even her newspapers. Who did that with household trash? Terry could project behavioral profiles from very little data. This woman profiled to the whole world as a simple spinster--a woman well "past her prime" whose only love was her job, and maybe a cat. But it smelled of something more to Terry, and he hated wading into waters that might bear alligators.

Terry's spadework was intended for use an upcoming shindig at the Hotel Luxum, a new fancy high-rise hotel near downtown Houston where the Dediers, the ultimate target, were receiving an award for giving some of their money to a local hospital. Terry's contact, a very decent but mostly drunk lawyer who was considering taking the case for the wife of the Dedier son, instructed him to be in attendance. It would be a command performance. Clavell would have no more than two hours to identify, pretext, and get close enough to Hawthorne to at least entice her into a next date, and hopefully much more.

When the evening approached Terry put on his best cowboy garb. It came natural to him. He'd been born and raised in Del Rio and competed in rodeo events from the time he was six until the first year after high school. It ended when a big Brahman bull broke his back in three places. But he knew he'd earned the look, so tonight he donned a custom-made Western Tuxedo, yoked shirt and bolo tie pulled together by a turquoise amulet and topped the whole thing off with a Stetson that only he could pull off. He had driven to the hotel in his glistening black 1960 Lincoln Continental, which, at 5,712 lbs., was the largest production automobile in US history, and checked in early to the William Marsh Rice suite he'd hired out for the night in the hope that he might get exceptionally lucky.

The pretext he planned to use that night was an old and trusted one--he'd be an incredibly successful salesman, now sales executive, who worked for an oil and gas service firm that, like the Dediers, made the hospital a favored charity. He traveled and freelanced, which provided the power to have long periods of unexplainable absence and unavailability. The tickets for the gala did come from the company, but through an untraceable intermediary.

As he looked in the mirror, he liked what he saw. His trip to Matagorda Bay fishing had left him with a fine tan. There were lines on his face, but lines that spoke of experience and hard work outdoors, not of worry from being trapped in some shitty office job in an air-conditioned pressure-cooker. His chest, arms and stomach were taut, firm, and powerful, his waist narrow, and his legs long and athletic. He would stand out amongst the Houston Glitterati, but in a good way. This was the part of his work that he enjoyed the most, the cat and mouse, the pretexting, knowing that there was a risk he could be caught and exposed, but understanding that the game was afoot, and he had a limited clock to close the deal.

In many of these assignments, hell, most of them, the short-term benefit was a wild sexual tryst with the target. In the long term, it could mean garnering the information that meant the difference between winning and losing a case, a difference often worth millions or even tens of millions of dollars. This is what Terry Clavell was born to do.

"Not bad," Terry murmured as he looked in the mirror one last time before leaving the suite "not bad at all."

Part Three: The Ball

Terry drew exactly the sort of looks he knew he would get when he went cowboy. Most men openly scoffed at the outfit but wouldn't have had the nerve to say a word to him because he could have broken their pansy asses in half. The women were another item. To them, he looked like the lead bull in the pack, and many reacted to him with unmitigated fascination and overt sexual preening. He cut a path through the milling crowd like a knife through hot butter. The problem with these affairs was getting next to the target without showing so much attention to her that his approach looked calculated. Terry scanned the crowd crushing about him. They'd accumulated in the hallway outside the ballroom, all with a drink in hand chatting gaily about the most recent PGA event, the price of oil, or the new season's styles at Saks Fifth Avenue. He passed over the target twice without recognizing her. He expected a prudish quiet woman, conservatively dressed, wearing sensible flats, and standing off by herself like a potted plant.

"You look like you're looking for someone," a husky voice asked from behind. He turned and there was Eunice Hawthorne, just like in her picture, but nothing at all like the Eunice Hawthorne he expected. She looked thirty-five, not forty-seven, and wore an elegant silk gown in midnight blue which bore an Asiatic flower pattern subtly wrapped around the bottom of the skirt. It was open at the front both top and bottom, revealing strong athletic legs, a trim figure and remarkably well-rounded and firm breasts for a woman her age. Her hair was in a fashionable "do" up over her head, secured at the top by two long black chopsticks accenting the Asian theme. Tendrils of her ash blonde curls dropped to frame her face. Her makeup was perfect--strong with lavender and purple hues in keeping with the dress, and provocative, with a hint of re-shaping to the eyes. Terry gave her a long appraising look. He was duly taken aback, some by her appearance, more by the fact that she had scoped him out before he'd located her.

"I...was," Terry stumbled--"you."

Eunice laughed heartily. "I'm betting that you loaded that answer up a long time ago, What? Eighteen?"

"Fifteen," Terry admitted, "my older brother Heck gave it to me. How'd you know?"

Eunice shrugged rather than answer the question. "My name is Eunice, Eunice Hawthorne," she said, and extended her right hand. Rather than shake it, Terry lifted it slowly to his mouth and brushed his lips across the knuckles, sending chills down Eunice's back.

"I'm Rod, Rod Ruston," Terry lied easily, "I didn't mean I's lookin' for you by name. I meant someone who didn't look like they came right out of Tootsies." Tootsies was the most expensive women's clothing store in the most expensive neighborhood in Houston and every third or fourth woman in the ball was wearing at least something from there.

"Wow," Eunice laughed, "you've managed to compliment me and slander nearly every woman here at the same time. That's a lot of work in a single sentence."

"I've done worse," Terry continued "can I buy you a drink?"

"It's an open bar, Rod," Eunice laughed raising her tall Tom Collins glass and tinkling the ice from side to side.

"I know, that's why I offered to buy," Terry responded, and Eunice laughed again.

"What do you do Rod, I mean, other than buy free drinks?" Eunice asked after they'd secured his drink and freshened hers.

"I sell blowout preventers, trees, jumpers and connectors, I pay lots of alimony to two different gals, which I'm not sure how I managed because we had no kids, I golf and hunt a little bit, and I fish a lot. You?"

"I work for the guests of honor--the Dediers--I'm a bookkeeper," Eunice offered.

"Well, you don't look like any Goddamned bookkeeper I've ever seen," Terry replied, "all of them gals had blue jackets on all the time and looked like they'd never met a man in their lives. You look...alive," he concluded.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Eunice responded. "Looking alive is a lot better than looking dead I suppose, but I have to confess that I do have a blue jacket or two in my closet."

"Is that all you do--keep books?" Terry asked as they strolled away from the bar.

"No. I go to church, I camp out, mountain climb, fly fish, I even go to the shooting range now and again," Eunice responded.

"Huh, ever shot clay?" Terry asked.

"Every year. The Dediers hold a gathering each fall for their bankers and investment advisors. They have their own range and hand me a .20 gauge and cut me loose. They like watching me scam the new guys fresh out of MBA school out of a $20 or $50 bet. It's good fun."

"I bet I could take you," Terry said, fully meaning the double entendre.

"Maybe," Eunice said, smiling and staring him down, "but I might not be as easy to handle as you think." Terry smiled and tipped his beer in acknowledgement of her sharp reply.

They continued to chat, learning bits and pieces about one another, he the true Eunice and she the false Rod, until the "come to dinner" gong interrupted them.

"They're going to open up the dance floor after all the speechifying," Terry said. "You'll have fellas lined up by then. Make me the first."

"'Look at my feet, Rod," Eunice answered turning her right foot, so it was toe down and heel up. "These are four-inch spikes. You can't dance in four-inch spikes."

"I like those. I do," Terry said "they motivate me. But you can do it if you dance with me. If you dance with me you, won't ever have to worry about falling."

Eunice was impressed. In three sentences this Rod had deftly and directly communicated that he loved her look, that he wanted to bed her, and that if she decided to do it, he would be protecting and giving, and he had done it all without uttering a single word that anyone could construe as crude or suggestive. He bore additional investigation.

"Rod" was right. As couples and groups of three to four came by the head table to pay their respects to the guests of honor, several of their male friends made it a point to very politely request that Eunice give them the honor of sharing a dance with them. She was atypical of the breed that attended these gatherings, and she drew more than her fair share of interest. But when the blessedly short speechifying ended, it was Rod whom Eunice stared down and motioned to join her on the dance floor.

They did not dance with anyone else that evening. The four-inch spikes came off and, for safety's sake, so did his custom-built ostrich boots. Terry was a superb dancer and Eunice a fast and willing learner, and they soon grew so comfortable with one another that observers remarked that they looked like they'd been dancing together for years. The fast dances were enjoyable, but the slow dances, which came to dominate the band's play later in the evening, set the sparks to flying.

Eunice wasn't overly tall, and her head barely reached the top of Rod's chest. When she leaned in to do a two-step or a waltz, his smell was electrifying, a mix of musk and some subtle cologne that he had applied just right. His hands were massive, giving Eunice the feeling of being enveloped in a basket. When they clutched together Rod's interest in her became evident from the stiff member hanging between the big cowboy's legs which, gauging from the feel of it, was quite large. Eunice loved teasing men, even in public, and began leaning in to "accidentally" rub her abdomen and thighs against the huge man's cock. As the guests drank, and danced, and drank, and danced some more, the dancing became more raucous and at one point Eunice found herself back to front against the tall blonde stud, his hard cock pressed up against her ass as she danced against him. At that moment she looked up and saw the stern disapproving glare of Marsh Dedier who was staring a hole at her all the way from the head table. She had gotten out of hand.

"We should go," she said, breaking off from Terry abruptly.

"You, okay?" he asked.

"Fine, just...fine, but we should go," Eunice repeated.

"Okay, I'll get my boots," he answered.

The couple gathered their things and Terry walked Eunice to the elevator lobby. Terry asked, "would it be too forward of me to ask you to join me in my suite for a drink?"

"No, it wouldn't be too forward," Eunice said, "I'd like to, but I can't do that. I just can't." The disappointment of the big man was evident.

"The...Dediers don't like me to get too close to anyone," she heard herself volunteer. Why did I say that? She asked herself. Now he's going to ask a bunch of questions.

"What?" Terry asked in true disbelief. "They...what?"

"They...don't...like...me...to get...too...close...to...anyone," she emphasized, as if speaking to a particularly dense child.

"Why do they care what you do?" Terry asked.

"It isn't you. Its...well, because they do, and that's all you need to know. I'm on the 25th floor just down the hall from their room. If I don't come back to my own room and leave from there in the morning, they'll know I wasn't in the room last night and there will be questions."

"That's bullshit," Terry interrupted, understanding that this represented one of the few opportunities he'd had to talk more deeply about the Dediers with Eunice. "Nobody can tell an employee who they can and can't take up with. That's bullshit."

"It isn't a company. Well, they have a company, but I work for a family, and that's different," Eunice said.

"Well, I don't see it," Terry said. "They're not your family. At least let me walk you up to your room" Terry said.

"Sure," she replied, relieved that he wasn't going to contest her decision. It had really been a lovely evening and she didn't want to end it in a fight.

There were sixteen elevators in the lobby--two banks of eight each, so when the door to the elevator closed, they were completely alone. Terry punched floor 25 and then the penthouse, where his suite was located. They stood shoulder to shoulder as the elevator began to rise. Eunice impulsively reached out to take the big man's right hand into hers. She wanted him to know that it wasn't him, that she wasn't rejecting him. He turned to her and lifted his left hand to the side of her face.

"You're just plain beautiful," he said. Perhaps the only honest words he uttered that evening. Despite her age and experience, Eunice began to blush like a young girl. She looked up into his eyes and pulled his face down to hers. Their first kiss was soft, but every kiss afterwards was an utter fireball, a twisting heated mash of lips and tongues. Rod's hands ran over her back and her bottom. Eunice let them roam, appreciating the warming fire she got from the massive hands. Again, Eunice felt the rock hardness of the big blonde's member, but this time she was free to do something about it. It wasn't like her to be impulsive, but tonight she was. She struck the red emergency stop button on the elevator, a move so foreign and out of control that it gave her the feeling that the hand doing the deed belonged to someone else. The big car grind to a halt. She then reached in quickly with both hands and unzipped his fly, pulled his hardened member into the cool air, and fell to her knees.

In two steady gulps Eunice buried Terry's 8 inches in her throat, her hands gripping his ass, urging him to plunge into her. Terry was stunned at the older vixen's aggression. There was absolutely nothing in the profile that would have intimated that she tended towards this kind of wanton sexuality in her personal life, but there it was.

"Do you have an emergency?" the metallic voice rang out from just above the elevator control panel.

"Maybe a little bit," Terry answered, and Eunice broke away and guffawed. Terry mouthed out they can hear you but again Eunice merely laughed him off and continued strumming his cock.

"Do you need assistance? [Eunice nodded "no" with a wicked smile while Terry nodded "yes"]. We are sending maintenance. We have you between floors 14 and 15. Please stay calm and we'll have someone to you within minutes. Do not attempt to exit the elevator!" the disembodied voice said.

Now both were laughing. "Okay, we'll stay put," Terry answered. He knew good and well that the elevator had at least one camera, maybe two so that they could see what was happening. Without doubt, some piss-poor paid security guard was watching Eunice blow him. Well, he can just watch all he wants Terry thought, he wasn't about to stop what she was doing.