Shetani's Sister

  He wasn’t a square-ass sucker who would send even a buck to the Apple, he thought. He paused to snort coke from a diamond-encrusted spoon. She lay in his arms and shook her head when he moved the spoon toward her nose. She sighed.

  “But I feel so shitty about keepin’ the whole six grand after what she went through. Daddy, please let’s send at least a grand. I’m so—”

  He cut her off as he stared at a reflection of their nude bodies in a ceiling mirror.

  “Now, listen, Baby Wee, don’t forget what was said about the case in the Milwaukee Journal that Eli copped from the out-of-town newsstand. Remember, the Beer Town police are looking for a girl that split the scene who fits your description like a glove. They got a eyewitness, Wee, waiting to finger you. The beer pigs have run a FBI make on Bianca’s prints. Then they’ll wire up the Apple pigs to find out if the bitch that split was also in Sugar Red’s stable.”

  He paused to take a sip of wine. He continued: “Suppose it hits the street grapevine that Bianca’s mama got some payoff bread from the West Coast. Why, shit, a slew of motherfuckers—my enemies, and the Apple police—would figure the bread was sent by the little black fox with a doll face who blew that peckerwood away. If the heat don’t pick up your trail, Red will be out here to shake us down. Then we’ll pay off. Wee, don’t crack nothin’ else about that score and murder. We got to worry about keepin’ you, the livin’, out of the joint.”

  She moved out of his arms. They lay in thunderous silence. She bombed it with a harsh whisper: “When you gonna fire Petra, like you promised?”

  He glared at her. “You motherfuckin’ bitch. Don’t pressure me. You ain’t in a position to demand nothin’. You jumped bond in L.A., bitch. Brucker, the pig that killed Big Cat, is achin’ to bust you.”

  She spat out, “It’s Rucker, not Brucker.”

  “Shut up. You so hot you couldn’t be the bottom woman. So get out of my face with that shit!”

  She slid from the bed with a mean face and eased from the room. She went into her beige-and-rust bedroom, down the hallway. She sat on the side of a twin bed, with her shoulders slumped. She lit a cigarette. She stared, trancelike, through a window at a carpet of jade lawn, ringed by yellow roses. A pair of blue jays squabbled raucously in a sun-dappled tree.

  Pee Wee’s roommate came out of the adjoining bathroom. “Hi, lucky girl,” terry-robed Tuta said as she sat down before a dresser mirror to make up her face.

  Pee Wee frowned as she looked into the mirror and saw Tuta staring at her. “Why are you looking at me like that? Say, I’m not a lucky girl. I’m Pee Wee.”

  Tuta shrugged and dabbed cleansing cream on her face. “Pee Wee, I’m sorry you’re upset. I just thought you were lucky to be in Daddy’s bed for two hours and thirty-five minutes.” She paused to say wistfully, “I’ve never been in his bed for even one minute.”

  After an extended silence, Pee Wee said gently, “Tu, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelin’s…That was my first time makin’ love with him. I don’t feel lucky.”

  Tuta spun around to face Pee Wee. “Please don’t get salty, but tell me, was it good?”

  Pee Wee smiled. “I’ll tell ya, ’cause you’re a sweet baby. It was a seven on a ten scale, considerin’ my long bread he’s counted. Shetani fucks like a tiger with a toothache. You know, kinda hateful-like. My dead daddy, Big Cat, was a ten-plus in bed, ’cause he was full of sweetness and warmth.”

  Tuta laughed and turned back to her makeup. “Maybe he fucks Petra in a sweeter way. Maybe he loves her.”

  Pee Wee belly-laughed. “Love, sugar? These cold-blooded niggers don’t love no ho, ’specially a dope-fiend player like Shetani. Don’t forget, he put Petra in that cell ’cause she brought the stable home early.”

  Pee Wee went to take a shower. Tuta finished her makeup and dressed for early-afternoon work in a lavender minidress and gold shoes.

  Pee Wee came out of the bathroom as Tuta was leaving. “Good catchin’, lil’ girl,” Pee Wee said as she kissed Tuta’s cheek.

  “Thanks, Mommy,” Tuta said as she barely moved her behind into the hallway to escape Pee Wee’s playful slap at it.

  Pee Wee was surprised to see her turn left, toward Shetani’s bedroom, instead of right, to the staircase leading to the first floor.

  Pee Wee stepped back and peeked down the hallway. She saw Tuta knock and then enter Shetani’s bedroom.

  Pee Wee crept to the side of the cracked door with bare feet. She craned her neck to eavesdrop.

  Inside the room, Tuta was on the carpet beside the bed, on her hands and knees. Her dress was hiked up to her waist. Her panties were pulled down to expose her yellow ass and vulva.

  “Tuta, I’m gonna hit you this time. Next time, get your street shot from Petra with the rest of the girls,” he said as he spiked into a vein between her vulva and inside lower buttock. He squeezed in the shot when the syringe turned scarlet with her blood.

  “Thanks, Master. I love it when you hit me,” she said as she stood. She pulled up her panties and arranged her dress. He patted the bed. She sat down beside him. He put an arm around her waist.

  “I want us to have some adventure tonight, together around eleven. Will you keep it a stone secret?”

  She nodded vigorously. His voice was so low and soft that Pee Wee scarcely heard him.

  He went on, “The twins and me will pick you up on Vine a half-block south of Sunset.”

  She leaned to half bite and suck his bottom lip. He drew back as if snake-bit.

  “Where we goin’?” she asked in a whisper that Pee Wee didn’t hear.

  “We’re gonna cabaret at Memory Lane, in South Central L.A.”

  She frowned. “If I leave the track at eleven, my check-in bread to Petra will be short.”

  He winked and stroked her shoulder. “I’ll make your bread right for check-in.”

  They touched lips. She stood.

  Pee Wee raced back to her bedroom. Tuta hurried downstairs to get into the van for the trip to the fast track.

  At 9:30 p.m. that night, Pee Wee called a cab to pick her up at an address down the road from home. She slipped out of the mansion. She was wearing a black evening gown, black wig with heavy bangs, and dark glasses.

  The cab took her to a fast-food restaurant across the boulevard from the Memory Lane cabaret. She sat drinking coffee near a window. At 11:25, she saw Shetani and Tuta leave the van and enter the club. She waited fifteen minutes before she crossed the street and went into the crowded place. She took a seat at the bar.

  Several black pussy-chasers hit on her immediately. She told them she was waiting for her husband to join her.

  She spotted Shetani and Tuta at a ringside table, with champagne in a bucket. They faced Pee Wee, intently watching Sir Lady Java, a curvaceous transvestite dancing topless in a spot of copper light to savage band music.

  “How about taking a picture, gorgeous lady,” a wiry house photographer asked as he touched the camera slung around his neck.

  She smiled. “Thanks for the compliment…You can take a picture of that girl in the lavender dress sitting with the man in the gray silk suit at ringside.”

  His eyes narrowed knowingly.

  “Can you zoom in on them from here?”

  He nodded. “Ordinarily, the fee is five—”

  She cut him off: “I’ll give you twenty for the shot.”

  He aimed the camera and took the picture with a flash of light. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ve got a developing setup in the basement,” he said as he turned and walked away.

  She ordered a champagne cocktail while she waited.

  He returned with a vividly clear image of Shetani with his pet.

  Pee Wee left the club, intending to walk down King Boulevard to get a passing cab.

  “Hey, pretty, what’s happening?” she heard a voice say behind her.

  She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. One of the pussy-chasers had followed her.

  “Cuteness, I’ll drop y
ou off on the moon…anywhere,” he said tipsily as he galloped into her face.

  Her bandit eyes told her his silk suit was in the five-to-seven-bill class. That was no guarantee that he was carrying big bread in his leather, she thought.

  Her fingertips gently held him at bay for an instant to feel the leather in his inner coat pocket. It could be empty. However, she was certain the fiery diamond ring on his left pinkie was real.

  She bared her pearly teeth. “You’re sweet, but I don’t know you,” she cooed and started to turn away.

  He grabbed the sleeve of her blue fox jacket. “You’re Iona. I’m Roger Lee. We met at the bar. You said your husband…”

  She put an index finger across his big mouth. “Please, don’t mention him to me…Where are you parked?”

  His maroon eyes glowed with crotch joy as he led her into a new silver Eldorado parked on the club lot. He pressed himself against her as he let her into the car. He got in under the wheel and eye-swept her curves.

  “Roger, please, don’t look at me like that. Take me to Carson,” she said sweetly.

  She coyly switched her eyes to the dashboard. He moved across the seat to box her in. His left hand, heavy with alcohol, stroked her knee. She turned her face away from a gust of rancid breath.

  “Please, Roger, stop!” she squealed with pro-ho come-on in her voice. She opened her thighs to his sucker left hand, bearing the huge diamond. She recoiled and closed her thighs when his index finger penetrated her.

  “Ouch! I’m tight. Use your little finger at first,” she said as she wet his pinkie with her spit from her index finger.

  He jabbed it into her until she cried out, “Oowee! I’m so hot!” She unzipped his fly. His erected enemy sprang from his pants. She pressed his left hand against her vulva. She slipped the diamond off his slimy pinkie as she swung onto his lap. She dropped the ring into her bosom as she rubbed her sex nest against his rod.

  “Shit, raise up a little so I can stick it in,” he gasped.

  She invaded his inner coat pocket and lifted out his wallet. She rhythmically rammed her bosom against his chest in sync with the humping action of her trap against his rod. She used both hands behind his head to remove a roll of bills from the leather. She fired her tongue tip into his ear at the instant that she put the leather back in the pocket.

  “Let’s go to a motel,” she panted. She stuck the bills into her vaginal stash as she flung herself out of the saddle.

  He shakily zipped up his pants. “I’ll drink to that,” he said as he keyed on the engine.

  “Wait a minute, sweet dick. I have to pee now,” she said as she opened the door and left the car.

  “Hurry up!” he said as she moved to the rear of the car.

  She crouched and dashed with shoes in hand into a side street adjacent to the club.

  Two minutes later, a white pussy-chaser in a Corvette picked her up. She was too drained to take a shot at his leather.

  He dropped her off in Hollywood. She wrote a phony name and telephone number on a slip of paper and dropped it on him.

  She took a cab for the Hollywood Hills. On the way, she counted six bills of Roger’s greenstuff.

  Minutes later, she sat on the side of her bed, staring at the Memory Lane pic. She knew that Shetani had never planned to fire Petra. He had conned her into a thieving tour of the Midwest.

  She shivered as she remembered the bloody face of the trick when he fell dead at her feet.

  Now she was wanted for murder. She had a vision of herself, wrinkled and white-haired in a Wisconsin prison. Shetani was to blame, she told herself.

  Rage possessed her. She stared stonily at his image and shaped a psychotic smile. She hated him with so much venomous passion that she raced to the bathroom to vomit bitter bile.

  She rinsed out her mouth and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. He had betrayed and tricked her. She vowed to get revenge. She would do anything to destroy him.

  She was happy that Tuta was his pet. She hoped he was in love like a square-ass sucker. She’d seduce Tuta to release her sexual tension. She’d teach her how to steal. Tuta would feel stronger and need Shetani less. She’d do everything she could to make him lose Tuta. She would also poison Petra’s mind against him with the pic. That move would have to be made with great caution, for she sensed that Shetani could be deadly when crossed.

  I’ll make the move on the snake bastard soon as I feel Petra is right for it, she raved audibly.

  Suddenly it hit her that her medicine was in low supply. She suspected that Shetani considered her a liability because of the murder beef against her. He could avoid a harboring charge if he could waste her with poisoned dope.

  She went to the open door. She started to step out. She heard Froggy, Shetani’s ex–car polisher, croaking a pop tune. With Shetani’s car in storage, Froggy was the mansion gofer.

  She watched him disappear down the staircase before she stepped into the hallway. She went directly into Shetani’s bedroom. She stood in the half-darkness and heard the thump of her heart. She went to turn on the dim light of a lamp on the table at the end of the sofa. She dropped down on the sofa. Her eyes darted about the room for his possible skag stash. She had to be careful that she didn’t tear up the room looking for the stash, she thought. In this case, she knew it wouldn’t be necessary. She knew that most veteran underworld people chose easily accessible stash places.

  She went to examine a five-foot nude-figurine plaster lamp. She got on her knees beside it. She thumped the base with her finger to see if it was hollow.

  She went to the wall heater. She stooped to see that the pilot light was off. She slipped off the heater cover. She hand-swept inside it and replaced the cover.

  Her eyes zoomed to a pair of large speakers atop a stereo cabinet. She inspected the back of one and then moved to examine the other. She discovered a hairline groove in the back of the second speaker. She slid the rear panel back to reveal a kilo and a half of China white. Shetani’s dope kit lay beside it.

  She took two C-note bills of the Roger sting from her bosom. She overlapped them and dumped a pile of white onto the bills. She folded them into a package for her bosom. She slid the back of the speaker into place. She switched off the lamp and hurried, full of dope-fiend ecstasy, back into her room.

  Rucker and Opal Lenski, Crane’s aunt, were having lunch with the Cranes at a Wilshire Boulevard restaurant. Opal had flown in the day before for a short visit with Rucker. The trip and a hired nurse gave Opal relief from the strain of caring for her mother, who was ill at home.

  As their waiter served chocolate mousse, pudgy Millie glanced at Crane and exclaimed, “I can’t!” Then she laughed and said, “I will.”

  Rucker and Opal laughed. Crane’s gaunt face was a chalky blank mask in the candle glow.

  “Mil, you really shouldn’t,” he said in a punitive tone.

  “Oh, Leo, give her a break. You heard her say she’s been on a thousand calories a day for almost a month,” Opal said sweetly.

  Crane halted Millie’s second trip to her mouth with a firm palm against her wrist. “No more, Mil. Let’s go,” Crane said harshly as he shoved the dessert plate to the center of the table.

  He stood. Millie’s heavily made-up Pekingese face was twisted by humiliation and anger as she stared up into his face. He took hold of her arm. She stood, her rosebud mouth twitching.

  “Thanks, folks, for the lunch and company. Have a pleasant trip home, Aunt Opal,” Crane struggled to say cheerfully.

  Opal smiled. “Thank you, Leo.”

  Rucker said softly, “We enjoyed seeing you both.”

  “I’m sorry,” Millie said feebly, with her eyes fixed on the carpet, as they turned away from the table.

  Rucker and Opal finished dessert in silence. Opal sighed. “Oh, Ruck, I’m so sorry to see those kids in such trouble.”

  Rucker toyed with his wine goblet. “It’s tough going for them…I’m worried about Leo.”

  Opal lo
oked at her face in a compact mirror. “He does look bad. Maybe he isn’t an ideal husband…He is a good cop, isn’t he, Ruck?”

  Rucker looked into her luminous dark eyes for a moment. “He was one of the best.”

  She entwined her fingers. “ ‘Was’ Ruck? Is he in trouble with the department?”

  He touched her hands. “No, not yet.”

  She groaned. “Oh Jesus.”

  Rucker held her hands. “Darling, please, don’t worry. I’m trying and hoping to take care of him and his problem on my own.”

  “I have been his loving mother since he was ten. My sister Ellen, his mother, and his father died in a car crash. I took care of him. I saw him through some scary near-collisions with law and order before he straightened out. So don’t sugar-coat his present troubles for me, Ruck.”

  He smiled. “Mother dear, Leo confided the downside of his early life to me shortly after we became partners in the Seventy-seventh Division.” Rucker leaned toward her to half whisper, “He’s hooked on cocaine, and he could be guilty of criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.”

  She gasped. “You mean, he could go to prison?”

  Rucker nodded. “At worst, he could. As I said, I’m trying to save him from that…Do I have your promise not to say anything to him about our conversation here today?”

  She nodded. “I won’t say anything to him. After all, Ruck, I know that you love him, too. I know you’ll do everything possible to help him.” She looked at her watch. “Ruck, the past thirty-six hours have been so sweet with you. I just know you’ve stopped drinking forever. I can’t be this happy until I see you again.”

  He feather-stroked the back of her hands with his lips. He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Knowing you feel this way will keep me happy until I see you again.”

  They left the restaurant for the airport. As a skycap was taking Opal’s bag from the Lincoln’s trunk, Rucker said, “Give Rebecca my love, and tell her I’m rooting for her speedy recovery.”

  They kissed goodbye. Rucker watched her until she disappeared into the terminal.