Skin Deep

her mouth. 'Since the world is manifestly imperfect, a simple apology will probably suffice.'

Etiquette classes had not prepared me for this, so I did the only thing I could think of. I reached down to William. He cringed. 'Jesus, William,' I said. 'I'm sorry. I thought you were somebody else.'

'I'm not,' he croaked. 'I'm me. I'm only me.'

'Only you? You're a strong man, William,' said the lady in the lingerie. 'He caught you from behind. You'd have killed him if he hadn't.' William attempted a nod and then rubbed his throat again. 'We all know who you are, William, and we're all afraid of you. But,' she said to me in a tone like a shredded tire, 'who did you think he was?'

What the hell, I figured. 'Toby Vane.'

The girl on the rack turned quickly to look at me, and Miss Lingerie of 1564 gave me a sharp glance. 'See, William,' she said, looking at me in a speculative fashion. 'He thought you were Toby Vane. It must have taken a lot of courage for him to attack you like that.'

'Not really,' I said without thinking. Both women looked at me imploringly. 'I mean, I was behind you,' I improvised. 'It wasn't fair.'

'No,' the one in the lingerie said as though she were talking to a child. 'It wasn't fair at all. It was dirty fighting.' I managed a nod. 'Now come on,' she said to me, 'let's leave William and Alma alone. Alma, are you sure it's all right if we leave you alone with William?'

'I don't know, Mistress Kareema,' the girl on the rack said plaintively. She had a fourth-grader's lisp. 'Maybe he's mad now.'

'Of course he's mad,' Mistress Kareema said, 'but not at you. That's right, isn't it, William?'

William had lifted himself cautiously to a sitting position. 'No,' he squeaked. 'It's not her I'm mad at.' Then he shifted his fish-eyes toward Mistress Kareema. 'Is it?'

'It's him,' she said, indicating me. 'But I don't want trouble, so I'm going to get him out of here before you take vengeance. Now, I want you to promise that you won't take it out on Alma.'

'Oh, pleeeease' Alma squealed. 'Not on me, William.' She twitched her bare bottom.

'I like Alma,' William said in a voice as soft as rain-water. 'But keep him away from me, or I won't answer for the consequences.' He gave the whip a sad little shake.

'He's going. Now, Alma, you give William a good time, you hear? But call me if he gets too rough.'

'Oh, I will,' Alma said. 'Stay close, please?' She rolled her eyes at William in an approximation of terror that wouldn't have fooled a blind man. Mistress Kareema put three solid steel fingers around my wrist and tugged me toward the door. 'Be sweet, William,' she said, pushing me past her. 'Remember, Alma's at your mercy.'

William gave a brusque macho nod, and Kareema shoved me the rest of the way through the door and closed it behind us.

'Jesus Christ,' she said. 'That's a good customer, twice a week, at least. You can't fuck with their libidos like that. These are very fragile guys.'

'What about Alma? What's she made of, magnesium?'

'Alma can take care of herself. One word from her and William will be on his knees begging for forgiveness and thankful for the opportunity. Come with me.'

She led me into one of the dark rooms and flicked on the light. It was decked out as a medieval torture chamber. False stone walls dripped real water. 'Have a seat.' I sat on something that passed as a ledge. She tapped her foot. 'What's this shit about Toby Vane?'

'But she's tied to that thing.'

'Relax. Alma's been at this gig for three years. She's only gotten hurt once.'

'By whom?'

'If you hadn't said his name, I'd have brained you on the spot.' She dropped something heavy onto the stone sacrificial slab in front of me. It wasn't anything fancy, just a good old-fashioned sap. 'You'd have been hearing birds for weeks,' she said. She was still standing.

I was at a loss, and I attempted to compensate by getting comfortable.

'Get your feet off the slab,' Mistress Kareema said in a voice that could have sliced through a diamond. 'Where do you think you are, at home? Alma's the submissive here. I like to be in charge. What are you up to, anyway?'

'I got your number from Dixie Cohen.'

She looked like she was going to spit. 'Some reference. You've got two minutes to tell me what's going on, and then out.'

I gave it to her in ninety seconds. She nodded a couple of times and then reached into her cleavage and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She lit up without offering me one. 'So you're supposed to keep him out of trouble. So what? What's that got to do with Alma and me? Don't answer that.' She turned away. 'Wait'll I turn off the drip. Jesus, have you looked at your water bill lately?' A moment after she left the room, the water stopped trickling down the walls.

She came back, and I described what had happened to Amber. Her eyes narrowed, and she knocked the cigarettes over to me, pulling up a wooden stool.

'Could be,' she said, sitting. 'He broke Alma's thumb. That cost him five thousand bucks. It wasn't enough. Alma almost quit, and that would have cost him a lot more. It's hard to find a real submissive these days.'

She could have been discussing housekeepers. I held up a hand, and she tossed me her lighter, hard and fast. I stalled by lighting one of her cigarettes, hoping I wasn't going to start again.

The door opened and Alma came in wearing a violet robe with little white flowers on it. She was about twenty-four, with tousled wheat-colored hair and big blue eyes. 'He's going home,' she said to Mistress Kareema. 'He couldn't get it going again.'

'You saw him scared,' Kareema said. 'Took the wind out of his sails.' She gave me something halfway between a smile and a grimace and said, 'You better hope he comes back.'

'He said tomorrow night,' Alma said. 'He tipped me two hundred.'

'Then he'll be back. By the time he gets home he'll feel like a big man again.'

'He had a nosebleed. He was worried about what his wife would say.'

'He's married?' I asked. 'Does he knock his wife around, too?'

Mistress Kareema snorted. 'She turns him to tapioca. That's why he rents little Alma here, isn't it, kitten?' Alma nodded assent and sat on the edge of Kareema's stool. Kareema gave Alma's flax-colored thigh an affectionate catlike scratch with her long salmon nails.

'They're all scared of women,' Alma said. 'All of them except Toby. Toby really hates us.' She looked down at her right hand. Its thumb was unnaturally crooked. 'You're not a friend of his, are you?'

'If I were, I wouldn't have cold-cocked William, would I? I thought he was Toby.'

'That's right,' she said gravely. 'You did. I wish he had been. I would have liked to see that. The sonofabitch.' Wrapped in her little-girl voice, the words were startling.

'You still haven't really said why you're here,' Mistress Kareema cut in.

'Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I really don't think Toby murdered that girl. He's got a good alibi.'

'Murdered?' Alma said. Her eyes were huge.

'Later, sugar,' Kareema said. 'What sort?'

'Someone was with him. She swears he never got out of her sight. And someone else saw the dead girl get out of their car.'

'Shit,' Kareema said. 'That's what I'd really like. Murder one is what he deserves.' Unconsciously she reached over and caressed Alma's right thumb.

'I just want to know everything I can about him. I feel like I'm driving blind, and I don't like it.'

'He's a gold-plated dipstick,' Mistress Kareema said. 'He'll never find his own level because nobody can go that low. What happens here, someone like William, it's mostly theater. The whip is just silk. But Toby likes the blood to be real, and he likes lots of it. Alma's his type. She looks like a baby, talks like a baby. When she really gets hurt she cries. We get a lot of guys in here, they ought to be seeing a shrink. Hell, we even get shrinks. . '

'Doctors are the kinkiest of all,' Alma put in. 'There's one doctor, a dentist, really-'

'But Toby's the sickest,' Kareema said, waving away the digression. 'He's running on pure hate, and what he hates is girls.'