459: Framed in Red - Book #2 in the Mike Montego Series

DEDICATION

For my departed friend,

Glenn Souza

A helluva vice cop and a friend

when a friend was needed.

Mike Montego novels

by Jess Waid

Shades of Blue

459 - Framed in Red

The Purple Hand

He Blew Blue Jazz

Circle of Yellow

Kona Gold

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the ever-witty Terry Harper for helping me flesh out some of the characters in 459. The suggestions and support of my editor, Randy Morse, were invaluable and much appreciated. And a special thank you to my loving and beautiful wife, Barbara, who supported me throughout the writing of this novel. I’m a lucky man.

"Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once."

Macbeth. Act III Sc. 4 Line 119

CHAPTER ONE

The sun shown high in the cerulean southern California sky. The lightly sweating runner also high.

Following the well-paved, winding roadway along the mountain ridge, deep-breathing Mike Montego reached his turnaround point on Mulholland, just west of Outpost Drive. He bent forward, hands on bare knees, catching his breath as he paused to look down on the sprawling city rapidly filling the coastal basin below. Although a bright day, smog partially shrouded City Hall, at 434 feet the tallest building in Los Angeles, but up here atop the Hollywood Hills, the faintly eucalyptus-scented air he gulped tasted fresh as a young starlet’s lips.

Montego continued to suck deep, filling his lungs, grateful for the release he felt, that familiar feeling he always got when he ran hard, that feeling that gently pushed aside the lingering heaviness of having killed a man nineteen days ago. And not just any man—Montego had killed a fellow cop.

Today, Tuesday, April 10, 1962, Montego’s last day on RFD. The LAPD doled out relieved from duty status stingily, usually reserving it for family bereavement. A cop, even a certifiably insane cop, was family, after all. So Montego had accepted the two weeks off-duty with an acceptant stoicism.

He would be back in uniform tomorrow, back on the beat, demons be damned. It would take more than a couple of weeks off the job to assuage the guilt he still felt, to quiet the critical chorus that constantly sang slightly off-key in his head. It would take more than simply shedding his blue uniform for a few days to shut them up. He shrugged his shirtless shoulders; glad to be staying in the sweet air for a few more blessed hours.

Montego shook his arms, looked ahead up the camel-colored hill, then continued pounding the winding hot pavement, heading for his mother’s house, his girlfriend, and a light lunch.

As he ran, he forced himself to drag some of the things that were bothering him to the surface, to lay them out in plain view for a moment, the sorts of things he seldom confronted head-on, the sorts of things that stayed parked in the recesses of his brain, disturbing his sleep at night, roiling his gut during the day.

There was his gal, Julie. Things were better now with her. He’d accepted the strawberry blonde for what she clearly was, a gorgeous, smart, compassionate, astonishingly passionate woman who, amazingly enough, seemed to love him. His past, her past, neither mattered. Julie, his Julie, was now.

Then there was the cop—a completely crazed serial killer. Montego felt certain there was nothing he could have done to prevent killing the psychotic, enraged, murderous guy whom he’d liked, and who had come oh-so-close to killing Montego instead. Still, it seemed almost impossible that neither he nor any of the other officers who worked with him on a daily basis had an inkling of the pool of darkness that lay in the sick officer’s soul. Was there a sign, some slightly out of character statement or behavior that Montego had missed?

His mind drifted a bit as he gazed at the varying hilltop views but he kept up the pace that allowed him to run sub-three-hour marathons. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking of cops. He’d also worked with a dirty cop who’d managed to get himself killed recently in a suspicious double homicide along with a prolific burglar, and with a sergeant who liked getting his cock sucked by other men in public washrooms.

What a department. What a world.

Just because a man wore a uniform didn’t mean he couldn’t be a dick. His stepfather, Steve Buckingham, proved that. An L.A. fireman, Captain Buckingham was completely anal, to the point of absurdity. Montego’s mother had been married to the man for over nine years now. She had learned, as so many women of her generation did, to keep her mouth shut when necessary, to work around the edges of their relationship when required. Which probably explained why she usually chose to phone her son from her office, Room 1108, City Hall, where she worked for the L.A. Fire and Police Pension System, rather than from home. Every time she rang him from work, Montego could immediately smell the place, feel the green carpet under his knees, the one he’d crawled on so often as a rug rat twenty years earlier.

He continued running, now a brief dip in the pavement, then another steady uphill. Swiping a forearm across his brow as he ran, his thoughts drifted again. Today the Dodgers played their season opener. He saw himself in the new stadium in Chavez Ravine, taking in the sights and sounds, quaffing a couple of beers, stuffing down a mustard-slathered hot dog, munching on a bag of roasted peanuts, the spring ritual he’d cherished since being a punk kid watching the Angels play at old Wrigley Field.

He’d love to be there today, but he wanted to see his mom before she and good ol’ Steve took off on their vacation tomorrow—and thankfully, Steve wasn’t home this afternoon.

Platoon A, stationed on the west side, had the shift. Instead, Montego would go to tomorrow’s game—he’d miss Johnny Podres, today’s starter, but tomorrow the Dodger pitcher on the mound would be Sandy Koufax, the sensational left-hander who batted right. Montego had played ball against the next man in the rotation, Don Drysdale, during their senior year in high school. That year the Unified School District decided Hollywood High, a Western League member, would join the Valley League. So, he and his HHS teammates found themselves playing against Van Nuys High, and Drysdale was their featured pitcher. A gangly kid named Bobby Redford played second base for Van Nuys. Montego heard Redford had his eye on the movies. What the hell, he wasn’t that great of a ballplayer.

The movies. If Montego hadn’t wanted so badly to become a homicide detective, he would have tried his hand at cinematography. Better to be behind the camera than in front of it as far as he was concerned.

Redford. Drysdale. Koufax. The Dodgers. Baseball.

Getting the new stadium built hadn’t been easy. Most of the people living in the vicinity of the proposed stadium were poor, and Mexican. A very bad combo in L.A. Many of the good citizens of Los Angeles viewed the barrio of Chavez Ravine as an eyesore and a slum, a haphazard collection of shabby shanties deserving of demolition. Hundreds of Mexican-American Angelinos, however, called it home. At one point, the noted Hispanic actor Cris-Pin Martin, who played the Cisco Kid’s sidekick, Gordito (Fatty), got involved. Martin lived on a peak in the ravine in an elaborate Spanish Revival villa. He often walked the narrow streets below his mansion, greeting his people, people like the Arechiga family, like a Mexican godfather.

On the day they were to be evicted, the Arechigas—four adults and three children—barricaded themselves inside their modest home. Three sheriff’s deputies kicked in the door, and one of the Arechiga daughters, Aurora, a war widow, went limp and was forcibly carried down the front stairs, journalists’ cameras clicking as nearby bulldozers moved in to take down the house. Other Arechigas, and some of their neighbors, scuffled with the deputies. One of them, a woman, was handcuffed and taken to a squad car. Throughout the melee, the Arechigas children cried hysterically.

It made for a sensational story, a story Mike Montego followed closely, thanks to his heritage. His father was born in Concordia, Mexico, east of Mazatlan, which caused him to root for the Arechigas. His mother, the daughter of Norwegian parents, was born in the middle of Montana on a sheep ranch. That part of him looked guiltily forward to baseball played in a spectacular new stadium.

Nothing’s easy, he thought as he moved to the crushed granite shoulder to allow a green sedan to pass, a four-door he immediately recognized as an unmarked police car.

Continuing along Allenwood Road, he headed down to Laurel Pass, where he would make a loop and return to Mulholland Drive.

His mind, lingering on baseball and the struggles of Mexican-Californians, got interrupted by an automobile’s slamming door off to his left as he passed Coreyell Place. He saw that it was the same plain-green car that had passed him earlier. Curious, he stopped by an acacia tree and watched.

Two men—detectives, he knew them by sight—exited the vehicle wearing similar sport coats and brown slacks. The driver, taller and dark-haired, had removed what looked like a medium-sized framed painting from the trunk. Montego recognized his old Hollywood High classmate, the smarmily suave Danny Kahei. His shorter partner, thuggish Charlie Thane, blond hair, and heavier than Kahei. They worked the division’s burglary squad. Thane grasped the painting from Kahei and put it with several others leaning against the sedan as Kahei closed the trunk lid.

The duo carried the paintings toward a residence. At that point a tall, burgundy-colored, willowy hopseed bush blocked Montego’s vision.

It was not that unusual to see detective cars on his beat, but it was definitely out of the ordinary to see detectives carrying paintings into a house that neither lived in.

They could simply be returning stolen property, but he had serious doubts about that. LAPD protocol required victims of theft to come to the station property room to personally sign for any items of theirs that had been recovered. If no one showed up to claim them, the items eventually went to public auction. Besides, Montego mused, there had always been something not quite right about the phony-acting Kahei. Even as a teenager, the guy sported a Cheshire grin that smacked of scamming.

Montego turned away and resumed jogging, his mind now spinning, now occupied with uncomfortable thoughts of Kahei and Thane.

Nearing the end of a hilly ten-mile run, he looked forward to cooling off with a long swim in the large, meticulously maintained (thanks to good ol’, a place for everything and everything in its place Steve) Buckingham pool. The fairly new home with its red-tiled roof was less than a mile east of his present location on Mulholland Terrace.

Forty-five minutes and fifty laps or so across the pool later, Montego’s mind was back on Kahei and Thane. Seeing the two dicks hauling paintings from their car to the house on the cul de sac troubled him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen their unmarked unit parked on the narrow streets of his beat. What the hell were they up to?

Montego decided that after the swim he’d jot down today’s observations. It was a habit of his—one never knew how such notes might pay off in the future. It’d certainly paid off in the past. Besides, his long-held suspicions regarding Danny Kahei added to his gut feeling that something about what he had seen today wasn’t right.

Flip-turning into what he decided would be his final lap, he kicked harder, as if speeding up the swim would return him to duty sooner. He was anxious to get back into uniform, to buckle up his Sam Browne belt, and feel the satisfying weight of his blue-steel Colt Python on his left hip. From now on he’d wear a cross-draw, a more secure setup during close combat situations, a hard lesson learned in his recent death struggle with a cop gone psycho.

As Montego hauled himself, dripping, from the pool, he heard Julie call from the kitchen. Come and get it, Mike.

He grabbed a towel from the back of a deck chair and did a quick dry-off. Visions of Julie’s lithe, naked body writhing beneath him, her tawny arms pulling him into her liquid warmth danced in his head as he padded toward the sliding glass doors. Although nothing would happen with his mom present, it certainly beat thinking about crazed and crooked cops, he thought ruefully as he slid open a door and called out, Here I come.

CHAPTER TWO

Montego stared blankly ahead into his open locker as he buttoned up his dark blue uniform shirt. A booming How’s it going, Mike? snapped him out of his reverie.

Recognizing the distinctive deep voice, he replied without looking up, Was good until I saw tonight’s assignment board.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" asked KW Deal in a mock-alarmed tone, as he opened a nearby olive green-colored metal locker. The burly black cop and Montego had fought tooth and nail for the physical fitness class championship during their three months of training at the LAPD Academy. Montego barely edged Deal for the top spot. It had taken a new record to beat his formidable rival.

Thought I’d be working with Larry Titus, the future deputy DA, a man of emerging importance—but instead, I get stuck with your sorry ebony butt.

Montego threw a wadded rag at his pal. The man looked a hell of a lot like the Browns running back and league MVP Jim Brown. Montego still couldn’t believe he had beaten KW for the Academy crown. Must’ve cheated somehow, he thought suspiciously.

KW swatted the wad back in Montego’s general direction. Very funny Tonto, always the wiseacre.

It was Montego’s own doing, the Tonto tag. As a weekday boarder kid raised by strict foster parents, a single swear meant a mouthful of green Palmolive soap. He had soon learned to avoid the shits, damns, and worst of all, the fucks his buddies regularly tossed around. He replaced these conventional weapons in most boys’ spoken arsenals with the catchall phrase, "tanto peor," meaning so much the worse in Spanish. Not quite as punchy perhaps as fuckin’ hell, but it did the job, and kept that bar of Palmolive on the bathroom sink where it belonged. Mostly he’d simply say, "tanto. English-speakers heard tonto," and the tag was born.

Just to show you how truly pleased I am to be working with you, Kay Dub, I’ll do the log tonight.

Montego preferred to drive, but then so did KW. Wednesdays might be hump days for civilians, but not so much for cops. For the blue-suits, every day was pretty much the same. And even if the middle of the week was sometimes a bit slower, Montego and Deal worked the mid-watch, which took up the last part of the P.M. watch and the first part of the A.M. watch—1815 to 0300 hours, usually the hot hours on the street, regardless of what day it was.

As it turned out, the early part of their watch this evening was almost free of radio calls. KW and Montego each wrote one greenie, a traffic citation, to keep the field sergeant off their backs. If they’d been working Traffic Enforcement Division, it would have taken a ticket every hour to satisfy the supervisor. Happily, that was the TED motor cops’ problem, not theirs. Montego was reminded of the framed saying in needlepoint that hung over his mom’s kitchen sink, made by some dour, distant relative from Trondheim—Det er aldri så gallt att det ikke kunne vaere verre— It’s never so bad that it couldn’t be worse. Ah, those happy-go-lucky Lutherans. Gracias Dios he was half Mexican.

He and KW took their Code Seven, a 45-minute meal break, at the Melody Lane on Hollywood and Vine. To the men of the LAPD, Hollywood Boulevard was simply known as the Boulevard. Lump it together with Sunset, and you had, surprise, the Boulevards.

—so Duke Snider got the Dodgers’ first hit. Then Wally Post spoiled our party. Hit a three-run homer offa Podres in the Seventh, Montego said, as he swallowed the last of his cheeseburger. He licked some ketchup from his fingers, then wiped them with a paper napkin for good measure before balling it and dropping it on the table.

Koufax should kick some ass tomorrow, he said, pulling several Washingtons from his worn brown leather wallet.

They paid their bills, and KW led the way outside to their black-and-white. Montego had just cleared their unit with Communications when they got a call.

"Six Adam Eleven—four-five-nine silent at the jewelry store—sixty-six thirty-eight Hollywood Boulevard —Adam Eleven, handle Code Two."

Montego rogered the silent burglar alarm call, and re-hooked the hand-mic as KW sped them south on Vine to Selma, then west. Five blocks later he turned north on Cherokee. During the drive they discussed how they would cover the store’s perimeter. The routine procedure was for one man to take the front, the other the rear. In this case it meant losing eye contact with one another, but they had little choice. The wall-to-wall stores prevented positioning on diagonal corners, the preferred tactic when covering a building suspected of having burglars inside.

They quickly agreed Montego would take the rear. If there were no signs of forced entry at the front, KW would hustle to the rear, where a break-in seemed most likely.

"Watch your cinnamon ass, Kemo Sabe," KW chided.

Montego grinned as he bailed from the prowler and headed to the rear of the target site. The jewelry store was set back farther from the alley than the rear walls of most of the other adjacent shops. He raced around the nearest structure, then into a recessed area leading to the back of the target store.

All seemed quiet, but his gut tightened, warning him to slow down. He crept forward, casting his powerful flashlight beam about. Closing on the store, he spotted the rear steel door. It was ajar. He saw and heard no activity. Burglars normally weren’t armed, but far better safe than sorry. He quietly drew his 6-inch Python.

Without hesitating, and suspecting the suspect or suspects were long gone, he cautiously entered through the open door.

His light illuminated display cases, their shattered glass doors in glittering shards on the floor, mixed with scattered pieces of jewelry, mostly cosmetic paste he suspected. Then he spotted the open combination-lock safe. He moved to it and saw it had been cleaned out. He noted no sign of forced entry.

He hurried to the front to alert KW, stepping as he went on what felt like chunks of glass. When he failed to hear a crunch, he stopped and shone his light down. All that glitters is not glass—cosmetic paste this wasn’t—his light revealed dozens of cut diamonds sparkling on the wooden floor at his feet. He wondered if any of them had stuck to the soles of his shoes.

The burglars were in a hell of a hurry to leave.

He checked to make sure none of the diamonds had hitched a ride on his rippled soles, then continued to the front of the store. He flashed a narrow beam through the large plate glass window. KW returned the flash, and turned away.

After checking the rest of the store interior, he stepped out through the rear entry just as KW pulled up. Jumping from the squad car, he rushed toward Montego.

Whatcha got, Tonto?

"The place has been hit—rear door was unlocked—it opens out, no sign it was the entry point, likely a roof job. Found the manager’s phone number by the cash register. I’ll call the station, have Rosy make the notification."

David Rosy Rosenbloom, the desk officer, also happened to be Montego’s landlord.

Pacing to the four-door prowler, Montego switched to a tactical frequency, and radioed Hollywood station. The desk officer responded and took down the information. When Rosenbloom learned there were diamonds scattered around on the store floor, he readily agreed the night-watch duty detective should be the one to respond to the scene.

Montego returned to the store’s rear doorway, where KW leaned against the wall.

Rosy’s got the dicks coming.

This four-five-nine kinda reminds me of Reilly and Sleepy Lee Toyles, said KW.

Oh? How’s that?

Never told you, ’cause Reilly’s no longer with us, but I’m pretty sure he was spottin’ the Toyles dude whenever he capered. If Sleepy Lee set off a ringer, Renny would respond in a black-and-white and cover Sleepy’s sorry ass. Don’t know what he had against that burglar, Boler, tho’.

Renny Reilly was a royal dickwad and a rogue cop, but he’s gone, man. You can’t play with seriously bad guys like Freddie Boler, and not expect to get your dumb ass shot off, Montego said.

The fatal Reilly-Boler shoot-out still bothered him. Reilly wasn’t exactly a pillar of police virtue, and Boler was a blemish on Society’s rear-end, so all in all it was a somewhat better world without them. But Montego couldn’t help being a curious cop. The notion that the two of them had somehow managed to blow each other away, at close range, just didn’t sit well with him.

Moments later, Sergeant Edwin Schaebler, their field supervisor, arrived. Montego explained what they had found. Schaebler said nothing, merely cold-eyed KW, then entered the darkened store, apparently to look around. Montego and KW waited outside, exchanging knowing looks. Neither cared for the surly three-striper. Their dislike had deepened after KW had spied him in plain clothes getting his cock sucked through a hole in a Griffith Park public toilet stall. Each to his own, but Schaebler was, after all, supposed to be a leader of men.

There were only two things that prevented KW from calling out the sergeant: the three stripes on the odd guy’s upper arms, and the color of his skin. KW was a lowly patrolman, and the only black cop in the division. Enough said. For the time being.

Montego studied his partner. Deal slouched back against the building’s faded brick wall, pulled the brim of his hat down slightly, and sly-eyed his partner as if to say, His time’ll come, Tonto, his time will come.

That might be true, Montego thought, but it couldn’t come soon enough as far as he was concerned.

KW filled the spot vacated by Montego’s previous partner, Trev. The strikingly handsome Brannock had been unceremoniously yanked into the Vice Unit, the result of Captain Collier Stone announcing all the pimps and prostitutes working the Boulevard must be moved into West Hollywood, where they would become the county sheriff’s problem. Good riddance. Chamber of Commerce politics. Business owners had voiced concern about aggressive hookers scaring away tourists, and tourism was the lifeblood for many shops in the area. A clear case of fucking, fucking things up. The C of C had plenty of political clout, and Stone was nothing if not a political animal.

Too bad, really, Montego felt. If Brannock had to work Vice, his good looks would be put to better use helping to clean up the sweet boys working on and around Selma Avenue. The more outrageous homos took keen delight in flaunting their wares and flirting with alarmed straight citizens who wandered into the area’s dimly lit side streets. No tourists here, though, so no problem. Law enforcement and capitalism were the best of bedfellows.

Shame. Trev’s light blond hair, chiseled jaw, and muscular build poured into a tight T-shirt and a pair of hip-hugging Levi’s would trap the artistic boys like sticky flypaper. This somewhat alarming thought gave Montego an idea that just might take KW off the hook regarding Mister Suck-My-Dick, Sergeant Edwin Schaebler.

CHAPTER THREE

Julie Preston would never admit it to anyone, but she was horny when it came to Mike Montego.

She wasn’t necessarily proud of the fact, but there it was. That familiar throbbing between her legs, insistently reminding her that she was her own woman, certainly not the prissy, proper girl her parents had raised her to be. The girl they still believed her to be.

Julie sat in front of the small vanity in her studio apartment, brushing her thick, shoulder-length hair while reflecting on Mike, the direct cause of that buzz between her thighs. He’d been somewhat withdrawn since the sensational killing of his fellow cop—and serial murderer, she quickly reminded herself. Words weren’t necessary. He’d managed to convey the fact he needed and wanted her, that her support mattered, deeply. Curiously, she found that sexy, God help her. She squeezed her thighs together at the thought. It had been over a year since a man had made her feel like this, she realized as she continued to methodically pull the brush through her hair.

As the days since the incident went by, it seemed Mike was coping. It wasn’t anything he said, so much as the tenor and pace of his lovemaking that tipped her off. He’d been rough at first, as if he were still fighting the fresh horror of what he’d just gone through. Not that she minded the roughness. In fact, one of the things young Miss Preston had discovered about herself was that she not only loved sex—she liked it often, and varied.

She shuddered involuntarily, scrunching her eyes and wrinkling her upturned nose at the sheer babydoll-clad reflection in the mirror, with the reddish blonde hair and perky breasts. By contrast, over the last few days, the pace of their coupling had slowed, frantic want displaced by a gentle, loving tenderness. Julie took this as both a sign of Mike’s rapid healing, and an indication there was more to their relationship than steamy eroticism. She knew the last time he was in her, this late afternoon before he’d left for his shift, she’d felt an overwhelming tug when she came, and with it a startling sense that he was an integral part of her, and she an inseparable part of him.

She took a last sweep with her hairbrush, got up, stretched, then laid down on her queen-sized bed. Idly picking off a loose blonde hair from her powder-blue babydoll, she dropped it onto the beige carpet to the side of the bed as her body sank into the snowy, white satin coverlet.

Another night without Mike thanks to his crazy night hours. She sighed and stroked the empty space beside her, imagining his hard body lying there, pressed against her. His scent lingered, as she took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, moving her right hand from the now-empty space on the bed beside her, to the lacy hem of her short nightie. She sighed, remembering his shift didn’t end until three in the morning.

No question, she’d fallen head-over-heels for Mike Montego, with his black, wavy hair, cobalt blue eyes, dark complexion, and that lean, hard-muscled, 6’1", 190 lb. body of his. But he was more, far more, than merely a handsome man and a fantastic lover. Oh, she had no doubt his looks, his primal animal appeal had been what first captured her full attention. When she’d first watched him playing on a nearby beach volleyball court, a sheen of sweat glistening on his rippling abs as he’d dived for balls and sent vicious spikes over the net, his intensely blue eyes searing into hers every time he glanced her way, she thought she’d come on the spot. The very thought caused her right hand to lift the babydoll’s hem, her fingers slowly caressing their way up to gently linger on her thigh, then begin to softly stroke the rapidly moistening area where her long legs met.

As her fingers slowly, languidly slid up and down, she wondered why she was the way she was. How had a proper young lady from a proper, deeply religious home, become such a wanton slut—at least that’s the question, and the language, her parents would have used, had they the slightest inkling of what really made their little Julie tick.

She knew she had one Professor Jerry Harpham to blame—or thank—for what she’d become.

Four years ago she was a sophomore taking an art history class from an attractive, thirty-five-year old academic. The sandy haired Harpham came across as gentle, considerate, and best of all, smart. His keen wit, the highly literate way he conducted the simplest discussion, was a tremendous turn-on.

My God, how naïve I was then. The innocent young Presbyterian girl of nineteen.

Still a virgin, she had no burning desire to do anything about it, thanks in large measure to her strict upbringing, and with it a large dollop of fear and guilt, both courtesy of her domineering father. However, at the first party hosted by her Tri-Delta high school sorority she began to slowly emerge from her sexual shell. After a close dance with a gorgeous, blond quarterback, she’d felt a tickle that quickly turned into a throb in exactly the place where her fingers were now doing a dance of their own. She groaned, bringing her left hand into play.

Nothing came of her crush on the star quarterback, but the floodgates were more than ready to be opened when she encountered the older, sophisticated Jerry.

They began to meet for coffee after class. Harpham was patient, in no hurry to make his move, but looking back on that time, she now knew he had known from the beginning he had her right where he wanted her.

After half a dozen coffee dates, Jerry invited her to his lovely, off-campus home. Nervously seated on a red leather sofa, she picked up a large book from the coffee table in front of her while Jerry went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of wine and two glasses. The colorful book, titled The Complete Kama Sutra, featured a rather lurid Indian painting on its cover.

Fascinated, she began to thumb through it just as Jerry returned to the room, bottle and glasses in hand.

Ah, I see you’ve found one of my favorite books, he said as he slid onto the couch beside her. "The Kama Sutra is the world’s oldest and most widely read guide to the pleasures and techniques of sex. A Brahmin and religious scholar named Vatsyayana, who worked on ancient texts dating as far back as four hundred years B.C, compiled it in the fourth century A.D. The translation you’re holding there—at this, Jerry had reached over and placed his hand on top of hers, as she clutched the book to her chest— was done by the famous English explorer and raconteur, Sir Richard Burton. It was originally published in 1883, and caused quite a sensation when it first came out." He paused a moment to pour the wine.

The book deals without ambiguity or hypocrisy with all aspects of sexual life, he peered at her, including adultery, prostitution, group sex, sadomasochism, male and female homosexuality, you name it, he laughed, and gently took the book away from her.

I happen to be something of an expert when it comes to certain sections of the ancient text, he said, turning to her and slowly placing his hand where the book had been, cupping her right breast, then delicately tugging at her instantly hardened nipple, quite visible, to her embarrassment, through the fabric of her bra and light cashmere sweater.