I hate islands.
I cannot understand their allure, the way people marry the words island and paradise. Paradise, my ass. An island is a trap, a prison, a fucking Alcatraz, a place that reminds you every day you wake up on it, there’s no place else to go.
Pirates understood that. When they really wanted to fuck with someone, they didn’t kill him, or even torture him. They marooned him on a goddamned island. And that’s what I was—marooned, courtesy of Wang Fu Chu.
That crazy Chinaman—he was affectionately called Fuck You by his nearest and dearest, of which I was one. Nobody understood how he made his money, but that didn’t stop the greedy hordes from rushing to jump in behind his flashy parade. Always grinning, he could charm the pig right out of the python’s belly.
A few weeks ago, he had more cash on hand than half the world’s countries. He sent me to Chaukunamaug Island on a buying mission. He already owned a piece of the island, with a modest ramshackle house, but he wanted more—as much as he could get. I was supposed to charm the locals into giving up their piece.
The problem was Old Money had set roots down deep in the bedrock there centuries ago and wasn’t moving. It had become an exclusive rock, a place from where trust fund brats could sail their boats to the Vineyard, party in Edgartown, then bid “ta” to their envious peers. Social climbers went to the Vineyard to be seen, but pined for an invitation to picnic on Chaukunamaug.
The only other way on and off the island was a little rust bucket of a ferry that made irregular runs from Woods Hole, but never in choppy seas. It could carry a single car in a pinch, but mostly it ferried supplies and a guy from one of the Cape banks to stuff the ATM at the dock every so often.
I spent my first two weeks being wined and dined by the swells, who enjoyed my company the way they would an exotic animal. It was all very casual, of course: Khaki pants and skirts, polo shirts and shorts. A sweater, sleeves tied around the neck when out of doors, was standard uniform. For the most part they were a boring but amiable bunch who had no intention of selling a single clod to Wang. They just liked being asked—it amused them.
Then everything changed. The cell phone stopped working, and so did my ATM card. It didn’t take long to find out what happened; it was all over CNN. Wang had split for parts unknown. The SEC and a dozen other alphabet soup federal agencies were two steps behind him but hot on his trail.
It seems Wang had been running one of the biggest, multi-national ponzi schemes in history. He’d taken all the big names for millions, maybe billions. And those big names were pissed for being made to look like chumps.
I had to admire the crazy bastard. Yeah, crazy like a fox. But he left me stranded in suddenly hostile territory. Invitations to dinner ceased, just when I needed to look out for my next meal. Walks through that collection of fish shanties that passed for a village drew cold stares.
I had to go there to use the public phone, even though I had run out of the kind of goodwill that accepts a collect call. I ran on to Walker there. The little prick sneered contemptuously, but didn’t say a word. This was the same guy who just days before asked me to fuck his cute little air-headed wife while he recorded us with a camcorder.
Dodie was a screamer who liked to be called dirty names while she was fucked. I was doing her doggie style and brought her right to the edge when I called her “cocksucker.” Damn, she came so hard I thought she was having a seizure. She squirted too, even left a puddle on the floor.
Dodie walked a couple of steps behind Walker. Our eyes met and she smiled a little before ducking into Bones Tavern with him.
I made my calls and came up empty. I was shut off. I couldn’t expect any money, and had no way to get off the island. None of these sons of bitches would sail me off, even though I must have offended their sensibilities by sticking around, like a big smelly turd under their stuck-up noses.
All the cash I had was in my wallet, a couple of hundred bucks. I figured it would last until the ferry pulled in, or until the feds bothered to come out there to get me. Meanwhile, I had a roof over my head, and the power was still on.
I decided to have a drink.
Bones’ place was all raw, unfinished wood, even the bar. Bones was too—raw, that is. He looked even more out-of-place on that hunk of rock than I did. The swells used to whisper about him, about how he’d once been an enforcer for some racketeer—one of the “big ones.”
He was compactly built, and gave the appearance of a bullet, amplified by his hairless pate. His eyes were cold, liquid blue. He looked like a man who kept secrets well, especially his own. But he was one more friendly face on the rock.
He smiled and nodded when I sat at the bar.
“Jack D, straight,” I said.
He poured a shot and followed it with a glass of water. He leaned toward me as if he were about to communicate some secret intelligence, but glanced to my left and retreated.
Dodie sat on the stool next to mine. I scanned the room but didn’t see Walker. I figured he was in the head—that’s what they called the john around there.
“Hi, Rick.”
“Mrs. Walker,” I nodded. She frowned.
“I—I’m sorry about—well, I mean, it’s not your fault that …”
“What?”
“I know people are being horrid to you. I just wanted you to know that—I still like you.” She placed her hand on my thigh—my dick twitched.
She was pretty, not exactly a raving beauty, but petite and curvy. Her short brown hair and brown doe eyes gave the appearance of a shy, sheltered girl that contradicted the writhing harlot I’d fucked on Laurence Endicott Walker’s high-polished living room floor.
I glanced toward the men’s room, then closed my hand over her knee.
“Thanks,” I said, and let it slide up her bare thigh and under her shorts until my finger tips touched the edge of her panties. She slowly sucked in air and closed her eyes. Her cheeks reddened.
I leaned to whisper in her ear. “I have a soft spot for bad girls like you. Do you have a soft, wet spot for me?”
She gasped and bit her lip.
“Do you?”
She nodded furiously, but didn’t open her eyes.
“Is your pussy dripping for me?”
“Please!” she hissed.
“My cock misses your tight little cunt.” I slid a finger inside her panties and twirled the downy hairs it encountered.
“Rick, oh my god.”
“Can you sneak out?”
“Please, Rick—I mustn’t.”
“Tonight, after he’s drunk himself to sleep. Come by—I want you to be my slut again.”
“Oh, but …”
“You want to be my slut, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I want to be your—slut. Oh, please, Rick. Make me do dirty things.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Dodie!” It was Walker.
She jumped off the stool and hurried to join him at a table. If looks could kill, she would have dissolved under his glare, but he said nothing to her, or to me.
Bones refilled my glass and grinned. “Must not have much of a dick—if he can’t satisfy a little slip of a girl like that.”
I chuckled. “It’s all about money in the bank, Bones. It makes up for other shortcomings.”
Bones grinned and swiped a wet spot on the bar with a rag.
“Bones, what the hell are you doing out on this rock?”
“Like everyone else here, I own a piece of it.”
“But—you don’t seem—I mean, how did you happen to come by it? These pricks don’t sell …”
He gave me a look that said I was edging too close to matters best left alone. But, then he smiled. “It was a gift.”
It was enough. Bones had done someone a unique favor, and a sliver of island property was his reward.
“Hey, Bones, you’ve got a boat. How about you give me a lift off this rock? I can pay for the gas.”
“Can’t—the wife has the boat. She took the in-laws down to Block Island, won’t be back for five days.”
“Shit. What the hell do you want to go from one freaking island to another for?”
Bones laughed, then as quick as my next breath he resumed his poker face and said. “Watch yourself.”
It felt like someone poked a gun barrel into my shoulder. I spun around. It wasn’t a gun, just a finger, wielded by Bradley Procter Sloane Whitman. I had to wonder how many family names they could tack on to one handle before it shattered under its own weight of syllables.
Every tribe has its leader, and on this island it was Brad Whitman. He loomed over me, all six feet five inches of him. He was a solid guy, a true sailor. He’d crewed a few America’s Cup races and kept himself in excellent shape—a poster boy for good genes. His square jaw was set tight. Just enough gray in the temples to affect that badge of Brahmin nobility. He had feted me at a clambake he’d organized just so the island swells could waste my time discussing real estate they had no intention of selling.
“Hello, Brad. You want to be careful with that thing—it has a nail in it.”
He continued to glower. “You’re still here—why?”
“You know, I ask myself that same question and I keep coming back to the same answer: I have no way to get off this rock.”
“You could try swimming.”
“No thanks. I’ll put in here until the ferry arrives.”
“You’ve taken advantage of the goodwill of the fine people of this island. Now that you’ve been exposed as the agent of a flim-flam artist …”
“Whoa, there, Brad. I’ve been left high and dry by my recent employer. I didn’t crash anyone’s clambake. And—be honest—I was a momentary diversion in your monotonous routines.”
He poked me again in the shoulder. Damn, it hurt. I knew he was trying to goad me into swinging at him, but I wasn’t taking the bait. Just one look at him and I knew he could wipe the place up with my ass. He was also an ex-Ivy League boxing champ, a Yalie, Skull & Bones and all that other manly man circle-jerk nonsense.
“Look, Brad, I’m getting off this rock as soon as I can. Let’s just agree to stay out of each other’s way.”
“I don’t think so. You take advantage of our hospitality—that’s one thing. You interfere with a man’s family, that’s quite another.”
So, that was his beef. I glanced over toward Walker, who sat sneering and safe at his table. Dodie fidgeted beside him with both sets of fingertips pressed to her mouth. I’m not sure what the family connection was, whether Brad was his uncle or a super-cousin. But, Bradley was the one he obviously went running to when he couldn’t fix his own mess.
“Brad, I never intrude anywhere I’m not invited.”
I could see the blood bubble up into his face and a thick vein bulge at his temple. He wasn’t going to wait for me to swing first. Then I sensed something just as solid and dangerous rise up behind me.
“Not in my place, Brad,” Bones intoned evenly.
Bradley expelled air through his nostrils like a radiator venting steam. He looked down at me again.
“Trash like you will never understand family values,” he fumed.
“Do it for the children,” I replied. He looked confused.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought we were about to engage in duel of clichés.”
“Splendid! What a droll exercise.” The voice was unfamiliar to me.
A shiver rattled Bradley. We turned together toward the rail-thin man in the black cape. Long gray hair fell freely over his shoulders. His face was angled toward a sharp chin, and he grinned with small pointy barracuda teeth. If I were to guess his age—maybe sixty, but I suspected he was much younger.
The blonde beside him hadn’t said goodbye to her twenties yet. She was tall and Nordic-looking. Her hair was held in a pony tail that fell over one shoulder. She wore short-shorts that enhanced the length of legs that needed no enhancement, and a vest that exposed a flat, tight stomach. The vest hung open, barely covering her breasts that were each just as large as a handful.
Bradley turned his back to me. “Ashton, I thought you were gone from the island for good.”
The man answered with a reedy laugh. “Oh, never say never, Yale Brother. Boola-Boola, eh? I’ve had a yen for fun and games—especially games. We’ve played such delightful games on this island.”
I detected a collective shudder run through the place. Bradley turned toward a table where three other swells stirred uneasily in their seats. They got up and the whole lot walked out of the place without another word, leaving the stranger grinning.
He turned to me and bowed. I lifted my glass to him and let my eyes climb the woman from her toes to her bee-stung lips.
“Come, Gretchen,” he said, and they moved to a table in a corner. Everyone else stood and walked out.
* * *
I left Bones’ to the stranger and his Valkyrie and made my way to the desolate crop of weathered granite where Wang’s house stood. It was a cinder block ranch that looked something like a bomb shelter. It was amazing Wang had acquired it. Someone had broken the trust and sold to an outsider. It had once belonged to an old couple—the kind of folks the swells called “the help.”
Domestics and other service types lived through the summer in the shanties of the village. But this pair had been favored with a place of their own, probably after a lifetime of waiting hand-and-foot on their employer. But the island isn’t someplace you live year round. I figure the old folks saw their chance, sold to Wang and high-tailed it to Florida or Arizona. They were never spoken of.
It was cozy despite its austere look, with a bed and a bar. Sea breezes kept it cool.
I spotted Dodie a mile away in the bright full moon light. It must have been around 1:30 in the morning. She rode her bike up the furrowed road like a schoolgirl. I greeted her and put her bike behind a wall.
“I’m not wearing any underwear,” she said as I hustled her inside. She let her shorts fall to her ankles, and then kicked off her boat shoes. She stood and grinned in a cropped t-shirt.
“Not wasting any time, eh?”
“Oh, Rick. It’s so boring here. I hate it when Bink brings me here each summer.”
It took me a second to realize “Bink” was her husband.
“Why don’t you ask him to take a real vacation? Travel.”
“Oh, we do. But, it’s more to get away so he can …”
I let her silence hang for a moment. “Where he can indulge in his kinks out of sight of the family?”
She shrugged. “You know he likes to—share me.”
“Oh, sweetie, and I’m so glad he does,” I winked. She grinned, and looked as sweet and disarming as a little girl. Even her pussy was bare.
“Just where has he shared you, my sweet.”
“Oh, can we talk about that later? I’ve been having such dirty thoughts.”
“Plenty of time to play, Cupcake. I’m just curious why a man would lend a sweet little morsel like you out to—who?”
She sat on a lounger and lifted one leg over an armrest. Her pussy was a slick, gleaming slit that she teased with the little finger of her left hand.
“Really, just a few men. He likes to get away, even though we’ve played games on the island.”
“Really? Do you mean the proper wives of Chaukunamaug have swap meets? Why, aren’t you all related? That’s downright incestuous.”
She giggled. “No, nothing like that—except …”
“What?”
“You saw the man at the bar this afternoon?”
“The creepy caped dude?”
“Ashton. He used to be a friend of Brad’s.”
“Used to?”
“Ashton is a writer and an artist. He has some pretty funny ideas—not that I ever read anything of his. But, I guess he met Brad when they went to Yale. That big house at the western end of the island, that belongs to Ashton.”
“That ark? It looks like a hotel.”
“It used to be. It’s huge; it has a lot of rooms. It’s been closed up for years, but now that Ashton’s back …”
“What?”
“Well, Ashton used to have a lot of parties there—kinky parties. He used to hire people from off island, performers, sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“They used to perform—well—sex.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, like, one time Ashton staged a little playlet, “Innocence Betrayed.” A girl played this really sweet, wholesome student. But, a bunch of guys kidnap her and take her to an old house. Then they rape her and make her do really wicked and disgusting things.”
I could tell by the speed that Dodie’s finger flicked her folds that she enjoyed recounting the drama.
“They made her suck all their cocks, and then they took turns, you know, doing her. Then three or four of them did her at once, like, every hole in her body was filled. At the end she begged them to fuck her some more, and do even worse things because she had turned into a total slut.”
I thought I detected a wistful sigh escape Dodie’s lips.
“Uh-huh. So, what other kind of entertainment did this Ashton provide?”
“Huh? Oh, well, he was famous for his games.”
“Games?”
“Yeah, but, that’s what got him into trouble too. At least, people stopped going there and after a while he left. He’s been gone for years.”
“What game in particular?”
“Rick, please, can’t you fuck me now. I don’t want to talk about …”
“C’mon, Sweets, tell me, and then I promise you we’ll play games all our own.”
“Oh, okay,” she pouted. “Well, one night, Ashton had some of us, men and women, go upstairs to the rooms and get naked in bed. The rooms were pitch dark so we couldn’t see, and nobody could see us. The idea was that those left downstairs would draw a number and go to that room. Then the woman in bed was supposed to blow the visitor, or if the visitor was a woman, she was to blow the guy in bed. Then later, we were all supposed to write down whose cock we thought we’d sucked. Ashton would never say who, unless we were right.”
“Hmm, not too complicated.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know how cruel Ashton is. After it was all over, he rev ealed that he had sent a man to a man’s room. So, one of the guys ended up getting blown by another guy, but they could never know for sure who. Well, you have to understand the men on this island. For them to think even maybe they’d been sucked off by some gay actor that Ashton snuck over … Well, can you imagine? It was such a dirty trick.”
The gleam in her eye told me that Dodie got a kick out of the dirty trick despite the effort she put into keeping a straight face. I did imagine the panic that set in among the bluebloods, who invested such stock in their masculinity—all in the service of siring the next generations, of course.
“Sometimes I ask Bink,” she grinned. “He gets all flustered.”
“He gets off on watching his wife fuck other men, but an accidental blowjob from a guy gets him crazy, huh?”
“Know what? When he shares me, and a strange man is filling my pussy and making me come, I like to think about Bink sucking the dick of the next man to take me, just to get him ready.”
She lifted her t-shirt over her head. I held out my hand and pulled her to her feet, then spun her around and pushed her to her knees as she bent over the recliner.
“Okay, you little slut.”
She gasped as I reached between her ass cheeks and worked my fingers over her clit. Her buns twisted one way, then the other as she groaned and whimpered.
I quickly accumulated a handful of her gooey juices and smeared them over my cock.
“You wanted to be the girl in the play, didn’t you, slut?” She moaned in response. I smeared more of her free-flowing juice over my hardened cock.
“You want it all, don’t you? No hole unfucked.”
“Please! Fuck my cunt.”
“No way. Bitches like you need their asses filled.”
“Please, it’ll hurt.”
I pushed my cockhead, lubed with her pussy fluids, to the ring of her anus. Despite her protests she was trying to relax it enough for me to make entry.
“Don’t, please, don’t make me be bad.”
I pushed past her initial resistance as she exhaled a guttural growl. I kept up the steady penetrating pressure until my cock slid into her bowels and I was buried in her backside up to my balls. I withdrew and plunged again as she began to writhe. Again I withdrew and plunged until I achieved a steady rhythm.
Dodie was crying and squirming. “No, don’t make me—don’t rape my ass!”
“Yeah, you want it just like the girl in the play. I’ll take you off this island, cunt. I’ll take you back to New York with me, and make you audition for a pimp, and he’ll make you fuck and suck every greasy cock in sight.”
“Oh, God, please.”
“And, when he’s satisfied that you’re a filthy fuck bucket I’ll sell you to him, and you’ll have to fuck for a living, every day, constantly fucked in the ass, fucked in the cunt, fucked in the mouth …”
Dodie shrieked and her muscles grabbed my cock like a fist. Jesus, it hurt. Her whole body shuddered as her head thrashed. I tried to pull out but couldn’t.
“Christ! Let go!”
Warm liquid ran down our thighs. Dodie relaxed and I drew my cock out of her ass, but the friction did the trick. My dick jerked up like a spring board and spewed jets of come between her ass crack.
“Mother of God,” I gasped, and fell backward onto the floor.
Dodie remained slumped against the recliner. Then she stirred.
“Oh my—I never came so hard or so fast. My poor asshole. You bad, bad man.”
I got to my feet, and lifted her to her own. I marched her to the bathroom and we stepped into the shower. I soaped her until I worked up a cloak of suds from her shoulders to her ass. My dick was hard again. I slapped it against her thigh and ordered, “Clean it.”
She knelt and began to work her soapy hands around it, occasionally rubbing it against her cheek. Then she began to play with my balls, working up a lather. I leaned into the spray and let it rinse the soap away. She took my cock into her mouth. Her tongue teased the tip, while her fingers skillfully played along its length.
It plopped from her lips just long enough for her to plead, “Come in my mouth. Aren’t I a good cocksucker?”
“Oh, yeah, Cupcake. You’re the best.”
“Tell me,” she mewed.
“Cocksucker—dicklicker—come guzzler.”
She sucked me with a mission, while her fingers worked her pussy. I was getting close when she began to hum. I launched my load into her throat. Her shoulders shuddered. Then she held me in her mouth until my dick deflated and slipped from her lips.
I turned off the water, toweled her, then myself. Then I carried her into the bedroom. It was early yet; the sky hadn’t even begun to lighten.
* * *
Dodie was the battery bunny when it came to sex, she just kept going and going … And I was getting punchy. Doggie-fucking her, I wove an elaborate gang-rape fantasy for her involving the Fall River City Council. It was time for a break.
I dozed, but she continued to play with my dick. I was content to lie passive and drained.
“Rick—give me a baby.”
Jesus! I bolted into a sit. “What?”
“Bink and I have been married almost six years and I’m not pregnant. That’s a long time, the family expects children. I’m worried.”
I understood. Dodie wasn’t saying she was worried either she or Bink weren’t capable of producing another generation of Walkers, she was afraid if it didn’t happen soon Walker would be under pressure to quietly divorce her. That cut her out of the Walker fortune. Not that she’d starve—Dodie’s family was well-off by any normal standards, just nowhere near the Walkers.
“Is there a problem with Bink?”
“No, he just won’t let me get off the pill. He doesn’t want me to get pregnant by someone else.”
I was beginning to understand the depths of Bink’s need to farm out his pretty little wife.
“Cupcake, has it ever occurred to either of you how this hobby of his could—backfire?”
“It has.”
“Huh? How?”
A couple of years ago we stayed in Jamaica. Bink offered me to a young man who worked at the resort. He was particularly excited about watching us because—well—he was black, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He was wonderful,” she sighed. “He made me beg him ’till I cried. Then he told Bink to play with his ‘Willy’ while he fucked me ‘proper.’ I just love Jamaican accents.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, when we were leaving, Ethan told Bink that maybe someday he’d come up to the States and claim me for his whore. I just about wet my panties, but we never gave it much thought, until …”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Yup, about eight months later Bink got a call at home and turned so pale. It was Ethan, he was in New York with his family and he was planning to visit us. Can you imagine? He said he would claim his pretty white whore, or Bink could pay him for me. Can you imagine poor Bink having to buy his own wife?”
“No shit.”
“Bink didn’t know what to do. What would our neighbors in Weston think if a Jamaican man showed up demanding his white whore?” She giggled.
“So, what happened?”
“Bink ran to Bradley for help. They grew up together, you know. Bink always turned to Bradley like a big brother. Bradley took care of things.”
“Did he pay the guy off?”
“No. You know Bones, of course.”
“He had Bones talk to the kid?”
“Never bothered us again. I felt kind of badly for Ethan. He had a wonderful cock.”
So Bones was still doing favors for them, or paying them back. I was pondering this when I thought I heard the tinkle of ice in a glass. Dodie heard it too and sat up with a start.
“Stay here,” I said.
I wrapped a towel around my naked ass and tiptoed to the door, then down the narrow hall to where it opened into the living room. I heard hushed voices.
Then I saw the Valkyrie. She was handing a glass of liquor to Ashton, who was ensconced on the cheap lounger.
“Just make yourself at home.”
He raised his glass. “Love what you’ve done to the place.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Hmm, then perhaps your erstwhile employer. I see he maintained the chic décor ala Kmart. It evokes memories of the Daugherty couple—lovely old folks. I knew they’d sell it eventually, and piss off all my distant cousins. Care for a drink? I brought a variety of spirits.”
I sat on the recliner. “Sure. Rum and soda.”
“Lime?” asked Gretchen.
“Um—yeah.”
She held out a bottle of Dark Jamaican as if for my approval. I took it, nodded and handed it back to her. She poured it into a glass filled with cubes.
“Well, sir,” Ashton grinned. “I had hoped to return to this pathetic leftover from the Ice Age and cause such appalling consternation among my peers. But, it seems you’ve already put a bug up this island’s rocky ass.”
“Hmm, people around here have a tendency to turn on you rather quickly if your fortunes fall.”
“Oh, don’t they? Bad form, very bad form. But, like the scorpion, it’s their nature.”
A tiny voice from the bedroom called, “Rick?”
Ashton perked up. “Dorothy? Is that you, darling? How lovely. Come greet your Uncle Ashton.”
Dodie peeked around the corner. “Oh, my God. Ashton—please don’t tell Bradley.”
Ashton cackled. “Bradley? Not your husband? Ah, but I suppose we all understand who the uber-wolf is on the island. Not to worry, child. I’ll not tell. I’m just delighted to see you. But, the gentleman and I need to discuss some business.”
Ashton gestured to the Valkyrie. “Gretchen, see to Mrs. Walker.”
Gretchen nodded and stepped over to Dodie. She towered over her the way Bradley towered over me. She took her arm gently but firmly and turned her back toward the bedroom.
Dodie meekly protested, but went along.
“Gretchen is a treasure,” Ashton smirked. “Speaks seven languages, highly intelligent, impeccably educated—the product of an exclusive academy known to only a few of Europe’s most privileged.”
I nodded. From the bedroom I could hear Dodie. “No, stop—don’t do that. Please, I don’t want to—I don’t—oh, God, stop—please-please-please ….”
Dodie made a little cry, like an angel dying. Ashton grinned wider, one brow arched as high as his temple.
“Well, then. I’m sure little Dorothy told you about me. Around this accursed ground I am the fucking anti-christ, sir. Ask anyone.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You will be. You see, sir, I am an artist, a performance artist. I loathe static art. I prefer art that just—happens. And that is what I intend to do, sir, make something happen that will affect all—a shock wave, and I am ground zero.”
“Good luck.”
“I trust nothing to luck. You are to be my instrument, my catalyst. This will be my farewell performance, and my greatest. Things that are crooked will be put right—or at least made crooked in another fashion.”
“Hmm, what do you have in mind? ‘Farewell’ you said?”
“I am dying, Sir. I am told I have mere weeks to live.”
“Sorry.”
“Why, dying is also a performance, is it not? But, to the point, I have investigated you, sir. You have admirable qualities—loyalty, diligence, and I suspect a sense of justice.”
“I’m a hack.”
“Quite so—one of the Great Unwashed. Well, I prefer your type. That is why I have named you as my sole heir and beneficiary.”
I sipped my drink. “Cut the shit.”
“It’s true. Gretchen will guide you after I’ve shaken the earthly bonds. She is an excellent attorney.”
I sipped my drink again. “I understand you like to play games.”
“Ha! Yes, I live for games. But make no mistake, sir. I am deadly serious about my games. I can’t think of anything more appalling to these people than if a stranger, a wily predator such as yourself, got hold of a piece of their Eden.”
I sat up. “I don’t want it. I’m trying to get out of here.”
“Come now; sell it if you wish. Just don’t sell it to them—better some hotel chain or shady development company run by someone whose name ends in a vowel.”
“Why?”
“I was one of them once. I was nurtured on their values. I hate them as I hated myself. Even the Devil needs to do penance.”
Behind us, Dodie’s cries were coming in quick succession and my cock was tenting my towel.
“No—please—no more-no more-no more—I can’t take it!” She cried again.
Ashton stood. “Gretchen, dear, say goodbye to Mrs. Walker. Hope to see you again, Dorothy—perhaps you would like to play with Gretchen again.”
A long groan of relief echoed from the bedroom as Gretchen emerged. She and Ashton left. Outside the horizon was turning pink.
I returned to the bedroom to find Dodie tangled in the sheets, her thighs glazed. A wan grin of total satisfaction curled her mouth. I didn’t think it was possible: Dodie had been orgasmed into exhaustion.
* * *
I didn’t mind sleeping on the wet spot—it was all wet. I slept until noon, when the sound of the shower running drew me back to consciousness. I stood and stumbled toward the bathroom. The door was locked, but I didn’t have the luxury of pondering Dodie’s groundless modesty, my bladder was bursting. I went behind the house to take a leak in nature.
“Dodie! Dodie, are you in there? Damn it, come out!”
I walked around to the front to find Walker. Dodie’s bike was on the other side of the wall, just out of his sight.
“What’s your problem, Walker?”
“Where’s my wife?”
“How should I know?”
“God damn you. If she’s in there …”
“What? A guy who loans his wife out like a lawnmower shouldn’t complain when she wanders out of sight.”
“I’ll—I’ll …”
“What? Run to Bradley, get him to fix it for you?”
“Dodie!”
“You’re pathetic, man. Get the fuck out of here.”
He glared, but he didn’t try anything. A klaxon blasted from the wharf. It was the ferry.
“Shit!” I ran back into the house. Dodie cowered behind the door. I told her to stay put until Bink was out of sight, then I yanked on some clothes and took off for the village. Walker was already jogging ahead of me. We got to the village at nearly the same time. An SUV with state police markings pulled off the wharf and headed toward the far end of the island.
I bolted into Bones’ place. He stood behind the bar talking to a knot of swells. They dummied up and stared at me.
“Bones, why didn’t you tell me the ferry was going to pull in?”
“Didn’t know—special trip for the ADA.”
“What?”
The others drifted over to a corner table, but kept giving me the hairy eyeball.
“What’s up?”
“Ashton Bates—the guy who came in here yesterday with the tall blonde—they found him with his head all bashed in over on Cate’s Rock.”
“But—Jesus, I just talked to him, I …” I looked around and decided to shut up.
I went outside and hailed the ferryman, Al Benedict.
“Can you take me over to the Cape today?”
“Can’t—Pirelli doesn’t want anyone leaving the island.”
“Pirelli? Who the hell is that?”
“Cape and Islands ADA. He’s investigating the murder. They’re flying in a forensics team from Hyannis. Meanwhile, nobody gets on my boat without his OK.”
“Fuck!” I stalked back to the tavern.
“Bones, what’s the story with that guy Ashton. The fucker just showed up at the house last night—I didn’t know him from Ted Williams’ grandma.”
“Pirelli doesn’t want us to talk. He’s coming back here to interview everyone.”
“Where’s the babe—Gretchen?”
“Don’t know. They can’t find her. They think she might be dead too.”
“Screw this.”
I headed back to the house. I had a bad feeling.
* * *
It was getting near sunset. I stepped out of the shower and pulled on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt and went outside. I could feel the other shoe hurtling through the atmosphere at my head. It arrived in the form of the state police SUV.
A guy about 40 stepped out.
“I’m Glen Pirelli, Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office.”
I nodded.
He looked over the house. “A little spare for Wang’s tastes.”
“He never slept here.”
“The feds will be locking up this one too.”
“When they get around to it.”
Pirelli’s eyes were black, gleaming pools that fixed on me like a cobra’s.
“I understand you entertained Ashton Bates early this morning.”
“We entertained each other.”
“We’d like to come in.”
“Go ahead, it’s not my house.”
He motioned for me to lead, then he and a sergeant followed me inside. They took a cursory look around.
“What did you and he talk about?”
I decided to let him have it straight. “He said he was going to leave everything he owned to me. He said he was dying.”
“You knew him for a long time?”
“I didn’t know him from a hole in the wall.”
“But he just arrives on your doorstep and announces you’re his sole beneficiary. Did you know his personal estate is worth upwards of $30 million?”
“Nope.”
Pirelli shook his head. “How are you getting by now that your employer has fled the country?”
“Like everyone else, he screwed me, and left me on this fucking island. I’ve been trying to get off since.”
“Where were you between 8 and 9 a.m.?”
“Here.”
“Alone?”
I didn’t reply.
He snickered. “Look, I’ve interviewed everyone on this island, and you know what? Every one of them has someone else who will corroborate their whereabouts when Ashton Bates was killed. Now that’s pretty funny, because if you can alibi yourself, I have to start looking for a murderous frogman who climbed onto this rock and killed Bates. So, amuse me—were you alone?”
“No.”
“Who was here with you?”
“A married lady.”
“I see. And she’ll back you up?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“What did you have to drink last night?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How about a very expensive and rare Jamaican rum?”
The sergeant held out a paper bag and Pirelli lifted a bottle gingerly by the mouth. It was the bottle Gretchen offered to me. There was dried blood and hair stuck to the bottom.
“Maybe.”
“The sergeant here is going to take your fingerprints. You see, this was the murder weapon. The neck, which the killer would have held, has been wiped clean, but not the bottom. What are the chances your prints are on it?”
“If it’s the bottle we shared when he came calling, I’d say there was a pretty good chance, along with the prints of his assistant, Gretchen.”
“Oh, by the way, what did you do with her?”
“What?”
“Uh, sorry. But, you just gave me a motive, a murder weapon, and opportunity. Your alibi is unreliable.”
“How do you see that?”
“I’m projecting here, but you’re in tight straits. You’re given a chance at getting your hands on millions of dollars. You decide not to wait for him to die; he could change his mind, so you help him along with that bottle. Probably took care of the woman too. As for your married lady, well, I think it’s a safe bet she’s going to say she was home, snuggled up with her hubby all night. You’re affiliated with a known criminal. You’re in a world of shit, friend.”
“I’d say you had a tough sell. Besides, he was just blowing smoke out his ass, he liked to play games.”
“Doesn’t make any difference. I just have to convince a jury that you thought he was on the level. In the meantime, we’ll be checking his will. So, I have enough right now to bring you over to Barnstable and lock you up, but I think I’ll let you stew right here. Hell, you can’t go anywhere.”
* * *
Could things get any more fucked up?
I stayed outside drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels. Night came and far over the sound the lights glowed on the Vineyard. It was Saturday night and they would be getting ready for some hard partying over there. Beyond the sound the Cape beckoned. But I was stuck on that fucking rock, imprisoned like Dantes.
The whine of an engine drew my attention to the Jeep headlights bouncing toward the house. The vehicle stopped and Bones beckoned to me to get in. A chill ran up my back.
“C’mon,” he barked.
I took the bottle with me and climbed in with him. “Where are we going?”
“A place.”
“Oh.”
We drove on in silence and it began to gnaw at me that Bones might be employed in another errand, paying off another favor. We drove to the edge of the shore until a weather shack loomed in the headlights. They were scattered all around the island. Shelters for hikers.
“Get out,” he said.
“How come?”
A woman’s voice answered from the darkness. “We have much to discuss.”
It was Gretchen. Bones grinned. “Take it easy.”
He popped the Jeep into gear and drove off.
Gretchen held an oil lamp and beckoned me to follow her inside the shack. Inside a few dozen candles flickered. She sat on a small wooden bench and motioned to me to join her.
“You set me up,” I said. “Why?”
“All will be revealed. Ashton’s work is playing out just as he predicted.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s a play, a reality play, if you will. Trust him.”
“Trust him? He’s dead. Someone cracked his skull with that bottle you handed me.”
“All according to plan.”
“Lady, you’re nuts, and so was your boyfriend.”
She frowned. “Everything will fall into place. You will be hearing from Mr. Pirelli, no later than tomorrow.”
“No shit. He’ll be coming for me with a set of handcuffs.”
“You are too tense. Drop your trousers.”
“What? Jesus, lady, there’s a time for fun and then there’s …”
She pressed one palm against my chest and pushed me back like I was a rag doll. With her other hand, she deftly unzipped my jeans. I was pushing myself back up when she yanked my pants down to my ankles. Before I could get to my feet she clamped one hand around my cock and the other around my balls. I might as well have been a kitten held by the scruff, I couldn’t move.
She wedged her thumb into the hollow at the underside of my cock, and instantly electrical pulses hummed up my rod. She released my balls as the pulses increased in speed and intensity. All at once all I could focus on was the buzz thrumming up my cock.
“There, relax,” she soothed.
“Is—is this what you did—to Dodie?”
“Something similar. That girl lives on the ends of her nerves. I could have kept her coming until she fell into a coma.”
That’s where I feared I was headed. I desperately need to come, but I couldn’t fire.
“Please!” I hissed.
“Oh, you’re going to beg? Good—you’re such a good subject.”
“I’m going to explode.”
“Patience.”
“Jesus, please let me …”
She slid her thumb down to my balls and my come splat loudly against the wooden walls. Afterward all the tension drained away. Gretchen cradled me in her arms and I passed out.
* * *
I stepped into bright sunshine and sucked in two lungsful of ocean air. I didn’t even have a hang-over, though I deserved one. Gretchen stood off toward the shore. She turned and smiled.
“Feeling better?”
“I feel great.” Then the reality of my situation set in. “Good enough for a guy who’s about to take the fall for murder.”
“Come,” she ordered, like I was a pet dog.
We walked to the village and put in to Bones’ Tavern. We’d no sooner sat down when the phone rang.
Bones lifted the receiver. “Yeah, he’s here.” He held the phone out to me.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Pirelli. We rushed the autopsy on Bates. He was terminal all right. In another week or two he would have been in agony. Docs confirmed time of death too.”
“So what?”
“There is a will. It’s filed in Worcester County and it was recently amended.”
I could see Pirelli building his case. “Yeah, and?”
“We would have been searching for weeks before we found it, but we got an anonymous tip last night. But the reason I’m calling you is what happened when we tried to look at it.”
“Huh?”
“Justice William Thackeray Ayers tried to have it sealed.”
“Why?”
“Someone with some deep juice wants it kept under wraps. We’re talking real old school—like back before the Revolution old school.”
“No shit.”
“You want to get on my bad side—you try to obstruct justice. I don’t give a shit who you are; I’m on you like a pit bull.”
“I believe you.”
“I’ll pick you up in 15 minutes.”
“Huh?”
“We’re taking a helicopter ride.”
“Where?”
“Fitchburg—that’s where the documents are. I want you there. I have a hunch you’ll spot what we’re looking for before we do.”
* * *
Finally, I was off the island, winging over the south coast in a state police chopper. We left Buzzards Bay behind and bee-lined northwest until we passed the turnpike, then due north from Worcester. We landed at the small municipal airport and piled into a couple of cruisers for the ride into Fitchburg.
It was a decaying mill city in Massachusetts’ version of Appalachia. It had seen its best days too long ago to remember, and even its worst days hadn’t been tallied yet. But in the center of ramshackle buildings and abandoned factories was an oasis, a garden park that lay like a welcoming carpet to the entrance to the Northern Worcester County Registry.
We were met by a big Irish glad-hander with a nose like Bardolph, all flaming and bulbous. “Hi-Hi-Hi! Bernard Shanahan,” he greeted us.
“Pirelli, Cape and Islands ADA.”
“Good to meet ya, and how’s your mother?”
That threw Pirelli off. “Um, she’s fine.”
“And God bless her.”
He shook my hand. “And how’s your mother?”
“She died about four years ago.”
“And don’t we miss her.”
He led us into a room, ornately detailed in carved wood. “I laid everything out for you. Mr. Bates was good enough to leave an inventory and instructions.”
He closed the doors behind him and we went to work. It didn’t take long. Ashton’s instructions read like a script.
“I got it,” I said. It was all there on a bright yellow piece of paper that stuck out like a whore’s tits in church.
* * *
It was around 11 o’clock and I was alone in Bones Tavern. I knocked back a slug of Jack and waited.
Bradley blustered through the door and stood like a raging bear in the middle of the room.
“You? Where’s Pirelli?”
“He’ll be here.”
He laughed. “Your hash is in the fire, mister. I knew you were trash, a bag man for a thieving chink.”
“But I’m not a murderer.”
“Ha! We’ll see if a jury says so.”
“I’m not a cocksucker, either.”
He went as a still as a rock. “What?”
“The night of the key party, all you bored bluebloods looking for a little thrill in your gray lives, and here comes Ashton, the gamesman, the jester.”
His ears were bright red.
“Draw a key, and get a blow job—or give a blow job—in the dark. Let the sucker guess the suckee—what a hoot.”
“You have no business talking about that night. If Walker had the balls to discipline his wife …”
“Yeah, Walker and his balls.”
I could hear his teeth grinding together.
“You wanted to get your mouth on those balls didn’t you? His dick too, just like when you were kids, experimenting at Camp Bugger-Boy or whatever.”
“You prick.”
“You knew Ashton at Yale, but you knew him from years before. He was some kind of cousin umpteen times removed. Ashton knew you were in the closet, because he was right in there with you, but he wanted to come out in a big way. You ended up sandbagging him.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
I ignored him. “When Ashton came to the island with all his wonderful games and diversions, he and you got to talking about Yale, about secrets. Maybe you got drunk and told him how you used to fool around with your younger cousin who looked up to you like some kind of family hero.
“So, Ashton came up with a way for you to taste your cousin’s cock and no one would be the wiser. You were the guy he sent to Walker’s room. It must have broken your heart that the dumb prick didn’t even realize it was you, let alone tell the difference between a man’s tongue and a woman’s. Of course, by then he was consumed by his current kink—watching Dodie get fucked by other men.
“So, no harm, no foul—until Ashton spilled what he’d done. What a prick, he revealed just enough.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Like you killed Ashton? He told you he left everything to me—a total stranger—including his piece of this accursed island. That must have driven you crazy.”
“Bastard! When they put you away his will will be voided by the courts. Ashton’s property will revert to the Chaukunamaug Trust.”
“That’s what you were counting on. But, maybe with his dying gasp, he told you about a document in his papers that spelled out the whole lurid affair. You see, he was playing a game, and using you like a pawn. He loved games, ‘reality dramas’ he called them.
“He was dying, within a couple of weeks he’d have to take mega doses of morphine, and he didn’t want to linger like that. He engineered his own murder, and he knew you so well, he knew he could goad you into it.”
“You can’t …”
“Yes we can. Pirelli made it to the papers before your uncle, the Superior Court justice, could order them sealed and locked up for years with motions until they conveniently became lost or damaged. Bag man? I can’t hold a candle to you phony bastards.”
Bradley tottered toward me like a man suddenly drunk. Pirelli stepped from out of the back room with Bones and Gretchen. Two state troopers came through the door, took Bradley’s arms and put him in cuffs.
“Bradley Whitman,” Pirelli announced. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Ashton Bates.”
* * *
I bought a loft off Houston Street since returning to New York. Gretchen decorated it real nice. She’s been teaching me things: art, languages, cooking, how to hold an orgasm for up to a minute.
When we left the island I insisted on taking the ferry. I handed two five-dollar gold pieces to Al Benedict—fare for the ferryman, with a wish that I’d never ever return.
© 2004 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.