William Kienzle: Marked for Murder: The Father Koesler Mysteries:

For Javan

1

“It’s all right, you know—I mean, if you can’t. . .”

The young man tried feverishly—as he had for the past fifteen minutes—to stimulate himself. But the longer and more frantically he tried, the less likely it seemed that he would maintain or even attain an erection. And, before he’d begun, she had spent another quarter of an hour trying to help him. She’d used every means she knew. And she knew them all.

Nothing.

“Believe me, honey,” Louise Bonner assured him, “it happens to everybody once in a while. It’s nothing to get upset about. Tomorrow you’ll probably have a hard-on all day.”

“I can do it.” His teeth were clenched as he thrashed about. “Goddammit, I’ve done it all my life.”

“Yeah, sure, honey. But this is your first time with a woman, right?”

He flushed deeper as he continued his effort.

All his life. Louise suppressed a smile. All seventeen or eighteen years of his brief life. She had a mental image of him in his room, alone. On the walls, photos of females, nude or in various stages of dishabille. And there he would masturbate the night away. Then the fateful day—today. He’d saved his money. Or his father gave him ten bucks, told him to find a whore and become a man.

Well, what can you get for ten bucks these days, Louise mused. Forget the pricey bitches in comfortable hotels. Head for Cass Corridor in the decaying center of Detroit and you’re likely to find a Louise Bonner—El to her street friends.

She had plied this, the oldest of professions, for all but sixteen of her fifty-one years. And, as far as she was concerned, she had never achieved her full potential. Even as a kid with tight skin, she’d been on the streets. For that she blamed her early pimps.

Now? Hell, she knew she was much the worse for wear. Oh, she had managed to stay slim. And even if the curves were no longer shapely, the angles were still there. But her legs were a bit flabby, the flesh of her upper arms sagged, and the wrinkles—God, how they betrayed her!

But she was still good enough for this kid. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t get it on. Even though she was old enough to be his mother. Forget that; old enough to be his grandmother!

All this she thought as she lay back on the metal bed with its stained sheets and grungy mattress.

“Look, honey, if it’s the money . . .”

“It’s not the money, dammit! I can do it. I know I can.”

She shook her head. Time was money, even on a Sunday afternoon. The longer she spent in the room and off the street, the more potential business was driving away from this tired old neighborhood. By now, she would gladly give back his ten bucks. If she spent countless hours waiting for ten dollars to get used up, she could forget about eating.

She sat up and reached for her pantyhose.

“No, wait!”

She hesitated.

He went to his coat, which he had thrown across a chair. He fumbled in the pocket and brought out what appeared to be some kind of feminine undergarment. He offered it to Louise.

“What the hell!” she exclaimed. “It’s a garter belt.”

“Put it on.”

“Honey, it won’t fit. It’s way too large.”

“Put it on. Please put it on.”

“But, why—?”

“It’s my mother’s.”

She shrugged. Why not? It had been a crazy afternoon. Maybe she could get rid of him if she humored him. She slipped the belt on. It was, as she had anticipated, several sizes too large. She looked at him to check his reaction.

He was ready.

“Well,” she sighed, “I’ll be damned.”

It did not take long. In a few seconds he was no longer a virgin.

It was obvious from his demeanor as he dressed, and the jaunty wave he gave as he left the room that, as far as he was concerned, today he had become a man.

She dressed, pulling her coat tightly about her. Early January in Michigan could be cold. Or it might be warm. One never knew what to expect from Michigan’s weather.

But this was a cold one. The wind whipped through the parallel streets of Woodward, Cass, Second, and Third—which, for the purposes of work, made up Louise Bonner’s world.

She walked briskly, leaning into the wind, up from Cass and Selden, the corner where her apartment was located, toward Third and Willis, the corner she and a few others had staked out for these many years.

As she walked, she pondered. You’re never too old to learn, she reflected. Take that kid. She’d heard of the Oedipus complex. Sometimes when she was younger, but even now occasionally, she would entertain a trick who happened to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist. From them, she had learned, among many other things, about the Oedipus complex. Matter of fact, one of her current regulars was a psychologist. She’d have to tell him about the kid. He’d get a kick out of that.

Indeed, she had told that shrink so many things about some of her tricks that she had considered raising her rates for him. He seemed to get a lot out of her information. Sometimes he would get so interested in her experiences he would forget to screw her. After which, he would argue about the money. She always got paid up front. That was one of her first lessons in the trade. But Doc would want his money back if they didn’t get it on.

She never gave it back, of course. But, now that she thought of it, she was performing a double service for him. And dammit, she ought to get paid for it. What did the Bible say? Something about a worker being worthy of his hire. Something like that.

Thinking on it further, this whole business had started with her learning things.

Lord, it was cold!

It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the humidity. There was nothing like damp cold along with bitter wind.

Where was she? Oh, yeah: learning things. School.

She’d gotten good marks during the ten years she went to school. Especially considering the turmoil that went on at home day after day, night after night. God, how her parents had fought! She could never figure out what kept them together. Even so, she had been good in school. Except that she’d had to work so hard for those marks. Until the ninth grade. Then that science teacher had showed her how to get great marks without any study at all.

Until he entered her life—and her—she had been unaware that she possessed dispensable favors. And that those favors were worth compensation. Suddenly, she had become a 4.0 student of science without cracking a book. Being naturally bright, she had put two and two together and came up with prostitution.

She was in school to learn how to earn a living. Along the way she discovered how to make what could be a very adequate living whereby school was irrelevant. She could make more money on her back than she ever could as a nine-to-five secretary. And she could start right then at age sixteen. Added boon: She would get out of that wretched house with its perpetual state of war. And where, as the years ripened her, her ox of a father had begun to ogle her.

It hadn’t worked out as well as she had anticipated. Oh, the pimps weren’t so bad. She was luckier than many of the girls in that she had never had a pimp who deserted, or worse, beat her. Nevertheless, for years now she had been pimpless—in the language of her profession, an outlaw. In fact, she had become adviser and confidante to many of the women, particularly younger ones.

But like almost all the other women, particularly those on the street, she could do little or nothing about the four plagues that afflicted today’s hookers: certain cops, jail, society, and sorry-ass tricks.