Jo Dawg - Lust with a Lady tonight

"Get the fuck out!"

Holly was in the office sipping a drink when Wiley returned. Cody sat behind the huge desk, smoking and waiting. He looked like a miniature executive who, if he sat there long enough, might grow into a full sized one.

There was a briefcase open in front of him, full of neatly stacked bills.

"Is that it?"

"That's it," Cody said, sighing.

Wiley pulled the briefcase to his side of the desk, dumped it out, and began methodically counting the bills back into it.

"Good God, man, you're going to count it?"

"You bet your ass, Cody."

Behind him, Holly giggled.

At last all the bills were back in the case. Wiley buckled it up and smiled down at the little man. "All there, Cody. Right to the penny. I like doing business with an honest man."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What's that?"

"There was some mention of proof," Cody said. "Proof that you would keep your mouth shut."

"Oh, yes," Wiley said, moving around the desk. He sat on the side, three-quarter facing Cody in the chair. "I'll explain that."

Cody leaned against the high-backed chair. He laced his fingers in front of his face and peered at Wiley above them through slitted eyes. "I'll be glad to hear it."

"I figured you would. You see, Cody, since you engineered the rape – and it is a crime – you're certainly not going to run to the police and tell them what you did, are you?"

"I'd say that's a pretty safe assumption. Get to the point!"

"Well, the same goes for me, Cody. If I commit an assault on someone, I'm certainly going to keep quiet about it. Needless to say, that money sitting there is extortion. I'm not about to broadcast that either."

Cody's eyes had grown wide with fear. He got Wiley's point all too well. He jumped from the chair in an attempt to get around Wiley and reach the door.

His timing was lousy and his move was stupid. He jumped right into Wiley's big balled fist. It made a splatting sound in the middle of his forehead, but didn't put him out. Gamely, he rocked away from the wall in another attempt to escape.

Wiley buried his fist, wrist deep, in the little man's belly. Air left Cody's body in a whooshing sound as he staggered to the center of the room with his arms around his middle.

Wiley caught him there. He calmly disengaged Cody's hands and arms, and hit him in the same place again. Cody retched, fouling himself, as he fell to the carpet gasping for life-giving air.

Holly, her voice calm, spoke from behind him.

"Are you going to kill him?"

"No." He looked down at Cody's gasping figure. Then he leaned over and unbuckled the man's belt. He pulled trousers and shorts off with one yank.

Holly giggled. "No wonder the little bastard wouldn't ever have sex with anybody. Jeez, look at his cock! It isn't as big as my little finger! Jeez, no wonder."

"Yeah, no wonder." Wiley flipped Cody over and carefully spread his legs wide.

There was another, deeper gasp behind him. "Christ, Wiley, no! Don't do that! You can't do that… not to any man!"

But Wiley did it.

He raised his foot, aimed the heel directly at Cody's balls, and brought it down with a resounding crunch. Cody screamed. Wiley did it twice more for good measure.

Cody only screamed once more. By the third stomp of Wiley's foot, he had passed out.

Wiley turned. Holly's eyes were vacant. She had spilled her drink down the front of her dress and her hands were still trembling. Suddenly her face went chalk white and she clutched her stomach.

Wiley calmly picked up a waste basket and held it in front of her. When she was through he dropped the wastebasket and pulled the briefcase from the desk.

"C'mon, let's go."

Wiley gave the cab driver Holly's address and settled back.

She sat stiff as a board beside him, staring straight ahead, her mouth slightly open. It was several blocks before she spoke. "What are you going to do to me?"

"You mean, what else?"

"Yes."

"Nothing. I've already done it. You'll do the rest yourself."

They rode several more blocks before she spoke again. "You probably think you're a hero, don't you?"

"No," he sighed, "I think I'm very tired."

"Yeah, me, too." She paused and turned to him. "I don't know whether you believe it or not, but I do feel remorse. I feel sorry for the first time in my life."

"Good." He didn't look at her. "Then maybe you'll try to get your life in order."

"Maybe."

The cab pulled to a stop in front of her apartment house. She opened the door and turned to face him. "Aren't you afraid that one of us will talk, or maybe hire someone to come after you?"

"No." His smile was calm, the most serene she had seen him wear since the first time she had met him. "You see, Holly, you don't even know who I am."

She nodded. "Wanna come up?… one last time?"

"Holly."

"Yeah?"

"Get the fuck out!"

He had the cabbie stop on a corner, a block from the apartment house. Inside the bar, he got a beer and headed to the back and a quiet phone booth.

"Mark?"

"Yeah. Wiley?"

"Yeah. How's Sis?"

"Better. Much better. You?"

"Tired. Disgusted. Drained."

"I set that twenty grand up in a silent trust for Ginny. It's going to give her the best of care. The kind of care that a couple of struggling young attorneys could never give her."

"Good. I've got twenty more to add to it, in cash. I'll drop by your place in the morning on the way to the airport."

"Jesus. You really nailed 'em."

"Yeah, I really did. All four of 'em."

"There were four?"

"Four," Wiley said, suddenly wanting to get off the phone.

"Want to tell me who?… besides the Carpenter dame?"

"You don't want to know, Mark."

"Okay. How'd you handle it?"

"Believe me, you don't want to know that either."

"See you in the morning."

"Yeah."

Wiley flipped the cradle a few times, then dialed again. When the operator came on, he gave her the New York number and his credit card number.

"Hello?"

"Jennie… it's me."

"Who's me?"

"The love of your life, Wiley Morrison. I'm coming home. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

"You won't see me, baby. I'm on the Red Baron tonight for Frankfurt. There I meet a sheik and on to Gstaad for some skiing and screwing."

"Is that how it is?"

"That's how it is. I met me a man with some fire, some guts. Everything you're not. Bye."

The line went dead.

He left the booth and went back out on the street. In front of the mail box he reread the letter to Judge Jonathan Carpenter. Satisfied that it told her father everything, he sealed it, touched it to his lips and, with a wide grin, dropped it in the box.

In his room, he removed his shirt and opened the windows wide. It was hot. He wondered why the room didn't come with a fan. Then he remembered the one in the Fine apartment. It was ineffectual. It went around and around, but didn't do any good.

Wiley started to think that he was something like that fan. He was going around and around and wasn't doing any good.

The door opened behind him and he turned. It was Laura Fine.

She had on the usual braless halter and shorts. It was like a uniform, for mother and daughter alike.

"Hi. Can I come in?"

"You're in."

She joined him at the window. Her arm went around his waist and the rounded side of one heavy breast pressed against his bicep. "It's hot."

"Too hot. I'm surprised you don't put in air-conditioning."

She looked at him. "Who's gonna pay for it? I'd have to raise the rent almost double. The renters wouldn't stand for it."

They saw Trina crossing the street. She was in shorts and a T-shirt. No bra. Two men going by admired her shape openly.