The Killing Game. J. Kerley A.

the eye. “But later remarks suggest you know the lingo, perhaps through study. How am I doing?”

      Embarrassment colored her long neck. “Psychology was my major, along with law enforcement.”

      Two majors. I closed my eyes. “All right. See you at the next class.”

      She turned and hustled toward the door. “Holliday?” I said to her back.

      She turned. “Yes, Detective Ryder?”

      “Don’t pretend uncertainty in my classroom, kid. If you know something for a fact, say it. And be goddamn proud you took the time to learn it.”

      She nodded and left the room. I left seconds later. Leaning against the hall wall was a familiar man in a puce shirt, lavender slacks and blue running shoes. All he seemed to lack were purple socks, which I noted when he stepped from the wall.

      I hadn’t told Harry I’d been hijacked into servitude, but police departments held few secrets. A regular academy instructor, Harry had been trying to wrangle me into a classroom stint for years. “I heard the great Carson Ryder finally deigned to teach,” he grinned. “You enjoying the experience?”

      I shrugged, no big deal.

      Harry laughed and clasped my shoulder. “Bullshit, Cars. You love it. Where else are guys like us gonna find a roomful of people to hang on our every word? Let’s go grab a beer and—”

      My cell trilled. The screen showed C. Peltier.

      “What’s up, Clair?” I asked, seeing motion outside the window, Holliday blowing past on a bicycle, hair trailing from an orange helmet.

      Clair said, “I finished that extracurricular project of yours.”

      The cats. “What’d you find?”

      A pause. “I’ve been in the morgue for fourteen straight hours. How about you buy me a cocktail at Tango?”

       Chapter 8

      The Sex Itch commandeered Gregory’s head. He’d been making discoveries with his new cat, but when the Itch got this strong nothing was a distraction; he needed to empty into a woman. It was Ladies Night at a lot of local bars, desperate women everywhere, and Gregory knew if he wasn’t choosy, he could be in and out of one in a couple of hours.

      Gregory shaved and showered and tried a new moisturizer he’d created from olive oil, honey, retinol and a dab of Preparation H. The oil smoothed, the honey nourished, the retinol restored, and Preparation H drew out the tiny crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes, a flaw in the smooth perfection of his face.

      He wore the concoction as a mask, saturating his flesh as he selected his wardrobe: blue oxford shirt sans tie, a russet linen sport jacket, chestnut-brown slacks and cordovan loafers. Gregory washed off the moisturizer while peering in the magnifying mirror, noting how small and delicate his pores were. He stared into his eyes, pleased at the subtlety of hue, and winked. He started to turn away, but realized his wink had gone unacknowledged, so he returned his wink for closure.

      Gregory and Me, he thought. Us.

      Just before opening the front door, he reviewed his condition. Stomach calm. Breath relaxed. Bladder empty. Gregory moved his consciousness to his groin and found a problem: He was semi-tumescent with the prospect of releasing his fluids inside a human body. He unzipped his fly and, staring at the ceiling, gave himself an orgasm in under a minute, careful to ejaculate on the mat by the door. This would make later sex last longer.

      Gregory stepped into a blue dusk, turning to see his elderly neighbor watering tall red things in her front yard. Millard, Agnes. Seventy-seven years of age, retired CPA for Austal Inc. Husband Lyle Graham Millard, former insurance actuary, died three years ago, heart attack on a plane in Mexico (Idiot; who would visit Mexico, much less board a plane there?). Sister Carla, brother James, sixty-nine and eighty, respectively. James in Birmingham, retired optometrist …

      The data streamed through a lower channel of Gregory’s consciousness, accessible in case the wrinkly old bitch wandered to the fence to blather. Millard, thankfully, continued sprinkling the lawn, flicking a wave. Gregory climbed into his car and made a check of all systems: fuel, oil pressure, water level, doors closed, seat belt engaged, gasoline level of seven-tenths. His odometer read 6,235.2. Plus his intestines were calm and he’d ejaculated.

      Everything as it should be.

      Gregory wound toward the hotel bars in the Airport Road area, shadowy bunkers with an ever-changing cast of locals, transient businesspeople and pianists no one listened to. He picked one and sat on a barstool, ordering a glass of wine, more prop than libation. Too much alcohol made his faces inexact and increased the likelihood of mistranslations.

      Gregory noticed a woman at the far end of the bar: fortyish, spray-lacquered blonde hair, a button nose and eyebrows penciled in swooping arcs. Her chin was doubling. She wore a red dress showing more leg than the legs were worth. The woman was talking with wide gestures and an overloud voice and Gregory judged her to meet his three criteria for prompt sex: Ageing, Homely, and Buzzed.

      “I’d like to buy the lady a drink,” Gregory said to the bartender, watching its delivery. The woman smiled broadly and lifted the glass his way, Thanks. A connection made, Gregory shot the woman faces as he sipped his wine, starting with It Feels Good to Relax and inching up to I’ve Got a Secret Just for You.

      Ten minutes later she was leaving her stool to walk to him (one of Gregory’s rules: never go to them). A half-hour later she was walking out the door after him, squeezing his arm. The woman followed Gregory home in her own vehicle; another rule: Gregory wasn’t a taxi service.

      Clair lived in Mobile’s Spring Hill neighborhood, a beautiful and wooded enclave of historic homes. Tango, an upscale bar-restaurant at the edge of Spring Hill, offered a quiet walnut-and-brass ambience preferred by the wealthy denizens of the community. I’d been to the joint three times and never saw anyone tangoing.

      Harry and I entered and saw Clair in a back booth. The dinner crowd had been replaced by inebriated businessmen. One, a fortyish investment banker-type in a black suit with wide pinstripes, stood beside Clair’s table with a lascivious grin below a hundred-buck haircut. He was tall and relaxed and had the look of a man who specialized in bored housewives.

      “Come on,” he was saying. “Let me buy a pretty lady a drink.”

      “No, thank you, I’m waiting for friends.”

      “If they’re as pretty as you,” the Scotch-fueled lothario winked, “I’ll buy them drinks, too.”

      Harry tiptoed to Pinstripes. “Sounds good, buddy. I’ll take a Sam Adams. Carson?”

      I slipped past Pinstripes and sat across from Clair. “Same.”

      “Two Sammys, then,” Harry said, big hand squeezing the man’s shoulder like he was an old friend. The guy was paler by two shades, staring three inches up into Harry’s eyes. “I, uh, I really didn’t mean that I was going to, uh, buy you—”

      Harry’s smiling eyes tightened toward scowl. “Are you saying I’m not pretty?”

      I tugged the guy’s sleeve. “Tread lightly,” I cautioned. “My friend is hurt he wasn’t chosen as Junior Miss again this year.”

      “Guys …” Clair admonished. But her eyes were having fun.

      Pinstripes glanced toward four similarly dressed men at the bar, his colleagues. They’d probably been betting on his success with Clair, but had turned away when Casanova stepped in it. “Bartender!” Pinstripes barked with a frozen smile. “Two Sam Adams over here.”

      “Thanks, brotha,” Harry said, releasing his grip on the guy’s shoulder. “Nice to know I still got it.”

      Pinstripes