"My place. It's your first visit – who knows, maybe it won't be your last."
"If this is a dream, I've had something like it before," I said. "But it never seemed this real."
"Really?" Lacey gave me a wicked grin, all traces of the monster gone from her blue eyes. "You used to dream about fucking me, Stan?"
I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Often. But I never had the nerve to try it in real life."
"Until last night, you mean."
"Is that what I did last night? Put the moves on you – and it worked?"
"Don't you remember? You must've had more champagne than I thought. Although, come to think of it, I had quite a bit myself."
"Maybe that's what accounts for my success. We were drinking champagne, huh? Must've been celebrating something."
"'Course we were," Lacey said. "This nasty bastard of a case is finally over, and we all came out of it more or less intact. So we celebrated – the three of us. With champagne and… other things."
"Three? Three of us?"
"Sure – you, me, and Linda – who really isn't such a bad person, once you get to know her."
"Linda? Who's Linda?"
"Linda Thorwald, dummy. Remember her – Federal agent, eyes bluer than mine, black hair, nice tits?"
I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, Lacey was still there. "You, me, and Thorwald… celebrating? Together?"
Lacey nodded. "I don't normally do things like that, but it was a special occasion. And, besides – you know what they say."
"Uh, no, Lace – what do they say?"
"That every straight woman is just two drinks away from bisexuality. And I know I had more than two."
"OK, now I'm positive I'm dreaming," I said. "But the only complaint I have is, sooner or later, I'm gonna wake up."
Lacey nodded sympathetically. "Probably with a bad hangover, too. Poor baby."
I felt weight shift on the mattress to my right. The sheet moved a bit, and then Linda Thorwald was looking down at me from the other side. Her hair was pretty mussy, too.
More of the freshly fucked look, I thought. My God, this is a great dream.
The grin that Thorwald was giving me matched Lacey's for wickedness, and maybe even surpassed it.
"Still think you're dreaming, Stan?" she said. Her voice had a huskiness that I'd never heard in it before. She leaned forward slowly, and Lacey did the same. Their noses touched, and then they were kissing, less than a foot from my face. The kiss went on for a little while.
Then Thorwald took hold of the sheet that was covering us and slowly pulled it down. All the way down.
"In that case," she said, "I think this dream of yours is about to get a whole lot better."
Continue the journey with Known Devil by Justin Gustainis
Coming soon from Angry Robot
Acknowledgments
Jurgen Kleist, Professor of German at Plattsburgh State University, helped me make Victor Castle briefly bilingual.
John Carroll, my oldest friend, continued to provide valuable information about the Wyoming Valley whenever my memory and the Internet failed me.
Jeanne Cavelos, director of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and sole proprietor of Jeanne Cavelos Editorial Services, does plotting better than anyone I know. She was kind enough to share her facility with me, to the book's great benefit.
My agent, Miriam Kriss at the Irene Goodman Agency, negotiated a nice three-book deal for Stan Markowski, of which this volume is the second. Miriam rocks.
Linda Kingston did a great job of morale maintenance, especially during the latter stages of writing this book.
Terry Bear served in his usual roles as confidant and menu planner. He excels at both.
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I'm Batman…
An Angry Robot paperback original 2012
1
Copyright © Justin Gustainis 2012
Justin Gustainis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-85766-135-7
EBook ISBN: 978-0-85766-137-1
Cover Artist: Timothy Lantz.
Set in Meridien by THL Design.
Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD.
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.