The Sad Case of Mr. Cream - A Sherrill Haus Mystery

Sherrill pulled out of me. His iPhone was ringing. I rolled my eyes. I rolled over and watched as he mumbled a word or two into his phone before ending the call with an “OK.” But what I’d mainly been gazing at, coveting, was the glossy arc of his beautiful erection, his body’s flower, hanging parallel, more or less, to his taut belly. Sher, on his knees and one supporting hand, set the phone down with the other. He looked back at me, his penis already sadly beginning to wilt.

“Come on,” he said with urgency. “Get dressed. Let’s go.”

“Where? We can’t finish fucking first?”

“We can always fuck. But we’ve got, like, less than an hour window to meet this guy. Then he’s got to get to work.”

I looked at the bedside clock to the left of the lamp and behind Sher’s phone. It was a few minutes after eleven. “He works at night?”

Sher, glossy erection or no, was already getting dressed. His dark bikini brief was already up. Now he was pulling on his jeans. “People work at night, y’know?”

“I know!” I said, myself sliding into the standing position. “But what’s this guy got to do with the Cream case?”

“He claims he knows who murdered Cream. Get dressed. Hurry up.”

I didn’t even get a chance to wipe the lube from my crack. I had to stuff a few tissues in my panty after pulling it up. I wondered about my lipstick; my eyeshadow.

“Don’t worry,” Sher said reassuringly. “I know this bar where we’re meeting. It’s a weird place. No one’ll see. And if they do…,” Sher concluded, fastening the last button of his long-tailed, oversized embroidered shirt, “…they won’t give a shit. Hurry up,” he said for the third time. Or was it the second?

As I quickly dressed Sher added a last touch: to the left side of his belt he attached a plastic holster. In it was a .45 caliber Springfield Armory semi-automatic pistol. The sub-compact size that he liked to brag, when the magazine was in, as it most certainly was now, and while waving it around for all to see, fit his left hand perfectly.

Because, in life, you can never be too careful.

From the bedroom we went downstairs into our—his—condo’s livingroom, crossed it to the kitchen and out the back door that led into what we jokingly called “the Batcave.” And not just because I was young, slight of build, liked to wear tights (well, hosiery of one sort or another, especially thigh-highs) and was named Robin.

Jumping into his Alfa, my ass sliding comfortably across the tan Italian leather, I watched as Sher flicked the button that raised the garage door. Then he pressed another button, this one red. We were off—powered by all six cylinders of his Quadrifoglio’s growling Ferrari V-6 engine.

“It’s not far from here,” he said of the bar. “We’ll be there in, like, ten minutes.” Sher pressed the accelerator.

Maybe less than ten.

As we raced through the darkness I had trouble breaking free of my memory of Sher’s cock in me. And then, after he regrettably pulled out, my longing to suck it, lube and all, and experience the warmth, the heady smells, the impossibly firm flesh. The ripple of it between my tight lips. I gave my head a shake, my longish dark locks, trying to change course—even as the Alfa did likewise, screeching around a righthander.

We were heading west now. Sher put his blinker on almost immediately.

The place looked like a biker bar. Except that there were no hogs parked out front. In their place were a lot of dilapidated-looking second and third-hand cars. We parked on the side.

“This is a shithole,” I declared, leaving the security of the Alfa behind.

“It’s OK.”

The thumping base of the jukebox music was audible even from the outside. Probably even from across the highway. I entered behind Sher, who looked to his right and headed that way. We approached a plywood booth at the very back occupied by a lone man who was smoking. Yeah, it was that kind of place. A smoker’s bar. Welcome to the time machine. Welcome back to the 1970’s!

The man didn’t bother correcting his slouch as we came up. Instead he flicked the ash off his cigarette onto the table. Real classy. Sher said over the din: “I’m Sherrill Haus. This is my associate, Robin.”

The man at last sat up. He was looking at me. “I thought Robin was a girl.”

“He is, sometimes,” Sher grinned, urging me into the booth ahead of him. That way, I knew, if there was any trouble he could jump out and deal with it; defend me. Defend himself for that matter. Or, simply, possibly, run. The thought had crossed my mind once or twice since I’d known him. Self-preservation being what it is.

Now that the ice was broken Sher got down to business. “So what’ve you got for me.”

“You packing?” The scruffy-looking man, whom I guessed was in his late forties but looked fifty-something, had lifted his stubble chin at Sher’s left side. This old drunk was headed to work in a half-hour?

“Cellphone,” Sher lied.

“Well, no firearms allowed in this place.”

“Guess I didn’t see the sign. What do you know about who popped Mr. Cream?”

The man took a pull on his draft beer. Then on his Marlboro Light. It’s always good to cut down on the tar, especially if you’re a chain-smoker. “I don’t know. What’s in it for me?”

“The reward is fifty,” Sher advised. The man’s spine stiffened, in a limp sort of way. His sleepy eyes lit up.

“I get the fifty?”

“Yeah,” Sher replied. “You get fifty dollars.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

“How come your partner here’s wearing lipstick?”

“You noticed?” Sher smiled at me before saying, to our host, “Cause he’s a female impersonator. He just got off work.”

“Fuck you,” the man repeated.

“Funny isn’t it? He just got off work? You’re just going on? Life is a merry-go-round ain’t it?” slipping into the seedy bar’s vernacular.

“Look. I’m not into this gay shit. I seen your website. I asked what’s in it for me? The information I got.”

“Well, Mr. Cream ended up with a bullet in the back of his head. Maybe that’ll be your reward as well.”

The man glanced to his right. He wore a look of wrinkled concern. He had a lot of premature wrinkles at any rate. “Who else knows about this? This meeting?”

“I don’t know. You called me, remember? Who else have you told?”

The man now wore the look of a frightened animal. Not that of a raccoon, however. I’ve seen raccoons side by side with feral cats my mom, a kind soul, used to feed on our deck when I was a kid. Every morning I would have to go out and dump the water the raccoons had muddied and replace it with fresh. No, not a ravenous raccoon but some other sort of wild—

The man got up and ran. He tried the backdoor, which had been just to the right of where he sat, but it was locked. So he sprinted—limped his way—toward the side door we’d entered through. He exited. Sher started to say:

“Well there goes—”

Shots rang out. Two. Then a third.

I followed Sher to the side door, the step-down to the parking lot as a softly sprung sedan bounded out of it, tail-lights flashing red.

Sher looked at me. “Mary-Susan-George,” he said. Then: “Seven-one-four. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Despite his military background Sher had developed his own kind of quirky alpha-numeric code language. Whatever works…

It also helps, when you’re a private investigator, to have the 20-10 vision of a former sniper.

Detective Maginot said: “Fancy meeting you here, Haus. You’re under arrest for the murder of…somebody.”

He was joking, of course.

“Let me guess,” said Sher. “He has no I.D. on him. That’s because he doesn’t drive a car. That’s because he’s had two DUI’s and rides a bicycle now. He’s a security guard down the road. Some security…”

“Your deductive powers, Haus,” Maginot said sarcastically, “never cease to amaze me. You’ve been talking to the bartender, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll save you the trouble. His name is Wally Schlipps.”

“Say what?”

“She wrote it down for me. Here. Below that is the license plate number of the car the perps got away in. Because you guys were late on the scene.”

“We’re not fucking mindreaders, Sherrill. Give us a break.”

“I would have used the word prescient. ‘We’re not fucking prescient.’ Mindreaders doesn’t quite fit the bill in this particular case, does it?”

“Fuck you, Sherrill.”

“That’s what the last guy kept saying. Now look at him.”

The bullet-riddled body still lay where it had fallen—behind our Alfa. Though, out of courtesy, they’d by now covered it up with decorative black plastic.

“Can we get out of here now?” Sher asked. “The guy’s call interrupted some very important business…”

Detective Maginot looked at Sher, then at me. He said: “Robin, you been drinking cherry soda or somethin, hon?”

“Yeah,” my alibi.

“Frenchy?” as he was called. “Sher to planet earth?”

“No you can’t leave, Haus!” The detective gestured, wildly. “You’ll back over the fucking body!”

“So? The crime lab’s done. Plus he’s already dead.”

“Haus…?” Maginot sighed. “Go in the bar, have a beer. Have three beers. A dozen. Place don’t close till three a.m. That way I can arrest you for DUI when you leave. Now git!”

The great thing about cases like this, especially when Sher was closing in on a solution, not to mention a reward…it made him horny as all get out. Turned him into someone my age again.

Soon as we got back to the condo, and the bedroom, that night, Sher and I picked up right where we’d left off. “You have such sweet little balls,” Sher told me for the thousandth time. “I love the way they hang down,” tugging at them as if they were an oddly shaped milk cow’s udder, before sliding his freshly lubed cock in me again. Aside from that there were no preliminaries. Sher fucked me like Armageddon was imminent and we only had a few minutes of pleasure left before the meteor hit.

He finished in a sweat, his other fluid, the sweeter, fruitier one, deposited deep inside me. Now when he abandoned me to answer his phone, I wore an ear-to-ear smile. Like…who cares?

He looked at my slender, naked body, rolled over and planted his back against the pillowed headboard. “They found the car. Abandoned. Stolen.”

His mood was drooping like his penis, his beautiful flower did, after sex. “We’re back to square one.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Nada. They’re pros, whoever they are.”

Sher glanced at the clock, as did I. It was nearly four a.m.

“Let’s get some sleep, sweetheart,” he said. “We’ll begin again in the morning.”

“OK, dear,” I smiled. Though I wondered if by this he meant the case or sexual intercourse.

I rolled onto my left side, into the fetal position. Sher conformed his larger, muscular body to mine and held me, tightly. I was in heaven. The phone rang one minute later.

No, the phone rang a little after seven. It just seemed like we’d had one minute’s rest. Sher reached across me, his sleep-hard penis massaging, briefly, the shallow valley of my waist.“Who?”

Mary Darling, it turned out, lived just up the street from the bar. A street with speed bumps stretching for endless blocks. Pity people can’t obey speed limits. Especially people in 500-horsepower Alfa Romeos. There was a park nearby. In fact it was still cordoned off with yellow crime tape, a lone sedan sitting in the gravel, doors open.“Well, we know there were two of them."

"Why?” I asked. Sher looked at me like I myself had committed a crime.“Because, like, the driver’s and the passenger’s doors are still open?"

"Oh. Right."

"Unless, of course, the driver split himself in two and…"

"OK, OK,” I said. “I get your point. I’m, like, half-asleep, OK?"

"Well wake up.”Mary turned out to be an insomniac. “I keep watch on the neighborhood,” she declared. “Nothing gets by me. We’re a tight group,” presumably meaning her and her neighbors. “When I heard you were involved…one of my neighbors was at the bar last night.” Mary giggled. “More’n a few of my neighbors hang out at that bar. But not me. I don’t drink. Quit fourteen years ago and haven’t had a drop since."

"Good for you."

"Southern Comfort was my downfall. Now they got all these new-fangled whiskies. Peanut butter? Can you believe it? I—"

"You said on the phone you saw a man, maybe two, high-tailing it, your words, across the park.”Mary was nodding. “Saw it with my own two eyes. Car stopped. It was smoking. Could see it in the street lights. They ran…"

"They?” I interjected. “You sure there were two of them.”Sher looked at me. “We already know it was two."

"This is Robin?” Ms. Darling smiled. “Saw him on your website. Cute. So you were the first person I thought to call."

"Instead of the police?”Mary waved a dismissive hand. “Aw, those assholes? What they know, or care? Somebody broke into my house last year, stole half my shit. My checkbook, my portable safe, my firearms…"

"You have firearms, Ms. Darling?"

"I do now,” she nodded, proudly. “First thing I went out and bought. That and a new TV. Needed it anyway. The old one—"

"So which way, if you don’t mind my asking, did these guys run?”Mary Darling pointed. She had flabby upper arms. They sort of wagged at first, under the bone, before settling into stasis. She also had SoCo on her sweet morning breath. “Across the park, of course. And you think they ever caught the guys that done it?"

"Who?"

"The police! They’re worthless!”Sher looked at me. His dark eyes shouted Let’s get the fuck out of here! His countermanding lips, however, said, gently, “Let’s take a walk.”

They had to call in Parks and Recreation. It was urgent. Forty minutes later two City workers arrived in a truck. One got out to unlock the gate while the other, styrofoam coffee cup in hand, supervised. Then the crime lab truck and two unmarked police cars rolled past the swings, the jungle gym and sped toward the far end of the soccer pitch. Or rather, a giant rectangular field of weeds. It had been a while since the City sent one of its rider mower crews out.There, Sher and I waited for them in the already hot early-morning sun. Sher greeted Maginot with a slightly muddy looking 9 mm. The pistol wasn’t aimed at Maginot. Well, it was and it wasn’t. It dangled upsidedown by its finger guard from Sher’s left pointer.“Finally turning yourself in, Haus?"

"You bring coffee?”Maginot gestured distantly, over a shoulder. “Ask Parks and Rec.”Maginot’s partner held out a ziplock plastic evidence bag and Sher carefully slid the loaded pistol into it. Then he delivered a little ad hoc, open-air seminar to all assembled. Except for me, that is. I already knew the drill. I’d been a participant. That’s why the bottoms of my pantslegs were wet and my shoes, socks and the feet were so squishy I felt like a veritable Jesus, walking in water wherever I stepped.Sher pointed at the top of the chainlink fence, at its spikes. The fence was eight-feet tall to keep the pervs out. This morning it had tried its best to keep the perps in. “See the blood? One of ‘em got cut up while trying to climb over it. Somewhere in the universe his curse words are still echoing."

"Huh?”Sher’s finger was running downward, indicating the vertical line of diamond-shaped links below. “See where it dripped?” Sher pointed at fence’s base, at the weedy ground. “There’s blood on the grass, there. Oh, and he lost his shoe, see? We haven’t touched it. So there’s your DNA evidence, ladies and gentlemen."

"Lecture over, professor?” Maginot asked.“No,” Sher’s blunt reply. “I had my industrious partner, Robin here, climb the fence—he came away with only minor injuries I’m glad to report…and by searching over by that culvert—and in it, actually—he found the murder weapon one of them tossed while running away."

"He trampled a crime scene,” one of the technicians less questioned than stated as irritating fact.“Without us there would be no crime scene.” Sher looked heavenward. “The rainy season’s started. Today’s rain’ll wash the blood away. The shoe? Some bum’s shoe. Who cares? And by the end of the week the murder weapon would’ve been under a foot of murky water. Next question?"

"How do you know it’s the murder weapon?"

"Probabilities, dear Maginot. Probabilities. Dust it for prints and you’ve got your man."

"What if he wore a glove?”My partner, in and out of bed, seemed amused. “Well unless he’s, like, Patrick Mahomes or somebody…I doubt if he could have tossed a pistol that far wearing a glove. While running for his life.“So there you have it,” Sher concluded. “Murder weapon, prints, DNA and a shoe that’ll fit somebody. Cinderella, maybe. I think our job is done here, so we’ll be on our way. Remember us in your report, Frenchy,” Sher called over a shoulder.“I don’t suppose you could loan us your little monkey for an hour or two?”Sher smiled at me before shouting back: “I get that request from lots of guys. But on your salary, Frenchy, I doubt you could afford him.”

“You can’t get in my Alfa like that,” a wincing Sher said, looking down at my soggy sneakers.“Well what am I supposed to do then, walk?”Sher was pointing. “Take ‘em off. Take your shoes and socks off and throw ‘em in the trunk."

"But…” I was looking to my left. “The Parks and Rec guys’ll see."

"See what?"

"My…painted toenails."

"No they won’t."

"Yes they will. They’re bright red!"

"And so what if they do?"

"They don’t exactly look like…the tolerant type."

"Fuck ‘em. They’re not even paying attention."

"They’re looking right at us, Sher!"

"They’re looking at my car. The name of which they can’t even pronounce."

"They’ll be looking at my toes in a minute!"

"And cute toes they are,” Sher grinned. “Look. Take my word for it, Robin. They don’t give a shit. They’re off duty at the moment. They’re on their…,” glancing at his iWatch, “nine o’clock coffee break. Not to be confused with their ten o’clock coffee break. OK? Now take your goddamn soggy shoes off.”Sher popped the Alfa’s trunk lid. And for a fleeting moment I feared he expected me to climb into it.

To celebrate Sher and I went out to eat at a relatively new restaurant in the south part of town not far from our condo. Shards, as it was called, in a spiky charcoal grey font, featured what they described as “Anglo-Asian cuisine. With a French twist.” Sounded kinky.When we got home we fucked. Sher wanted me right away. As I’ve already hinted, solving a case not only makes him horny but turns him into a 35-year-old sex maniac. Well…how about a sex machine? Sound better?Anyway, I’m always game.After making love we both dozed off. We were still sleep-deprived owing to the past 24 hectic hours. When we awoke, one after the other, like reverse dominoes, we, without prompting, our upper bodies stacked against the headboard, began to kiss. We pecked each other’s lips at first, mine painted though faded, before it gave way to full blown necking. We caressed each other as we kissed. I got an erection and Sher got yet another one. He was…insatiable; incorrigible. We stroked each other. I might have cum right then and there had Sher not broken things off and said, breathlessly, “Let’s not rush things this time."

"No,” my heart racing. How else to put it?“Why don’t you run off and make yourself pretty again and bring back a bottle of bubbly?”Wasn’t I pretty already? No, I was not. My hair and face were a MESS. When I returned, my dark curls brushed out, my eyelids swathed in fresh coats of blue shadow, my Cupid lips once again bright-red, Sher popped the cork, filled two flutes and we, sitting up naked and crosslegged in bed, toasted the occasion.“To Mr. Cream!"

"Who the fuck was Cream anyway?” I asked, after sipping some Veuve. Only the best for us. Only the best.“He was the CFO of a local software company called Zap!. They develop apps for the military."

"What kind of apps?"

"The kind that get you killed. Cream discovered some spending irregularities on the part of the company’s CEO, an Indian guy named Pram. And by spending irregularities we’re not talking here about filling up your Ferrari on the company credit card. We’re talking six, seven-figure type irregularities."

"I overheard you and that reporter friend of yours talking about Pram this afternoon,” I said.“Drake? He’s not my friend. We’re mutual sources for each other, that’s all. It’s always on deep background. What else did you hear, you little sneak?"

"That Cream was on his way to meet with Zap!’s Chairman when he was whacked by those guys."

"He wasn’t whacked by ‘those guys,’ he was whacked by Pram. They were just his instrument. It’ll all come out in the end, when they turn state’s evidence in return for not getting the injection."

"Injection?” I was thinking of the rectal kind Sher gave me on a regular basis.“The lethal kind."

"Oh.” I was caressing Sher’s muscular thigh. I was reaching under and fondling his manly balls. They reminded me of sticking my hand in a bin in the produce section of the grocery store and lifting out two ripe, plump, fresh apricots. They were exquisite. I wanted to lean down and kiss them; suck them. Eat them! But Sher insisted on droning. On.“Then one of the killers talked. Got drunk one night, probably at that same bar we were at last night, got blind-drunk and told somebody. Then that somebody told somebody else and then Willie called us."

"Wally,” I contributed. Adding, wanting to speed things up: “And then Wally got drunk, told somebody else and the killers found out and popped him."

"Exactly. Then—"

"Darling, not to interrupt but I wanna suck your balls and kiss your cock. I mean…"

"Who’s stopping you?”Before I could bend, however, Sher’s eyes lit up. “Let’s do 69."

"You want?"

"Big time!”And so I slid downward, taking a stack of pillows with me to boost my head. Sher assumed the top position, naturally, straddling me backwards. And as his open mouth fell to my hard cock, I wrapped an arm around his firm buttocks for further lift, while my free hand bent his cock down toward my eager, rising, parted lips. I still had the aftertaste of fusion cuisine in my mouth so Sher tasted vaguely…Asian. Pickled ginger and whatnot. He was delicious at any rate. I started to break it off to ask what it felt like to be fifty thousand dollars richer but…I already knew the answer. This wasn’t his—our—first rodeo, as they say.

Besides, I wanted to give my lover the best head imaginable.I wanted to suck his cock to downward completion.I wanted to swallow his cream.Ironic, huh?