War Lord

Six

Alabama said she was tired so, as there was nothing more we could move on, I drove her home to Summerlin with a promise to call if anything else turned up, then took myself back to my hotel for a swim.

It was maybe a hundred and ten in the shade down in the pool area, the place surrounded by glass buildings focusing the sun’s rays like a magnifying glass picking out bugs. In the pool it was virtually standing room only, packed with college kids come to Vegas to get drunk, get laid, lose all their money and go home with sunburn, a hangover and a misspelled tattoo across their backs — the usual.

A loud alcohol-fueled bikini contest was coming to a conclusion, the music and the bar pumping, as I wandered around the crowded sunbaking area in search of an empty sun lounge. A leggy black college kid was showing the crowd her moves, egged on by the DJ. The masses in the pool applauded when she gave her hips a workout. And when she turned, bent over and wiggled her money-maker at the audience, it rewarded her with waves of hoots and applause. Up next, a large white woman in a high-cut green one-piece costume with deep scallops out of the sides, her ample upper thighs the shape of ice-cream cones and just as dimpled. She didn’t seem to care though, and moved as dirty as any woman I’ve ever seen, which seduced roars of approval from the spectators. A woman in her early twenties won the contest when her tiny gold bikini top suffered a wardrobe malfunction, something I firmly believe everyone except network executives appreciates.

I circumnavigated the pool area twice before finding a sun lounge in the process of being vacated. A woman in a Bally’s shorts-and-tee ensemble came and took my drink order, while I waited for a heavily tattooed jock to pack up and leave. It had been a while since my bare skin received a dose of sun, and I had a bunch of reasonably new scars that were still pink, so I figured I had maybe half an hour before I got second-degree burns. I stripped off my top and rolled it into a headrest then lay face down. The sun’s heat immediately went to work on my back and I exhaled loudly, feeling relaxed, on vacation at last.

I’d only drifted off to sleep for maybe five minutes when a cold shock between the shoulder blades woke me with a start. I looked up, ready to get all indignant, and saw that it was Sugar. She was standing beside me, her shadow across my face, the sun a corona behind her head, a cheeky smile on her lips. A Heineken, my Heineken I supposed, hung from her hand and swung beside her leg. She held it out to me. ‘This yours, I think.’

‘Thanks.’ I rolled onto my side, propped my head on my hand. Her bikini was a knitted orange number. It didn’t hide much, and what it did I’d pretty much seen already. She wore heels, slip-ons, which made her look taller and maybe just a little hotter, if that were possible. A multicolored canvas satchel hung casually off a shoulder.

‘You bin banged up some, ain’t you.’ She leaned a little toward me, peering at my body over the top of her Ray-Ban Aviators. ‘You bin in a car accident o’ somethin’?’

Or something probably covered it best. The last few years had left their marks — several bullet wounds and nicks, a little shrapnel mauling here and there, some barbed-wire tears, a few stitches. I could remember when, where and how I’d received each and every one, but that was a private litany I wasn’t prepared to share poolside. ‘Yep,’ I said, keeping it loose.

‘Hey, is ’Bama okay? I heard Randy’s in some kinda trouble.’

‘You’ve got a lot of interest in Alabama and Randy.’

She smiled. ‘You jealous?’

I parried her smile with one of my own. My beer was looking neglected, so I took a moment to give it some attention. Sugar began digging around inside her bag. ‘The sun gonna turn you into a crawfish. You want some cream on?’

I thought about saying no, but only for the nanosecond it took to change my mind. ‘Thanks,’ I said and rolled onto my stomach.

‘Move over a little.’

I wriggled across and she sat beside me on the sun lounge. Looking under my arm I saw her knitted bikini bottom wedged against my hip. Seconds later I heard the splodge of the lotion squirting from the bottle, and a cold wetness on my back. I smelled piña colada. Her hands went to work immediately, moving the lotion around in circles.

‘Must have been some car accident,’ she said as her fingers slid over a knot of scar tissue on my shoulder blade where a 9mm slug had left in a hurry. Little Coop woke up, stretched out, and wondered if some piña colada might possibly be coming his way too.

‘A few of the girls are sayin’ somethin’ came for ’Bama in a FedEx box.’

‘Really,’ I said, adding nothing.

‘A body part — Randy’s.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘His penis.’

That one caught me off guard. I twisted around and looked at her. ‘I can promise you that nothing cut from Randy has been received by Alabama, unless she took delivery of it within the last two hours and she’s neglected to tell me about it.’

‘Is that the truth? ’Cause somethin’ came for her, somethin’ sick. One of the girls caught a glimpse of it. ’Bama’s upset an’ then you arrive, a secret agent…’

‘Special agent — I’m just a cop.’

‘Okay, but you a cop that’s come all the way from Washington.’

‘Just a friend of the family lending a hand.’ I allowed myself a smirk at that, and went back to getting myself sun-blocked.

‘Sure you are.’

‘That’s the truth.’ Interesting how rumors grow. Maybe the super fertilizer on this one had been what one of the girls had caught sight of — perhaps one of Thing’s fingers.

‘Were you gonna call me?’ she asked, changing tack.

‘Haven’t had the time to give it much thought.’

Sugar responded to this nonchalance by giving me a stinging slap on the back of the leg. ‘Then I would have called you.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why would you have called me?’ That was a genuine question. Sugar played in a different league table. I was still wondering why she gave me her phone number in the first place. Why would a woman like this be interested in a lowly paid public servant from out of town with a busted nose and a cheap room in a three-star hotel? Come to think of it, why was she giving me the current poolside attention? ‘A little down to the left,’ I told her, milking it before she realized she could have her pick of half a dozen jocks in the vicinity leering at her.

‘I like you. You’re a real man.’

‘Like Randy.’

Her hands hesitated. ‘Yeah, like Randy.’

‘Have you ever had sex with Randy?’

Another hesitation. ‘The questions you ask. Now, I’m gonna put some cream on your legs,’ she said, kneading my shoulders. ‘You gonna fry, you.’

‘Have you?’ I persisted. ‘How about with Alabama?’

Slap number two.

I gave my shoulders the barest of shrugs. A few seconds later I heard the bottle squirt and felt the cold wetness of the lotion on the back of my legs. Her hands went to work, working it around, the amplitude of movement quickly taking in ankle to upper thigh. Little Coop was close to panting. I tried not to think about it, bending my thoughts in another direction. There was some kind of triangle between Alabama, Randy and Sugar which Alabama readily admitted to. She found the Cajun woman attractive, an attraction that seemed to be mutual. Somehow Randy was also involved, but on what level? Where did he fit into it? ‘Why are you so interested in Randy?’ I asked her.

It took her a few moments to find an answer. ‘’Cause he’s dangerous an’, for me, danger is an aphrodisiac. I like fast cars, motorcycles, speedboats — anything with an engine. I like men and I like men who like women. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, is there?’

The brains of the operation in my shorts was applauding. ‘Did you know Randy when he was in the Air Force?’ I asked.

‘No. I wasn’t workin’ in Vegas then.’

‘But you’ve met him plenty of times since he left the Air Force.’

‘Sometimes, not so many. He has an interestin’ job, flyin’ airplanes all round the world.’

‘And planes have very big engines,’ I said.

‘Yes they do,’ she giggled. ‘Maybe that’s why I’m interested in him.’

‘How do you pay your mechanic when you get your car engine serviced?’

Slap number three, though it was more playful than the first two. ‘All these scars are tellin’ me you’re dangerous too. I was right about you, wasn’ I? You know, I think I like scars now.’

I’d have happily done without them and the things that had left them on my skin.

‘Phew! All this work is makin’ me hot,’ she continued. ‘I’m gonna swim. You wanna come?’

‘Won’t swimming wash the cream off?’

‘It’s waterproof, silly.’ She stood, slipped out of her heels, dropped her sunglasses onto her bag, and took a few steps to the side of the pool. Several guys dangling their legs in the water nudged their buddies and motioned at her. The bikini pageant would have been no contest with Sugar in the line-up. Her ass was generous but tight and rode high on long, straight athletic legs. Her waist was also incredibly narrow but her shoulders were wide and strong. She turned sideways and beckoned me to hurry up. Her breasts, firm and buoyant, did likewise. It was going to be potentially embarrassing getting into the pool, Little Coop having turned my trunks into a teepee. But I sat up anyway and wriggled down to the end of the chair, saving at least one step out in the open, and giving myself the opportunity to get Mr Embarrassing down below better organized. I stood, walked quickly to the pool and jumped in, going under immediately and putting in a few strokes. The water was tepid, but still refreshing. When I came up I scoped around for Sugar, but she’d disappeared. I swam underwater to the edge, turned, spread my arms wide, gripped the side of the pool and leaned back against it.

I was slippery due to all the lotion, but I wasn’t complaining. And Sugar would find me. I put my head back, closed my eyes and enjoyed the heat of the sun on my face.

‘Where’d you get to?’ I heard Sugar say.

I put my head down and opened my eyes. She had her back to me and was speaking over her shoulder, wading slowly closer in reverse, entering my personal space. Before I knew what I was doing I lowered an arm and put it around her waist, and stroked my hand against her flat stomach. She immediately pressed in closer, took my hand and guided it down inside her bikini bottom. She then squeezed my fingers into the lips of her vulva and pressed them up against her clitoris, which was hard and distended, her lips slippery and warm.

She put her head back on my shoulder and whispered, ‘Oh, you’ve found it. Have you ever done it in public?’

There were people all around us. ‘Not this public.’

As I said this, her free hand worked its way inside my shorts and found what it was looking for. She held me between her fingers and began sliding them up and down the length of my shaft, stopping occasionally to rub the head with her forefinger. She was right about the sunburn lotion being waterproof.

‘Try not to make it too obvious, handsome,’ she said in my ear as she moved against my fingers, which she was holding inside her.

I swallowed and tried not to squeak.

A college girl up on her boyfriend’s shoulders glanced across at me. I gave her a smile, trying to look like I hadn’t just been busted with my hand in the cookie jar. Or whatever. Did she know what was going on? She leaned down and said something to her mount and he threw his head back and laughed.

Sugar’s breathing quickened and I heard her moan, her lips against my ear. I felt her body shudder and go rigid suddenly. She crossed her legs, which forced my fingers up hard against her pelvic bone.

When she relaxed a little I said, ‘That was quick,’ and tried not to gasp as she did that thing again with her forefinger.

‘My body is good to me,’ she said dreamily, her head resting on my shoulder. ‘I can sneeze at will, too.’ She murmured, ‘Let me know when you’re gonna come.’

With her own needs taken care of, Sugar put a little more concentrated effort into the operation behind her back. The DJ over at the bar goosed the volume on a new Fiddy Cent number and most of the folks in the pool started bumping and grinding, covering my own movement, which was becoming a little involuntary. I tapped on her shoulder, and said urgently, ‘Letting you know…’

‘I thought so. A woman can tell.’

Sugar put in a few more strokes before turning and sliding below the surface of the water. She took me in her mouth and cupped my aching balls as things began to pump. I felt the action of her tongue as she swallowed a couple of times before letting me go, the water against my skin suddenly cooler than her mouth, and my eyes rolled back in my head.

Sugar surfaced slowly, a smile on her lips as she stroked the skin behind my balls. She wiped the water from her eyes and then kissed me on the mouth, her breath smelling vaguely of coconut and starch.

‘A protein shake,’ she giggled, then ran her tongue around her lips and added, ‘There’s lunch taken care of.’

‘How’d you even manage that under water?’

‘Practice. An’…’ She pinched her nose between thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the secret.

‘Cooper,’ I heard a voice say behind me. ‘That you?’

Sugar shifted her focus, smiled her dreamy smile and said, ‘Hi, ’Bama. Hey, why don’t you come on in, join the fun. There’s always room for one more. We can order some drinks, have us a party.’

‘Hello, Sugar.’

Shit, Alabama… I felt a pang of guilt about what had just happened. I turned and the woman was standing behind me looking kinda… was it angry? Disappointed? How long had she been there? What had she seen? Did I really care? I knew how she felt about Sugar so, yeah, maybe I did care.

‘You mind if Mr Cooper and I talk in private for just a minute?’ Alabama asked Sugar, a firm no-nonsense tone in her voice.

‘Sure, why not? You look nice, ’Bama.’

She did. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore a floral-pattern cotton sundress, the hemline riding somewhere up around Canada. White sandals were on her tan feet, the straps lined with rhinestones — what else.

‘I’ll see you later,’ said Sugar, kissing me on the cheek. She waved to us both and swam off.

I lifted myself out of the pool, the concrete scorching hot against the palms of my hands.

‘Can I get you folks a drink?’ asked a waitress who materialized beside us.

I could use something. I checked with Alabama. She was wringing her hands and perhaps that look on her face was anxiety and nothing to do with what she might have seen happening in the pool.

‘You okay?’ I asked her. ‘Can we get out of the sun?’ she said, and headed for the bar without looking back. ‘Scotch — a double — no ice,’ she told the barkeep when she arrived.

He lifted an eyebrow at me. ‘Same, with rocks,’ I said.

‘They’ve found him.’ Alabama took off her sunglasses, her eyes red and raw — worse than I remembered from the morning.

I didn’t need to ask who, so I asked where.

‘His plane… it crashed in Australia, after all. Came down in some swamp. Morrow called me half an hour ago. He got a call from the FAA.’

I pulled my phone and saw there were two missed calls — from Morrow and Alabama. I had to ask the painful question. ‘Was his body found with the plane?’

‘No.’ Alabama upended her glass and drank the scotch in a single gulp. She put the glass on the counter and gestured for another. ‘No body.’

My cell started ringing. The window told me it was a local Vegas number. I excused myself and answered it.

‘Cooper? Bozey,’ said the voice in the speaker.

‘Hey.’ I walked a little away from the bar.

‘Just letting you know I got a call from the FAA about your friend Sweetwater.’

I was wondering how the FAA knew who to call when Bozey added, ‘I’d only just gotten off the phone to aviation authorities, following up on the inquiries arising from the meeting with you and Alabama.’

‘Just heard the news myself,’ I said. ‘No body, apparently.’

‘No. A place called Darwin’s the nearest city. The local PD is out looking. Tricky countryside.’

‘A swamp, I heard.’

‘A wildlife sanctuary.’

‘What sort of wildlife they got there? Koala bears?’

‘Didn’t ask. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted if anything else turns up.’

The line went dead. I turned back to the bar in time to see Alabama throwing her head back, downing a scotch. Assuming it was another double, that would make it half a dozen shots in less than five minutes.

‘Vegas PD heard,’ I told her.

‘He’s still alive. I know it.’

I nodded, not as convinced as she was about that. And given her level of anxiety, maybe she wasn’t so sure either.

‘He could have crawled away, got lost or something.’ Alabama’s speech was starting to slur, along with her reason.

I ordered another scotch for myself and a club soda for her. My confidence that I would be able to see this through to some kind of positive conclusion was fading fast. Randy was down in a swamp eight thousand miles away, surrounded by wild koalas, and I had no doubt that he was dead, or about to be, which also meant that the mystery around the severed hand and the ransom was moot. There wasn’t a lot I could do to help, except maybe pay the bar bill. I put some cash on the counter.

Alabama wrapped a hand around the club soda that had appeared on the bar. ‘I saw you and Sugar, y’know,’ she said, her eyes flat.

I swallowed. Guilty.

‘I knew she’d get to you. Men are so stupid.’

That was a hard one to argue with.

‘Did she ask you about Randy and me while she was doing you?’

Her mouth was under water at the time, and otherwise too engaged to ask questions, but I knew what she meant. ‘No, she didn’t,’ I lied.

‘Bullshit.’ Alabama looked at her half-glass of club soda and then back at me. Maybe she was considering whether or not to throw it over me. She put the glass down heavily on the counter, spilling some of its contents. ‘I can’t blame you. I’d just love to know what it is about me that makes her so competitive. And you should ask yourself — why you?’

‘Why me?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly her type. No offense, but she likes pretty boys with money.’

‘None taken.’ I didn’t tell her Sugar thought I had a big motor.

Alabama’s eyes crossed momentarily, as if she was grappling with a puzzle. ‘You’re no oil painting, Cooper,’ she said, in case I’d misunderstood.

I’d asked myself the same question Alabama was asking: why me? Maybe I shouldn’t have been satisfied with the answer Sugar had provided.

‘Thanks for nothing, Cooper,’ she said suddenly and walked off a little unsteadily into the hot sun.

The barman took our glasses, wiped the counter and shook his head at me, unimpressed. I countered his look with a mind-your-own-business-pal look of my own, and went back to the pool. A half-hearted attempt to find Sugar failed. She was nowhere around. I’d had enough sun so I picked up my things and handed my lounge chair over to a college girl hovering nearby.

There was a flight back East at seven forty-five the following morning, so I booked it. Nothing more could be done for Alabama, not by me at least, and the scene at the bar left me with the feeling that my welcome was worn out anyway. I decided to avoid the morning panic and check out that evening. There was no queue at reception so I went straight up to the clerk behind the computer, gave her my room number, answered the usual questions about the minibar and so forth, and listened to the beguiling magical bells of a bank of Sleeping Beauties down in the pit while she tallied my account. After reviewing a few forms and clattering away on the keyboard, she announced, ‘It’s already been settled, sir.’

‘The bill?’

‘Yep, you’re all square.’

‘Who paid it?’

‘Ms Alabama Thornton.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. I pulled out my cell and dialed my benefactor’s number as I drifted toward the dormitory of Sleeping Beauties. ‘Alabama, it’s Cooper.’

‘Hello.’

‘I just went to pay my hotel bill but you beat me to it. You didn’t need to do that.’ Silence. ‘Alabama?’

‘Yes, I did. You didn’t need to come here. You felt obliged.’ The tightness in her voice told me she’d been doing plenty more crying.

‘I was happy to help out.’

‘It’s over. Randy’s gone. You’re… you’re free to go.’

I hadn’t realized there was a lock on the door. ‘Okay, but let me buy you dinner, at least.’

‘I have a show to do tonight. Another time.’ Her tone suggested another time might well be when folks were ice skating in hell.

‘I wish it could have worked out different,’ I said.

‘Me too.’

Silence.

‘Okay, well — goodbye,’ I said, not a lot more to say.

‘Sugar has split.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Sugar. She up and left — back to wherever it was she came from in the first place. Handed in her notice this afternoon; didn’t give a reason. Maybe when she heard about Randy, that he was… she just… I suppose she just lost interest.’

Was Randy’s death the motivation for Sugar’s departure? Maybe it was. The news of the crash had been made public after my rubdown in the pool. Sugar certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving. ‘If there’s something I can do for you, Alabama, just let me know.’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘And thanks — I mean that.’ There was a change in her tone that told me she did in fact mean it this time around. ‘What are you going to do? Stay in Vegas?’

‘No, think I’ll head home tomorrow.’

‘If you want to see a show, I can get free tickets to Celine Dion…’

Celine Dion? ‘Thanks. Think I’ll pass,’ I said. ‘I’m just gonna hang around the pit here at Bally’s, drink too much and lose all my money.’

There was a pause. I imagined a smile flickering briefly on Alabama’s lips.

‘Hey, if you’re ever in DC, look me up,’ I said.

‘I will, Vin… Bye.’

The call ended. I hooked the cell under my chin, retrieved from my wallet the card Sugar had given me. I dialed and an automated voice answered: ‘The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.’

I took the advice but got the same result. Sugar’s phone number was a dead end. Maybe it had never been connected. I hadn’t dialed it before now so I couldn’t be sure either way, not without getting official about it. I gave a mental shrug. Sugar didn’t strike me as the reliable type. Maybe that’s what she did — blew in, blew a lucky special agent when she could find one, and blew out. I went to the machine that turns Ben Franklin into Abe Lincolns, stuffed the wad of cash in my pocket and went off to play the slots via the bar for a single malt.

The Sleeping Beauties were calling me, those magical bells a seductive lure. The theme here was that Ms Beauty was waiting for Prince Charming to come along and roll a row of kisses so that she could be awakened from her slumber and, presumably, shower the lucky royal with riches. Those magic-dust twinkles I’d been hearing almost everywhere since I arrived greeted my bills as the slot gobbled them up.

I won fifty-five bucks and lost ninety. Maybe I wasn’t charming enough. It took me another six hours and a forgotten number of single malts to lose the four hundred I had in my pocket. I was hunting for a Ulysses S. Grant — I was sure I still had one on me — when fingers grabbed my arm and spun me around. It was Alabama, I think. I peered at her through my Glen Keith glasses. Yes, it was her. I recognized those red eyes.

‘Been looking for you. You’re drunk,’ she said.

‘An’ you’re Ala… Alababama,’ I slurred. ‘Whuz up?’

‘They found Randy.’

‘What time’s it?’ I squinted at my Seiko.

‘One in the morning. I got a call from your police friend a couple of hours ago. He left a message.’

I took out my cell, which had inadvertently been switched to mute. There were three missed calls, one from Bozey several hours ago and two recent ones from Alabama. There was also a text from the detective. I read the message. Sweetwater fnd. Not good. Call me 2mara.

‘They want me to go to Australia and… and…’ She brought her hand to her face and cried behind it. I did my best to sober up while she got herself under control. ‘They want me to go and identify the remains.’

Remains. Bozey was right — not good.

The news had sobered me up a little. She leaned forward against me. I put my arms around her, her face hot and wet against my neck, and rubbed her back gently. ‘Can you go?’ she asked.

‘Go where?’

‘I can’t do it. I don’t want to go; don’t want to see him. I’ll pay your expenses. Please, can you go?’

To Australia? ‘What about relatives, next of kin?’ I asked.

‘Randy didn’t have any. He was alone in the world.’ I felt her body shudder, wracked with mostly silent sobs.

So the guy was like me: no living relatives. That wasn’t so tragic, and there were advantages — no awkward Christmases, no irrelevant birthday presents to buy or receive or regift.

‘I want to remember him the way he was. You met him. You can sign the forms.’

I wasn’t so keen, and I wasn’t so sure my signature would be accepted, not being Randy’s spouse or next of kin. Did he have any tattoos or scars? And Darwin was halfway to the moon.

‘Please…’