Mirror Image

moistened her fingertip, picked up the crumb, then licked it off. “I’ll tell you something else,” she said in a mysterious whisper, “I don’t think she’s quite right in the head yet.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She asks the dumbest questions.”
    “Like what?”
    “Yesterday I mentioned something she should have a vivid memory of, even if she did suffer a concussion.”
    “What?”
    “Well,” Fancy drawled, dragging the nearly clean drumstick across her lips, “another ranch was buying some horses from Grandpa. When the cowboy came to look at them, nobody was around. I took him into the stable myself. He was real cute.”
    “I get the picture,” Eddy said drolly. “What does Carole have to do with it?”
    “She discovered us screwing like rabbits in one of the stalls. I thought I was sunk, see, because this was a couple of years ago and I was barely seventeen. But Carole and the cowboy connected immediately. You know, snap, crackle, pop. The next thing I know, she’s as naked as we are and rolling around in the hay with us.”
    She fanned her face theatrically. “God, it was fantastic! What an afternoon. But yesterday, when I mentioned it, she looked ready to puke or something. You want some more chicken?”
    “No thanks.” Fancy tossed her cleaned bone into the box and took out the last chicken leg. Eddy encircled her ankle with his hard fingers. “You didn’t give away any of my secrets, did you?”
    She laughed and nudged him in the butt with her bare foot. “I don’t know any of your secrets.”
    “So what did you and Carole talk about regarding me?”
    “I just told her you were the best I’d ever had.” She leaned forward and gave him a greasy kiss on the lips. “You are, you know. You’ve got a cock of solid iron. And there’s something about you that’s so exciting—dangerous, almost.”
    He was amused. “Finish your chicken. It’s time you headed home.”
    Disobediently, Fancy looped her arms around his neck and kissed him languorously. She left her lips in place as she whispered, “I’ve never done it doggie fashion before.”
    “I know.”
    She drew her head back sharply. “Didn’t I do it good?”
    “You did it fine. But I could tell you were surprised at first.”
    “I love surprises.”
    Eddy cupped the back of her head and gave her a searing kiss. Together they fell back onto the sour-smelling pillows. “The next time your Aunt Carole starts asking questions about me,” he panted as he pulled on a rubber, “tell her to mind her own frigging business.” He plowed into her.
    “Yes, Eddy, yes,” she chanted, beating on his back with the drumstick she still had clutched in one hand.

Thirty-Three
    “What the hell,” Van Lovejoy said resignedly. He took a final drag on a cigarette he had smoked down to his stained fingertips. “I wouldn’t be any better at blackmailing than I am at anything else. I would have fucked up.”
    “You threatened her with blackmail?” Irish stared at the video photographer with contempt. “You failed to mention that when you told me about your meeting with Avery.”
    “It’s all right, Irish.” Avery laid a calming hand on the older man’s arm. With a trace of a grin, she added, “Van was miffed at us for not including him in our secret.”
    “Don’t joke about it. This secret is giving me chronic indigestion.” Irish left his sofa in pursuit of another shot of whiskey, which he poured into his glass from a bottle on the kitchen table.
    “Bring me one of those,” Van called to him. Then to Avery, he said, “Irish is right. You’re up shit creek and you don’t even know it.”
    “I know it.”
    “Got any paddles?”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    “Jesus, Avery, are you nuts? Why’d you do such a damn fool thing?”
    “Do you want to tell him, or should I?” she asked Irish as he resumed his seat next to her on the couch.
    “This is your party.”
    While Irish and Van sipped their whiskey, Avery related her incredible tale again. Van listened intently, disbelievingly, glancing frequently at Irish, who verified everything she said with a somber nod of his grizzled head.
    “Rutledge has no idea?” Van asked when she had brought him up to date.
    “None. At least as far as I can tell.”
    “Who’s the traitor in the camp?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Have you heard from him anymore?”
    “Yes. Yesterday. I received another typed communiqué.”
    “What’d it say?”
    “Virtually the same