Queen of Hearts: Jack Crane II
Sometimes, I like to think about cars. Driving. It's a passion of mine. There are a lot of very fine cars on the road, from the vintage muscle and hot rods of the American highway, to Asian tuners, and back around the globe to devastating Italian masterpieces and brutal German industrial perfection. You can talk about hot hatches, grand tourers, 2+2s and executive cars, and no matter what, to the true gearhead, you'll find a vehicle worth celebrating. More importantly, you'll be celebrating the flaring of nostrils, the tightening of grip, the pounding of your heart, the million little moments that coalesce when you put your footpaw up against that aluminum plate and make the engine snarl.
Certainly, these are moments to enjoy. However, enjoying them at 85 miles per hour down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is a recipe for disaster. Worse still is glancing into your rearview and feeling a lump rising in your throat as you realize that, in order to live through the next five minutes is to destroy an automobile that is truly a work of art.
Because there's a man in it with a gun who is not exactly fond of you.
NOTHING BETTER TO DO PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS:
JACK CRANE (100% FOX. 110% MAN.)
IN
QUEEN OF HEARTS
The name's Jack Crane. I do a lot of pretty shitty things for generally good reasons. Or for money. Lots of money. I've hurt people. I've run drugs. I've bribed public officials. I've even played bass in a Replacements cover band. I'm not proud. I repeated to myself the simple mantra of "No court would convict me, it's self-defense" and slammed on the brakes. Say what you will about the power, maneuverability or fuel economy of the 1978 Buick Regal (all of which were terrible), my car had two good things going for it: recently-replaced brake pads and a huge ass. I locked up the wheels, fishtailing, using the back of the car to sweep behind me and hopefully pick up the spare, that shiny black Lambo. As my terrible luck would have it, the other car's driver was smart. He swerved, easily dodging around my little ruse. If this was a reasonable highway with reasonable amounts of space and traffic, my rank amateur's move would not have gone unpunished, and I'd get a lot more face time with the owner of that car and that gun. However, this being the B.Q.E., the only direction in which one can dodge is straight into a Jersey barrier.
Crunch.
I didn't slow down.
In fact, if anything, I poured on the speed. The list of people I didn't want seeing me at the scene of that crash quite possibly listed in the hundreds. Besides, I had business out in The Hamptons. Unfortunately. Hammer down and pursuit apparently lost, I was content to hit the radio and slouch down in my seat a little more. Ah, if only Scottso or The Nightbird were still on the air. I thought for another moment and shrugged mentally. If only radio in NYC didn't suck ass these days. It was still another couple of hours to Sag Harbor with the weekend traffic, and the clouds were hanging low, a pregnant summer heat, early evening storms in the forecast. I stuck the big brown Buick in the right-hand lane and got on the L.I.E. heading east. A great man once said to always take time and contemplate one's situation. I took the opportunity to do so, some miles out of the city, at a Roy Rogers off the expressway. The rain fairly pissed down outside, clouds blotting the sunset out and bringing on the night. Good. Bring on tonight. Today licked balls, and not in the way I generally prefer. I put down my hamburger and scratched under my chin, catching sight of my reflection in the restaurant's window. I was getting old. We're all obsessed with youth, and nobody not nobody gets to keep it. Here I was, staring down a 40th birthday that'd be knocking on my door in a few weeks, still gallivanting around the goddamn tri-state like some teenager hopped up on hormones and that feeling of invincibility. That was pretty much my only saving grace, that I could still fuck like a teenager. Way it generally goes down, by the time you're hitting 30, you can still get it up, but you're not running around trying to stick it in anything that'll stand still long enough. Like you do. Anyway, I'm getting away from my point again. My point is that I feel old, but I've got business tonight.
Right, business. Sergio owed me a favor, but because of Ana's big mouth, I owed the Twins two favors, and they owed Sergio and Ana each one, but Ana was in the Bahamas, so she ceded control of her favor to Cousin Louie (not HER cousin, everyone just calls him Cousin Louie) and Louie called the Twins who called me to bail Louie out of the bullshit mess he'd gotten himself into this time. Thankfully, that fuckin' useless rat isn't along for the ride, he's too busy laying low because of the problem that I'm supposed to be fixing. Debts, naturally. Is there anything else that gets people killed anymore? I swear on my fuckin' mother's grave, I could drive to fucking Far Hills, put my cock up a don's son's ass on the kitchen table on Christmas morning, and I might get shaken down, maybe my jaw broken, but everyone's so jaded anymore, I'd still crawl out of there, no sweat. If I owed them five bucks? I'm facedown in the East River come sunrise.
Anyway.
I crumpled the paper from my burger and tossed it to the corner of the tray. Places to be.
The wind had picked up, and the sun was long gone, and there I was, off the highway, driving through some serious high-class neighborhoods. The radio was playing the song about a song from 1962. I hate that fuckin' tune, but it was noise, keeping me from having to listen to the shit in my head. Today had apparently really gotten to me. Fuck it. I probably wasn't in my best shape to be handling something big like this, but somebody had to keep Cousin Louie's dumb ass alive. Fuckin' do the thing, Crane. I hit my blinker and turned the car off the road, tires crunching on the gravel driveway.
The driveway wound its way up a hill, a small ridge of prime, prime beachfront real estate. Down here by the street, a black steel gate emerged from huge stone pillars and barred entry. You'd have to hit the thing with a tank to put it over. And, no, Buicks don't count as tanks. Besides, I wasn't here for violence. No way, Jose. I've done some damage in my time, but if I lifted a finger here, not only would I fuck things up for Cousin Louie, I'd be fish food. And then there was the house. The whole front of the thing was glass, but the lights were dimmed, only a few shapes and shadows were clearly seen from down here. Stormclouds were circling, and the sky was practically daylit with the lightning out on the ocean. Ominous like fuck.
There was one cheerful touch; almost homey, in fact. Just outside the gate, there was a small structure done in white siding and a black roof. The lights were on inside. Guard shack. It may have been just a glorified phone booth with a CB, but sure as shit, there was some poor schmuck stuck in it working the night shift. Call me an asshole, but when I'm not the only one suffering, I tend to feel a little bit better. Such is life. I put the car in neutral and rolled down the window.
The guard steps out of the booth, hat off, scratching between his ears. I get a decent look at him in my headlights, he's a feline---in this case, a greying 50-something tabby who needs to lay the hell off the tuna. He waddles over, playin' glad-hand for the moment. That machine pistol on his belt makes all the threat he needs to, and more.
"Where ya headin', sonny jim?" That's funny, the Family hiring Irish guys now?
"Got a meeting up at the house. Name's Crane."
He nods. Obviously knew I was coming. "ID, if'n ya don't mind."
I punch the dome light up. Don't want to give him any ideas about what I'm digging for. I hand him my license, he gives it a once-over. Within a minute, I'm wished a pleasant evening and sent on my way. The gate opens, and the final fifty yards of my trip is done. I'm there. I'm on time. I'm in one piece. Great. I park my beater next to something low-slung, Italian, and oozing sex. Getting out, I check the badge at the back. Maserati. Fuck me running.
"Alright, hold it, brushy."
And with those words, I'm panicking, and it's not just because of the racial slur. I turn around, slowly. At angles to my left and right, I'm in the crossfire of two more guards---these two are far more capable-looking than the cat down at the front. If the mercury-light above the garage hadn't been on, I'd have never seen them: Two black panther-taurs in flak jackets and body armor. Jeez, Louie, you had to go and put your ass in arrears in freaktown? Call me racist, but taurs give me the fuckin' creeps. Gotta turn on the charm.
Charm, I quickly learned, wasn't much of a currency in these parts, as the wide glass front door of the house was opened and I was hustled roughly through it after a decidedly-unkind patdown for weapons.
Now, I'm no interior decorator (aside from a few weeks in 1989), but I could instantly tell two things about the way this place was done up. First, though the place was immaculately spotless, it was so fuckin' 70s I could almost smell the cocaine and cologne. I half expected to have a porn star with a handlebar moustache ask me if I was there to fix the plumbing. Second, even in the seventies, this must have set them back a pretty penny. It was all leather, shag carpet and crystal, all the windows casting back reflections against the night. I saw myself reflected again---that burger hadn't helped. I looked done in, is what it was.
I was lost enough in my reverie that I didn't even notice I wasn't alone in the room---a throat cleared behind me and I whirled. And there she was.
She stood in the kitchenette, leaning against the refrigerator, legs crossed---one foot flat, the other touching ground with just the clawtips. This Jellicle was probably my age, but wore it a whole lot better---dressed in a gauzy peach silk robe, belted loosely enough around her waist to daringly display a wealth of black-and-white-furred cleavage, but closed tightly enough to eroticize, not pornographically display her thick curves. Her hair hung in lush black curls over her shoulders, and she sipped from a tumbler of a clear liquid---I couldn't smell any vodka; must be water.
My voice caught in my throat. I couldn't help it, I was smitten. She stood up straight and silently padded over, tail slowly brushing side to side. "The infamous Mr. Crane," she said, with only a hint of an accent.
I took a crack at the appropriate honorific. "Donna Garibaldi?" My Italian is fucking terrible.
"Miz," she corrected. "I was originally under the impression that we would be having this meeting over the phone, but when I heard you put Luciano Federici's nose out of joint this afternoon, I decided to stay up late for when you did show up."
I smirked. I can't help it, I'm a born joker. "Was it his nose or just his car's?"
Rolling her eyes, she took another drink and continued. "As his father no doubt heard in excruciating detail on the phone tonight," here affecting a deeper voice and more thoroughly Jersey accent to imitate the lunkhead I'd put into the wall back in Queens, "the Lamborghini Jalpa is a fine automobile and doesn't need no pussy airbags." She snorted. "Serves his whole family right, he's a disgrace." Lifting her glass, she gestured to the nearest couch. "Sit. Drink?" she asked, turning towards the liquor cabinet.
"Old Fashioned?" I asked.
She considered the cabinet for a moment more, then pulled a bottle and shut it. "Fuck that, I'm feeling lazy and I sent the help home. We're doing shots."
Didn't bother me. "Only way to do business," I replied.
If only I had better gut instincts. By the time we got through the first three or four and attempted to talk business, we instead started bonding over a shared birthdate---hers a year before mine. We drank, she griped about inter-family bickering, I pissed and moaned about the life of an independent operator, we drank some more, we both bitched about Cousin Louie's problematic existence, we found ourselves slumped down on the carpet next to each other and kept drinking anyway...
When my eyes next opened, morning sunlight was doing its best impression of a cheese grater on my brain, sliced by Venetian blinds into yellow-white lines across my face, the bedspread, and the lump under said bedspread belonging to the sleeping body of Ms. Garibaldi. I sat up slow, trying to ward off the spins and looked at the clock---twenty after six. Holy shit. I immediately rolled over next to my new-found co-sleeper and shut my eyes again.
To my credit, I didn't immediately open them again and pop out of bed screaming like a lunatic. Life is not a shitty sitcom, and we're both adults. I assumed the best until presented with evidence otherwise. I merely lifted the bedspread slightly, and popped an eye open to confirm the evidence at hand (I, naked, she, turned away towards the wall and unconscious, but also naked---damn, what a fine ass) before drifting off again.
An hour or two later, I awoke with her head on my chest and her breasts in the crook of my elbow. She was watching me wake up. I covered my mouth with my free hand, yawning. I started to fire up the language centers of my brain, but Vera anticipated the obvious question, shaking her head: "No, we didn't have sex." She winked, slyly chiding, "No further than second base on the first date," then leaned in to kiss my cheek.
I opened the hand she partly lay atop and dug my fingers into the thick fur of her back, causing her eyes to roll back in pleasure. "Since that was yesterday, can we have our second date today?"
She giggled, pushing up with her arms to slide herself out of the bed, saying simply, "We'll see." As the quilt slid away and her paws touched the floor, I got my first look at her in the nude in proper light, from her delightfully mussed hair to her stretching toes...including what I can only politely refer to at the moment as her "Gentleman's Sausage." A weighty cock and balls.
She met my mildly surprised look with one of her own. "Oh, you didn't know I was bisexed?" She then smiled, as if daring me to have a problem with it.
I didn't. Even if I hadn't found myself nuts for this woman, well...I shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. You may be bisexed, but I'm bisexual."
She shook her head again at my terrible punnery, but laughed nonetheless. "Nothing fazes you, does it? I could get used to that." Her mood shifted towards the businesslike as I sat up in bed, preparing to stand. She picked up the robe she wore the night before from the carpet and began to tie it around herself once more. "You do know, if we date, it's strictly personal. Business remains business."
I came up behind her, sliding my arms around her waist, gently rubbing her middle. "I know you work independently," she continued, "so you're generally hands-off as fallout goes, but you'll want to pick your jobs carefully. I don't want to have to kill you." She turned around in my arms, and we looked each other in the eye. This was serious. As serious as her breath on my neck and her cock against mine, both our lengths already stirring with burgeoning lust. I nodded. I've had relationships with worse ground rules. My hands slid down her back, cradling her plush bottom in my palms, our noses bumped once and our heads tilted away to give and to receive our first kiss---at least the first one I remembered, and I say only a fool and a liar would let a blackout-drunk kiss count.
First she was dressing herself and we were kissing in her bedroom. Then we were nude again and she was sucking on my nipples and collarbone in the hall. Then I was kneeling in the bathroom between her legs, suckling on her cockhead as she bent over me to start the shower.
Within moments, the shower was gushing torrents of hot water against the sandstone tile, steam rising to fill the lungs and clear the mind. After each taking a moment to become accustomed to the heat and the wet, we were inexorably drawn back together, she taking my hand and pressing it against her breast, leaning back against the wall of the impressively large shower, the both of us squinting with hair and water in our eyes, breath on each other's cheeks and in our ears, a cautious hand reaching down to grasp a thick, firm rod, her tail around my ankle, hindpaws shifting as we leaned as one, each holding onto the other's maleness, stroking in the hot rain, a slow groan cut off by a kiss applied.
I, nestling against her breasts, sliding down her body, head cradled against her bosom in both her arms as I bit down, sucking on a pink, protruding nipple, softened by the shower but hardened with expectancy.
She, moaning on her knees, lips wrapped around the base of my cock, the curve of my swelling knot revealing my body's desires, her free hand jerking and stroking her own domed pink member.
I, bracing my palms against the wall under one of the shower heads, letting the spray hit me on the nape of my neck and roll down my back as she pressed her quivering cock against my tailhole, slowly gaining entry, hissing as she claimed a place within me.
She, gasping my name as she rode up and down atop my foxcock, one hand planted against my chest, a wrist that I gripped, the other holding up a weighty breast, squeezing it in pure lust as her dick spurted out of time with her thrusting, painting my chest with white quickly washed away in the waters.
We, again holding each other like a drunks on a lamppost, aching for breath, each streaked with the stains of our rutting quickly washed clean again, kissing once more, a new bond formed between lovers with hope and affection.
We, realizing that even the best water heater will start to put out cold water eventually, giggled like teenagers through a quick wash-up before finding ourselves wrapped in thick brown towels in the living room where this had all started. The help had taken care of the evidence of our drinking, and the warmth of the midday sun streaming through the windows was wiping the last of the hangover from my mind.
I sat on the couch, head tipped back, staring dumbfoundedly at the rafters and skylights above, idly scratching under her chin as she lay with her head in my lap. I had had a transformative experience---no longer did I feel the weight of years on my soul.
Vera turned on her side and gnawed on my stomach briefly to get my attention. "Jack."
Attention gotten, I brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "Yeah, Vee?" I shorten practically every name I come across. Terrible habit of mine.
"...do you remember if I told my guys that Cousin Louie was off the hook?"
My eyes widened.
We each dove for the telephone.
Dammit, Louie!
TO BE CONTINUED IN
JACK CRANE (100% FOX. 110% MAN.): KING OF CLUBS
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