The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

complete bar, a radio console, you name it. Everything but the kitchen sink. Everything but mirrors.

Beyond the living room was a bedroom; it was another white room, with one exception: the round bed was covered with red silk sheets. On the wall, over the bed, was a huge, bamboo-framed, sleekly decorative watercolor of a black panther, about to strike.

In the closet hung a full-dress tux-white tie and tails, pip pip. And the size was right, down to the black size nine and a half shoes, so shiny I could see my face in ’em, but probably not hers…

I tossed my kit bag on the bed, and checked out the bathroom; it was bigger than most apartments. On the white marble counter (and there was a mirror in here, at least) I found a straight razor, a brush and cup and shaving soap, and fancy French imported after-shave cologne. Also deodorant powder, and toothbrush and Pepsodent.

She apparently wanted me clean and smelling good, for dinner.

I made sure the guest-room door was locked, and stuck a chair under the knob to make double-sure, before stripping down to take a long, elaborate, very hot bubble bath. After two weeks of the hobo life, I was ready to take advantage of Miss Radclau’s hospitality and soak off the slime.

Dressed to the nines, looking like neither a hobo nor an undercover cop in my white tie and tails, I picked up the phone and said, “Mr. Smith-Jones is ready to dine.”

Within minutes, a knock at the door announced the chauffeur, who was serving as a room-service man this time; he wheeled in a cart with several covered dishes.

“Please wait for the lady, sir,” the chauffeur said, in a voice as dead as his eyes. “Madam is still dressing.”

“Sure,” I said.

It was another ten minutes before another knock came, and I hadn’t even peeked under the dull, nonreflective lids of the hot dishes. I didn’t want to be an ungracious guest.

I answered the door, bowing, with an arch, “Enchante.”

But it almost caught in my throat, because as I was bowing I found myself staring into her round, ripe decolletage.

I backed up awkwardly. “You’re sure a sight.”

She floated inside. Madam still looked undressed: her astonishingly low-cut gown was a vivid dark red and clung to her as if wet. Her waist was tiny, her hips flaring, but she was too tall, too longlegged, to have an hour- glass shape; she was wearing open-toed heels that brought her to my eye level. Her toenails were the same bright red as the dress and her lips.

She gestured theatrically to herself, with both hands. “I trust this is better than the apron?”

“Than the apron and the gray uniform,” I said. “Maybe not just the apron… ”

Her laugh was long and sultry. She was draped in an exotic, incenselike perfume, which was making me feel woozy.

She gestured with a slender red-nailed hand toward the tray with the covered food.

“Please dine,” she said.

I pulled up a comfy chair that was a little short for the tray; it made me feel like a child. Before I sat, I asked, “Aren’t you joining me?”

“I’ve eaten.”

I doubted that.

“Please,” she said, “I take great pleasure from watching you enjoy yourself. The carnal pleasures are so… ”

“Pleasurable?” I offered, lifting a round lid; the fragrance of prime rib rose to my nostrils like a cobra from a snake charmer’s basket, only I was the one doing the biting, sinking my teeth into the tender, very rare, succulent meat.

“I know I promised you the work of a five-star chef,” she said, perched nearby on the arm of the couch, legs crossed, giving me a generous view, hands clasped in her lap, “and that is the work of a master, but… I could tell that you had… basic appetites.”

She rose and switched on the radio and drifted back to her perch on the couch arm. A dance band was playing “Where or When.” She swayed gently to it, her black hair shimmying.

“This is swell,” I said. The prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and browned potatoes were, in fact, delicious. No salad, no vegetable. But what the hell-it was free. So far.

She watched me with what seemed to be genuine pleasure, eyebrows raising as she savored me savoring every bite, her thin, pretty mouth tied up in a cupid’s bow of shared bliss. Why she was getting such a vicarious glow out of watching me dig into the rare roast beef, I couldn’t say. But I had a pretty good hunch…

I touched my napkin to my lips, sipped the red wine she had risen to pour for me, in a goblet-sized glass, and aid, “This is a hell of a public service program you got here, lady.”

“I don’t single just anyone out, you know.” She looked almost hurt by my remark. “Once in a while, working in that line, serving up soup… I see someone… special. Someone who shouldn’t be there. Someone who… deserves better. Deserves more.”

She leaned in and the incenselike smell of her was overwhelming; her mouth locked onto mine and her kiss as sweet, much sweeter than mere wine…

The lights were off, suddenly, as if she’d willed it, and she led me into the bedroom, where the red gown slipped off and confirmed my suspicion that there was nothing, not even the slightest, wispiest step-in, underneath. A window allowed some moonlight to filter and her slender, yet full-breasted, wide-hipped, long-limbed frame was like some artist’s dream of female perfection. And a horny artist, at that.

She drew me onto her bed, and laid me down on it cool silk sheets, and climbed on top of me, to grant my yet another gift. The erect blood-red tips of her breasts were as hypnotic as the intoxicated and intoxicating almond eyes, as she rode me, and I kept waiting, lost in her as I was, with my left hand dropped down along the side of the bed, waiting for her head to dip toward my throat, but it didn’t, and when her face lowered, it was merely to kiss me again, deeply, passionately, as we flew together to some high, fevered place…

Maybe she was just some rich-bitch society girl who felt sorry for (and had a yen for) poor down-and-out schmucks like me, or like the poor down-and-out schmuck I was supposed to be. Maybe the suspicions that had brought me here were unfounded. Maybe I was the only dishonest one in this bed.

It had seemed a reasonable theory-what better place for an ancient monster to hide than behind the mask of a modern monster? The mass murderer that the city took the Butcher of Slaughter Run for would be the perfect disguise for a demon of the night.

And how better for the beast to gather its victims than behind the mask of an angel of mercy?

She seemed to be sleeping; the perfect globes of her bosom rose and fell, heavily, gloriously, in what seemed to be slumber. But as I stared at her, leaning on one elbow, her eyes popped open, startling me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I was just… admiring you.”

She smiled a little, a pursed-lipped, kiss of a smile. “In what way?”

“Physically. You’re a handsome woman. The handsomest I’ve ever seen. But it’s more than that.”

“Oh?”

“I admire what you’re trying to do. Helping guys like me out.”

She laughed. “I told you-I don’t make love to all of them.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t mean that. Not everyone who’s… advantaged takes the time to give a little back.”

“I know. Please don’t take this in a condescending manner, Mr. Smith-Jones, but the ‘little people’ of society, they’re the life’s blood of the ‘advantaged.’ It seems to me the least an advantaged person can do is, now and then, make life a little better for someone less fortunate.”

“Well, you’ve certainly made my life better, tonight “

She smiled, and it seemed, suddenly, a sad, bittersweet kind of smile; the thin red lips looked black in the near dark. “Good. That was my desire.”

She leaned forward and kissed me, gently, tenderly, then buried her face in my shoulder, and I had a sudden flash of what was about to happen, and pulled away. Her fangs were distended; her eyes were wide and here was no longer any difficulty in telling the pupils from the irises, because the latter were a ghastly yellow.