Chip Harrison - Make Out With Murder

“Now,” she said. “What seems to be the trouble?”

I guess the question didn’t need an answer, because she was already beginning to work on my back. She really knew how to give a back rub. Her hands were very strong and she had a nice sense of touch and knew what muscles to concentrate on. When she got to the small of my back I could feel all the pain of a bad night’s sleep being sucked out of the base of my spine, like poison out of a snakebite.

“It’s about Jessica Trelawney,” I said.

The hands stopped abruptly. “Christ Almighty,” she said softly. “Who are you?”

“Chip Harrison,” I said. “I work for Leo Haig, the detective.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“No. Haig is a private investigator. I was also a friend of Melanie Trelawney’s.”

“She OD’d the other day.”

“That’s right.”

By now she had gone back to the massage. Her hands moved here and there as we talked, and when they strayed below the belt they began to have an effect that was interesting. I felt an urge to wriggle my toes a little.

“You really didn’t come for a massage.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean you should stop. I came to ask you some questions. If you want me to get dressed—”

“No, that’s no good. They look in from time to time and I should be doing what I’m supposed to be doing. You’re a friend of Melanie’s and you want to ask about Jess?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you’re trying to find out who murdered her. I just surprised you, didn’t I? I never bought that suicide story. Not for a minute. I’ve never known anyone less suicidal than Jess. She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. How does this feel?”

“Great.”

“You’ve got nice skin. And you’re clean. You wouldn’t believe some of the men who come in here. Have you ever had a massage before?”

“No.”

“What were we talking about? Jess. No, I never believed she killed herself and I always believed she was murdered. It was a waste of time telling the police this. I was very close to Jess. As a matter of fact we were lovers. I met her in a Women’s Lib group. Consciousness-raising. We responded to each other right away. She had made love with women before, but she had never had a real relationship. We lived together; I moved into her apartment. We bought each other silly little presents. Roll over.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re done on this side. Roll over onto your back.”

I did.

“I got her a job here,” she went on. “She didn’t have to work, of course. She was rich. But she wanted to work, she didn’t like the idea of living off her inheritance and not establishing herself as a person responsible for her own existence. She was extremely tough-minded, Chip.”

Her hands were working on my arms and shoulders and chest and stomach. She used a firm touch at first, but as she got further south she switched to a feathery stroking. My mind was not at all interested in sex, for a change, but my body was beginning to display a mind of its own.

I forced myself to talk about Melanie, and how Haig and I were convinced she had been murdered. I didn’t go into details and I didn’t mention the bombing the night before. I asked her if she had any ideas who might have wanted to kill Jessica.

“Some man,” she said.

“I meant specifically.”

She shook her head and ran her fingers over my thighs. “You meet strange people in this business,” she said. “Some very unreal men. The names they’ll call a woman when they get off. I don’t think they’re even conscious of it most of the time. It’s automatic, some deep built-in hatred of the entire female sex, and their own sexuality is all mixed up with a desire to dominate and hurt. I had a theory about Jess.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, it doesn’t point anywhere in particular. But I figured she had a client for a massage and he managed to get her home address. He went up there and fucked her and hurt her and then he killed her and threw her out the window. He could have beaten her up, you know. It wouldn’t have showed because the fall would have hidden any injuries.”

Haig and I had already discussed this. Anything less than a bullet hole would have been consistent with injuries suffered in that great a fall.

“But if Melanie was murdered, then probably it was the same person both times.”

“Right,” I said.

“Which makes my theory fall down. It’s not just a man who hates women. It’s a man with a particular hatred for women named Trelawney.”

“Right.”

“I can’t think who it could be.”

“Possibly someone who stands to gain by killing the five sisters.”

“Who stands to gain?”

“It’s hard to tell. The money wasn’t entailed, it passed over completely to the girls under Cyrus Trelawney’s will. Leo Haig is working on it.”

“I wish I could help.”

We chatted a little more, and then she drew her hands away and I thought the massage was over. I sort of hoped it was. I couldn’t take very much more of this.

She said, “It’s very warm in here, Chip. Would you mind if I removed my uniform?”

She had a fine body, long and lean and supple. Her breasts were very firm and her stomach perfectly flat. Her skin smelled spicy.

She put her hands right where I hoped she would put them. She pressed gently, then moved her fingers in that feathery stroke.

“There’s one muscle group I haven’t been able to relax,” she said.

“Yeah. It’s sort of embarrassing, if you want to know.”

“I’d be embarrassed if you didn’t react that way. Would you like me to do something about it?”

“I’d like that.”

“You have to tell me what you want me to do.”

“Uh.”

She was not touching me now. “This isn’t part of the standard massage,” she explained. “You’ve had the standard treatment already.” I had had the treatment, all right. “If there’s anything else you would like, you have to tell me specifically what it is. And then you give me a present because you like me, and I do something very nice for you because I like you, and that’s how it’s done.”

“I see.”

“What would you like?”

“Uh. I don’t know what the choices are.”

“For a small present I could do something manual. For a large present I could do something oral.”

“I see.”

“You already know I have nice hands. I also have a very nice mouth.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I’ve received lots of compliments on it.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“So if you’d like to ask me to do something—”

“How much is a small present?”

“Ten dollars would be a small present. Twenty dollars would be a large present. A lot of people give me larger presents than that, but I sort of like you. You’re clean and you’re not an unpleasant person.”

I had about twenty-five dollars with me after paying my trial membership fee. But I was going to have to take cabs and be ready to spend money if the need arose. The twenty-dollar present was out of the question and the ten dollar present seemed like a lot of money for a very second-best experience. And I really didn’t like the idea of paying for sex. I could almost rationalize this on the grounds that it wouldn’t be sex, exactly. I mean, there was nothing really sexual about it, for Pete’s sake. It would just be a release from tension. Recreational therapy, you could call it.

What it comes to, really, is that if I had had a hundred dollars in my pocket I would probably have given twenty of them to Andrea. Since I had twenty-five, I told her I was afraid I would have to pass.

“That’s cool,” she said, slipping back into her uniform. “Maybe you’ll drop around again sometime.”