Backwater Blues

This morning began like any other morning for me. I missed most of it. This is what comes of being a night person, you tend to miss most of the mornings, at least that part of the mornings between four and eleven. As far as I was concerned mornings ended not long after my head hit the pillow, and stuttered back to life at eleven. Whoever's pillow it was didn't bother me. This morning it was mine, and the one next to it was occupied by 'Round Heels Rhonda' who had agreed, when asked, to share my bed.

I had a choice between her and my usual bed-share companion, Sweet Susie, who had unfortunately announced early last evening that she was unable to oblige me because the flags were out, and she knew that strawberry dipping was not my scene. Susie was like that, if she was unable to oblige me she would find an alternative. This morning it was Rhonda who she had asked.

Before you leap to the conclusion that I, we, seem to have a very casual attitude to sex, I should point out that Susie and I are in a committed relationship, apart from the monthly visits of her bloody periods. To plug that gap, she would find me another gap to plug. The way that she rationalised it was that she didn't want me left to my own devices when her monthlies intervened. To protect her interests she would find a casual opening for me to fill.

Rhonda was an obliging young back-up singer in 'Backwater', our blues band. Her nick-name of 'Round Heels' came from her penchant for falling onto her back whenever a guy that took her fancy made her an offer she couldn't refuse. Susie was our lead vocal, not just because she was easy on the eye, sort of like Stevie Nicks only an octave lower. She had a voice to die for, all deep and husky, with such powerful phrasing that you didn't need to understand the lyrics to understand the song. My part in this whole thing was that I played the blues harp and added my voice on occasions. She said the harp made my lips softer, nothing at all to do with it matching perfectly her singing. We were both able to vamp in harmony without having to rehearse a song to death.

I rolled out of bed and was busy preparing my standard breakfast of coffee, black and strong, and a cigar, an alleged Monte Christo that was about as real as a ten dollar Rolex. I didn't hear Rhonda emerge from the sleeping and fucking section of my loft that was hidden behind a curtain strung along a wire stretched between two columns, but that was until this almighty screech pierced my eardrums. "What the fuck." That was Rhonda, the screech wasn't from her, the screech was from Sheldon, the cat that owned me. I would have given him his full name, Sheldon Cooper, except that he would have considered that to be an affront.

"You were about to sit in his spot." I said by way of explanation.

"Come again?"

"He has laid claim to that spot on the sofa, and not even I am allowed to sit there."

Sheldon glared at me from his spot, his eyes telling me that I should be more careful who I brought home with me. He had a soft spot for Susie, and would sometimes forsake his spot and curl up on her lap, which was an inconvenience when I attempted to make a move on her. It took a bowl of his favourite chow to get him to relinquish her lap long enough for me to get her into bed. Even then he would, after we had finished rocking the boat, jump onto the bed and curl up against her body while we all slept.

On the occasions that I crashed at Susie's apartment, Sheldon would greet my bleary eyed return with a certain degree of disdain, to tell me that he was most put out by the fact that he had missed out on sharing my bed with her. If for any reason that Susie did not share my bed, as in this morning, he considered it to be beneath his dignity to share with a stranger and would not join me, but suffered in silence on the sofa. It was his way of punishing me.

My loft, as I called it because that title lent an artistic aesthetic to the space that I occupied, was above the Penthouse of this building in the CBD, a building made up of ground floor retail space with a couple of floors of offices, then ten floors of serviced apartments. Above all of this was the plant room, hidden under a large pyramid, where resided the air-conditioning plant, the motor room for the lifts and me. I had my own private entrance from the under-croft car park by way of the service lifts. When someone came calling they would ring me, and I would lower the key to the lift down to them on the end of a fishing line. I had a better view than even the penthouse, and it was fine as long as you didn't mind the hum of the plant room. I compensated by playing my music loud.

"What's the story with you and Susie?" Rhonda asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You two have been going together since you walked down the gangplank of Noah's boat, and yet she asked me to fuck you. What gives?"

"Didn't she explain it to you?"

"She said something about a change being as good as a holiday and that the two of you have this arrangement of taking a break from each other for a couple of days every month. I still don't get it, if I was to last longer than a couple of nights with some guy, I sure as hell wouldn't be sharing him with anyone else, for whatever reason."

"She's just protecting what's hers. Let me ask you one thing, what happens to women every month?"

"Oh, I'm beginning to get it."

"I love the girl." Susie was hardly a girl any more, those days were long gone. "And she loves me. We lead the kind of lifestyle that means that kids should never happen. It's not that we don't want them, but that we are responsible citizens, and if we can't ensure that we can be responsible for raising a kid, we won't ever have one. We have a very active sex life, and she wants me to continue having one, even when she is unable to oblige me."

"She could always blow you, I've done that plenty of times. Guys seem to like that just as much as fucking me."

"How does your jaw feel after you've done it?"

"That depends on how big it is and how long it takes me." She thought about it for a minute or two. "I see it now, she's worried about dislocating her jaw on your monster, and not being able to sing the next night."

"Monster is something of an exaggeration, but it would take her some time to get me off, and she knows that I'd be thinking the whole time that I should have my cock in her cunt and not in her mouth."

"So for a couple of nights a month she finds you another cunt to fuck, no strings attached, and no promise of any relationship."

"That's about it."

"I have a suggestion."

"And what might that be?" I was curious.

"Would Susie come at me being your regular red rag root, what do you think?"

"You'd have to ask her, I would have no objections, you were good enough to please me."

"And if this worked out, we could always move up to some three way action."

"Now that I'm not going to agree to, unless and until she gives her approval. In fact I'm not going to comment one way or the other."

"Do you think that she'd approve?"

"No way." I was hoping that she wouldn't, it would do my ego no good at all if she did.

I heard the service lift reach the top and the door open so I strolled across and removed the morning paper that the Concierge downstairs so kindly sent up to me every day and sent the lift back down. Daniel the Concierge was a thoughtful young man, he knew my timetable pretty well, and didn't send the paper up until he knew that I was out of bed. He knew better than to disturb my sleep, or whatever I was doing.

The front page headline grabbed my attention: "BABE'S BODY IN BLUES BAR". Quickly reading on I was shocked to find that the bar in question was the Blue Note, my very own stamping ground. Fear drove me to read on, relief overtook me when the body was identified as a blonde woman, medium to heavy build and around 20 years of age, it wasn't Susie. The body had been tentatively identified as Tania, a prostitute who worked the local area, although this could not be verified until her dental records were checked. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. The delay in identification was because the killer had used a soft point bullet that had removed most of her face on the way through.

I had seen Tania around the club, she would come in during our set and usually left before we had finished, along with her 'John'. Whether she returned for a second helping depended on how successful she was with the first. She tried it on with me one night, and I was in the process of telling her that I wasn't interested when Susie intervened and told her to fuck off and leave me alone. She did.

"I know her." Rhonda said as she read the news item over my shoulder. "She comes into the club. I think that she puts out for George so that he lets her work the club for Johns. I was talking to her one night and she told me that her pimp was giving her a hard time, said she wasn't turning enough tricks. She said that she just wants to make enough so that she can pay for her mother's medication, her pimp wants her to deal as well, but she told him that there was no way that she would get involved in that scene. It seems that her brother had OD'd on ice."

"So why would anyone want to kill her? Apart from her pimp, she doesn't seem to have any enemies."

"How should I know, I'm just a dumb blonde backing vocalist."

I chose not to answer that because I didn't know her well enough to form an opinion. "I'm heading down to the bar for a sticky-beak, are you coming?" I hoped that she was, because there was no way that I was going to leave her in my joint on her own.

"I suppose that you want me to come with you, or, at the very least, go home."

"I knew that you weren't dumb. Let's go?"

"Can I clean up first? I can hardly wander down the street smelling like I've been fucking all night."

I showed her the cleaning up room and left her to it while I did my own version of cleaning up, that consisted of wet-wipes and new jocks. What went on the body after that was something of a uniform for me, faded jeans, a geriatric leather jacket over checked flannelette shirt and a pair of elastic sided work boots with steel toe caps. You never know when they might come in handy.

Rhonda tried to renew the friendship in the freight lift on the way down to the car park, but I wasn't into it. "Look, last night was great, but this is another day and I'm not going to push the envelope with Susie."

"But she isn't to know."

"She'll know, believe me."

"In that case, I'll see you tonight, we are on for tonight aren't we?"

"We shall see what we shall see. Susie might have other arrangements for tonight."

"She's got you by the balls, hasn't she?"

"You could say that, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Whatever." She walked away from me.

The cops were still hanging around the bar when I arrived. "This is a crime scene." The voice belonged to this huge cop who stood in front of me. I am big enough, but he was huge, running to a beer gut that hung over his utility belt. He had obviously been told not to let anyone through the cordon.

"I work here, and I'm here for the band rehearsals."

"What's your name?" He asked as he consulted a clip board.

"Barry Snelling, I play harmonica in the band." That obviously didn't impress him. "And sing." That was more impressive. He lifted the tape. "Is Susie here yet?"

"Yeah she arrived ten minutes ago. She's a bit of all right."

"Down boy. Are you into the blues?"

"I can take it or leave it."

"If you want to catch the show tonight I can arrange freebies for you and a friend." I was almost going to add 'that's if you've got one', but thought better of it, no point in getting offside with the law.

I pushed open the door and was met with a kiss from Susie. "Hi lover, how was last night, was she okay?"

"Adequate at a pinch, maybe a bit better than adequate."

"You could show a little more enthusiasm, she was my choice after all."

"All right, she was good, as good as I had been led to believe by the rumours going around about her, but I wouldn't want it to be any more than a semi-permanent arrangement, although she suggested that she would be open to more. I set her straight on that score."

"What a good boy you are." She kissed me again. "You obviously saw the cop out front, the rest of them are in George's office. Poor George, he's having to explain how she could have been here long after closing time."

"If I was investigating a murder I'd be asking the same question."

"Oh, I forgot, you used to be a cop in a previous incarnation, didn't you?"

"Not my finest hour I must admit." I had been a star on the rise as a detective until I arrested the wrong person on suspicion of murder. At least that was what I was told in no uncertain terms by my boss. It didn't help that I was actually right as far as the case was concerned. I had in fact arrested the right man. He was a popular and well liked beat cop, and had friends in high places, something that I lacked, and these high placed friends were convinced that he was innocent. His story was that he arrived home from work to find his wife dead on the kitchen floor. There was a hole in his alibi big enough to drive a truck through, he had finished his shift five hours before he said he arrived home, yet a witness placed him at home shortly after his shift finished. An attempt had been made to disguise the forensic evidence, which sort of ruled out a crime of passion, an impulsive act, and placed it in the premeditated category. I did my job diligently, and after I had arrested him I had refused to bow under the pressure from above. It was my evidence that got him convicted, followed soon after by me being invited to leave the force.

I set up as a PI and worked around the CBD making a reasonable living, but I didn't have a life. That was until I met Susie. She came to my loft to hire me to find her lost boyfriend, and her lost money. They had disappeared simultaneously, leaving her grieving for her money. We had been talking about the case, and this and that, when she noticed the harmonica on my table. "You play the harp, do you?"

"I try, I think I'm brilliant but then I might not be the best judge of my ability."

"Play something for me."

I launched into my favourite track, my thinking track, and the one that I felt most comfortable playing to someone else. She recognised the tune and joined in. Wow, what a voice! She made it seem so effortless, and when we finished, at the same time I might add, she hugged me. "You are good, I would like to work with you, how about it?"

"I'm nowhere near good enough."

"You are good enough. At least your take on that song was as near as dammit to perfect. With a bit of work you could be a star."

"Don't joke with me, it's not funny."

"I'm serious. Look, you find my money and I'll give you free lessons."

I had to think about that, there would probably be some discrepancy between my fee and the value of her free lessons. On second thoughts, I would probably get the better of the deal. She didn't know it, but she was the answer to all of my dreams, and her offer to work with me created a new set of dreams, ones that would keep my hand busy, and me awake at nights, until they became a reality.

It was obvious from the very beginning of our relationship that this was to be something special. Even before we were half way through our musical repertoire our sexual repertoire had overtaken it. It just seemed to, once it began, blossom into something very spectacular, and like our musical repertoire, there was no need for rehearsal, whatever we did just seemed so natural.

We had just set up on the stage with Fred our drummer, Cyrus, our bass player, and Jupiter on lead guitar, and had swung into our first song, when Detective Inspector Jonas, at least that's what his ID that was thrust in front of our faces said. "Well, look who's here. My, how the mighty have fallen. The last that I heard was that our star detective here had set up a thriving business investigating heinous crimes that we of the law enforcement community could not crack. What happened Slick, couldn't you make a go of it? No cops to arrest eh?"

"I've moved up in the world, I don't slum it anymore, and I'm doing something that I love."

"Or, as a little birdie has told me, you're doing someone that you love?" You might have gathered from this exchange that there is no love lost between me and Inspector Jonas. He looked at Susie when he asked the question. She beat me to the answer.

"He is a very talented musician and, yes he loves it, and me." She kissed me and gave me a hug. "And I love him. Do you have a problem with that?"

He obviously did, but wasn't about to admit it. "I suppose that all of you can account for your whereabouts between three o'clock and nine this morning." It wasn't a question.

"Yes." We chorused any way.

"One at a time please, one at a time. Ladies can go before gentlemen, if you please. What is your name and where were you?

"I'm Susie. If you'd looked at the poster out front you would have realised that. I was tucked up at home getting my beauty sleep."

"Can you verify that?"

"No. I was on my own, all night."

"Funny, I heard rumours that you and him," He pointed at me. "were an item."

"We are, but we were not together last night, at least not after we finished here."

"And how about you, where were you?" He looked at me, obviously expecting me to say the same.

"I was at home, but I was not alone, I had company. And before you get all excited with this snippet of information, the person that I was with was specifically chosen for me by Susie. Her name is Rhonda something, and she is due in soon, you can ask her."

On cue, Rhonda arrived. She slid up to me. "Hi Lover, you enjoyed last night as much as I did, didn't you?" I almost didn't notice the funny look that Jonas gave her, almost, but not quite.

"He told me he did." Susie told her. Rhonda looked disappointed that we had already discussed last night.

"You were just about to tell me that you spent the night with 'Superstud' here I suppose?"

"Yes I was and I did, who are you and what of it?"

"I am Detective Inspector Jonas, and I am investigating the murder of Tania Roberts in this club last night. I need to confirm your whereabouts at around three this morning?"

"I was tucked up in bed with Barry here, enjoying some of the best sex that I have ever had. Does that satisfy you?" He wasn't, but said nothing.

Susie smiled at Rhonda's attempts to get a rise from her. She would have to do better than that.

"So, it would seem that, for the moment at least, you lot are squeaky clean, I would caution you not to leave town until this investigation is complete."

"No can do Inspector." Susie said. "We are due to leave tomorrow on a whirlwind tour that will take us to every major, and a lot of minor, town in Australia."

"Well then, I'm afraid that you'll just have to cancel it, and disappoint your legion of fan. I'm sure that refunding one ticket will not break your bank account now, will it?"

"Way to hurt our feelings." She gave the signal and we launched into our next song. He stood for a while and listened before shrugging his shoulders and leaving us be.

George had decided to cash in on the notoriety and open as usual tonight.

During a break in rehearsals I noticed Susie and Rhonda deep in conversation. Rhonda did not seem happy, while Susie gave her that 'hands out' shoulder shrug that hinted of a Jewish heritage somewhere in her past. Smiling, she slid over to me. "You didn't happen to suggest to Rhonda that you might be interested in some three-way action did you?"

"Not on your Nellie. If she told you that, then she is lying through her pearly whites."