The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (17 page)

That’s why he never heard the shot that put a hole through the front of Elmo Yorke’s expensive designer golf cap and dropped a large gobbet of his frontal lobe into the cup on the ninth hole.

Chapter 6

In a warped kind of way, Benjamin Peabody was an ethical man with a certain morality. It wasn’t what one did, so much as to whom one did it. So while punters were fair game, partners and collaborators were always treated with scrupulous and transparent fair play, and Benjamin was extremely anxious that his good reputation be maintained in that regard. However, in this particular case, it wasn’t his reputation he was concerned about. It was his testicles.

From the outset, getting involved with Zalupa had looked like a path fraught with risk, and perhaps even danger, but right now it was looking like riding blindfolded though a minefield on a monocycle, with a stick of dynamite jammed up his ass and a pyromaniac chasing him with a Zippo.

And it wasn’t that he was concerned about Zalupa believing him about what had happened. He knew that Zalupa would not distinguish between dishonesty and incompetence. To Zalupa it would be simple. Benjamin had lost the egg, and so he was going to lose his own eggs.

He looked out over the lake. The sky was overcast and moody and the water dull and leaden. He looked at his reflection. He sighed. It sighed back at him in agreement. They both looked like shit. Well, nobody could be expected to look their best after a sleepless night of desperation and despair mingled with a considerable proportion of abject terror, washed down with a bottle and a half of Tanqueray. As he raised his glass to his lips and poured the gin down his gullet, the fragrance of Rive Gauche wafted over him. He looked up. The woman was even more radiant than before, but his reserve tank of
joie de vivre
had sprung a leak and he could not summon the will to even return her dazzling smile.

At least, not until she said, “Hey, Benny. Want your egg back?”

When it came to balancing acts, Fanny made the amazing Blondin look like an amateur. She had Benjamin Peabody so finely balanced between frustration and ecstasy that he didn’t know whether he wanted a shit or a haircut. Using silk stockings as ligatures, she had him bound hand and foot to his bed in the Sissi Suite at the Beau Rivage, and he was drooling like Pavlov’s dog. She was tantalizingly tickling the end of his penis with one erect nipple, letting her hair gently flagellate his agitated nuts.

“
Now, Benny,” she purred, “you’ve been a very naughty boy. You lied to mama.”

“
I didn’t I did I mean I did but I didn’t I mean when I said it it was true and now it isn’t what I mean is oh Christ I can’t stand it.”

“
Did you see it?”

Benjamin moaned and tried to squirm closer. Fanny moved away.

“
No-no-no,” she said, her voice rising a semitone with each repetition. “Did you see it?”

“
Yes, yes, oh God, yes. I saw it. I saw it.”

“
And…?”

“
It’s magnificent, incomparable, glorious, spellbinding, oh, come on, come I want to come, don’t. Stop, don’t stop.”

Fanny placed her lips against Benjamin’s bell-end, and with excruciating slowness spread them and engulfed him like an amoeba devouring its prey. Benjamin went rigid. Fanny stopped. She stood up. Benjamin whimpered. Fanny squatted over him. She opened herself with her fingers. A divine scent wafted over him, and it wasn’t any damned Rive Gauche.

“
You want this, Benjamin,” she cooed.

“
Oh, yes yes yes, a thousand times fucking yes, come on, you bitch, this is fucking torture.”

“
Okay, Benjamin. It’s all yours. But first I want something from you.”

“
Name it, name it it’s yours, what is—what do you want?”

“
An introduction.”

“
Who to?”

“
Khuy Zalupa.”

Benjamin felt his euphoria punctured. Fanny put her cool hand on his shaft to keep him focused.

“
No, no, not him. You’re insane. He’s evil. He lives for pain. You’re mad. I won’t do it.”

Fanny stood up. “Okay. See ya. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Benjamin watched Fanny’s delectable fanny undulating toward the bathroom, over the top of his throbbing knob.

“
No, wait, wait. Come back. I’ll introduce you to someone else. Anyone. Rod Stewart, Prince Charles, the Pope, I’ll get you into Studio 54, anything, please.”

Fanny turned. She stared pointedly at Benjamin’s dick. “Khuy Zalupa,” she said.

“
Okay, okay. I’ll do it.”

“
Good boy,” she said. She slinked back over to the bed and lowered herself down onto Benjamin. He slipped into bliss, succumbing to a sublime helplessness and, hoping fervently that he wasn’t going to die in the next ten seconds, closed his eyes in anticipation of the joyous, joyful release. Something tapped him on the forehead. He opened his eyes. It was a cell phone.

“
Now,” Fanny said.

“
Are you fucking crazy? Are you out of your fucking m…”

The sensation of Fanny sliding off him congealed the words in his throat. He snatched the phone, and hit the button. Fanny began to bob up and down, almost imperceptibly, like a yacht at anchor in a sleepy lagoon. The four rings seemed like four centuries.

“
Da
,
pizda
. What you want?”

“
The egg.”

“
What about egg? Where is?”

“
I have it. Don’t worry. But I have someone here that wants to meet you. Maybe she could deliver it?”

“
You sound weird. What is wrong wid voice? Sound like cat strangle.”

“
Oh, er, nothing, nothing. Just a touch of asthma.”

“
So who is
devotchka
?”

“
She’s a, er, a friend. Famous, actually. She’s a writer. Fanny Lemming.”

“
Ah. I know name. Read book once. See picture. Have
bolshoi
bazongas,
da
?”

Benjamin looked up to where Fanny’s majestic mounds burgeoned in front of his eyes. “Er, why yes, they are rather, er,
bolshoi
, yes.”

“
Davai
. Why not? Tell her bring egg to New Orleans. Lundi place. On Friday. I wait.”

The phone went dead. Fanny took it from his hand. She smiled down at him. Benny beamed back.

“
There’s a good boy,” she said, allowing her full weight to descend on him, “and now you get what you deserve.”

Benjamin closed his eyes and waited, transported and consumed, the whole world reduced to six inches of scintillating sensation.

Fanny leapt to her feet like a gymnast, roughly yanking herself off. Benjamin watched, speechless and mortified as he stared from his dingus to Fanny and back again, watching aghast as she grabbed her clothes, lithely slid into her dress, and headed for the door.

Geneva being Geneva, the Swiss cops don’t get to see all that much action, so they were actually quite pleased when the concierge of the Beau Rivage called them to say that there was some kind of nut job going apeshit in his room and keeping everybody awake.

***

Elyssia Marron stared down dispassionately at the prostrate, naked figure of Baby Joe. A flicker of
tristesse
flew across her soul. He was a passionate and skillful lover. And he was a beautiful man. Not in any conventional sense, but beautiful in the way that a pit bull is beautiful. It was a shame that he had to die. Under different circumstances…?

She banished such thoughts from her mind. Lundi had ordered it; therefore it must be done. She took the straight razor from her pocketbook and held it up to the light. She saw her own face reflected in the bright sheen of evil intent that gleamed from the naked bulb in the ceiling.
What must be done must be done. Get it over with.
Not deep, Lundi had said. Just deep enough to cut the tendons. To incapacitate. He must be alive. He must bear witness. She approached the bed and straddled Baby Joe. As she did so, she felt him stir. She looked down. Why not? What difference did it make? She reached down and touched herself and put her wet finger to Baby Joe’s nose, and when he became fully proud she squatted over him and guided him into her and began to slowly gyrate her hips, and when her nostrils flared and her pupils dilated and the great wave crested inside her and began to break on the shore, she took the blade of the straight razor and pressed it against the jugular of Baby Joe Young.

Baby Joe Young reached up, grabbed her wrist, and broke it. She tried to scream but he punched her in the solar plexus and the wind whooshed out of her lungs so that she had none left to express the pain that she felt.

Baby Joe flipped her over. He entered her from behind, holding her broken wrist behind her back. He felt evil. He knew it was wrong. He knew that what he was doing was contrary to everything he believed to be true about himself. He didn’t give a nun’s cunt about what he believed to be true about himself. The bitch had been going to kill him. And if she killed him, she killed Asia. He was going to fuck her to save the woman that he loved. Under the circumstances, he might be forgiven for the logic. She screamed as he spent himself, but that might have had something to do with her broken wrist.

Baby Joe pulled out, grabbed Elyssia by the hair, and dragged her to the floor. He put the razor against her eye.

“
One chance. The fucking truth. Where, and when?”

“
The back of beyond. At midnight.”

The razor drew a drop of blood from her eyelid. “I admire your
sang-froid
, but you lose this eye with your next breath if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

“
No. No, please. I’m telling you the truth. It’s a place. A clearing in the swamp. Hard ground. That’s where they do it. I swear. I’ll take you there myself.”

Baby Joe moved the blade away from her eye and stood up. He pointed to the phone. “Call someone, and tell them to take me.”

Baby Joe dressed, listening carefully for any inflection in her voice as Elyssia gave instructions to whomever she was speaking to. She hung up.

“
Downstairs. Ten minutes. A blue Olds.”

Baby Joe walked up to her. She tried to back away, but he grabbed her arm. “When I leave, you’ll call.”

“
I won’t. I promise.”

“
You promise?”

“
Yes.”

“
Okay then.” Baby Joe started to walk toward the door.

“
I don’t understand,” she said. “The drink. It always works.”

“
I’m Irish. We don’t drink that shit. Try Guinness next time. Does your wrist hurt?”

“
Yes.”

“
Come here.”

As Elyssia Marron walked toward him, Baby Joe took a light but firm grip on the shank of the razor. As he stepped forward, his conscience yelled at him not to do it. He didn’t listen.

***

“
Bjorn Eggen, ya bladdy mongrel. ’Owarya?”

“
Hello, Wally. How are you?”

“
Ah, ripper, mate. Fair fucken dinkum for a wrinkled old bastard, I say. So what’s up, you old fart? What’s all this shit I ’ear about you peggin’ out?”