We were back at her place. Dean Martin, the cat, was shedding on my tuxedo pants and Edith Piaf greeted us with her “La Vie en rose.” This chick had quite the menagerie. She’d again asked that I stay while she decompressed from the night. It was a routine, such as it was.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

 “Sure. I’m an open book, Lincoln.”

“Why are you doing this? You don’t seem to really be cut out for it.”

“You mean I suck at fucking. How about that? I’m actually good at internal rhymes. Maybe I should be a poet. That will pay the rent.”

“You don’t. You know you’re good at it. But you just don’t have the edge that the other associates have. Am I making that up? And it’s none of my business if you don’t want to say.”

“The answer is easy. I need money. It is no more complicated than that. I’m pretty. I know that and somehow the way I’m put together gets men wanting to fuck me and not marry me. So there you go.”

“It seems like you gave up on the married part pretty fast. You’re only 22.”

“The money’s not for me.”

“What?”

“My dad caught my uncle trying to uh, well trying everything. He killed him.”

“That’s what I would have done.” I didn’t even want to know how old she was when this happened.

“My dad’s in prison, for life. It was just him and me on the farm, which we lost when he couldn’t work it anymore. Anyway, I’m trying to earn enough to get him a good lawyer and to buy him a farm again.”

“This is the only way?” She didn’t seem to think she had options.

“This is the fastest way. Daddy’s got lung cancer. He has about six months.”

“You know the Maldonados are not as nice as Donny Barchek, and Donny Barchek was a dick.” I gave it to her straight.

“They won’t hurt me. It’s just sex, Lincoln.”

“Don’t bet on that.” She was underestimating what could happen to her.

“I’m betting on you, Lincoln. I don’t want to do this unless you’re nearby.”

She walked from the couch she’d curled up on and over to me. Marilyn then tentatively put her hands on my shoulders and sat down on my lap.

She put her mouth to my ear. Her little hot breath grazed my earlobe.

“You know what I was thinking about the whole time with Barchek?”

“No.” I choked out an answer.

“I was thinking of you, Lincoln. Your hands on my breasts. Your tongue. You inside me. That’s why I could wrap my legs around him because it was you the whole time. That’s why I liked it. Because you were inside me, not him. That’s what I’m doing every time.”

I was a statue for a moment, made of stone, because what I felt like was a river, held back by a leaky dam. I didn’t want what was going to rush forward to escape. But it was escaping a little drop at a time. I couldn’t stop her if she wanted to use me. So I’d die for her at this point. Really smart on my part.

Marilyn made herself more comfortable. She nestled her head on my shoulder and curled up as small as she could to fit on my lap.

I was fucked. I felt my arms supporting her back and cupped underneath her legs. If she wanted to sit there, she could, whenever she wanted it. If she needed to do this job for her dad who was I to judge her or stop her? All I could do is get between her and real physical danger, which I was sure hovered around the Maldonados.

“What’s your real name?”

“Leslie. My name’s Leslie.”

“You don’t look like a Leslie.” She laughed.

“I used to. And you don’t look like a Lincoln.”

I didn’t try anything, touch her anywhere, or talk dirty in her ear. She’d had enough of that and was about to have more. I just held her. If what she gave me was only this, it would be enough. What I would give her was my life if it came to it, which it might, if the Maldonados were the kind of trouble I thought they were.

She’d rolled snake eyes with this group of clients and I was going to be damn sure it didn’t get her killed.

Her next appointment, with both of them, was less than a week away. And I’d be watching. Retirement would have to wait.

**

I’d tucked Marilyn in, left her safe and looking more like a Leslie than she did in the sparkling evening gown. I was heading home in my Dodge. My cell vibrated.

It was Petra.

“Abe, I have just been informed that Donny Barchek is missing. He didn’t show up for a high stakes game today and no one has seen him since last week.”

“So?”

“No one has seen him since the night of Marilyn’s first job. You will be the number one suspect if something has happened to him.”

“I didn’t kill the bastard.”

“We’ll talk in the morning. Not at my office. You know the drill.”

She hung up. Petra was pissed, fair enough. There was a straight line from Barchek to Marilyn to me to Petra.

I looked at the clock on the dash. Three a.m. - nothing good ever happened at three a.m.