"The Oldest Diversion, gentlemen, is the same as the oldest Profession. But it's odds on that gambling came next, perhaps even immediately afterward." The quote, from Esquire's Book of Gambling, is applied in this case to Pete Trask, a man used to taking any gamble ... trained to live with risk as a daily habit from living precariously in streets as tough and brawling as he was. The only things more questionable than Trask's background were the depraved characters he lived and fought with. He accepted his lusts and desires casually, satisfying them at his convenience, but these extravagances of human emotion could only be easily accepted by Trask and the denizens of the slums that were bigger than life, but not bigger than Trask. The men who got in the way of his degradation were physically crushed-the wantons totally dominated. In this background of ruthlessness, Trask found that he had to live by a peculiar code-a blessing for some, but destruction for others....
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS A DINGY ROOM IN A BAD SECTION OF THE CITY and he was in bed with a bad girl. The room was in a cheap hotel and the window faced the street. The noise of traffic on broken asphalt came in. There was another hotel across the street and that hotel was sad also, but not as dilapidated as the hotel they were in because it at least boasted a neon sign. The sign flashed in the window in a regulated pattern. It lighted the bed and the far wall and the door. It lighted the girl. It was exciting, in a way, to see her skin light red, and then go dark, then red again. She was an exciting girl anyway. She wasn't beautiful but she was awfully sexy and willing and she had a plush body that kept flashing red. Her lips were parted and damp and her eyes were closed. The sheet had pulled away. The sheet was gray but looked nicer red except that then the stains showed more. But the room had not cost very much. It wasn't much of a place.
His name was Pete Trask. He was big and looked mean. When the red light flashed over him his muscles seemed to jump and ripple. He lay on his back with one arm under his head and even in this relaxed position he gave the impression that he was coiled and taut. He looked observant. He knew that being aware of details quite often gave a man a chance to make some money, and, sometimes, to save his life.
He wasn't soft.
He had just won two hundred dollars in an alley crap game and that was why he was in bed with the girl. He was celebrating. He hadn't had to pay the girl, she was not a professional, but she liked men who spent a little money on her and Pete had bought her two whiskies and three beers at the bar on the corner. The crap game had taken place in the alley behind the bar, and perhaps he hadn't been wise to stick around there. The men he had played with were not good losers, not the type who could afford to lose much. But Trask was not the type to hurry away, either. And so he had gone into the bar and started talking to this girl and bought her a few drinks and now they were in the hotel and Peter was looking around the room.
He had slept in worse, but not much worse. There was a big brown stain on the ceiling from where the sink on the floor above had leaked. Perhaps it leaked constantly because the stain seemed to grow and change shape with each flash of the sign, although that may have been an illusion. That the sink in the corner had come away from the wall was no illusion. It hung drunkenly, it's drain pipe bent and cracking under the weight of the porcelain. Trask reflected that it wouldn't hold more than a couple of cups of water because of the angle of the tilt, and anyway he didn't hold with too much washing if it wasn't necessary and in this case it would hardly be worth it. He could tell the girl was no dedicated washer.
Beside the bed was a heavy, ugly stand with a drawer on top, a little door below. It was chipped and scarred and had burn marks all over the top. Opposite the foot of the bed was a dresser that also looked as though it had led a hard but not too useful life. The four drawers had a total of three knobs left out of the original eight. They were glass knobs, highly impractical, and the mirror which had been fastened to the back of the dresser had come off, been smashed a bit, and then propped up against the wall.
There wasn't any shade on the window and the curtains were of a nearly transparent plastic material that was no longer supple. There wasn't any rug on the floor and the linoleum was worn through in front of the door and beside the bed. It felt sticky and gritty on bare feet.
It was a room in which Peter did not feel out of place. He was as relaxed as he ever was, which is to say, almost not at all.
He turned to look at the girl now. He couldn't tell whether she was asleep. Her eyes were still closed, her lips still parted. Her breathing was regular. Peter frowned, trying to remember what her name was. He thought that it was either Sally or Sarah, but it might have been Sandra. It didn't really matter much. Pretty soon he would give her ten dollars with which to buy a dress and kick her out. He would kick her out, not because he didn't like her, but because that was always what one did with a woman afterward. Trask was a creature of habit in that way. And he certainly had no place in his life for a woman. But he did like this girl, whatever her name was, as well as he usually liked them. At least he felt comfortable with her. Like the dingy room, she was a girl with which he felt relaxed, for a little while. There had been no problems and no questions. As soon as Trask saw her sitting at the bar with her legs crossed and her low cut green dress showing plenty of cleavage, he had known that she was going to sleep with him. He had known it as a fact, and when he took the place beside her and she smiled rather questioningly and swung her leg just a bit he knew that lie hadn't been wrong.
The girl's hair was red-brown and long and thick and lay like snakes on the pillow and over her smooth white shoulders. The fringe of bangs on her forehead came down to her eyebrows and separated in the center. Her lashes were very long against her angular cheeks. Perhaps they were false.
Her breasts weren't false, though. They were slightly flattened because she was lying on her back, and they rolled away from the center of her chest. The relaxed nipples formed dark circles in the centers of the spheres. Below her breasts, the girl's ribs showed slightly, and her stomach rose and fell gently with her breathing; the flesh, soft and defenseless looking indented below her rib cage.
The sheet came up between her legs and one foot trailed off the edge of the bed. Her toenails were polished bright red and the small toe curled under the one next to it as a result of ill fitting, pointed toed high heeled shoes. It made her foot look tapered. Her ankles were slim, so were her calves. Her legs were a bit too thin, but they swelled into rounded hips, a little wider than they should have been for a girl of her build, but good, substantial hips.
Her mouth was partly open and every so often she made little sighing sounds and fluttered her eyelashes as if she might wake up, but she didn't. Her face looked a little gypsy-like with its high cheekbone that slanted sharply up toward the corners of her eyes. Her nose was long and straight with thin slits for nostrils. It was an aristocratic nose such as the old Spanish gentry had. Her lips were thin, curved and very sensuous. She wore no make-up on her lips or on the rest of her face, only some smudgy mascara around her eyes.
Trask looked at her, sleeping beside him, and reached out a lazy hand to put it on her breast. Her skin felt cool at first touch, but it warmed quickly under his hand. She seemed to be pushing her body against his hand as his fingers gently squeezed. He rubbed his palm in a circle and felt the nipple begin to tighten and become round under the rolling motion. She sighed brokenly and opened her eyes for a brief moment, shut them again quickly and lay still as Trask's hands aimlessly wandered over her body. She liked it to go slow like that. She wanted him to think she was still asleep so that he wouldn't rush it. She wanted to feel herself melt and unfold under his hands before he drove himself to her with all the strength in his body and crushed her against the lumpy mattress.
His hands moved down her sides, stroking her body, tenderly caressing the smoothness of her skin, the roundness beneath it. He put one hand on her legs, under the sheet where it lay twisted, concealing part of her body. It didn't matter to him whether he saw all of her as he touched. It didn't add to the thrill of touch to be able to look. He'd seen that before.
As his hands moved slowly and expertly, he glanced at her face from time to time to see if she were really sleeping. He was almost sure she was awake because of the responses that her body made. Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was turned up at the corners in a blissful smile.
He bent his head to her breasts and kissed each one, then took the nipples to kiss one at a time, and nibbled at them until she began to squirm ever so slightly against his hand. His fingers continued to explore and he could feel her growing warmer and more excited.
"You like that, don't you," he said into her ear. She didn't answer or make any response.
"Don't you?" he said again. This time she made a little whiny sound in her throat to show her annoyance.
"Answer me, or I'll stop," he said.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, her teeth very white in the gloom. "Don't stop," she said. "I love the way you do that for me."
He said, "That's better," and kissed her neck. She put her arms around him and nipped at his ear with her small white teeth.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" she said, turning over on her side to face him.
"You're all right," he said.
"What a marvelous compliment," she said. "You're not so bad yourself," and she put a cool hand on him. He moved at her touch and she squeezed him. She liked to feel him jump. It gave her a feeling of power over him.
He pulled her close to him and they lay side by side, their caresses more demanding now, less casual and more expert. He bent his head over her breasts again and took them to kiss, harder this time. She shifted herself against him. He could feel the warmth of her body against his leg and thought that she would be ready soon.
"Listen," she said, "did you know that if you stare at something red for a long time, then close your eyes, you can see it but it's green?"
"That so?"
"Sure. Try it. Here, look at this in the red light," she said holding up her breast. Her long red fingernails curved up under the soft white flesh and indented the skin slightly.
Trask looked at it while the light flashed. Then he shut his eyes tight so that the skin around them wrinkled in crow's feet.
"I can't see anything," he said.
"You didn't do it long enough," she said. "I can see you if I shut my eyes now. The Jolly Green Giant." She laughed in a giggly way and snuggled nearer to him, stroking her hand over him once more.
"Try it again," he said. "Take a good look at this."
She bent her head and kissed him.
"What do I want to look for?" she asked.
"So you can see that green."
"But the red light's not shining there."
"Too bad."
"Yeah. I can think of better things to do, though, if you're interested."
"Always interested." He smoothed his hand down her side and around to her buttocks.
She moved her head and her lips kissed gently. He shivered slightly as her tongue flicked. The tremor started and ran along his back. He put his hand on the back of her head and smoothed her hair as she began to move, very slowly. She reached her hand around behind him, pressing his buttocks toward her.
He didn't move, just lay there and felt the thrill building and building for him as she slowly moved. He knew that if he once started, it would be over too quickly and that the .girl would be disappointed, so he didn't move and let her work on him. She knew when to stop, though, and she slid her body up, breasts pressing to him. She held his head against her breasts as she slid farther up, and forced the already taut nipples to his lips. He took them roughly, nipping until she squirmed against him, her breath coming fast and warm.
He put his hand on her legs. She took his hand in her own and placed it. She began to move, holding him as she did so. His breath was quicker now and she knew his urgency.
Their mouths met in a kiss, lips bearing down on each other, teeth hitting together, making sounds like two stones beneath the water. Their tongues stabbed and lashed together. When they pulled apart, their breaths were moist on each other's faces. Their mouths were wet and burning from the contact and they crushed together again.
Their arms tightened around each other in passion and need, and their bodies conformed. He began to move. "Not that way," she said. "How?" he rasped into her ear. "This way."
She kicked the sheet off the bed. The springs protested as Trask moved. She sighed happily as he moved to her and took her in his arms again.
His mouth sought hers as he forced himself to her. She put her hands on his buttocks and held him. She arched her back and her legs trembled.
She felt his weight pressing her against the lumpy mattress. She pulled at him with her hands, urgent, demanding him. Then he pushed himself to her. His big hands came down and cupped beneath her buttocks to help her. He paused. He grunted, moving in a circular motion. They fought a silent battle for what seemed a long time, neither yielding, both willing. She moaned softly. Her fingernails dug into him.
The bed rocked and groaned. She closed her eyes. He was fast and rough, and she liked him that way. This was better this time than it had been the first time. It was always better the second time, lasted longer and they moved better. Their bodies had grown to know each other and moved accordingly. He seemed stronger. She seemed to vibrate. A deep trembling began, spread slowly. She welcomed that. It felt warm and violent and good. It would build rapidly now and then burst, like an explosion, and she moaned softly and long, and fought to hold herself against him and wait for him.
He was only a moment behind.
She held on until he relaxed and then she sank down and pulled him to her and they rested there together, both very satisfied.
In the corridor the desk clerk blinked. He grinned. His tongue moved his teeth. Beads of sweat stood out on his face. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and then returned to the keyhole. He had been kneeling there for some time, waiting. But it had been worth the wait.
It always was.
And now it was over. He sighed. It never seemed to last long enough to suit him. No matter how many times he crouched in the dark corridor with his bulging eye pressed to the keyhole it never seemed long enough. But, while it had lasted, it had been very good, one of the best. Sometimes the people kept the sheets over them. Sometimes they turned so that all he was able to see was a back, a leg. But this time he had had a very nice view.
She had been a lovely girl, too. She had been in the hotel before but he had managed to see what happened much better this time. He had seen every bit of her body. It would be something to think about during the long boring night ahead. A man had to keep his mind occupied.
The clerk got up arid stretched. It was hard work crouching at a keyhole. He placed his hand against his stomach and smiled with satisfaction at his body's response. And, with his hand still pressed there, he walked down the corridor and went down the stairs and behind his high desk. There was a stool there but he did not sit down. He stood, right up against the desk. It came almost to his chest. He stood there and looked out at the street and a silly smile fixed itself on his face. He opened his clothing. He didn't do anything, he just liked his hand there. He liked to think about what he had just seen as he stood behind his desk and waited for some more customers and hoped that some men and women would come in together and take a room. He never tired of it. Once he had been caught, too. He had been trying to see into the room but all the lights were off and suddenly the door opened and a man was standing there, quite naked, looking at him. He remembered that day with a little tingle of fear and dread. He had tried to explain that he had only dropped his key and was looking for it on the floor but the man, for some reason, had not believed him. He had kicked him right in the mouth and then kicked him twice in the ribs and it certainly had been painful. But it could have been worse. At least the man had been barefoot. That had only happened once, however, and it had taught him caution. People didn't realize how much caution was necessary. How much skill and slyness. They all laughed at Peeping Toms and made jokes about them, but they never knew how thrilling and dangerous it was. It was almost the same as being a spy. It took courage and resolution and patience. Why, many's the time he had crouched for over an hour at a keyhole while nothing at all happened. There was nothing that he despised more than one of those men who take girls to hotel rooms and then don't do anything right away. There were plenty of men like that, too. He knew that if he ever got around to taking a girl to a hot he would start making love immediately. He had never had a girl yet, but he knew that someday he would. Probably a showgirl, too. Patience would pay off in the end. And then he would be well prepared because he had watched a good many other men and studied their techniques carefully. Lots of them had been no stronger and no handsomer than he was, either. Of course, the wart on his nose didn't help any, but women were strange. Maybe there were some women who liked warts, who knew? The first man that he had ever watched through a keyhole had had a wart, too, although it had been on his forehead and not his nose. That probably made no difference. That had been his sister's boy friend. His sister had been seventeen and the wart-headed man had been older and the clerk had not been a clerk then because he was only fifteen. But even then he had been sly and when the sister brought her boy friend home and he stayed after the others were asleep it had been quite easy to sneak down and apply an eye to the keyhole of the front room and see the couch and see what was happening on the couch. That had been quite a revelation. He had started young. And now he smiled and stood up to the desk and waited for the next couple to come in. He waited patiently. His name was was a patient and clever man.
CHAPTER TWO
ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE HOTEL A CAR WAS parked at the curb. It was parked just past the neon sign. In the red flash the old, faded paint looked even older. It was an eight-year-old Ford that had had a few owners and needed a few repairs.
Behind the wheel sat a man who looked like he could use a few repairs himself. His complexion was faded like the car. He had gaps between his teeth that looked like the radiator. His eyes were dull the way that the headlights were dim. His face was long and thin and his hair was long and lank. A cigarette was stuck between his teeth. It fitted very conveniently in the space between the center top teeth, as though nature had build the man that way for his smoking comfort.
But, at the moment, he was not comfortable. He was angry. This man had just lost fifty dollars in the crap game in which Pete Trask had won two hundred and this was not a man who could laugh off a loss. He had, quite possibly, never had more than fifty dollars at one time in his life. He had never held a steady job, and he had never wanted to. He was the type who boasted of the fact that he had never worked a day in his life. He could boast of this with four dollars in his pocket and nothing else in the world, without seeing the pity of it. But then, the men to whom he boasted were not the type to see the pity of it either. They probably had no more than he did. He did not know anyone who had very much money except gamblers. Gamblers usually took what little money he had. He was a notoriously poor gambler who had no conception of the odds, and backed his hunches fiercely, losing continually. He thought it was bad luck because he knew that his hunches were always right, and he knew that sooner or later his luck would change. Then he would have the respect that he wanted, and he could boast more positively that he had never worked a day in his life because he would be able to buy a drink for the man he was boring with his story. He looked forward to that day.
So did the girl who was seated beside him at the moment. He told her that it was just a matter of tin:, until his hunches began to pay off, and she had no reason (other than the fact that they never did) not to believe him. But then, she had even less idea of odds in gambling than he did, if that were possible. And she had the same dreams of glory, the same patient hope that some day there would be money and that her man would take her to the best night clubs (the best in this bad section, of course). Her imagination could not move beyond that sphere. But then, she had never been out of that city in her life except once when a man took her to a motel four miles out of town and another time when she went with another girl to a city seven miles away to meet two business men from Kansas who seemed to have a great deal of money. She knew that they had a great deal of money because she had seen one cash a ten dollar bill to buy them all a drink and she had seen the other leave a fifty cent tip for the barmaid. Ah, that had been a day! She had remembered that day with pride and warmth ever since, even though it had not turned out so well in the end because her businessman had told her she wore too much perfume and not enough deodorant and she had been a bit angry with him.
However, this was not a girl who suffered false delusions. She was nicely resigned to what she didn't realize was a tragic existence. Her man might even buy her a dress when his luck finally changed and they were rich. And that was why this girl was every bit as angry as her boy friend was that his luck had been so bad and he had lost fifty dollars. That morning he had showed her the money. He had three tens and three fives and five singles and she had gasped in amazement.
"Tonight we do the town, baby," he had said.
"Your luck really changed," she said.
He smiled his particularly ugly, spread-toothed smile and let her think that because he didn't want to let her know that he had worked for the money. He had run some betting slips for a gambler named Deacon who always seemed to be very lucky even though he gave odds (say, two-to-one against any crap?) and he had been paid fifty dollars.
She had put her best dress on and spent a long time piling her hair as high as it would possibly go and putting dark make-up on her eyes and plenty of nice coral lipstick on her mouth. She had used deodorant liberally and tried not to use too much perfume. She knew that she looked very good and she waited for him to show up and then he came and told her that his luck had dealt him a low blow and that all the money was gone.
Even her resignation quivered at this. It was like an actual blow to the stomach. It was very nearly the last straw, too. She was very sick of waiting for his luck to come in and she had told him so. And it worried him, too, although he didn't let on, because he did not want to lose her. He knew that he was not a particularly attractive man. In fact, he knew that he was hideous. But that had never much bothered him because he also knew that it was money that won hearts, not handsome ness. Deacon the gambler was even more hideous than he was and Deacon had a showgirl with golden hair. And his own girl, despite her make-up and ridiculously high hair, was pretty. He liked to be seen with her and to have everyone know that he slept with her and that she was in love with him and now he was afraid that he might lose her. And that, combined with the frustration of losing all his money, was frightening. He felt desperate.
But he had a plan.
He was going to rob Pete Trask.
"Can't we have a beer while we wait?" she asked.
He growled.
"Just one beer?"
"I got to keep an eye on the hotel."
"But we could watch it from the bar down at the corner. That would be better than sitting here."
"I can't afford even a beer," he said.
She sighed. Usually, when she sighed, it meant that she was submitting. But this time he seemed to detect a different tone. It sounded as though she were exasperated. He turned and looked at her and she frowned.
"All that money wasted," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if your luck is ever going to change, Ken."
"Just you wait."
"It's been two years already."
He took the cigarette stub from his mouth and ground it out in the ash tray. A wisp of smoke and a burning smell twisted up and filled the car. It mingled with the moldy smell of the seat covers.
It had been two years. She had been faithful as far as he knew, and it would be terrible to lose her because some jerk had been lucky betting against him. But it wouldn't be much longer now. He was quite determined to rob Trask. He had seen him pick up the girl and take her to the hotel and now he waited for him to come out. He had a knife in his pocket, a big flick knife. He wasn't particularly courageous, and he was nervous. Trask had been a big, mean-looking man. But his determination overrode his fears. He needed that money!
His name was Ken Fee. The girl's name was Belle. He had never known her last name. That wasn't important. In this section there were a good many men who did not even know their own last names. Paternity was a vague thing. Belle had not, in fact, been strictly faithful to Ken. But she had been as faithful as could be expected of her. When he was out gambling and a man bought her a drink or two she knew that it was only right that she should go to bed with that man. After all, fair is fair. But she saw that Fee might not understand this and so she never told him about those other men. Sometimes they gave her a few dollars afterward, and she never told him about this, either. It was little enough. He would have taken her money and used it to change his luck, and although she had faith in his hunches she did not want to trade money for them. And he might have asked where she got it, too. That could have been embarrassing.
"Well, can I walk down to the bar while you wait here?" Belle asked him.
"You got money?"
"Someone will buy me a drink."
"I don't like no other guys buying my woman drinks."
"You never do, Ken."
"Wait, just wait. As soon as this jerk comes out of the hotel we'll have plenty."
"Are you really going to rob him?"
He smiled in what he knew was a confident and cold manner. It was his gambling smile, the one he used when a particularly strong hunch came to him.
"Sure. I've done it before."
"I don't want you to get hurt, Ken."
"Don't worry, baby. Old Fee can take good care of himself. I been around a long time and I ain't never worked and I know all the ropes."
"Well...."
He reached over and touched her breast. He squeezed the nipple between thumb and forefinger in an affectionate little manner that he knew she liked. Her brassiere was very thin and very old and he could clearly feel the little bullet respond to his touch. He wanted to get her mind off the money.
"You worry about your man, don't you, baby?"
She shrugged.
"I like that. I like to know that you care about the dangers and the chances that I take."
"I'd rather you got a nice safe job," she said. Fee looked rather hurt at that sacrilegious desire.
Sometimes he didn't understand this girl.
His fingers moved to the other nipple.
She put her hand over his as though she were going to stop him, but she didn't move his hand away. She did like him, in a way. She liked to have him make love to her better than she liked that with most men. Her desires were not basically physical, it was the need to be loved that inspired her, and she felt, somehow, that Fee liked her more than the men who bought her two beers and later, sometimes, gave her two dollars. She wasn't sure why this was, but then she had never given it much thought.
"We got some time to kill," he said.
"Not here."
"I got to wait here."
"Someone might come past and see."
"So what? You ashamed of me?"
"Of course not, but...."
"I don't care if the whole city sees us together, baby. I like to be seen with you. And pretty soon I'm going to take you where everyone will see us. Maybe even tonight since you're already dressed to kill. Just as soon as I smack that lucky jerk in the head and earn me some money. Earn us some money, baby. Maybe we'll even go to The Golden Parrot tonight."
"Really?"
Her eyes lighted and she smiled. "You mean it?"
He showed her his smile again. He knew that he had her now; he had found a very soft spot. The Golden Parrot was the most expensive night-spot in the district. Some people with lots of money went there. Deacon the gambler went there sometimes. Sometimes even a few people from uptown went there when they were slumming. There was even a floor show at The Golden Parrot.
"Sure," he said.
"I've never been there."
"You'll like it."
"Have you been there?"
"Sure. Plenty of times."
She looked puzzled. He saw his mistake.
"Only on business, though," he said. "That's why I never took you with me. It was always on business the times I've been there since you were my girl."
"Oh," she said. "Business...."
"But tonight, you go too. We might even have a bottle of champagne."
"Oh, Ken...."
"Whiskey, anyway. None of that beer for my gal. Nothing but the best for my woman."
She moved nearer to him then. Her dress rustled on the rough seat covers. She wore a pink dress that clashed with her coral lipstick horribly but matched the extraordinary pink color that had resulted from the latest attempt to dye her hair blonde. It was partly blonde but it was a little pink. She thought that it looked rather nice that way. The dress had a high neckline and she didn't like that so well but it was a nice dress that she bought a second-hand store, and so she had to put up with the neckline. Anyway, it was tight and her breasts stood out neatly beneath it. Everyone knew that she did not wear a high neckline because she had no bosom.
Fee put his free arm around her shoulders and continued to play with her nipples.
Belle placed her mouth against his neck. He smelled like tobacco and alleys. She supposed that he smelled like dice and cards, too. Her hand came down and rested lightly on his leg and she let her breath warm his ear.
Two men walked past. They passed the car without looking in.
"No one' will notice," Fee said.
Belle didn't answer. Visions of The Golden Parrot occupied her.
Fee moved her hand along and then put his own hand on her leg. He slid his hand beneath the hem of her dress. Her leg was thin and hard.
"I don't want to take my clothes off here," she said.
"Don't have to," he told her. His hand moved, palm downward, on her leg. Her legs tightened for a moment. Her hand moved, too. It rested on him and then pressed. At first he was not ready because he had been thinking of other things, but as her hand caressed him she knew his need.
His fingers slipped past the cheap black panties that she wore. She was warm and soft. Her breath came faster and much warmer at his ear. She half turned so that she was facing him, sideways.
"Let me take these off," he said.
He started to draw the panties down.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Wait. Not here. I'll do something else for you. Something that you like. Because you're going to be so nice to me after you get the money."
Fee grinned. It was not a cold grin this time. It was a leer. He leaned back against the door and she smiled and her hand worked on his clothing. On his bare flesh her fingers felt like fire. He unfastened his belt and stretched his legs out.
"Shall I?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. His voice was high pitched. His hand came away from her. One hand rested on the steering wheel and the other rested on her back. He pushed gently. She moved willingly. She still thought of The Golden Parrot. She thought that he deserved a special treat because he was going to take her there, and she knew that he particularly liked this way of making love. She was rather neutral about that, herself. She didn't dislike doing that, but then again she got no great thrill from it. It was something she saved for when she was affectionate and wanted to give him pleasure without demanding any for herself. It was the same as when she did it for a man who had bought her two whiskies instead of two beers. And she had found that they were always nicer to her afterward and more likely to give her a couple dollars.
Men were funny that way.
But fair is fair.
She touched him. Fee went rigid all over. His head leaned back against the seat, and he looked at the roof of the car. He didn't close his eyes. They no longer looked quite so dull. His tongue came out and moved over his lips and he squirmed. He pressed against her back a little harder, urging her on, wanting that to last a long time, but wanting her to hurry, too, because the urgency was building up rapidly now. She was building him to the peak. She just touched him lightly at first. She held him, but her hand did not move. Her other hand rested on his hip, the fingers tapping lightly, inside his clothing. He looked at her for a moment. He saw her and became all the more thrilled. He watched for a moment and that became almost unbearable. She looked up at him while she caressed, and her eyes were smiling. He moaned softly and looked at the roof once more. Then he closed his eyes.
"Nice?" she whispered.
"Umm."
"And this?" She lowered her head.
Fee heaved until he was arched, barely touching the seat, leg muscles aching with the tenseness.
He could hear the small, soft, warm sounds. They drifted to his head and then seemed to explode there, to pound like drums. He knew that he was moaning steadily, he could feel the moaning in his throat, but he could not hear himself.
She shifted. Her fingers pressed his tight buttocks. He could feel each fingertip distinctly. One strand of her hair had come free and it brushed him. She moved faster.
He was quivering at the very top now, and she knew that he was ready, and she moved, gentle but quick, anxious to give him pleasure. His body hummed with tension.
She paused for a moment, startled. She whimpered softly. And then she moved again, starting to slow down now but making sure he was exhausted.
When she moved from him Fee was relaxed and very nearly unconscious. She snuggled against him and he put his arm around her lazily. She kissed his neck. Her lipstick was smeared. Her hair had begun to come out of its ridiculous and intricate pattern. But she smiled. She felt good because she knew how much pleasure she had given him, and because she knew that, in return, he was going to take her to The Golden Parrot. Everything seemed wonderful. Later, when she was full of good whiskey, or perhaps even champagne, she thought that she might even do this again for him in the comfort of her own room where they could undress first and play for a while and make that last a long time. She thought about this and snuggled against him and he didn't move for a long while. He was thinking how lucky he was to have her, and how necessary it was to keep her. He would take almost any chance to keep her. After quite a while, when he felt able to move, he reached out and began to fasten his clothing. He felt the knife in his pocket. The thrill of danger came again, but much less now because his emotions were drained and stupefied. He kissed her and she began to redo her lipstick in the rear view mirror and Fee watched the front door of the hotel once more.
CHAPTER THREE
You going to spend the night here?" Sarah asked Trask. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and he was lying on his back smoking a cigarette. "Yeah," he said. "Did you want me to stay?"
Trask shrugged. His heavy shoulder muscles moved when he shrugged that way. They bulged. He had hitter's shoulders, the kind that slope slightly and are thick rather than wide. A little hair grew on his shoulders and a lot of hair grew on his chest. He was powerful and crudely built, as though he had been roughly carved instead of fitted together. He gave an impression of being as nearly indestructible as a man could be. This was true emotionally as well as physically.
"You don't seem very interested," she said. She was annoyed. Sarah hadn't been looking for love, and she didn't expect it, but she thought the least that he could do was to pretend he liked her a little. After all she hadn't charged him for that. It had been free and there was no reason why he should treat her like a hooker. She wished that she had asked him for five dollars.
"Stay if you like," he said. , "I think I'll go."
"All right."
"You're a good lover but you sure ain't very nice to a girl afterward, are you?"
"I don't suppose I am."
"Don't you like women?"
"I sleep with them sometimes."
"Yeah," she snorted. She got up and began to gather her clothes together. He watched her with narrowed eyes, the cigarette limp in his mouth. Perhaps he really didn't like women very well. He supposed that was true. But then, he liked no one very well. He couldn't think of any man that he liked. He liked women better than men, anyway. But they bored him. As soon as he had finished making love he wanted a cigarette and some peace. He was glad that the girl was not going to stay the night.
Sarah sat on the bed to put her stockings on.
She was very conscious of his watching her. She tried to look unconcerned and sexy at the same time, She fastened the stockings and then put on her brassier and stood up to pull the low-cut green dress over her head. He still looked at her. She put her high-heeled shoes on. There was a hole in the sole of one. "See you around," she said.
"Yeah. Take ten bucks out of my pants pocket and buy yourself a dress or something." She looked at him. "Sure," he said.
"I didn't sell that to you," she said. "I know. I wouldn't have paid ten dollars for it. No dame is worth ten dollars. Just take it as a present."
"Well, all right."
His pants were over the back of a chair. She reached in and took a roll of bills out. She took two fives and put the rest back. She took the fives over to the bed and held them out so he could see that she had not taken more. He nodded without really looking at the money.
"Funny guy," she said.
"Yeah. I'll see you around town."
"Thanks."
"Sure," he said.
Sarah paused a moment longer. She wished that he would ask her to stay. Ten dollars made up for a lot of shabby treatment and lost affection. And he was a good lover.
But he smoked and looked at her and said nothing.
She went out. She stopped and smiled at the door, an unsure smile. Then she closed the door behind her.
"Funny guy," she said to herself. She went down the hall and down the stairs. She wobbled just a little because her high heels were worn unevenly. When she wobbled past the desk the clerk smiled at her very lewdly.
"Leaving already?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Will your ... friend ... be staying the night?"
"How should I know?"
Hubert grinned. He leered. It had only been a few minutes since he had seen her naked. He watched her wobble out the door and he pushed himself more tightly against the desk and pressed his hand more tightly to himself and watched the way her bottom moved from side to side. He thought that she was very nice. Almost as nice as a dancer or a showgirl.
"Hey, there's Sarah," Belle said. "She's alone. Maybe that guy won't be coming out after all. Maybe he's going to sleep there."
"You better ask her," Fee said. Belle nodded. She opened the door. "Be cool about it," he said.
She got out and started across the street. Sarah was walking down the other side. Fee watched. He thought Belle was much prettier than Sarah. She had a better body and she took more care with her hair. He thought that Belle was prettier than anyone he knew, except maybe Deacon's showgirl.
"Finished with that guy already?" Belle asked, when she caught up to Sarah. They knew each other pretty well.
"Yeah. All finished."
"Any good?"
"Yeah, he was good. A cold guy, though. Real hard and cold. But he made it good."
They started walking together.
"He gave me ten bucks too. I didn't ask him for any money, either. He just gave it to me."
"Say, that's all right."
"I'll buy you a drink if you want to stop down at the bar. I feel generous now."
"Well ... won't he be coming down?"
"No. He wants to sleep, I guess."
"He won't be coming out tonight?"
Belle sounded so disappointed that Sarah looked at her and laughed. Sarah was not a jealous type.
"You thinking about hustling him?" she asked.
"No, no. I just wondered...."
"Want that drink?"
"All right. I'll have to tell Ken, though. I'm supposed to meet him later. I'll see you at the bar in five minutes."
Sarah walked on and Belle came back and got in the car beside Fee. She looked very crestfallen.
Fee swore.
"He isn't coming out," she said. "He's going to sleep there."
"Ain't that just my luck!"
"I guess that means we can't go to the night club?"
"Yeah."
"Can't you go in the hotel and do it?"
"Are you crazy?"
"I don't see why you can't."
"Too dangerous."
"Well, if you really wanted to take me out you'd take the chance. It would be all right."
"No." he said. He swore again. It was a shame, after he had got his courage all built up, to lose the chance.
"I'm going down to the bar. Sarah said she'd buy me a drink. I'll see you later." He frowned.
"Well, it don't seem right to sit in the car because you can't get any money, either. I'm very disappointed about that. I'm going down to the bar."
Fee wondered if he should hit her. He weighed it in his mind. Sometimes hitting them had the right effect, but sometimes it just made things worse. And now he saw that she was very determined. He didn't think that hitting her would change her mind. It would just make her mad and then she might even do something to get even. Like going home with some other guy. Just out of spite, just to hurt him.
"All right," he said. "You wait for me at the bar. I'll get the money."
"I'll wait there."
She got out and closed the door. She smiled at him through the window. Then she went down the street. He waited for a few minutes and then he got out and slammed the door angrily. It would serve her right if he got in trouble, he thought. It would serve her right if he got arrested.
But he was going to take a chance.
Hubert looked up eagerly when the front door opened. Then he saw that it was only a man and he looked unhappy. Fee came over to the desk and leaned on it.
"What room has that big guy got?"
"Who?"
"The guy that came in here with Sarah. You know who I mean. That long-legged girl with long hair."
"Oh. Yes."
"Well? What room?"
"Are you a friend of his?"
Fee reached over the desk and grabbed Hubert's collar in one hand and pulled him half across the desk. Hubert squealed and squirmed. Fee slapped him across the face and dropped him and Hubert collapsed against the desk.
"What room?"
"Three-one-nine," Hubert said. He was terrified. It was almost as bad as the time the man had caught him looking through the keyhole.
Fee went toward the stairs.
"I hope there won't be any trouble...." Hubert said.
"If there is, you didn't see me come in. Under stand? You don't know who went up."
"All right," Hubert said.
"And fix your pants," Fee told him.
He walked up to the third floor.
"I don't know what you see in that Ken Fee." Sarah was telling Belle. They were sitting in a booth at the bar. They were the only girls in the place. A few men were drinking beer. One man was trying to look up Sarah's skirt and two men were trying to look up Belle's skirt. Neither girl cared much about that. Belle kept her legs a little closer together than Sarah, but that was just because her skirt was tighter. She admired Sarah's low neckline, though, and wished that her pink dress was made that way. She knew that Sarah didn't have a steady boy friend but she didn't suppose that the girl was jealous.
"I just like him, is all."
"He's a punk," Sarah said. She wasn't trying to annoy Belle, she was just honest.
"No, he isn't really. He's just unlucky."
"Haw!"
"He's going to get some money soon. You'll see."
"That will be the day."
"Oh, no, Ken is really pretty clever. And he's brave, too. He'll be taking me to The Golden Parrot later."
"That's a clip joint," Sarah said.
Sarah was much harder to impress than Belle. She was probably more intelligent, too. Not that she was any genius.
"I've never been there," Belle admitted. "But Ken will be picking me up soon."
"Sure," Sarah said.
Fee walked as quietly as he could down the hallway and stopped at the door of Trask's room. He waited there for a long time. It was a lot harder to do it this way, to walk right into the room, than it was to smack someone over the head in a dark alley when he walked past. He was determined to go ahead with the plan but he was worried. He thought about Belle, then, and imagined what might happen if he failed.
He imagined her letting another guy have her just out of spite. He could always cut the other guy later, but that wouldn't really make it better.
No. He had to rob Trask.
He got down on his knees and looked through the keyhole. He could see the bed. Trask was on the bed. He wasn't moving and-it looked like he was asleep. That would be fine. Maybe Fee would be able to rob him and get away without having him wake up. That would be even better than smacking him over the head in the alley. He held his breath and quietly opened the door.
What do you want, girls?" the barman asked.
He had come over to the booth to take the order. He had a towel slung over his shoulder. It was debatable which was filthier, the towel or his shirt. His neck, however, was filthiest of all. He was big and ugly and he usually made people order at the bar, but he was in a good mood tonight because he had won three dollars in the crap game. He was the only one, besides Trask, who had been ahead. It had been a good day for big, ugly men. The barman wasn't as big as Trask, but he was uglier.
"Belle?"
"Oh, anything."
The barman looked down Sarah's low-cut neckline where the line of cleavage disappeared.
"How about some gin? I like gin."
"Sure," Belle said. She held her breath and pushed her chest out so that the barman would notice that she had breasts too. She really had to alter that dress.
"Two gin and sodas," Sarah said.
"You just turn a trick?" he asked.
"It was a present."
"Sure it was," said the barman.
He glanced at Sarah and then back down the dress.
"That big guy that you left with don't give no presents away," he said. "I know. I just been shooting craps with him. He only smiles when someone goes broke."
"Someone should have hit him," Belle said.
"Nobody wanted any part of him."
I hope Ken doesn't get in trouble, she thought. She hadn't known that the guy was bad news. She felt sort of responsible for pushing Ken into it.
The barman went to get the drinks.
Oh, he'll be all right, she thought. Ken knows how to take care of himself.
Fee closed the door behind him very softly. He stood there with his back pressed against it for a long while. The room was musty. It was very still. The big figure on the bed did not move at all. He didn't even seem to be breathing. He must have really got worn out on Sarah, Fee thought. This should be real easy. Like taking candy from a baby.
He advanced one step.
The neon light flashed. The figure on the bed went red, gray, red.
He sure is big, though, Fee thought.
He came up to the chair. Trask's pants were hung over the back of the chair. He took them and felt in the pocket. He felt a wad of money and drew it out. It was a pretty good wad and he felt his heart thump with success.
Real easy, he thought.
"Find something interesting?" asked Trask, as he slowly got up from the bed.
"He won't show up to take you anywhere," Sarah said. "I'd bet on that. If he did get any money he wouldn't be thinking about taking you out. That's how men are. When they got empty pockets they come around and when they got plenty of money they look for something new."
"Not Ken. I don't think...."
"Don't bet on it. Men are all the same. It's enough to make a girl turn Lesbian sometimes."
Sarah was still disappointed that Trask had not asked her to spend the night. But when she said that about Lesbians she saw that Belle gave her a funny look. She wasn't at all sure what the look meant, though.
"Don't get up!" Fee said.
He had the knife out. It opened with a clink. It was a big knife and he held it well in front of him with the sharp edge facing up. It flashed red in the neon and it looked very deadly and very large.
But Peter Trask got up.
"I've got steel!" Fee said. "I need this money. If you try to stop me I'll cut your eyes out."
Trask was smiling. He reached down and took the pillow from the bed and held it in his left hand. His left hand and his left foot were forward, like a boxer. He came toward Fee. Fee backed away.
"I'm telling you...."
"This game is faster than craps," Trask said. "This is a bigger game, man."
He held the pillow out and he carried his right hand open at shoulder level.
"All right, keep the money," Fee said.
"Oft, I will."
"Here, take it!"
Fee tossed the wad of bills toward Trask. They hit the pillow and fluttered to the floor. Trask hadn't tried to catch them. He hadn't moved at all. Fee had planned to strike then, but there had been no opening. Now the money did not look so important. Even with a knife, he couldn't be sure. Trask was big. And he was smiling.
"I'll leave," Fee said.
"Oh, no," Trask said. "You'll have to finish what you've started now."
Fee was at the door but he didn't dare turn to open it. He reached behind him with his left hand and tried to find the doorknob. He kept the knife pointing at Trask. Trask stepped in and feinted with the pillow. Fee didn't go for it. He had the doorknob now and he turned it. But the door opened in and he was too close to swing it past his body now. And he was scared. Fee was very frightened now.
"Are you crazy?" he asked.
His voice quavered.
"A little," Trask said. "Maybe a little...."
"You never really thought about turning Lesbian, did you?" Belle asked Sarah. She looked down at her drink.
"You sound interested," Sarah said.
"Oh, I ... just wondered...."
Sarah smiled. She saw that Belle was a little embarrassed, and it was amusing to see a girl like her show embarrassment. Sarah said, "Everyone wonders about that sometimes."
"I suppose they do."
"Sure. Haven't you?"
"I ... guess I've wondered what that was like. But I've never done anything like that. Have you?"
"Sure," Sarah said.
"Really?" Belle asked. She had forgotten her embarrassment by now.
Sarah sipped her gin. She turned a little on the seat and the men at the bar had to get down a little lower in order to look up her dress.
"Never much," Sarah said. "I used to fool around a little with a friend when I was a kid. And when I was in jail last year for smacking a guy with a bottle there was a little Lesbian there that used to get all the girls. But that was just because there were no men there."
"Was it fun?"
"Oh, it was all right."
"What do girls do?"
"Oh, lots of things. It used to be more fun with my friend than it was with the girl in jail. That was because we were friends and liked each other. In jail it was just a question of getting kicks. And all the other girls were waiting their turn. It's all right, though."
"Aren't you ashamed to tell people about it?"
"Why should I be?"
"Well ... isn't it wrong?"
"Isn't everything?"
"Yeah. You don't have to feel ashamed telling me, though. I didn't mean that."
"Sure. You're curious." Belle finished her drink. "You'd probably like to try that."
"I don't know."
"Just to see what it's like?"
"I guess so."
"You probably will, someday."
"Maybe. Someday when I ain't going with Ken any more. If it just sort of happens."
"We'd better have another drink," Sarah said. She looked toward the bar. Everyone looked back toward her. And Belle looked at her across the table and thought that it must be nice to be so experienced and not to be ashamed about things.
She also thought that Sarah was pretty.
But she was waiting for Fee.
He would be along any minute, she knew.
Fee lunged.
Like a trapped rat, he struck. He pushed the knife before him and stepped in, but Trask was fast. As big as he was, he was fast. He had a minimum of motion, no wasted effort. He took the knife in the pillow, raising his left hand and then shoving it hard to the side. The sharp blade cut though and stuck and Trask twisted pillow and knife and Fee's arm at the same time.
Fee hit with his left hand toward the head. It landed high and bounced off. Trask put his right hand into the belly and his fist went deep, crushing Fee's stomach in and driving him against the door. His mouth jumped open as he fought to get his breath and Trask gripped his arm and twisted the knife away from him. Fee tried to raise his knee but Trask caught it with his foot and hit Fee in the body again. Fee fell to his knees.
All the fight had gone out of him. There hadn't been very much to begin with. Trask took him by the hair and twisted his face around and smiled at him. He had the knife now and he showed it to Fee, holding the point right up against his eyeball.
"What was that you said about cutting eyes out?" he asked.
"I didn't mean it...."
Trask pulled him to his feet, holding him by the hair. Fee looked as though he were going to cry. He held one hand up in front of him like a shield.
Trask laughed.
He threw the knife aside. It clattered on the floor and went under the bed.
"I wouldn't really have cut you...." Fee was saying.
Trask hit him in the solar plexus.
Fee couldn't fall. Trask was holding him up by the hair. But his body stopped working and his legs collapsed and he hung like a rag doll from Trask's hand, like a puppet on many strings. Trask looked at him for a while. He raised him higher and turned him. Trask seemed to be amused.
Then he hit Fee again.
And again.
Fee blacked out then. Trask let him fall. He lay down and after a moment he vomited. Trask frowned at this and kicked him in the ribs. Then he picked him up by the collar and opened the hall door. He dragged Fee down the hall in the opposite direction from the stairs. Fee was conscious, he understood where he was and what was happening, but he was powerless to move. Those body blows had paralyzed him. He gasped and sobbed for breath and Trask dragged him to the end of the corridor.
There was a window there. Trask opened it wide. Fee tried to speak. The only sound he could make was a wheeze. Then Trask began to shove him out the window. He didn't throw him out, he just put him out carefully.
He put his head out and then his shoulders. Fee began to struggle and squirm. But he was helpless. He looked down. There was a dark alley below. They were on the third floor and the window faced an alley. Fee wondered, with a strange clarity, whether the alley was paved or not. It mattered a great deal. Trask had him all out now and was holding him by the ankles and at last his voice came back.
"Ha, ha," Trask said, and he dropped Fee out the window and leaned out to see him fall.
He was quick to anger, this Peter Trask.
Trask looked down at the dark figure in the alley and nodded to himself and went back to his room to get some sleep. He picked the money up but he left the knife on the floor. He put the money back in his pants pocket where it was safe. He soon fell asleep.
"I wonder where he is?" Belle said, looking at the clock that rotated behind the bar.
"If he's got money he's out chasing some blonde," Sarah told her. "But that punk never had any money. You want to have another drink in this dump?"
"I don't care."
"Let's go somewhere else. I'm sick of letting these guys look up my dress."
"I told Ken I'd wait here."
"He won't be here. He ditched you."
"Maybe he did."
She looked at the clock again. The hands hadn't moved since the last look.
"Let's go back to my place. I've got a bottle there. That's cheaper than drinking here and it's more comfortable. Not much more, but a little. I just live around the corner. If you want to, that is...."
"Well, all right, if I can stop at Ken's car, maybe, and leave a note or something."
"Sure," Sarah said.
They left. The men all turned and faced the bar and looked bored and waited for some more women to come in.
In the alley Fee gritted his teeth in pain. Every thing was turning within his head. He had turned over as he fell and landed on his back and he knew that he was lucky to be alive. He was not at all sure but that he might die yet, however. He couldn't tell how badly he was injured. The alley had been dirt and gravel and stone. Fee knew that his left leg was broken because it was doubled up the wrong way. He was pretty sure that his ribs were broken, too. That might have been from the punches or the fall or both. But he couldn't tell what else was wrong and he stayed there, afraid to try to move. He was afraid he might just fall apart.
"He isn't in the car!" Sarah nodded.
"I'll just run in the hotel for a minute. I'll be right back out."
Belle crossed the street and went into the hotel. The clerk smiled at her and pushed against the desk. His clothes were fastened now. He was too nervous about what was going on upstairs to get much pleasure from his memories and his dreams.
"Did Ken Fee come in here?" she asked.
Hubert blinked. He knew this was Fee's girl. She must have come to test him, he thought. To see if he could keep his mouth shut.
"No, he hasn't come in all night."
Belle went out. She looked disappointed. He hadn't even tried to get the money. Hadn't even tried. He had lied to her about it, he never intended to get it.
I'm through with him, she thought. Sarah is right about him. She's right about, all these men.
And thinking that, she looked at Sarah standing by the old Ford waiting for her.
And she began to think other things.
They walked down to Sarah's and went in. It was three flights up a dark hallway staircase with a crooked banister. But it wasn't too bad inside, as far as apartments in this area went. Belle thought it was comfortable.
The two windows in the apartment, one in the kitchenette and one in the bedroom, both faced east and caught the morning sunshine, but by afternoon the sun had passed over the building and it wasn't too hot in the living room. It was just a little humid and the air smelled like stale coffee, cigarette butts, dust and age, but that wasn't so bad. A lot of places smelled worse, as both girls well knew, in their neighborhood.
Sarah turned on a lamp that had a cream and maroon plastic shade with the melted part turned toward the wall. The hole made a round spot of light on the wall, and the maroon part of the shade made striped light patterns on the brownish pink walls. It was an absurd lamp. The base was a crockery maiden in a Statue of Liberty pose, naked except for a garland of posies draped, constrictor like, about her buttocks and breasts. Belle noticed the lamp, but reserved comment. She thought it was awfully odd of Sarah, in view of their previous conversation, to have nude statuary decorating the living room.
The couch was in bad shape and was covered with a metallic bedspread of an indeterminate violet shade. It was stained with spills and whatnot, but not so's you'd notice unless you looked closely. The wing chair was brown and morose, and the fireplace had been blocked up with fiberboard and that had been covered with color photographs cut from men's magazines. One was of a girl being whipped across the breasts, another of a naked girl in a bear trap, and so on. Belle didn't ask about the pictures, either. She wondered, though, whether Sarah had pasted the pictures up, or whether the previous occupant had done it. But she didn't suppose that it made a great deal of difference.
There were various odd tables and chairs stuck in corners to fill up the empty spaces. This had been done on the part of the landlord with the mistaken idea that a full room looks more inviting than an uncrowded one. It also saved him paying storage for what wasn't in use.
Sarah went into the kitchenette and opened the tiny refrigerator.
"There's a couple of cans of beer in here and some Scotch in the cupboard," she called in to Belle who had arranged herself on the couch.
"Oh, Scotch for me, Sarah. My, I think you have a nice place. Very comfortable. My place is so small. If I could find a nice flat like this one, I'd move right away."
Sarah got out some ice cubes and put them into a bowl. Then she got down two juice glasses from the cupboard and poured them a quarter full of the brown liquid while Belle chattered away in the other room. She took down a cream pitcher and filled it with tap water, then took the whole load in to where Belle was sitting with her legs up and her skirt high.
"This is real elegant," Belle said in a high, silly voice, not meaning to sound silly.
"Don't be silly," said Sarah.
"I mean it. It's real nice of you to invite me up here like this. Just us two girls. Who needs old Ken Fee? Not me."
"You're right there," said Sarah, shaking her head with a fed-up look on her face.
"Did you like that what I just said? Ken Fee, not me ... rhymes," she twittered brightly. Her eyes were a little too bright, like someone with a fever.
"Cheers," Sarah said, lifting her glass. Belle did the same and they both drank, then lighted cigarettes. Belle studiously posed herself like a vamp of the thirties. She stretched her legs out and arranged her short skirt above her knees, crooked her arm and rested her pointed chin in her hand while the other, the hand with the cigarette, trailed languorously along the back of the couch. Her blue eye-shadow-smeared eyelids dropped seductively and she looked smolderingly at Sarah.
"Don't tell me," said Sarah, drily. "You're trying to win my heart, aren't you?"
"How did you guess?" answered Belle in a voice that she thought was very sexy, sort of like a foghorn.
She was a little drunk. She wasn't used to drinking much. Ken never had enough money, and the guys that bought her drinks in the bars weren't all that generous.
She was testing Sarah, too. She didn't think Sarah would actually do anything out of desire, and she was a little curious, though she didn't want to mention it. She wanted to try what it was that girls did without having to suggest it herself. She was afraid she would be embarrassed, or that Sarah would say she didn't feel like it. And she was feeling sensual after what she had done for Ken in the car, and from talking to Sarah, seeing those pictures on the board in front of the fireplace.
"You're looking very tempting, Belle," said Sarah kiddingly. "Is that for my benefit?"
"You'll never know," said Belle tritely, laughing and showing her teeth. Her laugh erupted in short spurts that sounded slightly hysterical.
"I'll bet," Sarah said and put out her cigarette.
"Well, we don't have to do anything," said Belle looking suddenly disappointed and wishing she hadn't said anything in the first place.
"Oh, that's it," Sarah said as if it were a complete surprise. "Honey, I don't mind at all. It's up to you."
"Oh, in that case...." Belle blushed a little and looked pleased once more. "Do you suppose you could come over here a minute, Sarah?"
The other girl got up and went over to her. "What can I do for you?"
Belle thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of excuse, just in case Sarah changed her mind, and then she wouldn't be embarrassed. And besides she wasn't sure if she approved of such things, and an excuse would help things to just sort of happen.
"Do you think we could remodel the neck of this dress?"
Sarah looked at it, looked at where Belle's breasts pushed at the material, and nodded her head.
"I suppose so," she said. "What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, something like yours. You know, so it would show that I've got boobs, too. It makes me seem so flat to have the neck way up here." She made a slashing motion with her hand where the neckline rose to.
Sarah put her hand on Belle's shoulder and turned her around.
"It's not impossible, I guess. Wait a minute, I'll get the scissors and we'll experiment."
"Don't wreck the dress, will you?" called Belle fearfully, thinking perhaps she had gone too far.
"Don't worry, I won't."
Sarah came back with the scissors. "It's going to be hard because of the zipper in back but we can fix that, I bet. You want it low in the back, too, don't you?"
"Well, not below where my bra comes, because I've only got this one. I'm going to get one of those strapless ones pretty soon, though. They've got some that are like half moons, that just go underneath your boobs and hold them up and don't cover the tips, you know?"
"Yeah. I haven't got a strapless either. If my bra shows, I just take it off. Nothing looks messier than having your dirty old straps sticking out of your dress. Hold still and let me try something."
Sarah inserted the scissors in a seam in the shoulder of the dress and began to snip. Belle liked the feeling of Sarah's hands on her. She shivered.
"Hold still. I've almost got it. You know how to sew?"
"Not too good. Don't matter," mumbled Belle.
"Well, can you turn the edge over and stitch it after I get it cut the way you want it?"
"Yeah. I can do that. I worked in a laundry once. You have to be able to do that in a laundry."
Sarah's scissors snipped down over the right breast to where Belle's cleavage was, then the scissors went up the other side. The result was a long V with one side not quite even with the other. It was low enough, though, and Belle's cleavage showed dark between her medium-sized breasts.
"I'll have to even up the sides," said Sarah. "Looks pretty good, though. Better than before."
Belle looked down the front of her dress and was pleased to see how much of her breasts showed Nobody would be able to say she didn't have anything now. She felt much more confident. She took a deep breath so Sarah could see that she really did have a good figure after all, in spite of the dress.
Sarah began snipping away at the back. She cut it in a V, too, then she decided it would look better rounded a little, so she snipped away at the sides until they were as nearly even as she could get them. She cut right through the zipper.
When at last she was finished cutting, she took Belle into the bedroom and got them two more drinks to celebrate the new dress. Belle looked in the mirror and was astounded. She hadn't known how much Sarah was taking off the top of her good second-hand dress, but she couldn't have been more pleased. She though! she looked positively ravishing.
"You're a dressmaking genius," she chortled. She put her hands under her breasts and lifted them ... they bulged over the newly cut top of the dress. "You can sure see them now. Look, Sarah, don't they look nice?"
Sarah looked at the white mounds. "Very lovely,' she said. "Why don't you take your brassiere off. I think it holds you in too much."
"Do you?" Belle giggled. "All right. Do the back for me, will you?"
Sarah reached inside the dress and unhooked the bra. Her fingers followed the straps up and over Belle's shoulders.
"Do the straps unhook here?" she asked as her fingers dipped inside the size B cups. Belle nodded and gulped and Sarah unfastened the straps and pulled the bra out of the dress without Belle having to take it off.
Belle's breasts stood out and the nipples were growing rigid from having the material of the bra pulled across them. They held the front of the dress out nicely. Belle beamed.
"Sure looks nice, honey," Sarah complimented. "Look here, this is what you should do to finish off the edges."
She began folding the edges over in front and rubbing her hands over Belle's breasts while she did it. The nipples were hard knots pushing through the material. Belle watched Sarah's hands, fascinated, and fearing to move lest Sarah stop.
"You got any straight pins? To pin this and show you how it should go? Then you can take the dress off and we'll sew it. Sure makes a big difference, those inches taken off, I mean. And the bra, too. It makes you look real nice, being able to see how much you've got."
Belle's eyes were shining and her cheeks were bright with the flush of success and the beginning of passion. She took a deep breath and held her breasts out while Sarah rubbed her hands on them. She said she didn't have any pins, only hair clips, and pulled one out of the intricate tangle that her hair had become. Sarah took the clip and tried to fasten the material with it, but she dropped it down the bodice of the dress and reached in after it.
Belle bent over so her breasts would fall against Sarah's searching hand It felt good to have them touched and stimulated in that accidental way. So much nicer than the pinching and squeezing that men were so sure you liked. She held Sarah's hand against her breasts and began to move her body from side to side. She shut her eyes and felt the warmth of desire filling her insides and making her head whirl.
"Maybe you ought to take your dress off so you don't make the edges ravel," Sarah said. Her voice was hoarse and her breath was coming quickly. She opened and closed her hand on Belle's breasts and the other woman sighed.
"Yeah, maybe." She looked dreamily at Sarah and kicked her shoes off.
"Want me to help you?" Sarah put her arms around Belle and fumbled for the zipper that was in the back. The two women were face to face and Belle's mouth was pink and moist and open. Her tongue moved slowly over her lower lip and her eyes were half shut. She was wishing Sarah would kiss her. Just to see how it would feel.
Sarah put her mouth against Belle's and tightened her arms around her. Belle returned the embrace. Their mouths lay together lightly at first. The feeling was strange ... soft, somehow, and very nice. More so than with a man. Then it was just lust and very seldom any tenderness, just passion.
Their lips pressed closer together, Belle's lipstick tasting like raspberries to Sarah. Their mouths open ed against each other more, their tongues touched together, and an electric current seemed to pass between them. Then their tongues moved whipping each other with the lash of desire.
When they parted, they were both a little breathless. Sarah unfastened the damaged zipper on her friend's dress and helped her to get out of it. She lay it over the high bedstead and went back to Belle. She took the elastic top of her half slip and pulled it slowly down, watching Belle's face for any sign of apprehension. She saw nothing but the glaze that dulled Belle's eyes now, and the brilliant color of her cheeks.
Belle stepped out of the blue nylon garment and stood patiently while Sarah unsnapped her garters and slid the black nylon stockings from her legs.
"Take off your garter belt, honey," Sarah said softly. "Then you can help me. Okay?"
Belle murmured that she'd love to and dropped her blue garter belt on the floor. She helped Sarah squirm out of the tight dress and hung it on the end of the bed with hers. Sarah didn't wear a bra and her breasts hung just a little from their weight. Her nipples were pinkish brown and the centers were beginning to bud. The outside wasn't raised yet. Her breasts looked soft and full, and Belle couldn't take her eyes from them.
Sarah took off the rest of her clothes including her bikini panties. She stood naked in front of Belle and drank the little bit that was left in her drink.
Belle was squeezing her legs together in impatience.
"Sarah?" said Belle softly. "Are we going to do anything? Like you said?"
"Do you want to?" asked Sarah.
"Oh, yes. I want to right now." Belle's hands came up from her sides and pressed against her stomach. She was yearning for Sarah. Her breasts tingled to be touched again.
Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed. It squeaked and sank under her weight. Belle came over and perched beside her. Sarah put her arm around in front of Belle and put her hand on the girl's waist, gently pushing her back until they were lying side by side on the sway-backed bed. Sarah lay on her side and Belle, after a nudge from Sarah, turned to face her.
Their lips met again, not gently this time, but full of passion. Sarah put her hands on Belle's breasts and Belle put her hands up and began to rub her palms along the contours of Sarah's swelling cones.
"Yours are nice, Sarah," she said, her breath coming in little pants.
"Would you like to kiss them?" Sarah said. "It feels good that way."
"If you want me to."
Sarah raised herself up a little and held out her breasts to Belle who moved her head close to them. Belle's kiss lashed against a nipple and she could feel it swell as if it might burst. Sarah was beginning to move her body against Belle's leg.
"That's nice," she said. "Don't stop."
She moved her hands to Belle's buttocks and began to stroke them in a circular motion. Belle moved closer to Sarah. Her legs felt warm and damp. She held herself against Sarah as Sarah moved, their bodies meeting and separating. Then Sarah held Belle tight to her and moved in a circle. Belle put her hands where her kiss had been and held Sarah's breasts against her own.
Sarah put her hand on Belle's legs and touched her gently, knowing that her touch brought desire. Then she rolled over onto her back and pulled Belle to her.
"Kiss me," she said.
Their mouths met in a frenzy of darting, lashing tongues. Sarah put her hands in Belle's hair, loosening it so that it fell down with a shower of clips and pins about their faces. It smelled like perfumed hair lacquer, and the sweet smell filled their quivering nostrils like an aphrodisiac.
Their hands roved over each other's bodies with abandon, touched all the secret places, setting forth passion and desire. Sarah arched to meet Belle's body. Her arms came up over the other girl's back and encircled her, forcing their bodies as close together as was possible. Belle's hands clasped on Sarahs buttocks and held her. They moved together. They began the long climb together, spiraling upward, the thrill seeming to flow from one to the other, as though there were no barriers between their bodies.
And then their bodies, together, yielded to their need.
A little later, Belle said, "I'm glad that Ken didn't show up for me, Sarah. I never knew how good that was, this way. I don't care about him any more at all. I don't care what he does or where he is."
The policeman, strolling past the alley beside the cheap hotel, banging his nightstick along the wall, heard a moan. He stopped. He heard the moan again. He peered down the alley, loosening his gun and holding his stick ready.
"Help!" Fee called, feebly.
"Obviously a trap," said the cop.
He walked on. It was understandable, because this was a bad section for cops. Perhaps, later, he might tell his relief to look but he wasn't going alone into an alley. He walked along and his stick drummed on the walls and the fences, and if he drummed until the sound went beyond the stars, this cop was not going down that alley.
CHAPTER FOUR
Peter Trask came down from his room in the morning. He had slept well. Hubert was still on the desk and he didn't know what to do. All night he had expected Fee to come down. He couldn't guess what might have happened upstairs. If Fee had been unsuccessful it hardly seemed likely that Trask would have calmly spent the night. But he didn't know Trask. No one did. Trask came up to the desk and Hubert bit his lip and blinked. But Trask had only come to leave his key. He said nothing. He went out into the morning sunlight. He walked down to the nearest diner to have coffee. This was an old passenger coach that had been set up on concrete blocks and converted into a diner. It still looked more like a passenger coach. The man behind the counter was waiter, cook and dishwasher combined. He smiled at Trask when he came in. He had bought Trask a coffee the day before, because Trask had been broke before he got into the crap game. He had also lent Trask two dollars, and it was that money which had been skyrocketed to two hundred by an unbelievable combination of sheer luck and opponents (like Ken Fee) who had absolutely no idea of what odds should be given for making a point. Trask put two dollars on the counter now and the man smiled even more. He was uglier than Trask, although he wasn't as ugly as the bartender at the corner bar.
"I heard you had a run," he said.
He pocketed the money. He was glad that there was no one else in the place to see the transaction. It would never do to have it known that one lent money. Everyone in town would have been around to borrow their share. Normally he didn't lend money, either. But Trask, somehow, had seemed a good risk. He had offered without being asked.
"Coffee and toast," Trask said, taking one of the stools. "And thanks for the loan."
The counterman's name was Jeff Block. As ugly as he was, he looked friendly. He poured the coffee.
"You know a guy named Ken who looks like a horse and bets evens that he will throw a five?" Trask asked.
"Yeah. Ken Fee. That's the guy."
"Who does he work for?" Block frowned. He rubbed his square jaw. "Had trouble with him? he asked. "Nothing much. Who?"
"I don't know. I guess he does a few jobs for Deacon. He might work for Max Arnold sometimes, too. Arnold owns The Golden Parrot. He's pretty big. You shouldn't get into any strife with him, Pete."
And it was then that Max Arnold's boys came into the diner. Block looked carefully away and puckered his lips up as though he was going to whistle. But he didn't. There were two of them and they came up to the counter and stood on either side of Trask. One was small and one was big and that made a classic combination. The small one was greasy and had a thin moustache. The big one was very big. Bigger than Trask. He wore a large-checked suit.
"Trask?" the big one said.
"That's right."
"Man wants to see you."
"Sure. As soon as I finish my breakfast."
"Wants to see you now."
"Where's that toast, Jeff?"
The little guy looked at the big guy. The big guy looked at Trask. Block took a deep breath and brought the toast over to the counter. Block hated trouble. He couldn't afford trouble in his position. But, on the other hand, he was no coward. He had a bat under the counter and he put his hand on it now and stood opposite the three men.
Trask took a bite of toast.
"Now, the man said," the big guy grunted. He had a thin voice for such a big guy. "He said to bring you friendly and not to have any trouble but he said now, now!"
Trask took a sip of coffee.
"You stay out, Block," the little guy said.
The big guy placed a hand on Trask. He placed it on his shoulder and he didn't use much force. It was just a coaxing hand. But Trask liked neither touching nor coaxing. He threw the hot coffee in the man's face, turned on the stool without getting up and threw the buttered toast in the little man's face. He stepped away from the stool and looked from one to the other, waiting to see whose hands went where. But neither reached for a weapon. Trask decided that it had been a friendly call.
"I'm finished now," he said.
The big guy looked at Trask as though he couldn't believe it. And then he smiled.
"I hope you don't do no friendly business at all," he said. "Because as soon as the man is through with you I'm going to break your legs."
"Really?" Trask said. He was smiling, too. Block smiled nervously because it was over for the moment, and the small guy looked like he was smiling because he had butter on his lips. It was a jolly group.
The three went outside. There was a big black car parked at the curb. The small man drove with the big man in front and Trask in back. They were all smiling so much that it looked like they were going to a friend's wedding. Or perhaps an enemy's funeral.
They drove to The Golden Parrot, and the driver obeyed every traffic sign.
In the darkened morning bar of The Golden Parrot, Deacon the gambler was sitting at a table with his blonde showgirl, and in Max Arnold's plush office behind the bar, Max's girl was trying to convince Max that he should let her take her clothing off for the customers.
"Why should my girl have to do a strip?" he asked. "But I want to, Max," she said. "I like to take my clothes off in front of people."
"No."
"Please, Maxie?"
Max sighed. He was quite tempted to smack her a few times but he knew that would do no good. If there was anything that she enjoyed more than taking all her clothes off in front of a crowd it was being smacked a few times.
She was a strange girl.
Her name was Clara and she was a classic dumb blonde. She was so dumb that Max even did business when she was in the room because she had no idea what was going on. She was so dumb that she wasn't even afraid of Max, didn't even know that he was dangerous, and that frustrated him. But, in her classic way, she was quite lovely, and Max liked classics. He had come up off the streets the hard way and now he was rich and respected and he knew that he had to appreciate the classics so that everyone would know that he had succeeded.
Clara had great big eyes with no flicker of understanding in them and great big sexy lips that were always wet and parted. She panted all the time as if constantly excited, which she might have been. Her hair was cut in a fringe across the forehead so that sometimes it fell over her eyes and she had to peer through the strands. Sometimes she chewed a strand or two when she was concentrating on something difficult, like how much two drinks cost if one drink cost thirty cents. She had never figured that one out but once she chewed a piece of hair off and swallowed it by mistake. Her body was lovely. She had a tiny waist and big breasts and a bottom that looked like an upside-down valentine beneath her tight dresses and slacks. Her clothes were so tight that she couldn't wear undergarments because the lines showed. Of course, without undergarments, her own lines showed. But she had, perhaps, never thought of that. And, anyway, she didn't like to wear clothes and she took them off at every opportunity. The only reason that she ever wore clothes was so that she could take them off. Once she had gone to a nudist colony with an admirer but that had been no fun at all because being undressed wasn't the same thing as undressing. But, despite the difficulties of keeping her respectable, Max liked her. He was a man who appreciated the finer things, and he put up with most of her whims and her teasing to be allowed to strip in his club.
Clara had been a present to Max from Deacon. Deacon had found her at a party. He had gone to the party because he thought that there was going to be some gambling there but the gambling had turned out to be penny ante and instead he had discovered Clara. No one knew where she had come from. No one at the party had ever seen her before. She had just heard the music and wandered in, apparently. If she had been on the way to some other destination when she got waylaid, she never got there. She didn't remember. Deacon had asked her where she lived and where she had come from but she couldn't remember that, either. So Deacon, who was no fool, could see right away that this was not an intelligent girl. But Deacon, who was no movie star, either, could also see that she was so dumb that even he might succeed in seducing her. Deacon looked remarkably like a penguin, but this was one of the nights when Clara's hair was covering her eyes and so her sight was dim. He fed her alcohol and she giggled and danced and, after a while, she took her clothes off. She stood in the center of the room and stripped and everyone else watched. Deacon felt quite proud. When Clara was completely naked everyone applauded and Deacon took her into the bedroom and closed the door. She didn't resist at all. She was pretty drunk. She got on the bed and giggled. Deacon undressed. When he got his black suit and white shirt off he didn't look so much like a penguin. He looked more like a starling. He even hopped instead of waddling. He hopped over and onto the bed.
When he touched Clara her legs jumped as though it were a conditioned reflex. They jumped so quickly they caught Deacon in the nose.
It looked more beak-like after that.
But it took more than a bent beak to deter Deacon. He rubbed it and returned to the open arms of his new conquest. He knelt over her and bent. He caressed her. He looked like a bird, pecking. And Clara began to wriggle like a worm. He pecked his way slowly up her soft body and when he was poised just right the worm turned.
Clara turned him over and became aggressive.
She was a little bigger than Deacon and quite a bit stronger. Her muscles had been developed by the exercise of undressing nine or ten times a day and Deacon had never lifted anything heavier than cards or dice.
Clara pressed him down onto the mattress.
She held him steady with her hands and her arms tightened. She poised there for a moment and then slowly relaxed. And Deacon felt crushed, bruised and helpless. Had he understood the odds he never would have tried this. He chirped. He squawked. He flapped his arms like wings and he twisted his body around but there was no escape and finally he yielded and lay still and hoped this would not take too long.
But it took quick a while.
Clara was having fun.
Her legs tensed and lifted her. She stayed there for a moment, poised, and then thumped against him. He knew that he was going to be bruised severely if he survived. She held him by the ears as though they were reins.
That was great fun.
Later, when the party was over and Deacon was leaving, she went with him. He didn't want her to go with him but she still had his ears and he had no choice. But he couldn't take her home because he already had a blonde showgirl living with him. The blonde was very calm and quiet in bed but she was quite capable of smacking him if she thought that he was bringing another girl home. And he knew that he could never take another session with Clara. He didn't know what to do.
And then he thought of his friend Max.
And he thought that Max ran a night club and that there were strippers in the club.
And that Clara dearly loved to strip.
Deacon, being no fool, put two and two together. And he gave Clara to Max and Max was so grateful that he gave Deacon a bottle of very bad champagne. That was how Max had acquired a classic dumb blonde.
That had been three months ago and now Max was in his office waiting for Peter Trask, and the dumb blonde was there asking him to please let her take her clothes off in the bar, and he was thinking that it wasn't so easy being a rich guy who had come up the hard way off the streets and acquired a taste for the classic things of life along the way.
CHAPTER FIVE
Peter Trask went in the front door of The Golden Parrot. He bad wondered whether they would go in the front door or the side entrance, and it was reassuring that there was nothing secretive about going in. Men seen going in are usually seen leaving. He hadn't really been worried, he was just noticing things. The guy in the checked suit went in first and the little greasy guy followed Trask.
They went through the bar.
It was dark and the only customers at this hour were Deacon and his showgirl. They were drinking coffee at a table. The barman was reading the racing paper. He wore a white jacket and a bow tie because this was the best night club in the area. The jacket was clean. He looked up when they came in and nodded toward the door leading to Arnold's office. Trask looked closely to see if the barman was at all nervous and decided that he was not. Nothing out of the ordinary was planned, at least as far as he knew. But then, in this area, many strange things might be normal. The barman started reading the scratch sheet again without waiting for them to reach the office.
They crossed the red-carpeted floor and then the hardwood dance floor. The big guy dragged his heels. The little guy walked on his toes. A wooden poster leaned in the corner. Later someone would put it in the street to attract customers for the evening show. A girl in G-string and pasties smiled sickeningly on a purple background. Trask noticed that her name was written across her stomach in bright red letters. Her name was Sonny Rise. She was the star of the show, and pretty ugly.
The big guy knocked. "Come in," someone said.
They went in. The office was plush. It was better than the club. The carpets were newer and there was plenty of polished wood and a fireplace. Max Arnold was sitting behind a huge wooden desk, smoking a huge cigar. He had a huge ring on the little finger of his right hand and it looked like gold. On the desk there was a mahogany cigar box open with big fat cigars in it. There was a gold table lighter and a brass paperweight with no papers under it and a blonde girl. The blonde girl was wearing a lavender dress with ostrich feathers at the hem and cockatoo feathers at the neck. It buttoned clown the front with big black buttons and she was in the process of unbuttoning these one by one. She didn't notice the men come in because her hair had fallen over her eyes.
"Hello, Pete," Arnold said.
Trask nodded.
"Shall we stay, boss?"
"You have butter on your shirt," Arnold said.
"This mug threw toast at me."
Arnold laughed.
"It wasn't so funny."
"He threw coffee on me, too."
"Haw," Arnold bellowed.
"It was hot, too. I wanted to bash him but I wasn't sure if I ought to. Shall I bash him now?"
"No, of course not. I explained to you that I wanted to see Pete as a friend."
"Yeah. That's why I didn't bash him."
"You did right, Moose."
The blonde had all the buttons undone now. She pulled the dress open so that Max could see. Moose squinted at her and the little guy wiped self-consciously at his butter.
"What did you want, Arnold?" Trask asked.
"No need to be belligerent, Pete. You act as if we weren't going to be friends."
"That's just how he acted with us, too, boss," the little guy said. 'llnfriendly,"
"I wanted to offer you a job, Pete."
"You don't even know me."
"It's no trick. I know of you."
"Go on, I'll listen."
"Look, Maxie," said the girl. "Ain't I got a better build than that Sonny Rise? I got bigger boobs and all. She's just an old hag compared to me."
"I had a telephone call this morning. From the hospital. It seems that one of the men who worked for me is there. It seems that he fell out a hotel window."
"No, he didn't fall. I dropped him out," Trask said.
Arnold smiled.
"Something like that, yes," he said.
"Gee, what a mean man!" Clara said. She swung around to look at Peter. She wore no brassiere. The cockatoo feathers fluttered and her breasts swayed as her body turned. She really did have bigger breasts than Sonny Rise, and they didn't droop so much. The nipples tilted upward and the cockatoo feathers hung down over them the way that her hair hung over her eyes. She parted the hair to peer at the mean man and one nipple popped through the feathers and seemed to wink at him.
"Well, I had a little job for Fee. A safe little job. But now he won't be able to do it."
"No thanks. I wouldn't want to take the place of a small-time punk who bets evens that he'll throw a five."
"No, you wouldn't. And I wouldn't want you to. You're too valuable for that. It would just be a start and after that you can work for me steady. Odd jobs, nothing very rough. Maybe throw a few drunks out of the club. Maybe collect a few debts. All pretty legal. Two hundred a week."
"Sounds all right," Trask said. "What's this first little job?"
Clara got off the desk and took the dress off. She tossed it on a chair. She wore a garter belt and dark stockings and a pair of very small bikini panties.
"Why can't I strip in the club?" she asked.
"Wow!" Moose said.
"Just collecting a package. Easy, something even Fee could have done. By the way, no hard feelings about him. In fact, I thought it was funny."
"I laughed too," Trask said.
"Is it a deal?"
"All right."
"That mean I can't bash him?" Moose said. "I'm afraid so," Arnold said.
"You ain't even looking at me!" Clara said. "How can you tell I can't strip good?"
She raised one long leg and bent the knee and began to roll her stocking down.
"Cigar, Pete?"
Peter took a cigar and Arnold held the desk lighter , out to him. Moose was looking glum. He wanted to bash Trask. The buttery little man was looking lustful. He was looking at Clara. She had one stocking off now and was starting on the other. She had very good legs.
"Now. Here's the first job. Listen carefully because the details are important. At exactly ten-thirty this evening you are to go to the park. Go in the Center Street entrance and walk down the path toward the lake. Stop at the first bench on the right and sit down. Have a smoke. Reach in the bushes behind you when you're sure no one is looking. You will find a package there. It shouldn't be too big. Put it in your pocket and stroll out casually. Don't open it, bring it directly to me. Got that?"
"What's in it?"
"That doesn't concern you. Part of your job is not asking questions. In fact, that's about ninety per cent of your job and that's worth one hundred and eighty dollars a week. Is everything straight?"
Clara took the garter belt off and dropped it on the desk. She was frowning because Max wasn't paying much attention. She took the elastic band of the panties and tugged at it. Moose gaped at her. His Adam's apple worked up and down.
"Yeah. It's straight."
"Right. You can go now. I'll expect you back here by eleven tonight. And, Pete, I'd better give you your pay in advance. Just to show that we trust each other."
He took the money from his breast pocket and handed it to Pete. It had already been counted. Trask took it. Arnold was obviously used to getting his own way. Trask put the money in his side pocket with his other money. He didn't bother to count it either. He knew it would be right.
Clara slid the panties down and off.
She was quite naked.
"Wow!" said Moose.
Trask left. The barman didn't look up from the paper. Deacon and his girl had gone. Trask went back to the diner to have some coffee.
"Wish I could bash him," Moose said. He wanted to talk about something so that he could stay in the office longer. Clara was doing a little dance to show Max that, not only was she stacked, but she could dance as well.
"You trust him with that money, boss? Or are we going to follow him?" the little guy said.
"I'm going to trust him. It's safer that way. If it's a trap then we're clean. If he tries to keep the money we can find him all right. But I have an idea that he'll do as he's told. He looks like the type that can take orders as long as he's well paid. And, Moose, he doesn't look like the type to take a bashing without fighting back."
"I'd bash him easy," Moose said.
Moose was strong and had bashed quite a bit.
"Maybe," Arnold said. "And maybe you might have to. Who knows? I might be wrong."
"You're wrong about me," Clara said.
She danced over and shook her naked waist at Arnold's nose. She had a deep navel and very white skin.
"That will be all for now, boys," Max said. They left, reluctantly.
In the club Moose said, "Boy, oh boy! Would I ever like to get my hands on that dame, Irving." Irving looked a him.
"She'd never waste her time on you," he said. "Can't you tell a high-class dame when you see one?"
Moose looked hurt and they went to the bar to have a drink. Moose drank beer. Irving drank hot buttered rum.
"Can I strip tonight?" Clara asked.
Max turned toward her. He knew that a man must mix business with pleasure and he had finished his business. He swung his legs out from under the desk and Clara sat on his lap. She wore more perfume than Sonny Rise, too. Max thought that she smelled very classic. It was Evening in Paris and he had given it to her for her birthday. She wasn't sure when her birthday was, but every once in a while she announced that it was her birthday and he gave her a present. She had announced this four or five times in the three months that she had been with Max, and he could see that she was getting old.
He thought she held her age well, though. She didn't have any wrinkles in her face and her body wasn't saggy or flabby or any of the things that come with age. In fact, her body was just about perfect.
He looked at the smooth, pink-tipped breasts and the rounded waist. He ran his hands over her swelling hips and chewed the end of his cigar to fragments. He put the mutilated cigar in the pink marble ash tray and wiped his mouth on a monogrammed handkerchief.
She shifted her weight, rolling her firm buttocks on his fleshy legs, pushing her breasts underneath his triple chin and drumming her long, scarlet fingernails on his shoulder. With the other hand she petted and patted his cheek, pulled at his ear, tweaked his nose and made kitten noises at his ear while kittenishly rubbing herself against him.
Max cleared his throat vigorously two or three times, licked his lips, wiped his face with his monogrammed handkerchief and turned Clara's face so that she was looking at him.
"Listen, baby," he said, "it ain't right for you to be stripping in front of the boys all the time. Makes 'em lose respect, see? They might start getting ideas."
"Why, Daddy, whatever do you mean?" Clara turned her blue saucer eyes on Max and puckered her lips. Innocence itself, sitting naked on Max's lap.
"Well, like wantin' to take you to bed, is what I mean," Max said, with a decisive nod of his balding head.
"Oh, Daddy! Why, I'd never do a thing like that with those low characters. Do you think I'd allow myself to be taken advantage of by them bums?" Clara made tch-tch noises with her puckered lips and rubbed her breasts against Max's chin. "Besides, it's only you in this whole world that I care for. You're so good to me."
She made ringlets around her index finger with tufts of Max's remaining hair. He gave her a big hug which almost tipped them both onto the floor. They recovered themselves, Clara giggling, breasts jiggling, her arms around his neck. Max gave her a wet kiss on the tip of her left breast and they settled down together on the luxurious, leather-upholstered, swivelseated, executive-model reclining chair complete with headrest.
"Know what?" Max asked, his voice phlegmatically tender and sentimental.
"No, what?" Clara's eyes were getting dreamy and she was moving just the slightest bit back and forth.
"I've known a lotta dames, but you're the only one who really upsets me."
"Why? Because I always take off those expensive dresses you buy me?"
"No, Clara honey. Only you should hang 'em up after you take 'em off. You know why I like you? Because you're stacked, that's why."
"You mean I've got bigger boobs than that dame you're paying to show hers off? I'm real pleased you said that, Maxie. It makes me feel all warm inside here," Clara said dreamily.
She put her hands on her waist and rubbed lazy circles, occasionally dropping them to her legs. Her hips were still moving and she could feel Max's body against her buttocks.
"Know what I think, Maxie? I think you should take off that made-to-measure suit before it gets spoiled. It cost a lot of money, you know."
"Nobody knows better than me, sweetheart. That's the first brainy suggestion you ever made. I'm proud of you."
Clara stood up and delicately began to unzip his clothing. Max grinned at her, and the sweat beaded on his brow as fast as he could wipe it off. She unfastened the belt buckle and the trousers fell, making wide blue puddles around his feet which he quickly stepped out of. He kicked his shoes under the desk, yanked his tie from side to side to loosen it and slipped it over his head. Clara helped him out of the jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. He wore nothing under it and his chest swelled like water wings. His paunch drooped sluggishly over the elastic top of his shorts. He was not what one could call a fine figure of a man, without his clothes on.
He bent over with some difficulty and picked up the clothing and draped it over a chair. Clara came sidling up to him and put her arms around his neck, rubbing her breasts against his chest and swaying her hips so that they brushed against him lightly. His body responded with a surge of strength that he had thought well nigh extinct. He pushed himself toward her and she wiggled up to him, moving her legs as he pushed himself with desire.
"Why don't you take your shorts off, honey?" Clara whispered into his ear. Her tongue darted, warm and wet, and explored. Max's new-found strength was centered, leaving his legs feeling like water. He nuzzled his face into Clara's neck and began to kiss her. His legs began to tremble slightly.
Clara helped him off with his shorts and circled his ample waist with her arms as she stood up again. She brushed her heavy breasts against his stomach and he pulled her forcefully against him. He was quivering with urgency as he took her breasts in his hands and squeezed them together. He moved his body. He squeezed her against him, his thumbs strumming the hardened nipples until they stood out and colored, like raspberries. Faster and faster, the storm within him raged. The waves were billowing against the dam of his passion. Smashing against the wall, crashing it down, and the dam broke, racking Max mercilessly.
Later she said, "Can I strip tonight, Maxie?"
And Max sighed. It was certainly hard being a man of cultivated and classic tastes.
CHAPTER SIX
Peter Trask did everything just as he had been instructed, with one exception. He went to the park an hour early. At nine-thirty he went in the entrance and walked down the path that lead to the lake. He walked right by the bench. There were trees bordering the lake and he sat on the bank beside one. He wore a dark suit and he sat in the shadows. He smoked a cigarette but kept it cupped in his hand so that the glowing tip did not show. There seemed to be no one in the park at this hour. It was too late for casual strolling and too early for the young people who came there to be alone. Actually there was a young couple there but Trask, for all his cautiousness, did not see them. This was not surprising, because they were well hidden. They had noticed Trask walking down the path and had been very quiet until he went past. They saw him sit down on the bank by the water. He wasn't too far away from them. They were in the bushes between Trask and the first bench on the right where he was supposed to pick up the package and they could observe both without moving. At the time, however, they did not know that there would be much to observe. They didn't know that they were going to see some rather unusual things.
The boy's name was John. He was seventeen years old, with dark hair and blue eyes. He was tall and slender and attractive to girls his age.
The girl's name was Anne. She was sixteen years old and had a well developed body for her age. She had short dark hair and nice eyes. And she found John very attractive. She had been dating him for two months and they had been lovers for the last few weeks. He was the first boy with whom she had gone all the way. And she was the first girl that he had ever had except for a girl that he had paid when he was sixteen. They were both very excited about being lovers. They found the idea even more exciting than the thrill. It made them feel grown-up. Someday they planned to go to a hotel and make love in a real bed, and they knew that that would be even better. But for the time being they had to be content with their private little spot in the park.
They had discovered the spot before they made love and they had gone there to neck a few times and one time they had necked a bit too long and had become lovers. But they had no regrets whatsoever.
It was a pretty, intimate, secluded place. It was near the path but quite hidden from view. They had found it by mere chance. It was an area at the base of a pine tree completely surrounded by shrubbery and bushes, but accessible if one knew the way. It was rather like entering a cave. The ground was soft and dry and covered with pine needles. It was invisible from the outside, even in daylight. At night a little light flickered in from the nearest lamp. There were a few lamps in the park because this was not the best part of town by far, and people had been known to be attacked there. There was just enough light to seem romantic.
Anne was sitting against the tree with her legs crossed beneath her. She wore a green sweater and plaid slacks. She had a scarf over her hair. She wore no make-up and she needed none to be pretty. At the moment, however, she was frowning. She was unhappy because the man had just come into the park and was sitting by the water. It seemed to her to be an invasion of their privacy, almost as though a stranger had come into their bedroom. They had just arrived a moment before, happy and laughing and expectant, and now she was disappointed a little. But not too much. The thrill of love was new enough to Anne that few things could truly bother it.
John was looking through the bushes toward the lake. He could see the dark water and the darker tree against it and he thought that he could see the man sitting on the ground but he wasn't sure.
"Is he still there?" Anne whispered.
"I think so."
"I wish he would go away."
"He just lit a cigarette."
"Why does he have to come here? Why should he want to sit in the park now?"
"Well, it is a public park, after all."
"I don't think of it that way." John laughed.
"Shh, he might hear you."
"He can't hear us or see us here, Anne. It doesn't matter if he is there."
"It just doesn't feel the same."
"Do you want to go?"
"Don't be silly," she said. "Of course I don't want to go. I'll forget about that silly man."
"That's my girl."
"Come here," she said. She stopped frowning. She smiled. She held her arms out and John moved silently across the pine needles to her.
"Kiss me," she said.
They kissed.
"Umm," she whispered. "That was nice. I think we are learning to kiss better, don't you?"
"Yes."
"I don't think that people really learn how to kiss each other until after they've made love. I mean, kissing doesn't really mean anything when you know that's as far as you'll go. It's just a childish thing, like playing spin the bottle and post office."
"I didn't know that you had played so many kissing games," he said, trying to sound comical-jealous and actually feeling just a little jealous.
"Silly."
"You never did anything but kiss, did you?"
"No, I told you. But that awful Clyde Williams tried to touch me one time in the movies."
"I'll punch him," John said.
"Are you really jealous?"
"No. You didn't let him?"
She giggled "I didn't really," she said.
"I'm going to punch him anyway."
"Good. Now kiss me again. Kiss me that way with your tongue."
They kissed. Anne put her arms around him and held him close and he let his tongue slide against her lips. After a moment her lips parted. Her tongue touched his. He touched along the roof of her mouth, carefully exploring.
When they parted they were both breathing hard.
"Maybe we ought to go," he said.
"You swine," she said.
Trask looked at his wrist watch. It was nearly ten o'clock. He lighted another cigarette, shielding the flame behind the tree. He waited patiently. He had no idea what he was waiting for. He was waiting to find out. He wanted to see who left the package and he wanted to make sure that Max Arnold was not playing games with him. It was a little uncomfortable sitting there. The ground was damp. Dampness was seeping through his clothing. It was a cheap blue suit; it wrinkled easily and the shoulders were too tight, but Trask did not care much about his clothing and even less about his comfort. He was very nearly impervious to discomfort and pain. He had felt a great deal of both in his life but it wasn't a matter of being familiar with them. They had never bothered him. Being played for a fool did bother him, however, and now he waited on the damp edge of the lake to make sure that he was not.
"Let me take your sweater off," John whispered.
"Just pull it up," Anne said.
He pulled the sweater up. She moved so that she was resting against the tree and let her legs extend before her. He reached behind her and unfastened the brassiere. He was proud that he no longer had to fumble inexpertly with the clasp. He took the brassiere off and placed it beside them on the ground. He looked at her for a while without touching her. She had very nice breasts. They were nicer than the hooker that he had bought, although not as nice as the pictures that he looked at in girlie magazines. They were tapering and pointed at the tips. The nipples were very pink and rather small but they stood out rigidly from the soft mounds.
"I like it when you look at me," she said. He touched her with his hand. "I like that even better," she said. He bent and kissed her nipples. "Oh," she murmured.
He kissed her stomach and then moved up to kiss her breasts again. She ran her fingers down his cheek. He took her nipples and tugged gently at them. He moved back, kneeling, and smiled at her.
"I wouldn't care if that silly man was right here beside us now," she said. "I couldn't stop now."
She was rather proud of being passionate.
She reached down and pulled the zipper at the side of her slacks. He placed his hand on her. She reached over and pulled at his clothes, too.
"Impatient?"
"Very," she admitted.
He undid his belt and tugged his pants to his knees. Then he pulled her pants down, and she raised her hips so that they could slide under her. He pulled them to her ankles and she kicked them off one leg and left them twisted on the other ankle. One knee was slightly raised.
They looked at each other. Her green sweater was pulled to her shoulders and the plaid pants were at her ankle. Her young body was very soft and pink. She wore nylon panties. She was a little ashamed because they were not bikini panties. Her mother bought her underclothes.
John unbuttoned his shirt .but did not take it off. They had never gotten completely naked. It might have been because they were afraid that they might have to dress in a hurry or it might have been a last vestige of self-consciousness.
He sat and took his pants off and left them on one ankle the same as she had. Then he knelt again. She reached out and touched his smooth chest. "Kiss me again," she said.
This time when he kissed her he lay down beside her. She slid away from the tree and stretched out on the ground, and after a moment he moved his body closer. He could feel her breasts flatten under his chest and feel the hard nipples rub over his skin. He could feel her round body moving and her legs shifting. She reached under his shirt and put one arm around his shoulders and she placed the other hand on his buttocks and held him to her. He touched her hips, her legs. It was a long long kiss. He placed one hand at her legs. She trembled. She gasped, a slight little sound right against his lips. She began to move with him and she raised her knees. Oh, it was wonderful to be grownup! It was wonderful to be a woman and to know a man, wanting her, pressing her down to the ground with his weight so that she knew the pine needles would leave little imprints on her back. She moved her hand to guide him. He raised his weight a little to make that easier for her, supporting himself on his knees and his elbows and keeping his lips to hers. And then they heard footsteps.
It chilled them. The urgency moved a bit further away, still as strong, but not quite so desperate to be satisfied. John moved away a little, leaving his hand on her and looking through the bushes.
Another man was moving down the path.
John swore inaudibly.
They couldn't be seen but still they could not seem to do anything when someone was passing within a few yards of them. She frowned and raised her head to look.
Trask heard the footsteps too, but he had seen the man before he heard him. He stubbed his cigarette into the dirt and flattened out and watched the path. The man was walking slowly and looking around him and behind him. He was well dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and hat. He looked very nervous and furtive. When he came to the first bench on the right he paused, looked about again, and sat down. He took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it. He dropped it. He bent and picked it up and dropped the tobacco. He picked that up, too. He finally got the pipe filled and struck a match. It went out. He tried again and a very thin string of smoke came up from the pipe. It had only been lighted in one corner. But he put the matches away and settled back on the bench as though he were going to relax. He puffed two or three times and kept looking around. And then he took something from his pocket. He pushed his hand behind him, over the back of the bench. He hesitated again, as though he weren't sure if he should do this.
And then he let the package drop into the bushes.
He took two or three more puffs. The badly lighted pipe had gone out and no smoke curled up but the man didn't seem to notice this. He puffed away. He looked carefully around him once again and then he got up. He wiped his pants causually, as though he weren't used to sitting on dirty benches. This was the only casual action that he had made since entering the park. It was the only unconscious act that he had performed.
And then he walked slowly back the way that he had come and disappeared.
Trask scowled. He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past ten. He stayed where he was, thinking.
"Is he gone?" Anne asked.
John nodded.
"I hate him," she said.
"I think he dropped something behind the bench. It looked like he did it on purpose."
"Who cares?"
"Somebody must."
"Never mind that now," she said. "Come back to me."
He moved to her side. He began to caress her with his hand. She stroked his legs. After a moment he spoke again.
"What do you want to do now?"
"I don't know. Let's experiment."
That excited him as much as her touch. "How shall we do it?" he asked.
She giggled. She was fighting to get her passion back. "Why don't we try the other way?"
John didn't understand.
"How?" he asked. And then he thought that he had sounded too abrupt, and he said, "I'll do it any way that you want me to. "
"From the back?" she suggested.
"All right."
"I'm not sure how. I suppose I have to turn over or something."
"On your knees, I think."
She giggled again, slightly nervous. She got on her knees and placed her hands on the ground in front of her. Her buttocks were very white. John moved behind her.
"I know a girl who says that she knows another way, too," Anne said, getting carried away with her desire to be passionate. "She said that she kisses her boy friend all over."
John blinked. Lust envelope him. "Do you want to?" he asked.
"No. I'd be ashamed, I think. Maybe sometime I will. Maybe when we go to a hotel."
John could wait no longer. He moved against her. Her buttocks pressed against his body. He reached and squeezed her breast, then moved his hand. She was kneeling and her legs were set. She lowered her head and rested it on the ground. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing very heavily. Her body was burning. She raised a little higher. John pushed. "Oh," she said.
His head was thrown back and sweat glistened on him.
Anne moaned again. They began to work, moving and working together.
They were both too ready for that to last.
They built to the heights, and stayed there for a long long moment, and then melted in the electric tremors that brought them back from the peak.
Anne's knees would no longer support her. She dropped to the ground and John followed, stretched out beside her. He kissed her neck. They were panting silently, their sides heaving. Their senses were dulled, unfeeling. They felt only the satisfaction.
They didn't even hear Pete Trask as he passed by and stopped at the bench.
He sat down and had a cigarette, as Arnold had told him. But it was only twenty past ten. After a moment he reached in the bushes behind him and took the package. It was flat and quite light. He put it in his pocket. He didn't get up right away, but sat thinking.
Trask didn't know what was in the package, but he had been surprised at the man who delivered it. He had been expecting a hood who would leave, perhaps, narcotics. It would have been an unnecessarily complicated way to make an exchange, but Trask had supposed that Arnold had reasons for that. Or, if not that, he had expected one of Arnold's own men to come and leave something as a means of testing him, to see if he followed instructions and brought the package back unopened. It would have been arranged in some way so that Arnold would know if it had been tampered with. But the man who had left the package had been no hood, that was obvious.
And he had been nervous or scared.
After a while Trask thought that perhaps he knew. He wasn't sure but he was pretty sure. He got up and walked slowly out of the park, still smoking. It was ten-thirty when he left by the entrance at which he had entered. There was no one on the street and no parked cars.
Trask didn't head directly for The Golden Parrot.
"Oh, that was wonderful," Anne said.
She was pulling her panties up. John was already dressed but she had wanted to stay naked, to retain every last thrill of having been loved.
They had not been aware of Trask at all.
She pulled her pants up and fastened them and then put her brassiere on, facing John so that he could see her nakedness until the last possible moment.
But John was wondering what the man had dropped into the bushes. He waited impatiently.
"I'd better get home now," Anne said, when she was dressed. "It's getting late."
They bent over and went out through the opening between the tree and the bushes. She went first and John looked at her buttocks as she bent and thought that it had been a very nice idea to try a new position. They walked down the path holding hands and at the bench he stopped and looked in the bushes. He bent over and searched while Anne held his hand and pressed it gently to her.
Trask stopped at the nearest bar.
He ordered a beer and took two sips. Then he went into the men's room, locking the door behind him.
He carefully opened the package.
When he saw what was in the package he blinked. He rubbed his long jaw and after a moment he grinned. He threw the wrapping paper in the toilet and flushed it down. He put the contents in his pocket after he had inspected it. Then he went back to the bar, finished his beer, and ordered another. He drank slowly. He was timing it so that he would get back to The Golden Parrot at ten minutes after eleven. He wanted to be ten minutes late. That was important. But he also wanted to make a stop along the way.
He left the bar and walked to the diner. Jeff Block was glad to see him. Jeff had been worried when Trask had left with Moose and Irving.
"Got a box?" Pete asked.
"Sure."
Jeff gave him one of the white boxes in which he packed hamburgers and coffee to take out. Trask put the contents of the package in the box and closed it. He gave it to Block.
"Keep this for me," he said "Important?"
"Yeah. But don't open it."
"All right, Pete." Trask trusted Jeff Block. He trusted him a great deal. The package that he had picked up in the park had contained ten thousand dollars in old bills.
"I guess he didn't drop anything after all," John said, as they left the park. "I could have sworn that he did. It must have been my mistake."
"You were pretty busy at the time," Anne said. She smiled in what was a rather wicked way for such a young girl from such a good home.
"Shall we go again tomorrow?"
"To the park? Sure," he said.
"It was nice tonight."
"Yeah. Very nice."
"It's a nice idea to try different ways."
He nodded.
"I wonder why I thought that guy dropped something though," he said. It worried him.
"Who cares about that?" Anne snapped. She frowned angrily at John. "The only thing that I want dropped in the park is our clothes," she said.
He squeezed her hand.
Trask was leaving the diner just as Sarah came in. She smiled at him. Block had put the package under the counter. He wondered what it was, and he wondered what Max Arnold had wanted with Trask, but he was a man who didn't let curiosity bother him. Sarah was looking attractive in a dress that was cut even lower than the one she had worn the night before. She was feeling good. Belle had just left her place. They had stayed there together all day, and a little variety was something that Sarah liked very much.
"Going to be around tonight?" she asked.
"Maybe," Trask said. He went on out. Sarah looked after him. He sure was a mean fellow, she thought. But he had given her ten dollars.
"What do you know about that guy?" she asked Block.
"Nothing," he said.
Just as Trask went into The Golden Parrot and walked through to Arnold's office, John and Anne arrived at her house. The both lived on the same street, on the other side of the park from the bad part of town. The two areas shared the park. That was why it was lighted.
They stopped on the front porch, by the door. The lights were on inside and they could faintly hear the television.
"Late?" he asked.
"Not very. Mother doesn't mind much when I tell her I've been with you. She thinks that you are a nice boy."
She giggled.
"I am," he said.
"Um, I know."
They kissed good night. They kissed without passion, as they always did when they were not in the park.
"Tomorrow," she whispered. He nodded.
She opened the door and then she paused. She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. The entrance to the house was dark behind her. She spoke softly.
"Remember what I told you about that girl who makes love to her boy friend?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I don't think that I'd really be ashamed to try that ... "
John gulped.
"Tomorrow," Anne whispered. And she went in.
John didn't remember the package again that night; he had other things to think about.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRASK CROSSED THE CLUB AND WALKED up to Arnold's office. Irving was standing by the door. He had washed the butter from his face and changed his shirt. He didn't, however, look appreciably less greasy.
"You're late," he said. He said it first, and then he glanced at his cheap wrist watch.
Trask shrugged. He started to go in but Irving shook his head and stepped in front of the door.
"The boss is busy," he said. "Wait in the club. He said to have a drink on the house. He'll come out when he finishes what he's doing."
Trask smiled. Psychology, he thought. Arnold was trying to make him think that the package wasn't important. Well, that was nice because he was going to be hard put to keep that image up when Trask told him that there was no package. Trask went back into the club and took a table near the stage without waiting for the waiter to take him over.
A show was just starting. The waiter came over to the table. He looked at Trask's cheap and wrinkled suit.
"What would you like?" he asked.
Trask looked at his cheap and wrinkled white coat.
"Champagne," he said.
The waiter blinked.
"It's on Arnold."
"I see," the waiter said. He glanced at Irving. Irving did not know what Trask had ordered and he nodded. The waiter went away. Trask looked at the stage. Sonny Rise had just bounced out with a big phony smile and big floppy breasts. She wiggled and squirmed to the center of the stage. She looked out at the audience as the waiter came over to Trask's table with the champagne in a tin bucket of ice and Sonny Rise gave Trask a particularly big grin. She thought that he must be a rich man from out of town doing some slumming, and she never passed up a chance to supplement her income. Max Arnold was not known for his generosity with strippers.
The waiter opened the bottle. A few other customers looked surprised to see a sober man drinking champagne alone at a table. A bored hustler with an elderly man wondered if she could pull a switch. A bored wife with a drunk husband thought that perhaps, if her husband got a bit drunker....
Pop went the cork.
Flop went Sonny Rise's breasts.
She pointed them toward Trask and snapped her chest forward.
The drummer picked up a beat.
Trask took a sip. It was hideous champagne, but Trask had never fancied himself a connoiseur of champagne and he didn't mind. He had another sip.
Then Max Arnold came out of his office and came over to the table. He smiled at everyone along the way. Clara followed behind him and smiled at everyone too.
"Oh, champagne," she said.
"Champagne?" Max said.
Trask shrugged. He said, "Irving ordered it."
"Oh?" Max said. He glared at Irving, who was busy looking at Sonny Rise. "Well, it doesn't matter," Max said. He sat down and Clara was left standing. She was looking at Sonny and beginning to twitch.
"Let's have the package," Max said.
"There was no package."
Arnold smiled. He blinked. Trask looked at him and sipped some champagne.
"Is this a joke?" Max asked.
"Sure," Trask said. "It was very funny looking through the bushes. I laughed and laughed. I thought that maybe it hadn't arrived yet so I waited. That's why I'm a little late. But was it a test to see if I could follow instructions or was it something else?"
"You mean there really was no package?"
"You know that."
"No. There should have been."
"Sure," Trask said. He looked over Arnold's shoulder at the stage.
Sonny Rise was dancing in the middle of the stage. Her dance was a Tijuana two-step. She had on an Indian costume with a very short, fringed skirt and a sleeveless jacket that showed plenty of bare midriff and fastened in front with a leather thong. Her breasts bulged beneath the little top and swelled together forming deep cleavage in the open space between the two sides of the jacket. She wore a great many strings of beads around her neck and bangles on her wrists and ankles. She had a red sequin headband with a single gold-painted feather sticking up behind her head. Her feet were bare and her toenails painted with irridescent gold nail polish.
The band was playing a jazzed up arrangement of "One Little. Two Little, Three Little Indians" and Sonny was going through her routine, an Indian dance with lots of hopping to make her breasts bounce and lots of hip swinging. She let out a few blood-curdling whoops of the sort that Indians are supposed to make.
Then the drums started banging like war drums and Sonny started thumping the floor with her big bare feet and shaking her hips so that the little skirt swung up and showed the sequined panties underneath. She put her hands under her breasts and held them up while she bounced and made them jiggle in time to the music. She swung her head like an angry bull and her hair swished back and forth over her face.
She pulled the string that held the top together and it fell away exposing her large, brown-tipped breasts. Then the band started playing the blues with the trumpet player screeching on the high notes.
She undid the fastening on the little skirt and it dropped off. The red sequined panties fell as she slid the side zippers down simultaneously. She threw her hands up like a prize fighter who has been declared the winner and began rolling her hips in a bump and grind that made the stage quiver and threaten to collapse.
Clara watched, involuntarily squirming in much the same way as Sonny Rise. Half the customers watched the stage and the other half watched Clara.
"You wouldn't be lying, Trask?" Arnold said.
"Maybe you really did think there would be something in those bushes," Trask said. "Yeah, maybe so."
"But there was nothing?"
"That's what I said."
Arnold nodded. He looked down at the table. He didn't even notice how much Clara was squirming.
"All right, I'll believe you," he said.
"You'll have to," Trask said.
"I don't have to do anything," Arnold snapped.
Trask looked amused and sipped the bad champagne and thought that this man could not be such a big operator to get so bothered by a mere ten thousand dollars. It was a lot of money to Trask but that was no reason why he should let it get out of perspective. It shouldn't be so much to Arnold. Trask wondered why the money had been left, and by whom. It looked like blackmail, he thought. He intended to find out.
"But I will believe you," Arnold said.
"That girl isn't so hot," Clara said.
Sonny twirled her breasts and her hair, rotated her hips and bounced her buttocks. Her G-string glittered and winked in the light. It was nearing the end of her act and she was supposed to ride a wooden hobby horse painted to look like an Indian pony. She bounced over to the curtain, reached in behind and pulled out a horr on little wheels that was about shoulder height on her.
She patted the horse and pulled it around after her for a few bars of "Pony Boy," then started doing a little shaking and wiggling for the horse's benefit. Then she held out her breasts while the horse regarded her with painted coquetry. She held her breasts up to the horse's mouth, then gave it a big resounding slap and fastened on a burlap feedbag right over its eyes.
"Ha, ha," laughed the drunken husband.
"Am I still working for you then?" Trask asked.
"All right. Yeah. You can go .now. Stop around tomorrow afternoon."
Trask poured the last of the champagne and downed it. He hadn't offered any to Arnold or Clara. When got up to leave, Sonny Rise, the bored wife and the bored hustler all looked disappointed.
Arnold called Irving over. "Follow him," he said.
Irving nodded. He went out the side door and saw Trask passing the alley. He followed silently with one hand in his side pocket and his collar up.
"Come into the office, Moose," Arnold said.
Moose followed him to the office. Clara stayed where she was. She was wondering whether Max would be angry if she took her clothes off. The show was over and Sonny Rise went galloping off the stage on the wooden horse. There was sparse applause. The drunken husband clapped loudest and longest and his wife looked at the other men in the place and wished that her husband would have a few more drinks and pass out so that she could get picked up by someone else. Not that she was particularly promiscuous. She was just bored.
"You think maybe he kept the dough?" Moose asked.
"I don't think so. Nobody could be that cool about it. I think Trask played square. Her husband probably didn't leave the money."
"He said he would when I called."
"That's the trouble with you, Moose, you're too trusting," Max told him. "Anyway, Irving is following Trask. Now I want you to take the car and go out to the cabin. I'm going to give them one more chance to pay up and I want a note from the girl to help convince him."
Moose nodded. Max explained just what he wanted done and Moose thought it all out.
"Suppose this don't do no good?" he asked. Max was lighting a cigar. He puffed and squinted through the smoke.
"We really going to let her have it?"
"I don't know
"If you decide to, let me, hey?" "We'll see."
"We still treating her soft?"
"No. No, I don't think so. I think that the note may be more convincing if you rough her up a little first. I don't think she takes the situation seriously enough."
"I know what to do, boss."
"I'm sure you do," Arnold said.
Moose went out the side door and around to the garage. He got the big black sedan out. He was feeling quite happy with his assignment. He couldn't understand why they should have to have a hands-off policy with a nice-looking woman. He couldn't understand that at all. He was almost glad that the money had not been paid.
Meanwhile, Trask had made a turn after leaving the club, and when Irving rounded the corner a few seconds later the big man was not in sight. Irving frowned. He knew that Arnold would be mad if he bungled this. He began to hurry down the street, thinking that Trask must have turned at the next corner.
He passed a doorway when an arm reached out and grabbed his collar, dragging him back into the dark as though he were a rag doll. He was pulled into a hall and then slammed face first into the wall. His nose flattened and the old plaster cracked. He tried to get his gun out but another hand grabbed his wrist and then he was pulled back and rammed forward again. This time a piece of plaster came down. He felt the gun yanked out of his hand and he thought that he was going to be shot. But he was just rammed into the wall again. He couldn't even turn to see who it was that had him so helplessly. A knee stuck into his back and he was bent back from the waist. He was bent way back. He thought that his spine was going to snap. Two big hands were clamped on his neck and drew him far back. And then they released him and his head shot forward as though catapulted from a sling and bashed into the wall so hard that the wall dented. Irving slid down to the floor. He was unconscious.
Trask stepped on his head three or four times just to make sure that he was unconscious, and then he left. Irving didn't move for a long time.
Trask put the gun in his side pocket and doubled back toward The Golden Parrot. He went down the driveway beside the place and across to the garage. The garage was not locked. He went in arid got in the car. He got in the back seat and not a moment too soon because he had just closed the door when Moose came in. Trask dropped to the floor and waited. He had figured that one of the boys would be paying a call on someone. He kept very quiet on the floor and Moose drove out of town.
The only thing worse than the drinks served at The Golden Parrot was the food and the only thing worse than the food was the cook. The cook was hideous, uglier than Moose. He was big, too, but it was all fat. He was round as a barrel and had seven chins and not much hair. But he was a rather classic cook because he wore white aprons and a tall white chef's hat. He loved food and he loved his job. He hated his wife, who was almost as hideous as he was, but he was in love with Sonny Rise.
Now, Sonny was not particular. Whenever the cook had seven dollars she was willing. It was easier than having to take a fool home and the cook never lasted too long. Sonny had to pass the kitchen on the way from the stage to her dressing room. She walked by now with the wooden horse, wearing the beads and G-string and bracelets and the cook signaled to her.
Sonny shrugged and went In the kitchen.
Food was everywhere on uncovered plates and flies were all over the food. It reflected the cook's personality.
But seven dollars was seven dollars.
"Hi, Cook," she said.
She had never known his name.
"Hi, Sonny," he said. "I got seven dollars."
"You want to come down to the dressing room?"
"I like the kitchen better," he said. He didn't like to leave his food unattended but for flies.
"Whatever you like, just give me the money."
The cook gave her seven very crumpled dollar bills. She took them and then realized that she had no place to put them in her scant clothing. She pondered for a moment and then put them in the wooden horse's feedbag.
The cook took his apron off.
Sonny pulled her G-string off. She didn't bother about the beads and bangles.
The cook thought that Sonny was even better than the huge pot of stew that was boiling in the corner on the ancient gas stove. That was quite a compliment, because the cook was a man who truly loved his food. He especially loved stew, into which he dumped everything stewable and some things unstewable and most of what was left on the diner's plates when they came back to the kitchen. He saved on food bills in this manner and made a little extra money because Arnold let him do the shopping as well as the cooking. He made the extra money with which to buy Sonny's time this way, without having his hideous wife know that he was spending any. He made quite a bit, actually, because the food in The Golden Parrot was so bad that more than half of what was served invariably came back. Arnold may have known about this, but he paid his employees so little that he could hardly complain about it. And, besides, Arnold was a man who admired enterprise.
The cook closed the kitchen door and pulled the bolt. This wasn't really necessary because no one ever came into the kitchen anyway. The waiter left the plates by the door. This was the cook's territory.
Sonny didn't know what to do with the G-string. She looked around but there was no place without food where she could put it. She shrugged and tossed it away to land where it would.
It landed in the stew.
They didn't notice.
It floated for a moment, turning over like the hunks of meat and assorted matter. The pot looked like bubbling lava. Strange objects rose, turned, and sank. Grease jumped out and fell back. The pot hissed and steamed. Even the flies would not approach.
The G-string swam for a while and began to stew and then it sank slowly down into the depths of the pot.
The cook took his pants off.
"Want to get on the table?" he asked.
"Not on your life," Sonny said.
The cook looked disappointed. He would have liked that amidst the plates and platters. That would combine the best of both possible worlds, both of his first loves, food and Sonny Rise.
"If you want that in the kitchen, it will have to be standing up," she said.
"All right," he said sadly.
He started to advance toward her. She was still holding the wooden horse. It gave her an idea.
She took the feedbag and clapped it over the cook's head. He giggled. He liked the idea of wearing a feedbag. He wished that there really were food in it. instead of his seven dollars. One of the bills slid out along the back of his neck and floated along the room. The air was so dense and heavy in the kitchen that the bill did not fall until it had floated to the wall. Sonny didn't notice this, she was too anxious to get it over with. She had another strip to do in half an hour. She had to strip as long as there were customers. It was a hard and thankless job but it was the only job that she had. Sonny was well past her better days, and they had never been too good. Once she had imagined that she might get to Paris and star at The Moulin Rouge, but it had only been a dream, not really a hope. She had never had much hope. She survived. That was all that she could ask for, and that was hard enough. There was no room for hope in her life, beyond hoping that the cook would hurry nb or that she might go home with a customer when the club closed.
"Come here," she said.
She took the cook's hand and led him to the wall. She got her back against the wall and pulled him to her. The rough plaster tickled her buttocks. She stood with her legs set and held the cook close. He giggled. It was a strange sound, coming from his stomach and muffled within the feedbag. It blended with the sound of the bubbling stew.
Sonny brought him against her. She stood on tiptoes. Her calves bulged with the strain. She pushed herself forward and the cook's body dropped a little.
He placed his pudgy hands on the wall, palms open, on either side of her head. His hands were greasy and filthy from tasting handfuls of the stew to make sure that it was good. He pulled his head back. He crouched a little more and she raised a little higher so that she was supported.
Then, holding him steady, she slowly moved.
The cook grunted with pleasure.
Sonny grunted with effort.
She worked against him, pushing off the wall with her buttocks. It wasn't nearly so bad with the feedbag over his head, she thought. That had been a marvelous idea.
"Hurry," she said, as though it were passion that was demanding speed.
He hurried. He moved and grunted. Sonny looked over his shoulder vacantly and moved mechanically, the same way that she danced.
He moved faster. He was driving with real force now and she found that he was supporting her against the wall. She locked her feet behind him and held him around the shoulders. It was easier that way. She didn't have to work at all. It was even easier than riding the wooden Indian pony around the stage. And the cook was starting to snort like a pony now, or rather a horse at the plow. His fingers spread on the wall, he stood flatfooted.
Vaguely, she hoped that the plaster would not leave marks along her back. But it didn't much matter. "Come on," she urged. He responded. "Oh, I like that," she lied.
The cook put all his heart and soul to his efforts. He even, for the moment, felt no hunger for food although his efforts should have helped his appetite. He leaned back from the waist. Sonny panted and moaned with a bit of deception, and kept looking calmly over his shoulder. She was looking at the stove. The stew was starting to bubble up. It boiled and frothed at the rim of the big pot like the ocean lashing at a rocky coastline. It splattered grease into the air.
The cook moved.
The pot boiled.
Meat and vegetables and grease and G-string turned over and bubbled up. The fire splattered. The heat increased. The cook gurgled in the feedbag.
And the pot boiled over.
The cook collapsed against the wall, spent. His feedbag head bumped the wall sharply, but he was too spent to care.
Sonny squirmed out from between cook and wall.
"Boy, that was swell," he said.
Sonny took the feedbag off and took her money out. She didn't notice that one bill was missing. She smiled at the cook and picked up the wooden horse.
"I got to hurry now," she said.
"I'll see you next shopping day."
She managed a smile and left.
The cook ran over to the stove and turned the fire down and shook his head sadly when he saw that some of his stew had boiled out and had been wasted. But he was too satisfied and satiated to really worry.
He ate a big handful to rebuild his energy.
Sonny came out and did another show and looked at the customers sadly. She saw no one with whom to go home and was thankful that the cook had had seven dollars. A few customers had left and a few more had come in The bored wife and the drunken husband were still there. He had become too drunk to be able to walk out, and Max Arnold never cut a man off when he had had enough, as long as he paid.
And the wife was too bored to want to go home even though she saw no prospects in The Golden Parrot.
Presently, the husband said that he was hungry. The wife didn't care. The waiter came over to take the order and the man was so drunk that the waiter could not understand what it was that he wanted.
"Humphf," said the man.
"Stew?" asked the waiter.
"Aargh," said the husband.
"Two stews," said the waiter.
"Not stew," mumbled the man.
"And a bottle of wine," said the waiter.
The service, at least, was very rapid. The waiter brought two plates of stew within minutes. The bored wife poked at hers in a bored manner. The husband's head was starting to droop. It drooped into his stew and-he cradled the dish to him and went to sleep. He snored. Every time he snored a little stew sprayed from the plate.
The wife found the stew all but inedible.
But, through boredom, she kept poking about and trying a little piece of this and that. Some she managed to swallow and some she had to spit out. Some she spat out on her husband but he didn't know this. And eventually she found something that tasted a little better than the rest and she separated it and tried to identify it but failed. It was hard to cut but it tasted all right. It looked like a G-string, actually, but she knew that this was quite impossible.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MOOSE DROVE FOR PERHAPS HALF AN HOUR.
Trask was stiff, crouched on the floor in back, but again he paid no heed to discomfort. He tried to judge their location without being able to see out. He knew when they left the city by the change in traffic noises and the different tone when the motor noise no longer echoed from the buildings. He could see green through the side windows without sitting up. The road was smoother than the broken streets of town and then they made a right hand turn and the road was unpaved and crooked. Trask did not know much about the countryside around the city and he couldn't tell just where they were, but he knew that he would be able to drive back without undue difficulty, if he had to. It seemed likely that he would, one way or another. What he didn't know was what would happen to Moose. But he had a few ideas.
He didn't much like Moose.
Presently the car turned sharply and stopped. He heard Moose grunt as he shifted his bulk and got out. Then the front door slammed closed.
Trask waited for a few minutes and then he cautiously raised his eyes above the window.
They were parked in a driveway. Everything was very dark except for the little cabin beside which the driveway ran. There was one light there and a little gray smoke curled up from the chimney. Trees surrounded them and there were only a few stars in a dark sky. A breeze was drifting across the land, not very fast but cool.
Trask opened the door and got out. There was no other automobile in sight and no garage. He went around to the front of the car and lifted the hood. He looked around carefully before he put his head beneath. He didn't like that moment of being unable to see. But it was only a moment and then he put the rotor in his pocket. The car would not be leaving without him now.
He quietly approached the cabin.
Moose had gone onto the porch and rapped loudly at the wooden door. He waited. The light went out inside and he heard someone moving about.
The door opened a crack. "It's me," Moose, said.
The door opened more and Moose went in. After a moment the man who had opened the door turned the light on again. They were in the front room of the two room cabin. It was very crudely furnished. There was a picture of a naked woman pinned to one wall. The picture had been torn from a girlie magazine and had ragged edges. The girl wasn't pretty but she was professionally sexy with a pouty look and a body that had probably been very nice a few years before. The picture was the only spot of color in the room, a sad attempt to make the place habitable, tacked up long before.
The man was putting a gun away. He had a shoulder holster and was in his shirt sleeves. Moose always carried his gun in his pocket but this man was trying to be more professional about it. He looked professional. He looked dangerous, not mean like Moose, but coldly efficient.
He had a hawk nose and small eyes set close together so that he looked cross-eyed, as though he could not resist the temptation to look at his nose. The lips were thin and tight, the chin narrowed to a point. His hair was thin and swept straight back from a high rounded forehead. His ears lay flat against his face so that they were almost invisible from the front. His skin was blotchy but smooth. He looked as though he didn't have to shave more than once a week. He was very thin with long, delicate hands. His slacks were so tight that his knee-bulged through the material. His shoes were long and pointed.
"The girl all right. Spiro?" Moose asked
"Yeah."
Moose looked at him sharply. As sharply as was possible with his big, dull face
"You ain't touched her. Have you?"
"No, I did just like Arnold said. It was tempting, though When I had to take her out to the little house in back it got very tempting I had to watch, you know The boss said not to touch her but he also said to keep my eye on her. She sure looked out of place in an outhouse. She's got class, that dame."
Moose smiled. He was glad that she hadn't been touched. He wanted to be first.
"You know something?" Spiro said. "I think that she expected to be touched. I think that she wanted that. She doesn't act as though she's afraid at all, and when I was watching her in the toilet she kept smiling at me. I think she wouldn't mind that at all if we didn't have other orders."
"The orders are changed," Moose said.
Spiro raised his narrow eyebrows.
"What happened?"
"Her husband didn't pay."
"Well, well, well," Spiro said.
The boss said to let her know that we mean business and then to have her write another note asking for the money. He didn't say how to show that we meant business, though."
"That's up to us to decide, then."
"That's right," Moose said. "And I've got some ideas. I'm going to go first."
"Why should you?"
"Because I'm bigger than you, that's why." Spiro thought about this.
"Why not both at once?" he suggested. "Two could show how serious we are better than one."
"Yeah," Moose said. "Yeah, why not?" And they both smiled. "Where is she? In back?"
Spiro nodded. They moved to the door leading to the back room. Spiro opened it. The room was dark and the scent of perfume filled it. Good perfume.
Spiro snapped on the overhead light.
The girl was tied in a chair. Her hands were tied behind the chair and to the back, and her legs were tied to the chair legs. A few strands of rope were pulled tightly around her body too. But even in an uncomfortable position, or perhaps because of it, she looked very good.
And when the light came on she blinked.
And then she smiled.
She didn't look at all like a woman who had been kidnapped. Not at all. She looked as though she were enjoying the whole thing, in fact.
And she was.
She was a woman with strange ideas.
Her name was Susannah Audley and she was twenty years old and she was beautiful. She had knowing green eyes that practically shot off sparks, all fringed around with a thick tangle of black eyelashes. Her eyebrows were dark brown streaks over her eyes punctuating them.
Her forehead was high and smooth and her chestnut hair swooped down on one side in a thick glossy wing. Her hair was piled high on her head in a cluster of large, soft looking curls. It was thick, healthy, shiny hair and was just past shoulder length when it was let down. The curls were held with a gold plated barrette and a small gold clip held her hair at the side.
Her mouth was wide, but with rather thin lips that made it look knowing, like her eyes, and mocking too. It was a brilliant coral color and her lipstick matched her nail polish. Her hands were long with tapered fingers that looked as if they had never done a lick of work. Smooth, while hands with long oval nails painted coral. She wore a ring on her left hand, not a diamond engagement ring or anything of the sort, but a thin gold ring that looked more like a wire than a ring. It was so thin that it hardly showed if one were to glance at her hands casually.
Her neck was long and graceful and her shoulders were straight. There wasn't much else they could be under the circumstances. Her breasts were forced out, upright and firm swelling beneath the clinging material of her jersey. It was a metallic blue green color and accented her eyes and coloring. It didn't look as if she were wearing a brassiere beneath the jersey be cause the outline of her nipples was visible. If she wasn't wearing a brassiere, she had very good breasts indeed.
Beneath her breasts a rope was drawn tightly, holding her back to the chair. The rope was quite tight and held her ribs in. It restricted her breathing a bit, but it made her body look unbelievably slender with those swelling breasts and rounded, flaring hips and the tiny waist created only fractionally by the ropes that bound her to the chair.
Her legs were long and smooth with tapering ankles and small, delicate feet. Her shoes had been kicked off and lay in front of the chair. They were highheeled Italian leather sandals, the gold printing on the shank of the shoes gave the name of a shop in Milan. Her toenails, of course, matched the rest of her cosmetics and her feet were soft as though she had never done a great deal of walking for either fun or profit.
The slacks she wore were gold lame and were very tight. Her legs swelled the tops of her pant legs and her stomach domed gently under the material. She held her legs together, her ankles bound to the legs of the chair. They were growing red from the chafing of the ropes on her skin. Thinking of the marks they would leave rather excited her. They would be testimonial of her present bondage.
Susannah was enjoying it tremendously.
It was the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to her, and she was a girl who spent most of her life looking for thrills. It never occurred to her that there might be any danger. No one had ever hurt her and she could not conceive of it. Especially not with a man, or men. She had hurt men-it was one of the bigger thrills-but no man had hurt her, other than the small physical hurts that adds so much to love.
She had been kidnapped and had been in this cabin for three days now. It was all quite novel and the only thing that she regretted was that the man who was guarding her was so polite.
She had done everything to tempt him, and she could see how tempted he had been, especially on the trips to the outhouse when she left the door open. But he had resisted temptation thus far. She didn't like that, and now she wondered if they were coming to release her without ever having added to the thrill of abduction by the greater thrill of rape.
Susannah smiled at the two men as they came into the room. It was unnerving, even to them. They had never known that high class women behaved that way.
Susannah had always behaved that way, however.
When she was a child of eight or nine, her family had gone to their summer home at fashionable Lake Lazur. She had beguiled the grubby farmer's grubbier sons into taking her behind the barn for a peek into her panties. The farmer owned a fruit farm, the property of which was adjacent to the acreage of the Lake Lazur Residents' Association. The Audley cottage was the largest one of any of the Association's members. Mr. Audley was Association chairman.
The farmer's grubby sons were three in number and were between the ages of ten and fourteen. They were known throughout the area for having dirty minds and Association children were cautioned not to associate with them. It was said that they lurked just outside the boundaries lying in wait for unwary children. They had, in fact, snatched one of the young Millar boys, yanked his pants off and then dragged him through a patch of nettles after he had resisted their bullying advances.
And so the anxious parents cautioned their young against any contact with the filthy little beasts. But Susannah, of course, sought them out the first day she and her parents arrived at Lake Lazur. They were swimming naked in the lake down by the sandbar and she just happened to be going by and they just happened to see her, and she just casually mentioned that it was filthy-rotten minded of them to be swimming naked where young Association children might see them. And that she might just tell her father about it.
They were probably impressed by her if not by her threats, said if she didn't drop her drawers right away that they would take her behind the barn and drop them for her. She resisted, of course, and held out for the more exciting of the two. So they did take her behind the barn and they did take her panties off and then they took their Levi's off, after first having put them on to get from the water's edge to the barn. There was a general exhibition and inspection and the fourteen-year-old got quite excited and it was he who got inspected the most, much to his joy and delight. But Susannah saw to it that she got her share first.
That was her most interesting summer up until the time she was fourteen herself and lost her virginity in the fun house during an electrical storm. After that earlier summer the farmer was bought out by the Association and he and his grubby kids pulled up stakes. That was the last Susannah saw of them. Their farewells in the hayloft of the barn were most touching. A good deal of feeling went into them.
But after Susannah lost her virginity, things got much more lively. She thought that if she could get lots of practice and become real good at that, she'd be the most popular girl in school. So she set out to find partners with which to practice. One was a man of about thirty who knew everything and taught her a lot. She was grateful to him and used to tell him about all her other affairs in great detail, after which he would reward her with another lesson. She was friends with this man for a few years and their friendship seemed to be mutually advantageous.
After a while, it seemed that the boys in her own class at school were getting to the age of being interested in girls and Susannah was of particular interest to them. She had felt very superior when she had taken three of them into the music department's practice room during lunch time one day. She had been so successful that day, she decided that she should hold instruction classes. The boys obviously needed instruction. And what's more, she'd do it for the pure love of teaching.
Hardly a day went by that she didn't have a nervously anxious pupil, awaiting the beginning of today's lesson. This went on for several months, and then Susannah tired of the game. She had decided that there was no more thrill in it. She hadn't been discovered by the school authorities, although the guidance counselor had called her in twice and had given her what she thought was a rather strong lecture on the importance of self-respect and personal integrity and responsibility, and had made vague allusions to rumors that were circulating among the students concerning some sort of a school.
She cautioned Susannah that no instruction was to be given on school property that wasn't first approved by the State Education Department, and that violation of this might invoke serious penalties. And so Susannah, having tired of the game anyway, searched for greater thrills in greener pastures.
Her search led her to the bars and taverns of the other side of town. She used to invent friends with which to spend long evenings, and joined imaginary clubs which met twice a week, and so she accounted to her parents for her time. All they seemed to demand was a plausible excuse. Or perhaps they really believed her. At any rate, they didn't interfere with her social life.
She never went anywhere where she might run into anybody who knew her family. She went to bars where there were mostly men of a middle income bracket, quiet men who would be thrilled at the prospect of going to bed with a young and attractive and above all, willing girl. Not all the men she met in the bars were like this. Some of them were in a higher income range, but a lower one socially, namely the hoodlum element, the higher-ups to be exact, as opposed to the men who actually did the work.
There weren't too many of these that Susannah had slept with, but there were a few. She took pains that they shouldn't know whose daughter she was. She imagined the embarrassment that would be hers if she were kidnapped and her father had investigated and found out what she had been up to.
Her father was a man with pretentions to untarnished morality and perhaps that was why Susannah had rebelled. Not that he was particularly pious, although he was a member of All Souls Episcopal Church and contributed generously to their appeals for funds. It was more the image of spotless respectability that he wished to promote. It was profitable to have an image like this and he made sure that his wife lived up to his high standards. Obviously, he was quite out of touch with Susannah.
And so she went out nearly every night and found a man. As soon as they got to know her in one bar, she would move on to the next. There were always free drinks and very few questions and sometimes she enjoyed what she was doing and sometimes she didn't. When she didn't she was cruel and sometimes nasty as she told the man with her that she loathed him, or that she had some horrible disease and wanted to give it to him because he was so loathsome. That usually cooled the ardor of the unwanted lover. Sometimes she had narrow escapes from dangerous men who would have done her grievous bodily injury had they been aware of the fact that she was going to get them to a hotel room and excite their passions and then reject them insultingly. Fortunately, they couldn't know this beforehand and so Susannah had her fun and they didn't even get a chance at the soothing balm of revenge.
With all this frantic running about at night it seemed only natural that her schoolwork would suffer. When it did. her father inquired as to the reasons for her low marks and was told that Susannah was less than conscientious about her work. Her father thought that the school must have been at fault since no daughter of his would behave in the way they had described.
He arranged for her to be sent to a private school with lower educational standards, but higher moral ones. This had no effect whatever on Susannah's moral deportment, and it was only a matter of days before she had discovered a way out of the school at night and was pursuing her hobby of picking up men in a nearby village tavern.
It didn't take the headmistress long to discover what was going on and straightaway told her father that unless Susannah mended her ways, she would be asked to leave the school.
Susannah went home for Easter vacation and found her father had fixed up a series of dates for her. He couldn't afford to have his reputation in the slightest way muddied because of an errant daughter, so he plotted another course of action. It was quite ingenious of him, though not exactly original. He planned to get her married off.
The prospect was the son of a less successful businessman, an associate, but a humbled one, of the Audley chain of enterprises. Mr. Audley had threatened that he would buy out, or if they wouldn't sell, starve out, the other business unless he received cooperation with his plan. His threats were unnecessary, as it turned out, because there was nothing the humbled associate liked better than the idea of getting close to the Audley chain. He liked the idea of marrying his son into the Audley money, too. It promised to be a practical match.
Richard Pomeroy wasn't actually handsome, but he wasn't ugly either. He dressed well in a collegiate style and was neat and had a self-contained look. He wasn't smug, though he had often been accused of it. His hair was dark blond and cut in a long crew cut. His eyes were rather too light a blue and his mouth a little too full to be handsome and manly. But his shoulders were wide and muscular from playing in various sports. It was too bad that his legs were also deficient in length. A man with an ugly face is fine if his body is well proportioned, but a man with short legs cannot be fine unless he has something to detract such as a handsome face.
Richard Pomeroy came to pick up Susannah for the first prearranged date and Susannah decided that he wasn't too bad. She had been suspicious of the way her father had been praising the fine, upstanding young man.
He had been described with nearly every flattering adjective in her father's vocabulary including such words as loyal, trust-worthy, up-and-coming and so forth. Susannah decided to find out for herself. When she appeared that first evening, she was wearing a low-cut dress that was embarrassingly tight in the hips. She was going to see for herself what sort of a man, if he was a man, this Richard Pomeroy was. Her father had kept calling him "that fine boy" and the mental picture that she constructed of the adjectives was of an exemplary eight-year-old with a head like a prizewinning beagle and a halo made of dollar bills. She was rather pleasantly surprised, though by no means impressed, with the fellow she met in the hall of her father's house.
They started out to go to an outdoor theater that was presenting a modern version of one of Aristophanes' comedies, but Susannah suggested that they go and have a drink first. Richard was very pleased with the suggestion. He hadn't bought the tickets, nor chosen the play in the first place. Susannah's father had done that, and neither Richard nor Susannah knew Aristophanes from airplanes.
They went to a bar on the right side of town and had three whiskies apiece, then bought a bag full of beer and went to a drive-in movie that was showin? God's Little Acre and Tobacco Road on a twin bill.
The pictures began and Susannah and Richard settled down in the front seat of his car and opened some beer, lighted cigarettes and began to watch the movie. It was all very innocent. Richard had been away at prep school while Susannah had been instructing all and sundry in the music rooms and so he knew nothing about her. He found out that night, though.
It had begun with the causally dropped comment that Griselda's breasts were bigger than Darling Jill's. Richard was taken aback by hearing his thoughts put into words by this girl he had only just met.
"Do you think Griselda's are bigger than mine?" she had asked, holding her dress open so that he could see to make the comparison properly.
After he had said that he thought they were, she took his hand and put it down the front of her dress. It inexpertly fumbled around but what he lacked in the finesse of love-making, he made up for in enthusiasm. She could see that once again she would have a willing, inexperienced pupil to instruct in the finer points. She was quite eager to begin.
She put her hand on him and he began to gather strength at her touch. She moved her hand on the outside of his clothing, and his body awakened. She put her hand past his clothing and asked him if he liked that. He was panting with excitement, nervousness and passion. He could scarcely answer her questions. She took his hand and put it under her skirt. The perspiration beaded on his forehead.
She lay back on the seat and pulled up her skirt. She wasn't wearing panties.
"Do you want to do things for me?" she asked him.
He shuddered in expectation and his breath sobbed out with the words.
"Could I ... really?" He could hardly believe his good fortune. He'd only done that with two other girls in his life and they had both cried and protested and then lay still as statues while he performed with a frenzied thrashing. His love life had been most unsatisfactory to date.
"Take your things off," she whispered as her hand stroked him and urged him on.
He fumbled with his buttons and tore the last two off in his haste. He kicked his shoes off and wriggled out of his trousers and shorts until he was sitting quite naked in his car, his bare buttocks sticking uncomfortably to the warm, smooth plastic seat cover. But he didn't notice the warmth, nor the stickness, nor the lights shining in his rear window, or anything. His whole being yearned toward the girl on the seat beside him.
She had taken off her dress and was sitting toward him with her breasts reaching out and she was asking him to do the most wonderful things.
"Touch my breasts," she said and he obeyed joyfully. His instruction had begun.
"Kiss them," she commanded and he wanted to with every fiber of his being.
She made him do things for her until she knew he could stand that no longer. She didn't let him know that she was ready, too, she wanted to make him ask for that, to beg her to allow him to get as near to her as man can get to woman. She sat still and let the fires of her body smoulder. She said nothing more and sat still.
For a while he fondled her, touching her breasts and putting his hand on her legs, and then he put his arms around her, forcing his body against hers. He lay her down on the seat. His muscles jumped and twitched, his breath was on her neck and breasts and he'd pushed himself against her. She still didn't respond, although she was burning with need.
"What's wrong?" he croaked.
"Ask me," she panted. "Just ask me."
"Let me love you," he almost shouted, and she accepted and his body crashed quickly. And again. She put her hands on his buttocks and held him as his thrashing body carried her to the heights. She could sense the spiraling, pulsating thrill building as he moved. Together they rose to dizzying heights, and then they crashed. Desire exploded and the fragments melted away.
Two weeks later they were married. It was a grand wedding. The bride's picture appeared three columns wide by half a page in the newspaper and the fashion writer went into rhapsodies about her wedding gown and the reception which was held after the ceremony to which many important people were invited.
Richard was thrilled and beamed and glowed at the slightest mention of how lucky she was. Everyone said they would be a devoted couple and that it was obvious that they were madly in love with each other.
Just three weeks later Susannah had an affair with the driver of the truck that brought their weekly supply of dinner wine. That was the first affair. Since the thrill of adultery was greater than premarital thrills, Susannah enjoyed that a great deal, even though the man had scaly elbows. She enjoyed it so much that she had an affair with the man who ran the bookstore on the corner. He had a scaly neck. But it was a start. After that it was a rare week that went by without some man or other sharing Richard's wife.
Richard wasn't particularly suspicious. In fact, he was very trusting. But Susannah was so obvious about the things that she did, and took so few pains to hide her actions, that after a while he began to wonder.
One night she came home (from visiting a girl friend, he had been led to believe) with her clothing torn, her hair disheveled, and her lipstick smeared. She was very drunk. She was so drunk that she thought it might be fun to tease her husband a little.
"Where have you been, darling?" he asked, trying to sound as unsuspicious as the situation would allow, without also sounding ridiculous.
"Making love," she said.
"Hen, hen," he said, nervously.
"What's so funny?"
"I thought you said, making love.'"
"I did. I got picked up in a bar and the guy took me in an alley in back. Ha, ha. He made me sit on an ashcan and he stood up. He was pretty good, though."
"Oh," said Richard Pomeroy.
In the morning Susannah remembered what she had confessed (it had been true) and she was a little nervous about meeting her husband at breakfast. She wondered whether she should deny it or justify it. However, she found that there was no reason to fear. Instead of being angry he acted very loving. She saw that he was trying to make her love him more so that she would not cheat on him again.
And she lost what little respect that she had had for her husband.
But she gained a new thrill. Telling her husband about her other lovers was a very exciting thing. And he did not do anything about it. Perhaps it excited him a bit too. Sometimes she told him a few details, sometimes she only hinted, sometimes she merely looked at him and laughed. She looked at him and laughed quite often wnen he was next to her, making love. But it only made Richard try all the harder. When Susannah came home after being with another man he was very passionate and these were the only times when she enjoyed sleeping with him. They had twin beds at first and after a while she made him move into a room of his own and she only let him come to her when she had a new lover to think about. Richard accepted it all with bowed head, as though it were his fault alone. Susannah when she thought about it, realized that she had made the perfect marriage for a woman with her desires.
Susannah was quite content with her life.
CHAPTER NINE
And then Susannah had met a man named Arnie Hubble who came from the worst section of town and had no visible means of support. He lived much as Ken Fee lived, but on a higher level. That meant he lost more, and at the time when Susannah met him, he was a very worried man. He owed five thousand dollars to Deacon and Deacon was a friend of Max Arnold, and Hubble knew that it was unwise to have those men dislike him.
Susannah met him on one of her slumming evenings. He was at a cheap bar when she came in. She looked around and decided that he was the best of the lot and took a stool next to him.
At first Hubble was too preoccupied with his own troubles to notice her.
She ordered a martini and paid with a twenty dollar bill and left the change on the bar along with her cigarette case and gold lighter.
And Hubble noticed that....
Perhaps, he thought, just perhaps, this might be the solution to his problems.
He might have been thinking about robbing her at first.
It was later that he formed the plan that they had finally carried out.
"Hi," Susannah said to him.
Hubble grinned.
"I'm bored," she said.
He just kept grinning. She was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen (except for films, of course, he liked the Italian stars) and she was obviously wealthy and Hubble had no idea what to do or what to say.
"What's the matter? Are you too shy to talk to a lonely girl?"
"I'm not shy," he gulped.
"Oh? Is it me then? Don't you like me?"
"Sure," he said.
"I'm glad. I thought you found me unattractive."
"You're very beautiful."
She smiled sweetly.
"That's better," she said. "For that nice compliment I'll buy you a drink."
Hubble gulped again. He had always known that he was handsome, charming, and quite irresistible to women, but the women had never seemed to know it. Like Fee, he had blamed his financial state. But now he saw that rich women could appreciate him for himself and not worry about his money. This had never occurred to him before. Visions of a long succession of wealthy lovelies flashed through his mind.
"I'll have a beer," he said.
She bought it. The bartender took the change from the stack in front of her. That was how they met.
She bought him a few beers and had a few martinis herself. Hubble began to feel more confident as the alcohol went to work oh his doubts. He began to tell her about himself, talking too fast and drooling a little, but she didn't seem to mind. She just kept looking into his eyes and acting very interested. She might have looked rather amused, too, but Hubble was too enthusiastic to notice this.
"You're very handsome," she said.
"Yeah, that's what they say."
She arched her brows over her glass.
"You're probably the most handsome maa that I've known in a long time. You're much more handsome than my husband. He's not handsome at all but he's rich. That's the only reason I married him."
She paused to sip her drink. "And he's not good in bed, either," she said. "A man would have to be crazy not to be good in bed with a girl like you," he said. "Would you be good?"
"I sure would," Hubble told her. "All the girls tell me how great I am, and with you I'd be even better because you're so beautiful."
"I might take you up on that," she said.
And, for the first time in three beers, he gulped. He began to sweat. The bartender looked at them and shook his head sadly because he had a fat wife and had never been picked up by a rich nymphomaniac.
"Do you have an apartment?" she asked.
"Well...." he hesitated. He did have a place but it was very grubby and not at all suitable for seducing or being seduced by rich and beautiful women.
"I have my car outside," she said.
He seized on that. "That would be better," he said. "I have a place, see but there are always lots of girls stopping around to ask me if I will go to bed with them and they might interrupt us!"
"Shall we take a ride then?"
"Yeah" he said.
He downed his beer. A trickle ran down his chin and he wiped it from his skirt with a dirty handkerchief. Susannah got off the stool. She left a nearly full martini and Hubble hated to see it go to waste and was tempted to gulp it down, but he fought against the urge. He didn't want her to get the idea that he was uncouth, or worried about money and wasted drinks.
They went out.
Susannah walked slightly ahead of him and swung her hips a little. The bartender shook his sad head and poured himself a shot a bourbon. He thought that Hubbel was a very lucky man and he resented it.
He resented it for ten minutes.
That was when Moose came in and asked him if he had seen Arnie Hubble, and the bartender said that Hubble had just left and Moose went out and after that the bartender no longer thought that Hubble was lucky at all, and even figured that Hubble deserved to have the beautiful rich tramp because it might well be the last woman that he ever had. Or the last anything, for that matter. Everyone knew who Moose worked for.
Susannah was driving a brand new Pontiac and she gave the keys to Hubble. That thrilled him. He sat behind the wheel and leaned his shoulders toward the door and tried to look as though it was his car.
She got in the other side. She had already closed the door before he remembered that he should have opened it for her. But she didn't seem to mind.
"Where shall we go?" he asked.
"Anywhere. Some place nice and lonely where we can be all by ourselves," she said.
Hubble started the car and drove. He had even forgotten that he owed money and should be a very worried man.
Susannah sat close to him on the wide seat. After a moment she put her hand on his leg. Her touch was like an electric jolt and Hubble nearly ran into a telephone pole She smiled as the car swerved. She liked to see these obvious reactions when she touched a man. She slid her hand along looking for reaction Hubble drove to a spot he Knew It was an empty lot between an empty and condemned building and a building which should have been empty and condemned. An old car rusted helplessly in the shadows. He pulled into the lot and heard broken glass crunch under the tires. He pulled up in the shade of the vacant building. A broken window with a few boards nailed over it was beside the car. He turned the key off and left it in the ignition. It was dark in the car but the wall of the other building was bright with moonlight. It was a romantic place, or something like that.
"This all right?"
"Wonderful."
"It's pretty quiet here."
"I like you so much it doesn't matter if we did it right on the barroom floor."
"I like you, too," he said. "Show me," she said.
Her hand caressed him and he slid across the seat and moved into her arms. She was damp and warm and smelled of exciting perfume.
They kissed. When they parted they were both panting very hard. Her hand was still on him.
"Do you want me enough to do what I ask?"
"Sure," he said. He nodded to make it more emphatic. She smiled.
She reached down and took the hem of her dress and pulled it to the waist. He stared. Her panties were silk. She took the elastic in her fingers and pulled them down, raising from the seat so that they could slide under her. She took them off and dropped them to the floor. She raised one knee and put her foot on the seat. The other leg stretched out.
Hubble moaned from just looking at her.
He touched her.
"Wait," she said.
He moved his hand.
She touched herself. She moved her fingers over herself while he watched. He saw her body change beneath her own hand, saw her grow ready. He opened his clothes, fingers fumbling with the buttons.
She continued for what seemed a long time. Once he reached out but she shook her head and he just watched.
Then she picked her panties up from the floor and held them out to him. "Take them," she said. He took them. "Feel them."
He crumbled the smooth silk in both hands. "Kiss them," she said.
He brought them to his lips and kissed them.
She watched for a while.
"You know what I want?" she asked.
"I ... think so...."
"Do you want to do that for me?"
He didn't answer. Instead he dropped the panties and moved onto the floor. The steering wheel pressed into his back but he didn't notice. He was only aware of her body, so close to him.
She placed her hands on either side of his face and gently pulled him to her. He went willingly. She was as smooth as the silk of her panties, rubbing along his face. He kept his eyes open. Her eyes were open, too, watching him.
She moaned. "More," she said.
His lips parted, caressed her. His hands moved beneath her to dig into her smooth buttocks.
Sweat glistened on her. She started to move, pushing against him. All the while he raised her higher.
She was moaning without pause now, a long, low, extended moan.
Hubble was disappointed when she put her panties back on. He was ready for a pleasure of his own. Susannah knew that, and she took pleasure in leaving a man that way. She had had her thrill. What did she care for his needs? She liked to see him squirm.
"Can't I ... aren't we going to do anything else?"
"I have to go now."
"But I ... "
"You were very nice to me. Would you like to see me again, Arnie? Would you like to see me tomorrow?"
He nodded.
"All right," he said.
"Tomorrow we'll have time for other things."
"Be patient. Save that for me. It'll be better if you wait."
Glumly he nodded.
Susannah drove him back to the bar. She let him kiss her and then she made him get out and she drove home to her husband, feeling very smug and contented. She felt so good that she thought she actually might go back and see him again sometime, and that she might make him do the same thing for her and leave him frustrated and in agony again. That was fun. It was nice to be beautiful and desirable and to be able to force men to do whatever she wanted and then to watch them suffer.
Yes, I just might see him again, she thought.
She felt so good that she told her husband all about it, just to see him squirm.
Hubble stopped for a beer and to look smug in the bar but the bartender avoided his eyes.
Hubble thought that this was because the bartender was jealous of him.
But the bartender felt sorry for him.
After that Hubble went home. He was still frustrated but he had high hopes for the next day. He could tell that she had really liked him.
He went into his apartment and snapped on the light.
And Moose hit him with a right hand in the stomach and a left hand behind the ear.
Hubble went down. He didn't even try to get up. Moose kicked him in the side of the head and after that he couldn't have gotten up anyhow.
Moose kicked him a few more times and then picked him up. He slapped him until Hubble's eyes opened. One eye was swollen from a kick and could not open much but the other eye spread wide with fear.
"You're going for a ride," Moose said.
"No!" Hubble pleaded. He meant to sound pleading, anybody, but Moose took it as a refusal and hit him in the other eye. Moose had to carry him down the stairs.
"Well?" Max Arnold asked.
Hubble stood before his desk. Deacon was sitting in the corner looking disinterested. Moose was standing behind Hubble, twisting his arm.
"I don't have any money," Hubble said.
Moose twisted the arm a little higher.
"I'll give you until Friday," Max said.
"Might as well kill him now," Moose said. "This punk won't get any money."
"Can you get any? You don't have any friends that will buy your life?"
And Hubble thought of Susannah. But he knew that he could not very well expect her to give him five thousand dollars. And Moose twisted his arm a little more and that was when the idea of kidnapping her came to him. He blurted it out right then and there. At first Max did not seem interested. He didn't want to get involved in a snatch. If Hubble could do it on his own, fine. But Hubble, talking to save his life, made it sound easy and simple. Deacon, who wanted his money, considered it.
"We could get more than five," Deacon said. "Ask for ten and get interest on our money."
"As long as it couldn't be pinned on me," Max said.
"It would be easy," Hubble said.
"All right," Max said.
Moose twisted Hubble's arm a little more just for the fun of it, and then they made the plans.
Susannah was late and Arnie waited in the bar with a very white face except for the bruises. Both eyes were closed and he could hardly see. The bartender wouldn't look at him. Arnie didn't think that she was going to show up, and he was very, very frightened. He gulped his beer and his head swam with fright.
And then she came.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
"A couple of guys jumped me last night," he said. "I guess they wanted to rob me but I managed to fight them off."
"How brave and strong you are," she told him, and he didn't see the sarcasm because he couldn't see much of anything with his busted eyes.
"You deserve a reward for that," she said. "Shall we go for a ride?"
He nodded.
It might be fun to have his battered face down there, she thought. It will make him look more help less. And she laughed and walked out of the bar with Hubble following and she swung her hips a bit more than the night before because she knew that everyone was watching her and she supposed, and hoped, that Hubble had told them all about what it was that she had made him do for her in the vacant lot. She liked to have men know about the things that she liked.
She drove. She remembered the way. She pulled into the same place and turned the motor off. Hubble was sifting on the far side of the seat.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
He mumbled.
She touched him. He was no excited.
"Don't you want me tonight?" she asked.
"Sure," he said. He looked out the window. She moved closer to him.
"Let's do what we did last night," she said. She expected him to protest, but he said nothing. She frowned. Something was definitely wrong.
And then Moose opened the door on her side and Spiro opened the door on the other side and she looked from one to the other. She was frightened. She was only a little surprised. They're going to rape me, she thought.
And she liked the thought.
And she was disappointed when they didn't. Moose grabbed her and tied her hands behind her back while Spiro kept a hand over her mouth. Then they taped her mouth. Hubble sat very quietly all the while. He didn't say a word and she didn't move. Spiro had to reach across him to grab Susannah. When she was tied Moose dragged Hubble from the car.
"Got to make this look good. To protect you," he told Hubble. Hubble cringed.
Moose hit him very hard on the jaw. Hubble would have fallen but Moose held him up with his left hand and hit him again and again with the right. He felt the jawbone give and after that when he hit Hubble the man's jaw wobbled without resistance. His face changed shape.
But it was for his own protection.
They left Hubble in a pool of blood beside the Pontiac and carried the girl to their own car. They threw her in the back seat and drove off. They went a few blocks and stopped and Moose put a blindfold over her eyes. She noticed how big and strong his hands were.
She wasn't the least bit frightened.
They drove her to the cabin and Spiro went in with her and Moose drove back to report to Arnold. He had followed orders because he always followed orders without protest, but he was disappointed that he had not been allowed to have some fun with the girl, and he was jealous that Spiro was going to be left alone with her. Max had him make the telephone call to her husband and tell him where and how to leave the money. And then they had only to wait, and to find a chump to collect the money just in case the husband notified the police instead of following their instructions.
And so Moose was very glad when the ransom was not paid and he was given, chance to show the girl that they meant business. Very glad.
CHAPTER TEN
Your OLD MAN DIDN'T PAY THE MONEY," MOOSE said to Susannah. He crossed the room. Spiro came behind him. They stood in front of her.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. She sounded more curious than frightened.
Moose laughed.
"I suppose that you'll rape me," she said, rather as though making a suggestion. "I don't think you'd mind."
"What can I do?" she said, with wide, innocent eyes.
"I'm quite helpless."
"That's right," Moose said.
"If you untied my hands I might not be quite so helpless of course," she said. "I couldn't get away, but I'd be able to move a bit more. It wouldn't be so much fun raping me if I couldn't squirm and fight, would it?"
"It won't do you no good to fight "
"I know," she said. "But you might enjoy it more if I could squirm a little."
"This is quite a dame," Moose said.
"We won't hurt her much," Spiro said.
"Just hurt me a little bit," she said.
Trask moved to the window beside the door and very carefully looked into the front room. He was just in time to see the two men go into the back. He moved to the door and pushed very gently against it and found that it was locked. He was going to take no chances, there were at least two of them and they both had guns and Trask had to have the surprise on his side. He moved off the porch and went around to the side, walking on his toes over the soft ground. He had the gun in his hand and he was crouched and coiled and ready for anything.
"Untie her," Moose said.
Spiro went behind the chair and untied the ropes. They fell away. Susannah stood up and stretched. When she stretched her breasts swelled beneath the tight sweater.
"You're going to write a little note to your husband," Moose told her. looking carefully at her breasts.
"Sure," she said. "As soon as you convince me. I'm sure that a big man like you will be very convincing. I'm sure you'll know just how much to hurt me."
"Women say that I hurt," Moose said. He swelled his massive chest and glared at her. "I'm very big and I'm very rough and they say I hurt. But they like it."
"I'm sure they do," Susannah said. She arched her back. She was stiff from sitting tied in the chair.
"We're both going to hurt you a little bit at the same time," Spiro said, anxious that Moose did not forget that point. She looked at him. He was not big and she looked back at Moose. She smiled.
There was one small window in the room. It was too small for anyone to go through. Curtains covered it but they were not pulled all the way together. The dark sky showed through in the center. But neither Spiro nor Moose were looking at the window.
Trask was looking in.
He had gone all the way to the back and now he was standing on his toes and just his eyes were above the sill. He could see nearly the whole little room. He saw the two men and the woman standing in a group at the center and he saw the unmade bed against the wall. He could hear the murmur of their voices, but he couldn't make out the words. He didn't care about that. The situation was obvious and he knew what he was going to do, but he would not be rushed into it. No matter what were to happen in that room, Trask would not make his move until the time was right. He intended to save the woman, and this was probably the most gallant intention that he had ever had. Trask had a sense of humor, of a sort. He had taken the money that would have saved her and now he felt obligated to save her himself, provided he could do so without taking any great risk to himself. And he didn't like Moose at all, and welcomed the chance to show how much he disliked him. Trask loved action. He smiled as he stood at the window and he waited until the moment was right.
"You want to take your clothes off?" Moose asked
"Shouldn't you tear them off? After all, this is against my will. I really shouldn't undress so that you can rape me. that wouldn't be right."
Spiro took a step toward her She faced him. her chest extended and her hips drawn back. Spiro glanced toward Moose and the big man nodded.
Spiro took the neck of her jersey in one hand and yanked. It tore down the front and came away, a torn rag in his little hand.
Her breasts were large and they swelled against the thin restraining brassiere. The brassiere was black and her flesh was very pale and smooth.
Moose stepped in from the other side. He took the zipper of her slacks and pulled it down She looked at him. They were both more nervous than she. She turned so that she was facing Moose and he licked his lips. He took the top of the slacks in both hands and peeled them down. They were very tight. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled them down. When they were at her ankles she stepped out of them. Her panties were black, too. She stepped away from the gold slacks and stood facing both men again, with her feet widespread on the floor. The bed was behind her. She tossed her head so that her hair brushed over one side of her face.
"Get on the bed," Moose growled.
"You'll have to force me."
Moose nodded to Spiro.
Spiro advanced. She didn't move. He took her by the arms and shoved her toward the bed. She struggled, but not too much. He threw her down and she lay on her side and looked at him. She was disappointed. They were being much too gentle. She decided that she was going to have to make things harder for them.
"I won't write that note," she said.
Moose smiled. He started taking off his clothes. Spiro followed suit. Moose put his pants over the back of the chair with his gun still in the pocket. Spiro took his shoulder harness off and put that on the chair also. Trask noticed this and judged the distance from the bed to the chair He was weighing his chances of going in the front door and reaching the back room before they reached the chair. It would be difficult to cover them or to fire from the window. It was too high and there was nothing on which to stand. He decided to wait. He could see that both men were soon going to be occupied. They might not even hear him break the lock on the front door, the way that things were developing.
Both men were naked now.
Spiro was very thin and white. He looked like a ghost, a very excited ghost.
Moose was darker, very strong and bristling with coarse black hair. Muscles bulged in his shoulders and chest. He was bigger than Trask but not as solid. He moved with slow, clumsy power as he walked to the bed. He dwarfed Spiro and the bed and even the room, but nothing was going to dwarf the white-fleshed woman with the black undergarments as she lay on the bed. Moose sat down.
The bed shifted and protested. Susannah moved a little away from him. Spiro got on the bed from the other side and she was between them.
"You are strong," she said, looking at Moose.
Moose grunted. He took her brassiere with one hand and twisted the material in his fingers and then tore it away. The straps snapped and left a red mark across her back. Her breasts, freed, rolled heavily on her chest. They were nearly perfect spheres and despite their heft they did not sag, they stood upright. The nipples were large and they had already begun to stiffen and stand away from the breasts.
"Nice," Moose said. "This is going to be very nice."
He gathered the elastic of her panties in his hand and tore them away too. He dropped them on the floor. She rolled onto her stomach. Her buttocks were round and white and firm. Her legs were together.
"Turn over," Moose said.
"Turn me!" she said.
He slid a hand under her. His fingers groped and found the nipple and he pulled. She rolled over onto her back. He pressed her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, hard. He pulled and it stretched away from her flesh. Susannah gasped. This was better! This was the way that a woman should be raped!
Spiro was not an original man. He grinned and took the other nipple and pulled in the same way. He shifted nearer to her but Susannah was looking only at Moose.
"Relax!" he snarled.
"No."
He crushed the nipple as hard as he could. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but she crossed one leg over the other and gritted her teeth.
Moose laughed. He released her nipple and his fingers dug into her legs. He moved them with brute force. When he let her go she let her legs stay where they were, one stretched out along the bed and the other trailing over the edge with her foot just touching the floor.
Moose moved to her. Spiro looked enviously on, still twisting at her nipple.
Then Moose stopped.
"Both at once," he said. He pulled her up from the bed so that she was kneeling. He motioned at Spiro. Spiro grinned. He stretched flat on the bed and Moose lifted Susannah and placed her near the smaller man. She looked over her shoulder at Moose. She had wanted Moose and r-ow she thought that she was going to have to wait but Moose had ideas of his own.
Spiro raised himself. Moose lifted Susannah and then placed her. He slowly let her down and Spiro guided himself to her and they settled gently. Spiro was not strong.
Moose knelt behind her. She had started to move a little, from habit, or perhaps from a desire to finish with Spiro so that she could have Moose. But Moose placed a hand on her buttocks and held her still. Spiro squirmed a little, and waited for Moose. Moose knelt close behind her and towered over her. He raised her a little and pushed her head down so that her face rested on the bed beside Spiro's head. She quivered there, not quite sure what to expect.
Moose took her buttocks in his hands.
"No!" she said.
"So I'm not big enough to hurt you, huh?" he said. "Not that way!"
He laughed. He slid against her. He pressed forcibly. She tried to move away but he held her and Spiro held her nipples in his hands.
Moose grunted.
He pushed harder.
"Please," she said. "Anything else. I'll do whatever you want. You'll hurt me...."
Her body resisted but he was very strong and ready. Very slowly they began to move closer. She screamed, her voice muffled against the bed.
"Any other way," she sobbed. "One at a time. Not that way." She turned and looked at him, crying now. She opened her mouth. He grinned at her, and gave one last great effort, and that was too late, she screamed once more with pain and then she buried her face into the bed and sobbed soundlessly. That hurt a great deal but that was not so bad, and that even began to be strangely pleasant.
Moose moved a slow rhythm.
Spiro moved faster, twisting savagely at her nipple: to pull her to him, he scarcely noticed with the greater burden of Moose, ever pressing. Her fingers twisted into the bedclothes and she waited and prayed that she would not be too badly injured.
Spiro gasped. She noticed nothing but she knew from the way he quivered that he was finished. She could see him moving away from her then. She slid off and flattened out on the bed and Mooses' weight crushed down as he kept up the slow rhythm. And then he moved faster and that hurt even more, but she knew that that would not be much longer.
He grunted.
Carefully he moved away.
"How was that, baby?" he asked.
But Susannah could not speak.
Trask stepped away from the window. He pursed his lips. It had been an interesting scene. But now he had other things to do. He went around to the front door. He tested it with his weight and it moved slightly. The lock was not strong. He held the gun ready in his right hand and put his left shoulder to the door and heaved. The door resisted for a moment and then the lock gave and the door swung in. He stopped it before it banged against the wall and stood crouched beside it, gun up and pointed at the other door, waiting for the two men to come at him.
But they hadn't heard.
Trask moved across the room to the other door. Susannah was face down on the bed. Spiro had gotten up and was grinning. Moose was sitting on the edge of the bed. He grabbed Susannah by the hair and raised her face. She looked at him. She was no longer so confident. But, in some strange way. she had enjoyed what they did for her. She didn't really want them to stop, but she didn't want them to hurt her any more than they already had. Her body ached. And she saw that Moose was quite ready to go again.
"Wait a minute...." she said.
He pulled her toward him by the hair. She slid along the bed and he raised her face above him.
"You get me excited," he said.
He pushed her down.
Spiro chuckled.
Susannah tried to turn away from him, but he pulled her back, roughly. At least, she thought, this won't hurt me.
Spiro crouched on bended knees to get a better view of the proceedings.
Moose closed his eyes, smiling.
"Nice and slow and easy," he said.
"And don't bite," Spiro added.
Susannah moved. He showed her the rhythm that he wanted. Spiro waddled a bit closer and placed a hand on her back and began to caress her, wanting her to hurry so that he could take his turn at this new punishment.
That was when Trask walked through the door. He threw the door wide open and it banged against the wall and he came through in a half crouch with the gun in his right hand held well in front of him, toward the bed. He had expected the two men to be off the bed by now. He didn't want to shoot when they were clustered around the girl.
Spiro acted on instinct. He didn't even look at the door, the moment he heard it open he threw himself over backward, away from the bed and toward the chair where his gun was. He did a backward roll and came to his knees behind the chair. He was very fast and agile.
Moose pulled Susannah off him and stood up. lifting her with him and between him and the door. When he saw Trask he snarled like an animal.
Spiro pulled his gun from the holster and Trask moved his gun in that direction and fired. The bullet struck Spiro in the right hip and knocked his leg from under him. He fell to the right, just as Trask fired again, and the second shot missed and slammed through the wall.
Lying face down Spiro got his gun up and fired too quickly. The angle was wrong and he overshot. Trask crouched lower and shot twice just as Moose threw the girl across the room at him.
The first slug hit the floor three inches in front of Spiro's face and as the splinters flew up the second bullet came in five inches farther back and hit him in the face. It tore his jaw away and his scream was a bubbling, horrible thing. The gun dropped from his hand and he half rolled over, clutching at where his mouth had once been.
Trask spun to face Moose just as Susannah hit him.
Moose was a strong man and the girl hurtled through the air and banged into him squarely. Trask. off balance, fell backward against the wall with her on top of him.
Moose took two long steps and leaped onto the pile. He grabbed Trask's wrist in one hand and the gun in the other and twisted savagely. Trask kicked out and tried to roll free and the gun was torn from his hand. But Moose held it by the barrel and could not shoot. He swung it like a club at Trask's head. Trask blocked with his forearm. Moose's wrist hit the arm and the gun, held loosely, flew out of his hand and clattered across the floor toward where Spiro was still making gurgling noises.
They both straightened up. They faced each other. The naked woman was stretched on the floor between them. Moose's eyes darted toward the chair where his gun was still in his pants and near where Trask's gun had landed. Trask looked straight at Moose. Neither dared move toward the guns. The girl was sobbing, Spiro was gurgling, and they seemed to face each other for a long while before either moved.
Then Moose roared, in rage and confidence. Moose had never lost many fights. He was heavier than Trask and he had made a business of bashing other men. He knew that he wouldn't need a gun for this.
And Trask smiled, the way he had smiled when he dropped Ken Fee out of the window. Trask had never lost a fight.
Moose stepped forward with his right cocked and his left held low. Trask feinted a step backward and then stepped in behind a straight left. It was a ramrod shot and it landed directly on Moose's mouth. Trask could feel the teeth yield and the lips crush between them. He ducked low and stepped aside and Moose's big right missed over the top. They faced each other again and Moose was not stunned. Trask had knocked men out with that left jab and he could see that he was in for a very hard battle with this big man. And he smiled again.
Moose came in. Trask tried the same feint and Moose shifted to his right, took the left high on the head and shot his right under it to the body. It was a good punch but it felt as though he had hit solid rock. Trask didn't even grunt. He dropped his right cross onto Moose's temple and Moose hit the floor on hands and knees and bounced. He leaped up instantly, shaking his massive head to clear it. Trask hit him with the straight left again, and this time his nose went. Blood leaped out like a waterfall and Moose fell back against the wall.
Trask stepped in to throw the left again but he forgot about the girl. His left foot tripped over her leg as she started to sit up and he fell forward against Moose.
Moose got one arm around his head and grabbed his wrist with the other and began to squeeze. He twisted and Trasks face came up, his neck strained. Moose got his weight into it and Trask turned over as they slumped to the floor with Moose on top. Moose's arms were like a vice on Trask's neck.
Susannah was sitting up now, watching with open mouth. She was too stunned to try to escape or to try to help Trask. And she didn't even realize that Trask was helping her. She sat quite close to the struggling men and watched, her heavy breasts dropping just a bit, both nipples already swollen with the crushing that Moose had given them in his fingers.
Moose put all his strength into the twisting, grinding motion. Trask gritted his teeth. He hit Moose in the face with a right but he couldn't get any weight behind the punch with his shoulders on the floor. He pushed against Moose's throat and forced his head back and slammed a chop at his throat. Moose's arms loosened just a little, and Trask was able to reach down along his body. Moose was naked and Trask hit him, his hand closed and began to crush. Moose moaned and heaved himself away. He was up first and he kicked, but he was barefoot and his toes landed on the forehead. Then Trask was up, too, and angry. He got his head down and went in with hooks to the body. Moose met him and they stood toe to toe and slammed away. Moose felt his wind starting to go. His fists seemed to bounce from Trask's body harmlessly and Trask's fists were sinking deeply into his stomach. Moose tried a right to the head but Trask was low and he hit him right on the top of the head. He felt his knuckles push out of place. Moose knew that he was going to lose this fight. Moose felt afraid. He lashed out desperately with his left and Trask moved back a step and Moose turned and ran.
He ran through the front room and out onto the porch, his naked body gleamed in the night. He ran for the car. Trask did not follow immediately. He had gained a bit of respect for Moose's strength. He went to the chair and got the gun and then he walked slowly through the cabin and onto the porch.
Moose was in the car, behind the wheel. He was trying to start it. It wouldn't start. Trask knelt on one knee and rested his gun arm on the porch railing and carefully shot at the side window. He saw the cracks spread out in a wide circle and saw Moose's head leap. The head was still there and he fired again and this time the head bounced right across the car and banged the opposite window and Moose slumped out the length of the seat and lay very still. His big head seemed to have been pushed out of shape.
Moose would bash no more.
Trask went back into the cabin.
Susannah was standing now. Spiro was no longer flopping on the floor. Trask didn't bother to see whether or not he was dead. Trask didn't care.
"Get dressed," he said "We have to get out of here."
"Who are you?"
"Just a guy," he said.
"You saved me...."
"You didn't look like you needed much saving."
She looked shocked for a second. And then, slowly, a smile crept over her face. She raised her hands to her breasts and cupped them together. She ran her thumbs very gently over the swollen nipples.
"Look how they hurt me," she said. "They squeezed my nipples and...."
"I know. I was watching from the window."
She didn't look embarrassed. She rubbed the nipples some more and they seemed to become more swollen and firmer. But Trask was not interested. Not then. Not in the aftermath of killing two men.
"Get dressed," he said again.
Susannah shrugged. She began to gather her torn clothing and put it on as best as she could. She put Moose's shirt over her torn jersey. They went out to the car and Trask dragged Moose's body out and left it on the ground. He fixed the car and got in.
"You deserve a reward," she told him.
"Maybe I'll give you one," she said, with her eyebrows up, rubbing her swollen nipples.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RICHARD POMEROY SIGHED IN RELIEF.
Trask lighted a cigarette and sat on the arm of the couch. Susannah was stretched out on the same couch, smoking. The shirt that she wore was unbuttoned. She hadn't changed her clothing yet. They were in her living room and she had just told her husband how Trask had saved her.
"Why didn't you pay them?" she asked. "But I did," he said.
"They said you didn't pay. That's why they were going to hurt me."
"I left the money just as they said."
Trask smoked and said nothing.
"Anyway, the main thing is that you are safe. I don't care about the money."
"If it hadn't been for Pete they might have killed me," Susannah said. "If you had any idea what the two men were doing to me when he shot them!"
Her husband looked unhappy.
"I suppose we had better call the police," he said.
"I'll have to tell them what those men were doing to me, won't I?" she asked, thinking how much fun it would be to watch the police reaction when she went into detail.
"I'd rather you didn't call them until I'm gone," Trask said. "I don't like cops."
Whatever you like. But...."
"I must clean your face first," Susannah said. Trask was bruised around the eyes, but not badly. All of Moose's head shots had landed high.
"And you deserve a reward," she said. She got up from the couch, letting the shirt fall open farther. She walked out of the room.
"I'll gladly...."
"I don't want a reward," Trask said.
"You deserve something," Susannah said, coming back with a wash cloth and towel and a basin of so;; and water. She began to wipe at Trask's face, leaning over him. The sweater was torn down the front and the shirt was open and her breasts hung naked before Trask.
"You really should put something else on," Pomeroy said.
She looked at the bruises critically. Pomeroy knew that there was no way to judge her reactions and that she was quite liable to do just the opposite of what he asked just to be perverse, but he didn't like to see her bare breasts so very near to Trask's face.
"Darling," he said. "You really should put some clothing on. You're quite uncovered."
She laughed.
"It's nothing that Peter hasn't seen before. I was perfectly naked when he rescued me. And before that he saw what they were doing to me. So it's rather silly to start being modest about my body now."
Pomeroy grimaced. Susannah looked at him. As she turned her breasts swung slightly. She was thinking about what had happened and it excited her. At the time she had been a little afraid that they would really hurt her, but now that it was over she didn't even regret it. It was a rather thrilling experience to think back on. And she wanted to increase the thrill by telling her husband about it. That always made it better. When he knew that she was having love affairs with other men it always made the affairs more exciting, and she knew that it would be the same way with this.
"Look at my nipples," she said. She held them out to her husband, standing right in front of Trask. Trask pursed his lips. "They squeezed them so hard," she said. "They're all swollen." She rubbed them a little. "And that wasn't all. They both did things to me at the same time. Thai hurt."
"Don't you care what they did to me?" she asked. "I'm sure that Peter cares. Don't you?"
Trask looked amused. This was quite a woman, he thought. She really ought to have been whipped, but that was beside the point, she was still quite a woman.
"See, Peter?" she said. She turned and held her breasts out to him. "Your face is bruised and my nipples are bruised and my husband doesn't care. But you care, don't you. Touch them, Peter. See how swollen they are."
Trask hesitated. If her husband had said anything then, had made any protest, Trask would have walked out. But Pomeroy just stood watching with his mouth drawn into a straight line, and these lovely breasts were so near.
He touched them.
The nipples seemed to burst in his fingers, swelling and growing.
"Kiss them, Peter. Kiss them and make them well. They belong to you because you saved me."
Peter took her nipples, one after the other, and kissed them gently.
"I'm going to give you your reward myself, Peter," Susannah said. She looked at her husband. "I'm going to give Peter anything that he wants."
Pomeroy opened his mouth to speak; closed it with out a word. He stared. He felt helpless.
"Let's go into the bedroom, Peter."
"All right," he said.
She took his hand and led him across the room. At the door she paused. Her husband was standing in the same place.
"Richard, you come too. I want you to see what Peter does to me I want you to watch."
He came. As if he were a puppet, a robot, he obeyed her command and followed them into the bedroom. She led Trask to the bed and Pomeroy stood by the door.
"Let me take these filthy clothes off," she said. She stripped them off quickly and stood naked. Her body looked none the worse for what had been done to her.
"Now your clothes," she said. He started to move. "No, let me," she said.
Her fingers began working over his buttons and zippers, working quickly and surely. When his shirt came off his body was bruised in many places from Moose's punches. Susannah dropped to her knees in front of him and began to kiss each bruise on his body. As she kissed him her hands worked and his clothes came loose. They dropped and he stepped out of them. She continued to kiss him while she tugged his underwear down. Her lips worked, finding new bruises. And then she paused to glance at Pomeroy. He stood as though carved from stone.
But he was watching.
Susannah smiled at him. And then she turned her face to Trask and her lips parted and caressed him. Trask let his shoulders drop back. Her hands ran up and down his legs and hips, around to his buttocks. She continued.
Then she leaned back and smiled at Trask. She got off her knees and sat on the bed. She pulled him to her and her lips flared. Just for a moment this time, and then she lay back with her body on the bed and her legs on the floor, arched upward. She caressed herself with her hands. She invited Trask to her with her body.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed. Her hands were still moving, and he slid to her. The length of their bodies pressed together. Her feet flew off the floor.
Pomeroy moved forward a few steps.
Trask's head was beside hers, face down against the bed. She looked over his shoulder. She looked at Pomeroy. She looked very happy. She reached down and her husband saw her hand move to guide Trask. And then the two bodies began.
They began slowly. Susannah moved, trying to draw him closer. Bit by bit the tempo increased, as they drew near the peak. They began to beat themselves frantically. Susannah was moaning continuously, Trask was grunting with the exertion.
Pomeroy whined softly.
And then they were both quivering and falling from the heights, and Trask let his body relax, and sank down.
And even then she looked at her husband.
Even then she smiled at him.
Trask left after that. Pomeroy said nothing to him. Trask drove to the diner and picked up the box that he had left there. He told Block that he was leaving town.
"Trouble?" Block asked.
"Nothing worth mentioning," Trask said. "Just a little gamble I took."
They said good-bye. Trask left. Jeff Block thought that Trask was a strange guy. He was glad, for Trask'.; sake, that he had not gotten into serious trouble with Arnold's boys.
Susannah took a warm bath and went to bed. They had decided not to notify the police. Not until the next day, at least. When she was in bed her husband came in and sat down beside her.
"Angry?" she said, and he could tell by her tone that she didn't much care.
"No," he said. And he wasn't. He was a bit stunned, but he felt no anger. He had always known what his wife was like. He put his hand on her.
"I had to reward him, you see."
"It's all right," he said.
"After what the other two did to me, it didn't really seem like much."
"Let's not talk about it."
"Pete was good though. He was even stronger than the strong man who raped me."
"Please, can I sleep with you?"
She looked at him long enough to make him feel very uncomfortable, and then she said, "Of course."
Later, when he was finished, she said to him, "I'm terrible. While you were making love to me I was pretending that you were Peter. Isn't that terrible?"
He didn't answer.
"Of course, you aren't as good as Peter."
And why, he wondered, don't I hate her for this? Why do I feel only desire and no hate? It was a good question, but he could not answer it and contented himself with the thought that she had been so shocked by her experience that she didn't know what she was doing or saying; that in the morning she would be sorry, or perhaps would not even remember, which would be better. And he told himself that the shocks of the last few days were so great that it might change her.
She might never want another man again, he thought, as he lay beside her in the dark bedroom. But it didn't turn out that way, of course.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THREE DAYS LATER BELLE STOPPED AT SARAH'S PLACE.
Sarah was surprised to see her but she invited her in. Belle stood by the door.
"Are you glad to see me?"
"Well, sure."
"I brought a bottle of gin."
"Yeah?"
"Ken is in the hospital, you know. He didn't run out on me after all. That terrible man you went to bed with threw him out a window."
"Is that so. He never should have tried anything with that one. That was one mean man."
"Poor Ken. I haven't even been to see him, though. After the other night I don't think that I want to have any boy friends, Sarah. The other way is ... better."
Sarah sighed. She took a cigarette from the table and lighted it. Belle put the cheap gin down. Sarah was considering what to say. She blew smoke.
"Belle...."
"Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Honey, I'm not that way."
"I don't understand...."
"I'm not a Lesbian!"
"But, the other night...."
"Sure, once in a while. That was fun. It's something different for a change. Neither one of us had a man to sleep with and that was something to do. But that's as far as it goes. I never would have started with you if I thought you were going to like that so well. You better go back to Fee."
Belle looked startled, and said nothing. She bit her lip.
"I'm sorry, honey. You can't stay here now, though. A friend of mine is coming around. A man."
"I didn't understand."
"Sure. It was my fault."
Belle went to the door. Sarah brought the bottle of gin and gave it to her. She smiled and Belle smiled sadly back. Then Belle left. Sarah shook her head. I should have known better, she thought. You can't go pulling that stuff with a stupid girl like Belle. She just didn't understand.
It was fun, though, Sarah thought.
And she sat down to wait for the man who was going to go to bed with her.
Belle was confused. She walked around for a while trying to figure out what she wanted to do. After a while she shrugged. No setback bothered Belle for very long.
She went to the hospital.
When they had brought Ken Fee in the night nurse thought that he had been hit by a car. That was why she let him in. If she had known that it was not an insurance case she would never have admitted him without proof that he was wealthy, because that's how hospitals are. And if he had looked any worse she wouldn't have admitted him because she would have thought that he might die and nurses know that hospitals are not the place to die in. They are too busy to bother with death.
But Ken fooled them, by looking as though he would live but had been run over by an insured driver, and so he was in the hospital.
He was in a ward with twenty other people. His leg was in a cast and his ribs were taped. Belle came in and looked around and saw him in the far corner of the room. She walked down to him. One or two of the patients whistled at her, and she smiled and swung her hips a little more.
"Where you been?" Fee asked.
"Gee, I just found out where you were."
"Yeah?"
"I brought you a present," she said.
She offered him the gin. He snatched it greedily and hid it beneath the covers. He looked around to make sure that the nurse hadn't seen. The man in the next bed had been brought a bottle of brandy the day before and the nurse had seen it and confiscated it. The man had been very dejected. The nurse, a bit later, had been very drunk. She had been so drunk that she gave him the wrong injection and he died. So everyone knew that it was a very bad thing to sneak alcohol into the hospital.
Belle sat on the edge of the bed. A television was blaring in the corner, keeping all the sick patients from resting and the well patients from contentment. But the nurse was watching it. Fee reached out and pulled the curtains around his bed closed so that they could have some privacy.
"How are you?"
"I'll live. It was a trap. He had seven friends waiting and they got me. I put up a fight but I couldn't take all seven of them."
That wasn't quite how Belle had heard it, but she figured it wasn't worth mentioning.
"When can you get out of here?"
"Pretty soon. I'll have to wear this cast for quite a while though. Until my leg heals up. I'll have to have the leg massaged and things, too."
"I'll massage it for you," Belle said, feeling needed. It was nice to feel needed now that Sarah had rejected her. She reached beneath the covers and started to massage his leg. But, since there was a cast on it, she couldn't massage very effectively. She let her hand move along his leg, to where there was no cast. She was able to massage much more effectively, but since there were no broken bones there it did little good. Fee reached out and took her hand and guided her to where massage could still be effective. But he didn't guide her close enough. She began to massage the gin bottle. Her eyes widened.
"Oh," she said. "Isn't it wonderful what hospitals can do for a man nowadays."
"That's the bottle."
"Oh," she said. She sounded disappointed. She continued to rub the bottle, pretending that he had had some wonderful plastic surgery. But he took her hand away and placed that again. She rubbed obediently in small circles. Her hand moved and he jumped a little beneath the sheets. Belle frowned, comparing him to the bottle of gin. Massage, she had been told, could do wonders for one.
After a while she reached with her other hand and placed both on him. Fee began to squirm desperately. His hands dug and twisted in the bedclothes. He slobbered a little. Belle caressed him and just as his mind broke free of consciousness, the nurse stood glaring at them.
The nurse pulled the covers off. The proof of their guilt was evident. So was the gin bottle, and that was more important. The nurse took the bottle and Belle to her office. She was going to have Belle arrester!, but first she thought she had better make sure that it really was gin.
She took a sip.
"Tastes like gin," she said.
She took a swallow to make sure.
"Gin," she said.
She took a gulp. Belle waited nervously. It took the nurse an hour to make sure that no gin was left in the hospital and by then she had forgotten why she was going to have Belle arrested. She called the police but the only charge that she could think of was entering a hospital without hospitalization insurance. The police agreed that this was serious, but said that it was not up to them. So the nurse had to let Belle go. Belle had nowhere to go but couldn't stay in the hospital and so she went out and wandered around, wondering what she was going to do until Ken Fee was released from the hospital.
Later she got picked up by a man with glasses who needed to be mothered, and that was all right.
Fee lay, ginless but satiated, in his hospital bed. The nurse was much too drunk to come and change the sheets. She had fallen asleep in the operating theater. Later a doctor came in and took her appendix out. The operation was a success but the patient who was supposed to have his appendix taken out died in his room. The doctor didn't like that because he didn't get paid. He tried to make the nurse pay for having her appendix out but she wouldn't. Then they found out that the nurse did not have hospitalization insurance and they fired her and black-listed her from every hospital around the country. She couldn't get a job nursing and so she had to become a hustler. But, as it turned out, she was suited better for this, and she never regretted the change.
All this was later, however. After Fee got out of the hospital. In the meantime he lay there and waited to be released and planned his revenge on Peter Trask. He was going to tell Max Arnold what had happened. He knew that Max would send his boys around to avenge him. Fee smiled happily as he thought of what they would do to Trask. The first thing he did when he got out, even before he looked for Belle, was to pay a call on Max Arnold in The Golden Parrot.
Arnold looked rather glum, but Fee didn't notice this. He asked Max if he would have Trask beaten. Arnold looked at him peculiarly.
"I know that you don't let anyone mess with your boys and get away with it!" Fee said.
And Arnold, who had no one left to beat Fee up, sighed and gave him a drink.
