Archive Note: The profusion of misspelled words and incorrect punctuation is reproduced here just as it was found in the original pocketbook.
...his lips made mad music with hers ... his massaging stroking hands started the shrill synphony that smote her senses ... her silken skin came under his touch ... she recalled being picked up ... she was a moaning beseeching wreck begging him onward....
CHAPTER ONE
At the age of eleven Layne Conners was budding. At twelve she was rounding and protruding in highly selected spots. At thirteen she began to take on the exciting form of a woman. At fifteen she was a definite hazard to all mankind and was beginning to realize it. At seventeen she was a magnificently constructed human of the female species and some men said that it wouldn't be long now. It couldn't be. She had too much of what had caused wars, revolutions economic collapses, heads to fall, thrones to change hands and high school teachers to lose their jobs. Layne Conners might have caused a natural catastrophe except that though she belonged to nature even as did did floods, winds and earthquakes, she lacked their awesome physical power. Since whe was born and reared in Texas there were no kings to become involved, but there was a highly educated herdsman working for her father, living on the ranch.
Mr. James Blakely was a scientist, devoted and dedicated. He was small, soulful, intense with burning dark eyes incredibly long lashes and smooth olive skin. Mr. Blakely with his eyes on distant horizons paid scant attention to women of any sort. Layne Conners changed all that. He not only became conscious of her, but once it happened he was conscious of scarcely anything else. Layne had long been conscious of herself, a matter that is understandable remembering what males are in the presence of such a female as she. She was conscious that their eyes followed her with such avidity that she fancied she could feel the heat on her fabulous skin. Parental watchfulness prevented conventional introduction to the mysteries that surrounded her but like parental watchfulness it was directed in only one direction, the neighbor's son who had sprung into manhood going undetected by his ubiquitousness. He had been more or less underfoot since he was big enough to fork a horse, and in Texas that isn't very big, the elder Conners saw him as a part of the landscape.
Layne had always been a placid easy-going sort who got along with everyone, also got along with Son Schulens. This ripened gradually, as they matured, into something a little more profound than casual friendship although on the surface the change was not apparent. It took an event to bring it into flower and any disinterested observer might have concluded that the event was inevitable.
It was Sunday afternoon when work on the ranch had ceased, the parents gone to visit leaving Layne and Son Schulens to follow their inclinations. Desultory conversation soon bored them and idleness threatened to turn into Satan's workshop.
"Let's go play in the cotton house" suggested Son whose intentions went no further than a glance at Layne's long satiny legs if he could induce her to climb the ladder to the window. The house was full of cotton, the door buried in the sweet smelling white mass. He had managed this before and reasonably expected to repeat.
"You go first" he said gallantly and without a word Layne mounted the ladder that was nailed to the side of the small shack. Her father was a cattleman, but raised a small amount of cotton as a hobby.
Son followed her at a descret distance, nearly falling once so rapt was he in the study which a mere glance upward afforded him. It was a dim vista of such magnificent quality that his mouth went dry and he swallowed hard upon an emotion that was trying to throttle him.
Layne, on her part, was not, as he suspected, unaware of the situation. She not only knew why he had invited her to mount first, she knew that he was taking full advantage of it, a matter that had left her singularly unconcemed in the past, but now sent a noodtide of raging reaction through her, making her own ascent somewhat precarious. The first fierce blast of emotion that swept her subsided, but left her body affected by a tingle that felt like a million tiny needles pricking her skin. She felt his hot breath on the calf of one leg and the tingle flogged her in a sudden acceleration that was like a quick grass fire. A weakening malaise made her take the last step with an effort and when she swung her legs across the sill of the window, the rough wood dragged her skirt up revealing a considerable length of fascinating thigh kissed golden by the sun.
Things were loading up on Layne and her breathing was affected. It was bad enough that she had allowed Son to gaze upon her secrets, but what was worse, she-couldn't seem to mount any resentment. This dismayed her to some extent though not greatly. With a laugh that was a half apology for the action of her dress she leaped out and down striking the soft cotton with a bounce that triggered her dress into further disclosure. She rolled to her side and casually pulled it down, noting the stricken fascination in Son's eyes. The tingle mounted until it was almost pain as he dropped beside her. Separated by inches he looked into her eyes, his own grey-green ones soft and dreamy. Son was a big, muscular lad who didn't know his own strength. He had blonde crew cut hair, his skin healthy pink tattling on his Germanic forebears. All of a sudden Layne realized that Son was handsome. He had known for some time that she was beautiful, but it was a sort of tame reaction that might have been actuated by a good quarter horse. Now it joined hands with her own conviction and as is so often the case, such simultaneous electric occurrences can start a quick blaze.
"Gosh, but you're pretty" he muttered wondering where he found the nerve to say such a thing.
She gave a quick gasp and her body made an involuntary fundamental move.
"Son...." She wanted to say something but she didn't know what.
"Hunh?"
She turned her face to the cotton and said in a muffled voice. "Did you watch me when I climbed the ladder?"
He hesitated then said, "Sure. I couldn't help myself". He placed a hand on her shoulder and the circuit was complete. She raised her head and came into his arms with a strange little guggling sound in her throat that spoke of unconscious hunger. His lips were hot and moist and hungry but no more so than hers and for a long time they devoured each other with a feverishness and dedication to nature possible only in the very young. Her head roared and thoughts spun in a colorful vortex, whirled about in such a tattered melange that she couldn't seem to grasp a single one. His hand on her breast seemed so natural that it was no more than a further concession to nature that she facilitate his touch without the intervening obstruction of clothing and the touch of his warm hand was like a dagger buried in her breast. She moaned and went into a kind of quiet frenzy that was an open invitation to further conquests, an invitation he was not slow in taking. Her mind spun faster and sheet after frenzied sheet of sensation swept her like a beneficent flame. His hands quested further and though the small thin voice of warning was heard it was all but drowned in the thundering caratact that roared down upon her now. Suddenly there was a coolness that threaded through her consciousness and she knew with a sob of utter capitulation that her last protection .was gone and his arms went tight about her as she gave up even token resistance. There was a sudden stab of shrill pain, but it was the kind of pain that was enjoyed and unconsciously she sought it rather than being repelled. Nature took them then and led them with a sure hand up ... up ... up ... up into the heights where all is lurid color, exalted them and carried them into a wild riotous thunderstorm rent with lightning and jagged bursts of sound then died swiftly leaving them crumpled, holding to each other frightened by the awful powers they had released.
She clung to him and wept with a strange, harsh bitterness that she could not explain. It was like the releasing of a prisoner who finds freedom almost too much to bear. A drop of hot tears upon her face told of a similar emotion in him and it drove her into a fit of caressing, kissing and crooning to him, broken meaningless phrases, an agony of glorious release.
After a time their hearts slowed down and they were able to think with relative clarity.
"Oh, Son...." Her mouth took possession of his for a brief moment. "Oh, Son...." She gazed into his eyes-her own melting soft, questioning, telling, begging. "Son ... it happened to us".
He gulped. "Yes ... I know".
She sighted quiveringly and sought to get closer to him. "I'm so glad it did".
"I'm glad too". He stroked a soft silken thigh, his skin tingling from the contact as though he had touched a live wire.
She kissed him and again he knew that it was an invitation.
From then on they were inseparable, but since it had seemed that they had always been no one thought anything about it. By the time she was seventeen Layne was as finished a courtesan as innumerable of her older counterparts and far far ahead of even greater numbers since she and Son Schulens were intelligent, inventive and after a time completely uninhibited.
It was perhaps inevitable that their paths should diverge but with the bounce of youth they suffered no more than the normal twings. It was after this that Layne discovered that if a boy tried, when the event was reduced to casual conversation he had succeeded and it came as a shock because Son Schulens was both a gentleman and in addition, close-mouthed. From him she had no secrets and never had he revealed the slightest detail of their association. With the discovery that she would be the talk of the school she went to another extreme and refused to date a single boy of her acquaintance. If she suffered from it there was nothing to support the premise because by this time she'd won two beauty contests and her circle of acquaintance was immense.
It was at this time that, accustomed to playing with fire she began to have thoughts of starting one. Her object this time was Mr. Blakely, the herdsman.
Her campaign was deliberate, timed and unhurried. She allowed his imagination to take full possession and this she fed by giving him glimpses of carelessly exposed skin from selected areas. Carelessly crossed legs, one botton too few on a sweater that was too tight. She would sometimes approach him too closely and gaze too invitingly into his eyes when discussing some casual subject. Although Mr. Blakely was too naive to know what, in essence, was transpiring there was not doubt that something was, much of it within the confines of Mr. Blakely himself. She seemed to have taken up residence in his mind, a mind that had been highly trained in bovine genetics. It was now principally a repository for treasured portions of fabulous female anatomy and there was a disturbing urge to acquire the entire figure. This annoyed Mr. Blakely to virual extinction for a number of reasons. To begin with the situation was less than idyllic due to the fact that Mr. Blakely worked for the doting father, a father who might conceivably become incensed if his only daughter was found dallying with the hired man. Further, Mr. Blakely did not like to have his mind subverted. Ordinarily it was an excellent orderly mind and now it was anything but orderly. It was also dismaying that the excellence of his mind now took the form of plotting methods by which he could assuage the naming pangs of a desire that he'd never felt before in his life. He was supposedly engaged to a rather plain but quite normal lady in the next town-ship by the name of Laura Sue Wintership, but there was nothing fiery about their relationship, this being cause for considerable annoyance on the part of Miss Wintership who upon receipt of a rather sterile goodnight kiss was wont to use unlady-like language while undressing for bed. Miss Winter-ship might have sought other pastures were it not for the fact that she was not a raving beauty and such discoveries as Mr. Blakely did not often appear upon her horizon.
It was vaguely understood that upon the event of some hebulous eventuality they would wed and Miss Wintership placed security ahead of romance.
Layne disposed of Miss Wintership in Blakely's mind rather neatly and effortlessly, but the event was not without disturbance. He found it difficult to sleep and while turning and tossing he thought of Layne, the result often embarrassing him which shows to what little extent life had touched him.
The campaign hadn't been but a week old when Layne was given an opportunity to deliver the final coup. Her father had decided to trade cars and Layne was sent to town to take the old one, pick up the new one and on the way back pick up Mr. Blakeley who had taken some blood samples to the local laboratory. With a kind of malicious perverseness she dressed for the occasion and announced her intention to spend some time with a friend and not to expect her back too soon. She wore a soft beige skirt that fitted delicately about the waist and hips and flared at the hem and a light sweater that clung to the piercing erectness of her breasts like it had been applied with a spray gun. Avoiding the censoring eyes of her mother she stole into the garage and drove the car out. At the automobile agency she caused a small upheaval among the men and stirred a swarm of dark predictions from the female employees.
At noon she ate a lusty lunch at a cafeteria then went to pick up Mr. Blakely.
"Hi, Jim" she said with easy familiarity as he came out with a folder of papers under his arm. He nodded and let his eyes wander over her. He thought he'd been subtle, but he was past that point now.
"You drive" she said with a dazzling smile, sliding over.
As they drove sedately along out of deference to the newness of the car she made gay pointless talk then went abruptly silent, so abruptly that he looked at her quizzically. In some manner the top button of her sweater had come undone and he could see the deep creamy ravine that plunged into delightful dimness. She could almost feel the rigor that went over him and decided to repeat it. She squirmed about, placed her back toward the door and placed her feet in his lap.
"Please take off my shoes, Jim" she said throatily. "They pinch a little. My socks too".
He refused to touch them. His eyes couldn't but see that in the act of placing her feet under her skirt had been hiked a little too high for comfort.
"No" he said positively.
Her eyes went wide. "But why?"
"Because" he said, taking fate by the scalp lock, "I'd wreck the car".
She laughed. "Oh, come. What's so complicated about taking off my shoes?"
"Look, Layne" he said seriously. "Of late I've been thinking entirely too much about you. You stay on my mind and you invade my sleep...."
"Not actually" she said demurely.
He went scarlet. "No. Not actually, but you're just too much woman for me. Much too much woman. If I took off your shoes, I'd have to touch your skin. If I touched your skin, I'd go crazy".
She laughed again. "I don't know, but that sounds pretty flattering. Oh Jim, will you drive to the camp on Lake Mary? I've some shorts there I want".
He nodded and turned off the main road just a little farther on. The moment they were in the pines she said, "Stop the car".
He stopped, his skin crawling with fear and anticipation. What would she do?
When the car stopped she lifted a foot and the result on her skirt was one that almost gave him a chill because he could see almost an entire satiny thigh that dimmed in the far reaches to a soul-shattering apex with the other.
"Now you won't wreck the car".
With trembling hands he removed her shoes then socks, the touch of her skin shocking him to the core. Then as he had predicted he went slightly mad and catching one of her legs hugged it to his body, carressing its fine surface, kissing the silken surface. It was then that her carefully conceived plan went to pieces and that it continued in the same direction was the merest coincidence. Layne was not too free with her favors and since the split up with Son Schulens she had been in a state of constant ache. Now the ache boiled into a frantic eagerness.
She came erect, slid into his lap and when their lips touched, their world went berserk with an almost hysterical upheaval. His hands invaded the confines of the sweater and when they touched her breasts he felt electrocuted.
During a momentary hiatus when their lungs strained for air she murmured, "Can you drive like this Jim? I don't want to move".
"I think so" he said in strangled tones.
"Then drive to the camp".
It wasn't far and during the short drive she cuddled close and made no move to pull down the skirt that had, in the melee, turned traitor.
He stopped the car before the neat, but small camp on the banks of the big lake and looked carefully about. He could see no one on the water and the dense woods had the camp closed off from sight. She kissed him again and again came the furious thunders of desire that rent him so sorely that he almost whimpered. Finally he drew away and said. "No Layne. I can't. I really can't".
"You can't help yourself' she said softly. His shirt had come open and she widened it and stroked her bare breasts against the skin of his chest. "Let's go inside" she whispered.
In the room with the door closed and locked she came into his arms again and whispered. "You've only seen parts of me, Jim. I'll show you the whole thing...." and she did.
The affair with Blakely didn't last as long as she might have wished and it was her own fault. Layne had gotten off to a good start winning beauty competitions and when she became Miss Texas and ran second in the Miss Universe, Hollywood beckoned and she answered the call. She was too much woman not to be nattered by the publicity and admiration. He had an inordinate fear for her future should she pursue a career. They had a stormy breakup with Layne going to Hollywood and Blakely marrying Miss Linda Sue Wintership. Layne, had for once, been truly in love and it was some time before she would recover from her romance with him.
CHAPTER TWO
He was thick of body and his head had the solid appearance of a ram. He was hunched over the splintered scarred desk like an animal ready to pounce. His face was expressionless, rendered more so by thick spectacles with wide black frames. On the desk were dossiers in manila folders and several of the dozen and a half men and women seated in the dingy room knew that their names were coded on the folders. There were actors, actresses, writers, one director, press agents, agents and others whose livelihood was not known even to their closest associates. There were a few that seemed to come under none of these classifications.
He cleared his throat and nodded at them. "In the last month instructions have reached us, new ones. They involve an entirely new approach which in my own simple opinion has been wanting a long time. Heretofore we have encouraged trouble along the water fronts and among labor organizations. We stumbled here-we blundered there. We made smoke-little fire. Even when we succeeded we affected only a small portion of the country. We alienated people not directly involved and hardened resistance to our movement. Unions have become some of our worst enemies. In short, much of what we have attempted has worked against us rather than the opposite. In the late forties and early fifties we were cocky and belligerent. Such attitudes have their places but not in our present methods. The result of that was that many of our West Coast intellectuals, principally among the motion picture industry in writing, acting and various other levels were blacklisted and put out of work. Again our efforts turned against us. It follows, does it not, that there were flaws in our methods? Unless a man could be proven one of us, what does it gain to stand before a Congressional Committee and refuse to answer the question of his past affiliations? Few could have been proven, but every man who refused to answer ... no matter that he could so do legally because a stupid amendment in your constitution permits it, is now considered one of us bred, born and branded. I'm sure it gives the ones so branded a delightful sense of self flagellation but you will all come to see that our movement, world wide in its scope has scant use for psychopathic fanatics who enjoy being scarified, whether by a whip or their own government. They are unstable, therefore dangerous. We made what profit we could out of them propaganda wise and dropped them. Some of them actually expected us to support them. Asses, psychotic asses. At the time that all this was going on our Mr. K. had not yet ascended to power. He has now and only a few weeks ago, changed the names of towns, streets, armaments, and whatnot away from anything that bore the former leader's name. His body was removed from the side of the first Great Leader and interred as befitting a butcher, traitor and cutthroat. Now that both he and his methods have been buried, the new directives are in force. No more will occur what I have just described. Instead we will gnaw at the roots, subtly, with finesse, with no open overt activities. You gentlemen are here to learn your parts in the new directives. Some of you are here because you belong here. Others are here because they can be of service".
"What" asked a tall impressive German, "do you think I will do for you?"
"You, Mr. Blom, in your capacity of director in one of the largest studios here will use every means at your command to inject in your releases as much sex as is possible to get past the censor. Of course, you're already doing that, but I have a different object in view. Enough of these pictures will tend to make even rawer procedures acceptable in the future. Also you will promote irreligious hints and subtlities. That will have a long range effect upon the devout or the minds which might so become. You will promote extreme liberalism in your releases. To the politically naive this will be most acceptable. They do not realize what a short step it is between their so-called liberalism and socialism. Still a shorter step from there to our idealogies. You will be persuasive, you will be subtle and you will be consistant. You will receive a brochure outlining in greater detail just what I have propounded.".
The tall blonde director sneered so openly that the wooden face behind the desk grew harder. "And by what peculiar set of thumbscrews did you hope to force any such deportment from me?"
A thin smile moved the hard lips of the other. "I see that you were amenable to persuasion and Miss Watters did not need to apply any thumbscrews to get you here. Neither, I think, will I. Approach the desk, Herr Blom".
The big man swaggered to the desk and watched while the thick man thumbed through a dossier. "As you will note, we have considerable information on you; however, this one thing I think will achieve what I wish". He pointed a thick finger with a broken dirty nail.
Blom took one glance and straightened up. He swayed a little and went a dirty white. "Where...?" The other waved an admonishing finger. "No matter! As I suppose you watch very closely, world reaction to your erstwhile obermeister...." Here he switched to guttural German, " ... who is now on trial in Isreal, I leave it to your undoubted imagination what would happen to your career should the word get around that we have been nurturing a viper to our breast. Am I quite understood Herr Blom?"
Blom nodded stiffly. Ja, wohl ... Yes".
"Very well, then. All is understood. Are there questions from the rest of you? I have given you a brief outline of what we will do in the future. You will all receive your brochures. Those who are of us, will, of course, receive intensive training".
One small sickly looking man stood. "After what I've given I do not think I should give more".
The large one wagged his head slowly. "You were not asked little man. You were told. What you gave was a depth of stupidity I would hardly have suspected in a man who made three thousand dollars a week writing scripts. Should you present us with further evidence of stupidity...." He left it hanging.
"Suppose I do" insisted the little man, his dank dry hair falling over a dark brown.
There was a silence that made them all uncomfortable, then the big man slowly raised his eyes.
"You will find" he said with metallic clarity, "that our erstwhile leader is not buried as deep as Mr. K. would have you believe. If you will recall, little man, he was able to reach into the heart of Mexico and liquidate the estimable Mr. Trotzky. There will be no talk of failure or of stupidity. You are already in the same ... er, stable as Mr. Blom. You and he will collaborate over methods, probity and the like ... Yes Mr. Russell?"
The tall gray-eyed agent had risen. "You speak glibly of pressures. What pressure, pray tell, can you bring to bear on men like Mr. Bronson and myself".
The other's grin was Machiavellan. "Surely, Mr. Russell, you would not like the details of a certain peculiarity of yours to be talked about with all the effort and press-agentry that you've employed in order to create the opposite impression". He lifted a heavy folder and let it fall significantly. There is that and other things. As far Mr. Bronson ... Mr. Bronson, do I hear an objection from you?"
Mr. Bronson, a man whose ability with words and a native glibness was his living, shook his head. "I have no objection".
"Your part will have to do with acquiring information on people of great standing, actors, actresses, the bigger the better, who when faced with this information, find it a positive relief to do our bidding. I understand that you are at home under the beds of the great ... or in them as . the occasion might dictate. Your contacts are manifold. Use them". He let his magnified eyes flit over them. They were so enormous and distorted that they looked monster-ous, obscene optical travesties. "Is there other questions? No! Then we will go our separate ways observing the same caution in dispersing that you used in assembling. Miss Watters, thank you for your assistance. I suggest that you brief Mr. Bronson on your own tactics. They would be very educational". He turned his head. "Miss Watters is in her own way a bed artist. Heed her".
Miss Watters, a lush, corn tassel blonde with vacant blue eyes, wriggled. "Thank you" she gurgled. "Do we still have a date?"
"We do" said the big man with an elephantine simper. "Oh, one more thing". They all hesitated. "This is not a situation in which personal foibles can be allowed to cause even the tiniest deviation from a projected course of action. Your feelings, your desires, your appetites will, in all matters having to do with our work, become secondary. A man in love talks wildly and behaves abominably. He thinks of self and in our great work, no single man is worth a puff of smoke compared to our gigantic destiny. The invocation of discipline or punishment can become very awkward. In the event it becomes necessary I can promise you that it will be physically discommodious. Few of you, with the possible exception of Herr Blom, who in his time, has walked "parallel paths, can imagine what it can be like. You may now go your ways. If I need you I shall allow the word to be passed by Miss Watters. Each of you will be contacted later with specific instructions. This is merely a primary briefing". He divided the ones invited from the regulars with a chopping motion of his hand. "You on my left will remain. There are things to discuss".
The discussion lasted an hour, at the end of which he dismissed all but one of them. "Soldarez will arrive soon" he said in a guarded tone. "It is not known when nor by what method. He will bring news such as cannot be sent by regular channels from Cuba".
"I" said the nondescript man who stood in front of the desk, "thought he was in the Dominican Republic".
"He was. He is working closely with our Cuban Allies. He planned the attack on the Dictator and the success of it is plain when one considers that none of us were suspected of being culpable in the matter. Soldarez is a genius".
"Do you know him?"
"I do not. If you know nothing it will not be easy for you to tell anything".
Layne Conners lay in her king sized bed-nude, like a pearl in a nest of satin, literally ... Her sheets were always of white satin. They were pure, shimmering, making her fine golden skin stand out, making an exquisite frame for her magnificent tawny golden hair that was spread out in delicious disorder. She took a trembling sigh and allowed wakefulness to creep gradually upon her consciousness like a reluctant dawn creeping over the eastern horizon. Layne was not an addict of sudden active awakening because she was more than likely to be in possession of a monumental hangover just as she was this morning. She moved an arm experimentally and was relieved to realize that she wasn't paralyzed. Her body was a vast repository of discomfort and she had to exert considerable will and allow some time before she mustered sufficient courage to open her eyes. The light hurt them as she had known it would and she shut them again. Her head ached like the furies and her mouth was suggestive of a sheep corral.
She lay still, hoping the aches and discomforts would go away knowing well that it would take considerable ministration by Evangelina, her Mexican maid to accomplish it. She felt sorry for herself and tears formed in her eyes and coursed out of the corners to collect in her small pink ears. She was asking questions of herself that she had asked a hundred times; Why do I do it? It was a vicious circle and she knew even as she asked the question that she would probably repeat the occasion soon if not the coming night.
It was nearly noon and she could almost predict the events to come. Soon Evangelina would come to her bed with a cup of black strong coffee and two aspirins. She'd protest, groan but eventually sit up groggily and allow the strong brew to chase the fearful mat of cobwebs that clogged her mind. Then there would be a long hot bath and breakfast. After breakfast, a habit she'd never broken since early days on her father's sprawling ranch between Houston and Austin, she would begin to live again. Then Randy Bronson and his herd of followers would probably drop by having gone through the same routine themselves with individual variations, and suggest an afternoon of fun, fun, fun, fun. At the moment she hated their guts. Every one of them. They were false as stage whiskers and their ideas of fun was anything that didn't require thought and serious approach. It seemed to Layne that they had a psychopathic dread of having to think. Peg Mallory, ex-football great was always lifting things to show his strength. He was rich and convenient to Randy who was always getting threatened with mayhem because of his cruel acid tongue. Randy was as ferocious as a tiger as long as he had Mallory to step in and smash the enemy with his tremendous fists.
At first they had been fun then they became a habit. Randy Bronson, Peg Mallory, Cecelia Silver who went to sleep with alcohol and woke up with benzedrine. Brenda Watters, another member was an empty headed blonde who had an obscure but fat income. Brenda was as amoral as an alley cat and one of her funniest routines was describing the latest roll with just any of the group. She had accommodated them all and Layne had blushed to the roots of her hair once listening to her describe Randy's amorous reactions because currently Randy was Layne's and Brenda was nothing if not accurate.
Layne relived the night before and of course, it had been Randy. Randy was much in demand and earned fabulous money as California's most popular master of ceremonies. He was young, handsome and entirely taken with himself. Money and adulation had elevated him above the common herd and he was a dweller in the upper stratas of thin air. Layne could have bought him a dozen times, her own career having vaulted dizzily in the four years she had been in pictures. She, as the sexpot of all time and Randy as the toast of any evening crowd that mattered, were a natural pair.
"We", he said thirty minutes after they first met, "are intended. Why buck it and waste time". Layne, with five martinis to her credit and a dinner that was a low calorie pretense which passed for a meal did not react to his monumental assurance as she most certainly would have had she been sober and the love they made that night was an wild ecstatic dream, a sensual bacchanal that rent her nerves and made mush of her muscles. Last night had been a repeat and even now her body ached and was sore from her exhorbitant demands upon it. It was sated and dead now, rejecting action by pain and protest. Why did she do it?
The same old question. She had had a provencial upbringing, her parents being hard-working, God fearing people. Good all the way through, respected, admired and loved by all who knew them. The memory of Jim Blakely was still with her. He was her first serious crush and although she came out of the affair in good shape, neither pregnant nor talked about there was a deep underlying bitterness that had provided a wall through which no man had ever passed since. She was too strong to cave in and her beautiful face registered little of what went on in her heart. She knew her heart was broken, but it proved of stouter stuff than she imagined and continued to beat strongly. Early appreciation for the lithe nubile symmetry of her body and a certain hard boldness of attitude shoved her into this and that beauty contest. A natural flair for showmanship, an innate grace that left people gasping won her trophy after trophy until at last Hollywood claimed her.
Randy ... She cringed inwardly, just as she had before.
In the cozy atmosphere of her lush apartment with soft music and the inevitable drinks his suave technique reached inside her and plucked at the strings of her emotional self. She had surrendered as she had on many another occasion and every time there was the next morning when memory sickened her. She had ceased telling herself that this would be the last time because she had inherited and clung to a certain brass reinforced honesty and she knew she was kidding herself.
She sat up with a suddenness that made her head try to go into orbit and she groaned, sore in both body and spirit.
Evangelina came in, her black eyes snapping with disapproval. She handed her mistress a cup of steaming black coffee, stood back and folded her arms. Layne stole a glance at her. "All right, Evey, so you disapprove. It's my life isn't it?"
"Of a certainty" retorted Evey with the familiarity of long association. "My question embraces the very heart of your statement". Evey's speech was a melange of accent, Spanish, English and borrowed phrases that sometime had an oddly pedantic sound. "Sangre de Christo, since it is your life, why do you treat it like the life of an enemy?"
Layne sighed. "I've been thinking over that subject this morning".
"'Sta bueno. And what do you conclude?"
"I didn't conclude. I just thought about it".
"Then I shall summate and conclude" snapped Evey, jerking herself erect making her full busom lurch heavily. "Men I can see. My Pepe, I love with my heart and just as often with my body. We are sympatico. Men are very necessary. They are the compliment of a woman. They project and women accept. The fit is wonderful. But you...? With what man are you sympatico? All of them? Have you no choice?" Layne blushed. "My goodness, is that the way I look to you?"
Evey's sharp eyes softened. "Querido, have I not said that men are necessary? I am not denying you that ... but such men".
"What wrong with my men" asked Layne belligerently.
"In the matter of Senor Russell, he is your business manager and your agent. That I can forgive if I do not quite understand. After all, you are together too much and you are not a women that a man can sit still when around. Senor Blom, he is your director. Maybe you must, I don't know. I have heard it said. Senor Glosser, he is your dress design-' er. Maybe, I cannot be certain but at least it can be said that you keep him happy and as a result, possibly he is kind to you in matters of your clothes, but some of the others and that sopelote, Senor Randy Bronson ... He is a cochino of the highest order. I can name six others who are the same".
Layne covered her face with her hands. It was easy to forget the things Evey described because she was heartily ashamed of them the next day.
"You have half a million dollars in real estate, stocks and other properties. I was listening when Senor Russell told you so. You get a hundred thousand for every picture and you make four a year. What is it you want? There you sit, sick inside and out. You hate it and yet you do it. Where is the end? What is the prize? Do you tie knots in the sash of your drapes like a bandido filing notches in his pistola? You drink too much and eat too little. Your figure looks like a dream when you are dressed and not so dreamy when you are naked. Do you not know that the test of a woman's body is when she is naked? Your hips show bones and your chest shows ribs. One of these days your skin will become leather, your breasts dead dangling sacks that never gave milk...."
"Shut up" screamed Layne, her eyes streaming tears. Evey, whose heart was gelatin under the right temperature melted and she went to the distracted girl, took her in her arms and let her cry on the full firm chest.
"It is for you that I talk so" murmured Evey stroking Layne's soft touseled hair. "It is not for myself. You pay me well and you are most kind. I have no complaint and it is not to be cruel and nasty that I so talk to you. You must wake up while there is still youth and bounce to your flesh. Before it dies from mistreatment. There is also your soul that is becoming infected with barnacles. You are hard and unfeeling. You take fantastic chances with your reputation. I saw in a magazine that you may be a sex-pot, but you are a straight honorable person. Naturally, a great many honest persons do not turn on the light when it is time to go to bed. It is what you know yourself to be that will reach you deeply. That is what I do not wish to see. I know that you are a good woman in the heart. What I do not know is why you treat yourself this way. It is not you chiquita, not you, but some devil that takes hold of you. Now roll over and let me rub you down".
The rubdown completed Layne, who had managed a state of suspended mental animation began to feel better. Evy served her half an icy papaya soft fluffy scrambled eggs, whole wheat muffins and more hot coffee. The stimulation of the brew started her mental self to working again and she had to steel herself against another sickening wave of remorse. She dressed with care in a sheath of pale blue that accented the seductive outline of her thighs, hips, her waspy waist and the insurgent pout of her solid erect breasts. Her bra was a custom made gesture of lacy froth that might as well been left off so subtle was its restraint. Support she had never needed although a good many of her women friends, not so favored would have argued the point hotly. Her legs were deliciously curved and glowed-dully in their sheaths of nylon. The strong indigo of her eyes overpowered the lighter blue of her dress just as her body had the faculty of overpowering any outfit she might wear, making it merely a compliment, a tribute to her structural divinity. No matter how richly she dressed, attention was rarely ever concentrated upon her dress. It was Layne the woman that emerged from any examination.
Robert Russell, her agent had once said, "Layne, you're the only woman in Hollywood who walks around nude while fully dressed". At that time the remark had come as a shock which developed into a high compliment when she'd had time to examine it. From then on she took a sort of wanton joy in dressing to fit it.
She wore bathing suits that were almost Victorian in their cut while being made of a material that when wet allowed the pink of her skin to show through, the barest suggestion of the rosebud tips of her breasts, and fitted with such shocking intimacy as to suggest if not reveal every secret she had. These she wore with the calm assurance of a housewife in a Mother Hubbard and the attitude was as effective as the costumes.
It was Russell who came in at two o'clock rather than Randy Branson and his herd of fun lovers. Russell, was straight, tall and quietly well dressed, his mein as quiet as his dress. The heat which he generated without trying came from smoldering grey eyes which were disconcertingly steady. '
"It's about that Acme contract" he said without preamble as soon as he had been fitted with a tall highball which he'd accept with equal aplomb whether at seven in the evening or six in the morning.
Layne lit a cigarette that tasted acrid and revolting. "What about it?"
"They want to run in a short ... not all that short either, on beauty contest winners. A sort of thing that shows how they approach it, what happens on the way up, those important sounding contracts they get, those "of the upper group, I mean. A thing like that. It's to be in addition to the regularly contracted ones."
"What do you think of it?"
"They want you to take half your usual amount for it. You can do it with your eyes shut and your lines will be such deathless utterances as, T don't know what to say', and 'Thank you very much'; you know, what I mean"
She tapped ash from her cigarette. "What will that do to the schedule?"
"It will drop "Angel in Ashes" back three weeks, but the script isn't finished for that one yet anyway. After you urped at some of the lines".
Layne lost her temper. "It's a damn good thing for Blom and Acme that someone urps at the lines some of his scriveners hand him. He may be a genius to Acme, but to me he's the shadow of his camera men and his performers".
Russell grinned. "He had enough savvy to get Wads-worth to put you under contract".
"I still don't know if it was Blom or you who really did that. You're quite a salesman, Bob".
"I'd like to sell myself right now" said Russell getting up and running a familiar hand around her neck. She shrugged him off angrily.
"Maybe you can start drinking in mid-day, but I can't".
"Do you have to drink?" He sat down a little chastened.
"No more than you do, but you're always at your best when I've had a few".
Russell frowned and said, "I always thought it was my fatal charm".
"You needn't feel hurt about your charm. You have plenty" She faced him squarely. "I'm gradually coming to realize something".
"Hell" he said feelingly. "I was afraid that would come about eventually".
She nodded. "You see, I'm pretty young yet and I've got a lot to learn. This morning I feel like a scarlet woman who hasn't been paid. I'm beginning to question the direction I seem to be headed in. I can't see very far and the distance is muddy and clouded. There must be something to sex that has escaped me else I wouldn't be thinking like this".
"It's a way to an end"-he said taking a deep drink. "The moralists say it's wrong but then few moralists ever win beauty contests and naturally haven't been seriously tested. Under the same circumstances I don't know what they'd do. Neither do they".
She flounced in her chair and spilled ashes on her lap. She ignored them. "Well, if I haven't arrived, I never will. That excuse is certainly not valid in my case".
He laughed. "Then you're thinking of taking the veil?"
"No. I am seriously considering what being a free sex counter to the greats of this sad, synthetic, celluloid world amount to. It isn't me they want, it's the release and the roll. Comes some younger, dewy cheeked, fair fleshed, rape shaped kid from the boon dock of Nebraska and it is she that they start panting for and I can roll my hoop".
"What do you expect? Love and marriage?"
"Since I've made no conditions I expect nothing, but I'm beginning to believe that I need my head examined".
Russell grimaced. "Somehow I don't think you'd fit an analysts couch. That would be a disappointment".
"Oh sure. I've a head that's as solid as a block of concrete. I have no complexes and I get along with everyone. I'm to work on time and I don't bitch if my John is a nest of cactus behind the props tent. I was reared in a place you went when and where the urge struck. People like those I come from don't need an analyst. Just the same, I can see where someone else with the tiniest worm in the brain might turn it into a real snake."
"Like your precious Brenda?"
"A worm couldn't live in her head. What's with her anyway? Where does she get all that money she spends?"
He laughed. "Now Brenda is a girl who can make her attraction last. She's as rugged as a goat and she has less taste than a Tia Juana street walker. She is all things to all people. Famous names seek her out. As many female as male. She's on call twenty-four hours a day. Surely you must have seen her emerge from the dungeon of passion and coolly take herself off without a word of explanation".
"Yes and I've wondered about it". Layne shuddered. "So it's a living".
"And a good one. She's empty headed, but she keeps her mouth shut when it counts. Did you ever stop to think what a sixty five year old man might cough up for a chick with her physical appeal? I hear she has methods that would wake the dead and for a couple of grand she doesn't mind in the least. She gives them a brief look into the past and since they're already convinced that the future looks quite dull she's a gift from heaven. They will gladly exchange their money for another fling at things they had thought past. She makes it pay".
Layne sighed and willed away the nausea in her stomach. In what way was she different from Brenda. "Now what do you think about this offer?"
He shrugged. "I get my percentage. Naturally I'm in favor of it. Maybe two weeks of easy work for fifty grand. Wadsworth conceived the idea or stole it from some unimportant yes-man. What does it matter? He hadn't decided on you so I convinced him. Who, I propounded, could do a part like that better than you who in spite of being able to say "Sex" to photographers and selling forty grand worth of pinups in three years, can, in addition, act? You've been through the beauty pageant mill from soup to nuts. You'd not only serve admirably as the needed actress, but would be invaluable as a consultant. There are a lot of writers who half-do their research and come up with either outright false ideas or make outrageous fiction out of what they do pick up. You'd be an automatic block for any such poorly done scripts. When I left him he had conceived the notion that no one could do the job as well as you".
Layne laughed caustically. "It's funny how his ideas jump into being like that".
"Sure" said Russell, a cynical twist to his mouth. "You don't have to do a thing but draw him a picture and he gets it. So you'll do it?"-
"Of course. I'm not going to last forever, you know".
"You're too young to react like that. Must he something of your father's frugal thriftiness that stuck through all this gilt and glitter".
"I have a lot of my father in me ... and my mother. I wonder where the hell it has gone. They'd both think I ought to be locked up, my mouth washed and my fanny tanned. They'd be right".
He quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "You do have one on don't you? I've never heard you talk like this before. I thought you'd never weaken. Here's a gal, I've been telling myself who is made of such tough timber that Hollywood's sins never reach her. She'll last until she's a hundred and keep her head level to the final gasp."
She eyed him steadily for a moment. "You know something Bob, you're just what you thought I am. You're cynical, you're hard and you're a solid citizen of the big fake. Even sex to you is like scratching your back. A brief blind spasm of sensation and you're all ready for the next bout".
He laughed. "I try to keep it simple. I try to keep down stir, complexity and headaches".
She let go a harsh, "Hah! In a moment you'll have distilled the heart out of it along with the liver, lights and kidneys. When senility hits you, you won't have a single regret".
Het got up and walked around behind her and let a hand slide over her shoulder and covered her right breast. It began to ache and throb against her will. "Hell, let's quit all this gab and make a little fun, kid."
She slid from under his hand and stood up. "You have about the same approach as a Hereford bull. For quite some time I was infected with the same attitude, but no more, believe me.
He took a seat and frowned. "Layne, this is serious. You know I don't like to be evaded this way".
She lost her temper. "Well, I got news for you, Buster. What you like and what I like had better have a common meeting ground from now on or you'll have to make an appointment and get in line".
He held up a placating hand. "Now ... now. No temper. You know you can't afford to make me sore at you".
She looked down at him sharply. "Oh, brother, but you've got some learning to do. Let me spell it out to you. When I came out here you were kind to me and you were necessary. You were underfoot all the time and we sort of fell into bed naturally. I got a charge out of it. I always do. No matter who the man is. If that frosts you, I couldn't care less. Oh, yes, you were necessary and you were kind. You got your usual percentage and ten times that for free". That makes me a pretty sorry figure. You look at me as, one, a meal ticket, two, a light hearted roll just any time you get itchy breeches. Well, as of now I'm somebody in this tinsel world. As an actress and a figure of show business I was already that. What I mean is that I'm a person, a woman who is beginning to wake up to some pretty harsh realities. You'd better wake up too or you'll find yourself without a meal ticket".
He watched her for a moment through slitted eyes. "I know what's been going on between you and Blom, between you and Grosser. I know Blom well enough to know that just about any newcomer that passes through his office occupies his couch, unless the visit is short and the result nil. Grosser is shy, but he generally gets around to it sooner or later. I'm assuming that they're also on your taboo list".
"I had no taboo list" she told him thinly, "until you made me see just what I amount to to you men. You can bet your bottom dollar they're on the list. The list is all set up and you're the one who set it up".
He eyed her steadily for another long moment. "You've always been so tractable, so cooperative. Maybe you don't realize what an abrupt shock this is?"
"I bleed for you" she said harshly. "I drip".
"I could make it damned inconvenient for you. In league with Wadsworth and Blom I could break you".
She let loose a few bars of silvery laughter. "You're pathetic, Bob. You really are. I've been trying to tell you something for an hour and you still don't even know what I'm talking about. But that's par for your strata of California's Burbank male synthesis. You've been stewed and lacquered with this sun, wine, women, wassail and wage scratching, plow him under but let me thrive outlook until you're like some sort of cuff hound who's had all the dog bred out of him until all he can do is bark, scratch and wet the carpet. You're not a man. You're not even half a man and now I know what's been nauseating me all this time. The lack of male men. You, Randy, Blom ... all the rest. You're not men but pansies prancing, shaving, wench-,ing and drinking like men. Once in a while man appears but never in your company. Hell, he'd have to hold his handkerchief to his nose". Her nostrils pinched and her eyes blazed with fury. "Don't think, jelly-belly, that I don't know that you shack up with your old college chum and have for years"
Robert Russell went white. Never had he taken such a pasting from a woman and his stomach was already overloaded with gall before she delivered the final crushing blow. Striking at his manhood which he had carefully erected for all to see was a mortal punishment. He was a man " of varied appetites which were carefully fed upon the demand, but he who had been so careful had apparently overlooked some little thing or someone had talked too much.
The latter probably. No one in the celluloid city could be too careful because there were always those journalistic sin sniffers, those volatile vultures of the quill ready to pounce upon any little slip from grace and peddle it to the scandal magazines.
Russell got slowly to his feet, his teeth bared and his eyes hard with fury. His left hand flashed out, struck her cheek with stinging force, knocking her sprawling. He managed to draw a quick short breath of satisfaction before the heavy glass vase wielded by the sure strong hand of Evey struck the back of his head and smashed into shards. Russell's eyes crossed, his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor, a three inch gash in his scalp seeping claret onto the cream colored carpet. Evey was nothing if not competent. Without arresting her motion she turned to the phone and called Layne's lawyer.
CHAPTER THREE
Kenneth Wolff was short and slightly built, with a cynical twist to his mouth. His clothes always seemed to fit badly and looked mussed and untidy but he was one of the smartest lawyers in California. He was short of temper and though small in size covered a lot of ground. He had done several favors for Layne in times past, times when she hardly knew where her next meal was coming from. He had never sent her a bill and was never too busy to answer her call.
Wolff, she thought, was in love with her but he never spoke of it, never suggested that any other sort of payment was expected. He was unfailingly gallant, kind, and thoughtful. Not once had he gotten out of line, but many times he had suggested gently that she examine her own mode of living. He never dwelt on the subject and never became offensive.
He came into the apartment, followed by Evey, who, after making her call had started cold compresses to Layne's face and waited for his ring at the door.
Wolff stood in the doorway of the living room and surveyed the carnage. Evey's only contribution to starting things on the way back had been to put a huge bath towel under Russell's head. Wolff rolled a cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other and switched his glance to Layne who sat in a chair holding a cold cloth to her face. His hard dark eyes slitted and a sour grin touched his face. "So he finally ran up his colors. I was wondering when it would happen. I don't suppose you killed him, Evie?"
"No Senor. I felt carefully of the wound. He is merely out. I must admit that I tried to kill him for striking my girl".
"Oh ... big man gets physical and smites girl. Well, well. He might even get up courage to strike a man some day if he lives long enough. Did you call the police?"
"No police" said Layne, a little stiffly from the swelling.
"Why?"
"He's had enough and I don't want any smell to arise from this".
"Want to tell me about it while Evey erects me a highball?"
She did and she, with her own particular brand of blunt honesty didn't mince words or make any side journeys away from the truth.
Wolff's eyes were almost affectionate. "So my little sparrow has finally become an eagle. I knew you would, given time. No one with your innate quality could long fail to see what you were doing to yourself. I'm as pleased as punch. Shall we tear up his contract and give him his papers?"
"That's why you're here. Can we do it?"
Wolff smiled crookedly and ran the cigarette across his mouth again. "I built that contract and inserted a harmless looking little clause to the effect that either of you could upon proper notice cancel same. Either he didn't see it or it didn't reach him because of his monumental vanity. He has good reason to think he's irresitible. Any number of succulent women have flipped over this guy, believe it or not".
"I can believe it" she said. "I could have flipped for him myself except that my father's herdsmen I told you about a long time ago gave me a sort of built in immunity to flipping, in its best sense, over any man".
Wolff smiled. "As your personal prophet I must say nay to that. You will some day, but like all good girls, you'll make it stick, marry and rear a big family of lean, rangy cowhands who will grow up tall in the saddle and make terrific ends for Texas A&M."
Her eyes misted over. "It's strange that you should say that?"
"Strange! Why?"
"Because I've been thinking in those terms for the last few hours. Ken, those are the things that mean life to me, not this".
"Then you're chucking it?"
"I don't know. Not yet for a while, I guess. My contract with Acme will come up for option soon. They'll pick it up, I know. What I don't know is whether I'll go along with it".
"Free lance" he said shortly. "Get out from under contracts. They're a headache. You don't need the money and what else for gosh's sake would a lovely woman stay here and get pawed, slapped around, health ruined, mind poisoned and make a travesty of herself for? It's not worth it, naturally, but you can never tell them".
"I'm coming to realize all this, Ken, and it's beginning to get next to me".
"What will it do to you? I mean supposing you're successful with this return to sanity, let's say, will you let the past come back to haunt you?"
"No. I don't think so. I know I haven't been much of a woman...."
"I think you've been too much of a woman if I may become contentious. What you've been trying to do is fill up a void, satisfy a hunger that you've thought all along was purely physical and you took purely physical means to assuage it. It didn't work because physical hunger was only a part of your longing. There is a completeness that emerges from man and woman ... the right man and woman partaking of the forbidden feast that just isn't there on a catch as catch can basis. When this beautiful feast is enjoyed there are no morning recriminations and remorse"! It's right and in right things are the great joys of living. I'm not speaking of the tightly moral outlook. Few people really believe in it except for the other fellow. I'm speaking of such things as good taste, the appreciation of congruity, the keeping of your body yours to enjoy, but not to fling about like it was a worn out sock. That's what it will eventually become if care is not observed".
Russell opened his eyes and looked around like a man waking up from an anesthetic. He tried to sit up but couldn't make it. After three more tries he sat erect, grabbed his head and gave a heart wrenching groan.
"You'll survive" observed Wolff caustically, "which is probably more than you deserve. We'll send you a bill for cleaning the carpet. Are you reading me?"
Russell lost his usual aplomb and cursed like any other man with a split head. "You'll rue this day" he told Layne bitterly.
"So will you retorted Wolff, and of course I mean the loss of your cut".
"That's what you think, shyster" snarled the still seated Russell. "She's under contract".
"Certainly, but I eased a little sleeper into it when you weren't looking ... or you were too vain to think it mattered. It matters and we're invoking it as of now. All documents, contracts, financial reports, anything to do with her business you will deliver to me and an auditor whom I shall engage, tomorrow. Failing that I shall get a court order and you will be sorry".
Russell got to his feet and shivered at the blood that ran down his collar. "I can't think now" he mumbled. "See me tomorrow". He turned to Layne, "What did you hit me. with?"
"Her fist" replied Wolff shortly.
Muzzily Russell put a hand to the back of his head and appeared to ponder upon what had happened. He shook his head and walked unsteadily out.
Wolff frowned silently for a moment. "Out here you get to suspecting that everybody's nuts. It's the easy way because you're so often right. I wouldn't trust Russell as far as I could throw up. You sure put him into a tailspin today. I just hope it doesn't make him get the revengeful hysterics. Many a messy outcome has emerged from this malady."
"I'm not afraid of him".
"Of that I was certain and afraid of. I hereby order you to be afraid of him and avoid him at all costs. Safety is preferably to sorrow if I may rephrase a tritism".
Evey came out bearing a tremendous highball full of apologies. "It is that I forgot Senor Wolff. I am making with the shame. I have been very excited this afternoon".
"Not scared, Evey?" he asked accepting the drink.
"Oh that cabron? Never. I hope he is the beginning. I shall be making a new stock of vases".
Evey marched out obviously proud of her performance.
"Ken" Layne tossed her wet cloth to a glsss topped coffee table. "Will you take me on, be my business manager?"
"No. I'm a lawyer. I'm at your service as usual. I will however, get you a manager-agent whom you can trust completely"
"How can you be so sure?"
Wolff laughed. "Because he is my father". "Your father?"
"Yes. He's eighty, looks fifty and acts forty. He's as sharp as a tack and twice as dangerous. He's as the French say 'tres formidible' ".
"But ... eighty...."
"He's six feet tall and as spare as a rail. He's a early morning walker and manages to get in ten or fifteen miles a day. Doctors predict that he'll live to be a hundred, but he insists on a hundred and twenty at least. He says he's pushing the age limit for the Wolff family up, not down. His father was a hundred and three at death and his mother a hundred and five. We're a long lived family. He knows this business better than anyone alive. He already has quite a stable of actresses, actors and performers of various sorts. You must have heard of Amanco Business and Agents Associates".
"Oh, of course. They handle Randy Bronson".
"Yes, Unfortunately. There is another wrong G if I ever saw one. His gang has adopted you haven't they?"
"Yes but they too are in for some surprises".
"You're chucking them?"
She hesitated. If she chucked them then her social life which had revolved within their tight little circle for over a year would with very few exceptions, have to be readjusted. It presented an effort she didn't feel up to at the moment.
"I think I know what bugs you" said Wolff watching her keenly. "You're too accustomed to going after life. Why don't you relax and let it came to you. After all, you are Layne Conners".
"You don't understand, Ken. The gang, as they say, take care of each other. Actually, I've seen Peg Mallory beat a man up for asking Sissy Silver to dance".
"Anyone who'd ask that stony eyed cretin to dance deserves to be beaten" snorted Wolff savagely. "In other words if a man tried to date you he'd have Mallory to contend with?"
"Exactly. Randy would pick it and Peg would take over. I've seen it worked that way a dozen times."
Wolff grinned until she could see his back teeth. "In that case I know just the man for you".
"Who on earth ... "?
"A visiting fireman, in a sense. A Mexican company has leased the old Atlas studio lot and are making some shots on an Aztec color extravaganza titled 'Children of the Sun'. They're spending a lot of money and are making it in English and Spanish simultaneously. With them is a colonel of the Mexican Air Force who is an expert in matters Aztec, Toltec, Olmec, Zapotec. Maya and what have you. He's a technical adviser. I've heard some strange and hushed tales about him. Whatever he is he's international and if I sound vague then that's the way I feel. People will speak of him to a point then clam up. I do know that Central Intelligence had him to fly to Washington last week. He stayed three days and not a camera turned until he was back. This I received very confidentially from Soldarez himself. That's his name."
"You excite me, Ken. Tell me more. What's he like? Everything".
Wolff swigged at his drink. "Philipe Aristide de laSalle D'Ortego Soldarez-Peon. Born of a French mother and a Mexican aristocrat. His family owns a considerable hunk of Tamulipas including silver mines and whatnot. Soldarez while on the Air Force active list seems to have no Air Force duties. His time seems very much his own and every now and then some general forgets himself and salutes first. He won every important decoration awarded by the Allied during World War II as a volunteer in the British Air Force when he wasn't quite twenty. I've never seen him out of uniform and if Mexico supplies this sort of uniform as regulation, I'll join. If they don't cost three hundred dollars a throw, I'm a liar". He laughed. "You look a little amazed. You'll be more so when you see him. Incidentally, he's bought Santa Gertrudis cattle from your father. They have a ranch in Texas that is near your place, but the family still lives in Mexico".
"Oh ... that's the Hacienda del Sol. I know the place well. It's fabulous".
"So is Soldarez. Even in Hollywood he's just a little improbable. He wears high English riding boots and breeches and those little cavalry spurs without rowels. He shines so he hurts the eyes. Of course, that's just one uniform. He has dozens".
"Tell me about the man. What's he like?"
Wolff sat back and lit a cigarette rolling it from one corner of his mouth to the other. He was enjoying himself. "Like I say, he's improbable. He looks sort of Aztec or something. Something I've never seen before. He is suave, gallant, extremely, without being excessively, polite. He stands very likely six foot, three and his shoulders are no broader than a ping pong table. His waist is slim and his legs long and strong. His face is sort of triangular, hard and should be saddle color, but something in his French blood probably keeps it smooth olive. I suppose French or Castillian forebears gave him the most intense blue eyes you ever saw and you think they see everything. His lashes are longer than yours. He won't weigh a hundred ninety, but you have the impression seeing him handle it that he's a big tawny panther. He's cat-like with the most perfect coordination I ever saw. He'd tear Peg Mallory into gingerbread without mussing his straight blue-black hair. Mallory is a heavy handed hippo. Soldarez is a tiger. His people treat him like a pal and a deity at the same time".
Layne found herself breathing faster. "How did you get to know him?"
Wolff's eyes seemed to glaze over and he didn't answer at once. "It happens" he said softly, "that we're fellow white card men. I'm new so I can't tell you any more. Maybe he will. I don't know but if you ever get around to questioning him about it and he refuses to tell you, don't push him".
She clapped her hands ecstatically. "Ken, this is murder. I'll die of curiosity".
"Well, I knew him before the company came to Hollywood so naturally I handled all the legal details for the movie company."
"If he's what you say, why hasn't some studio copped him off?"
His eyes were direct. "Because he's known for years what you're just beginning to learn. He could buy a studio so why work for one? I get the impression that this man for all his polish good manners, his knightly bearing, the utter perfection of his dress and whatever else is a simple man with rich but simple tastes. I think he spits on pretense and his actions and dress are so much a part of him that one gathers it's him and not show".
Layne sighed and touched her face. "I have a feeling that this day will mark the turning point that I've been wishing for ... like a small child wishing for a visit from Santa".
Wolff finished his drink and stood up. "Well, I must go and plot things for you. Also to talk to my estimable pater about handling your affairs. Shall I hint to Soldarez that you're interested in cementing good relations between our country and Mexico or should I merely relate your good points?"
"How does it happen that he hasn't been snapped off by some scheming female?"
"I'm sure that scheming females are no stranger to our good Felipe which is what his colleagues call him naturally. Since I've known him he had always had an eagle eye out for the highest class womenflesh. Just what his deepest feelings and intentions are, I cannot say. Since you're not interested in heart throbs, he should fill your bill to perfection".
"Has he been seen around?"
"Yes, but he has a perfect defense against predatory female Hollywood". "What's that?"
"He just says no. No....Just like that. He offers no excuses. Nothing ... Just no".
"He doesn't have any girl interest at all?"
"Oh he dates members of the cast. Takes in obscure but excellent places of entertainment".
Layne said simply. "I'd like to meet him".
Wolff bowed. "You shall. Now I'll take my leave".
"Just one more thing, Ken. Why won't you let me pay you for your services? You know I'm able".
He regarded her steadily for a moment. "You can't guess?"
"I have guessed but I won't tell you what it is".
"I'm in love with you", he said quietly. "I have been ever since the first time I saw you. My services are the only thing I have that you need. Baubles and such junk you've loads of. Of myself I can only give service. I'm glad to and I shall continue to give it ... free".
Layne's eyes swam with tears. "Oh, Ken you're such a good friend and such a wonderful man".
"No" he said shortly. "I'm a hell of a man".
"Would you accept the only thing I can give you in return?"
He shook his head. "No. I wouldn't. My regard for you couldn't be so satisfied. I wouldn't cast muck on a relationship that is satisfactory if not rewarding. 'Bye, Layne".
"Goodby, Ken. Please come to see me when you can".
"I'll do that".
She could hardly see him for the tears in her eyes. Evey came in and stood arms akimbo. "Well, it is that I have not been making a lot of noise but I have been listening. I do not make the apologies for listening. If I do not care then I do not listen. I am very please to see what I hear".
Layne smiled weakly. "Evey, you're a doll".
"I got too much size for a doll. I got muscles too" she added significantly.
"That I knew before you messed up the carpet. We'll have to get it shampooed tomorrow".
"Tomorrow is in front of today" Said Evey and stalked off to the kitchen leaving Layne to wonder what she meant.
Layne prepared to eat in feeling a sense of indescribable relief that Randy and his cohorts had not descended upon her. She felt relaxed and in a vague way uplifted and cleansed. At least she had made a move, had brushed one excresence from her life, put her mind in a semblance of order had come at long last to realize that her career was not an end or the end and the knowledge that Amanco Business and Agents associates would handle her affairs made her feel almost light hearted. She had never felt any conscious qualms about her association with Russell but now she realized that deep in her subconscious there had been a feeling of tenseness, a knowledge that he could prove troublesome. With Wolff keeping an eye on her she now felt a delicious Tightness and safeness that she had never felt before.
CHAPTER FOUR
Her gratitude at the absence of Randy and his friends did not last long. An hour before dinner they swept into the apartment and successfully took possession of her mind, flooding conversation with wisecracks and what passed with them for verbal glitter. Randy of course, as always, carried the burden. Sissy Silver kept her ear glued to a small portable radio, her eyes looking like solid stones of blue china, her hips twisting to the strains of music the rest could hardly hear at all. Her breath bore a strange smell that Layne had come to associate with the weed and noticed it on Randy's breath too.
"We're going to have a ball" he said twisting about, unable to remain still very long. "The men of course will have their usual two. Fun, kids, fun. And for the occasion I shall provide the sticks.
"No sticks for me, thank you" said Layne moving Mallory's heavy hand from her thigh.
"No sticks, she said" boomed Mallory. "Shall I make her eat one".
"You don't know Layne like I do" retorted Randy, his curly hair touseled, his face aglow from early drinks and possible from-other stimulation, all of which might not have been the weed.
"She protests because it is like her to protest". He leaned forward and slid his hand beneath her skirt and caressed a silken thigh. It annoyed Laynd because she couldn't contain the shudder of eagerness that flooded her nerves. She pushed the hand away irritably. Brenda Watters came and sat beside Mallory who was sitting beside Layne. She took his hand placed it vulnerably and flexed backward. "I'm for you Mr. Big" she said throatily. "Don't let the vestal virgin cast you down".
"I'm thinking of going into business" said Layne caustically to Brenda. "How does your scale run? I mean which sex provides the best pay, male or female".
Brenda stiffened and her staring eyes slitted. "Careful girlie. My business and your business are mutually exclusive."
"Moreover" said Mallory utilizing the preplaced hand, "I'm sure Brenda wouldn't know about things like price and such. Male and female ... Tch Tch,Layne. How dare you".
"And like a bird she has feathers" quipped Randy brightly Sissy gave an ecstatic breath, "Oh ... man this cha-cha sends me mostly where I sit" She writhed up against Randy and continued to writhe. He draped a familiar hand around her hips. "Soft, kid, soft but you have no reputation like Layne".
"Not like Layne" she breathed huskily, the pupils in her eyes seeming to widen even more than had been provided by the hay she had smoked," but a reputation. Don't you remember".
"How could I forget". He looked at Layne and his banter ceased. "Tell you what, we came to gather Layne and flee to my pad, but she doesn't want to be gathered. I'm sensitive to emanation. Possibly she has the curse. Possibly, but not probably. I sense further obstacles. I shall remain and persaude her. The rest of you kick it along to the pad and refresh yourself. You know where everything is. After I wind this recalcitrant him around my well known forefinger we'll join you and fan the blaze". He rolled his eyes. "Remember the last hayburning we had? Sissy and Brenda went so far out that I was taken myself".
Layne felt her stomach knot with repulsion. She'd never attended a hay burning and had only smoked a single nail in her life and the experience was sufficient. It hadn't made her sick as it does many a beginner, but it had loosened the bonds of every shred of restraint she possessed. She was mentally ill for weeks after. This was one time when she'd bow her neck for sure.
None of them realized it consciously, but they were repelled by-something in Layne's eyes that they had never seen before. No one is comfortable in the company of criticism, especially when they have performed freely before that same person and the knowledge that the criticism, though strange and in a way unfair, is nonetheless well founded.
Randy waited until they were out of the apartment then turned on Layne, his eyes cold. "Look suckling, what the hell do you mean putting the deep freeze on my friends like that?" Gone was his fast talk spiced with quip and gag.
He was sensitive to emanation as he had said and much of his sensitivity sprang from a cowardly spirit that was ever on the alert for any sort of censorship no matter how trivial. It was from this that his ready tongue had been born. His titanic vanity sprang from a subconscious certainty that instead of being inconquerable, a genius, a man standing alone at the top, he was a shivery little soul possessed of a certain shrewdness, a superficial cleverness and a mind that was quick like a weasel's, but devious and shaking like his spirit.
"I was not aware" said Layne in measured accents "that I had put the deep freeze on your friends although it isn't a bad idea".
He cocked a bright, too bright eye at her. "What gives here? All of a sudden something's happened to you. It doesn't show, but you can't fool me. On the surface I mean, except that you look too cool and the heat has gone from your eyes". He laughed suddenly and jumped to his feet. "I'll fix that". He went to the little bar that stood to one side of her lush living room and composed a shaker of martinis. He returned with a double for her and it was then that Layne made a mistake. I'll take it, she thought, to fortify myself for what's to come. I'm on top now and no one will ever shove me off again.
Almost instantly, it seemed, after the first one her blood began to roar in her ears and with his first kiss she relaxed in his arms, with a sob knowing in the basement of her consciousness that she had lost another fight. There were more martinis and Layne surrendered to Randy's expert teasing. His lips made mad music with hers and his massaging stroking hands started the shrill symphony that smote her senses and made her muscles dead and useless. Her silken skin came under his touch and a ravening madness began to claim her. She recalled being picked up and transported into another room where he dallied more, dallied until she was a moaning beseeching wreck begging him onward helping him with disrobing, helping him in all ways then her muscles woke up and urged her on to the mightiest demand.
Later he pressed another drink upon her and this time, her desire abated and nausea clutching her throat she returned to partial reality. Revolt rose again like a swarm of frightened blackbirds. It would not do to beard him now high as he was on hashish and liquor. It would have to be deferred to another time. She knew now that the only way to tilt with Randy was sober. She took the drink, quelling a wild desire to snatch the covers up about her neck. She didn't because she was about to feign inebriation. She drank the concoction down with a gulp then lay back shuddering inside. As always passion had ripped her asunder and she was as weak as a kitten.
"All right, kid", said Randy who was now dressed. "Get your feed to moving. Night's young and much ground to be covered. The orgy awaits and since you've never seen one man do you have an experience coming. Hey, wake up". He attempted to lift her from the bed, but she slumped as boneless as a fillet, her mouth drooping open and her breath beginning to come stertorously. "Damn" he swore. "Passed out. Of all the sad luck". He stood by her bed and cursed like a bogged farmer using foul filthy language that as innured to rough talk as she was she cringed inwardly. He was raw and without pretense now, a side of him that had never shown through.
"And", he finished, "we were going to introduce you to Peg tonight". He continued in a filthy monologue and it was all she could do to keep from screaming as she realized what had been in store for her.
Randy left then and she was so relieved that she wept. She was now afraid to face Evey because the maid had been so pleased at the proposed change and it had not eventuated but she reckoned with out Evey's true emotions. She stalked boldly into the bedroom and took the shuddering girl in her arms and crooned to her as she stroked her soft hair. "It was a mistake for you to take the drink". Evey told her. "I knew then that it would be a repeat. Your blood runs too hot, chiquita, and liquor overheats it. Let us stay away from those beasts. I heard every word he said. I was ready with a vase if he had tried to take you with him. Go to sleep now and when you wake up we will start the new freshness of another start".
Layne wept stormily for a while then said. "Will you help me bathe? I feel all dirty and soiled and...."
"Of course. I know how you feel. We'll take a nice hot bath then to bed for you".
Layne's physical condition next day was so improved over the previous morning that even her depression failed to make her feel ill. She had allowed Evey to soak, beat massage and pummel most of the alcohol out of her system before she went to bed.
The day was to be a hectic one, but when she ate an early breakfast she didn't know this. One was an excited phone call from Fritz Blom to whom Russell had gone with a distorted story of her revolt.
"But you can't do this" he shouted, his accent showing through his excitement. "We already had a deal on this documentary, "Stairway to the Stars". He was to give me your answer today and what he gives me iss dot you've gone bust. What's come into you". Blom's English was slipping worse now.
"Look" she said wearily "you've a shaking coming. You have a different Layne to handle now. I told Bob I'd take that part at the stipulated price and I will unless you become difficult. I didn't know he was personally included. My agents are now Amanco. You can get in touch with them".
"Them I like not" shouted Blom. "You I must talk to". "Come over and I'll draw you a picture. I'll even give you coffee".
Blom was in such a fever that Layne knew Russell must have really laid it on thick. She'd never known Blom to get so excited. Usually phlegmatic, a thorough Teuton in both personality and his slavish devotion to perfection, frenzy was so unlike him that Layne was curious to know just what Russell had told him.
She paced up and down, clad modestly in bermuda shorts and a loose blouse. The more she paced the angrier she got. She thought back to her early days in Hollywood just after winning the contest. There had been a high period filled with interviews, tests and of course her contract for three hundred dollars a week. That didn't last long and Holloran Studios, her first stop hadn't picked up the option. Russell was the first of a select number of men who had persuaded Layne that playing along with producers, directors and agents was accepted procedure. It was easy for her to accept it because she'd been lucky that none of the men with whom she had played the deep game were revolting. They were uniformly handsome, charming and talented. Her tremendously passionate nature had responded and she swam happily in a sea of sensation. Then came her sensational climb to stardom with the attendant publicity, money, a swooning public, pinups, one so near nude that it had to be peddled sub rosa. She swam with the current until at long last she had taken pause and stock. Now she was in a simmering fury. She'd been a plaything and a meal ticket. Deliberately and with malice aforethought she went to her bedroom and changed to a house coat of heavy silk that zipped up the front. It was virtuously high collared but it had been tailored to fit with such shocking eagerness that the erect tips of her breasts were plainly visible in outline. The rest of her lithe young body was equally revealed. She had had a suspicion that Blom was in love with her but she knew she was too far down the line to become excited over the prospect. Blom had been married twice and she knew both women. She'd always thought they were weak sisters, basically, because she could see nothing in Blom to make one take to dope and the other to alcohol. True, he was a big fine looking blonde with great ability in his field but the very best any woman could expect was to be relegated to third place. First place went to Blom himself. He had gigantic conceit which he made no effort to conceal. In fact, he seemed to take the attitude that with his undeniable qualities modesty would be a form of dishonesty. Second was his career and no woman could aspire to replace it in his affections. Layne stopped pacing and lit a cigarette. Russell had been sent packing. Randy Bronson had it coming and so did Blom. By dressing as she did she was assuring that Blom's ordeal would occur shortly. She knew that in Blom's opinion no one in his life had given him what she had but it was ending now. She wondered how frank Russell could have been. Was Blom's panic springing from the fear that all was over between them?
Evey admitted him a few minutes later and ushered him into the living room. Laurie almost laughed as the big man strode in like a conquering lion. Evey was clutching another heavy glass vase and eyeing the back of his head, her black eyes snapping venomously.
He came straight to her, his eyes making a voracious meal of her. As was usual he kissed her hand and clicked his heels, then continental manner reverted to Hollywood.
"Now this nonsense I must know about", he said, his face tight with emotion.
"To what nonsense do you refer?"
"About Russell. You two have had such a wonderful relationship, you are so right for each other. He always kept your welfare uppermost in his mind".
"That" said Layne with peculiar flatness, "is a damn lie".
Blom went white and gaped like a stranded sprat. He tried to speak but he was so shocked that only a short phrase in German could be winnowed out of it. "Was ist...? was ist...?
"You can cut the Kraut talk too" she said coarsely making his pale face flood with blood. "I don't dig it".
"But vhy ... why. What dud he did ... What did he did to you?"
"Answer me one thing, since you're so damned concerned are you another of his boy friends?"
"Gott in Himmel" he breathed almost choked with shock.
"Sit down" she said with an imperious wave of her hand. He sat weakly and looked at her as though he had never seen her before.
"Now, what did Bob tell you?"
He made several starts before he could get his tongue and brain co-ordinated, "veil. . he sedt ... He said you and he had had a fight und you were so utterly unreasonable ... so unlike yourself."
"In what way does that affect you?"
"Leibchen, do you not know that I love you?"
"No and you still haven't said anything."
"Russell, he says that you have taken the veil, that you will admit no more men into your life".
She started to laugh, but cut it short. "Let me get this straight. You don't mind him hanging around just so long as it doesn't cut you out. Is that it?"
He smiled shakily. "In a manner of speaking, dot iss so".
"So that's what you call love. Well, I'm glad to know just what it means to you". Her lip curled. "Did marriage enter your head?"
"It did. I was waiting until I haff made a name that will stand for all time".
"And did you intend to share me with anyone who spent the night under our tent?"
He spread his hands and the smile turned sickly. "Ve must remember that ve ... we are moderns. This is not the dark ages".
"You dirty bastard" was all she could think of to say. She could have cut his throat right at that moment. It rankled worse because it was just more retribution that was coming down on her all at once. Nothing had happened that she hadn't known all about far in advance. She could not plead surprise although she was in a sense because she had refused to examine freely the implications of her way of life and some of its possible rewards. This was something she deserved but the knowledge didn't comfort her. It made her blood boil.
"I am coming here to your house to talk some sense to you" said Blom now somewhat recovered from his state of shock. "Tell me that you're joking. Many things I can stand, but the thought of having to do without you makes me ill. Genius, Layne, must be fed or it will starve".
She had known all along what a fine opinion he held of himself but to thus coolly rate himself as a genius, a genius that would starve without her was the best retort he could have made if he'd wanted to shock her.
She breathed deeply for a few minutes. "Fritz, you're an overgrown sausage stuffed with your own importance so I think a little deflation is in order". She stood up. "Get out of my apartment and if you come back I'll call the police".
This kind of opposition he could meet and the emotional fright died from his eyes. In its place came a cruel, icy light. "Layne, since we have come to earth so to speak let me let a little light in on the subject...." Layne drew back and slapped him with every ounce of power in her lithe body and Blom's senses reeled from the force. Like many a man who is in love with himself physical assault is unendurable and he would have retailiated in the Russell manner but Evey was on the job again and again a glass vase went to pieces on the back of Blom's square head.
"Good girl, Evey". said Laurie in measured tones, her fury having abated somewhat.
"The police and Mr. Wolff?" asked Evie with a chuckle. "Just the police this time. Did you cut his head?"
"This one's cabeza is too hard. It is well lumped but that is all.
Being led from a woman's apartment in a daze by a policeman who was no respector either of persons or genius was a scalding lump of gall lodged with painful permanence beneath Fritz Blom's breast bone. At the doorway he turned and gave her a malignant look. "I'll schmatsch you for this. Mock mein vord".
"Oh, Katzen schiess" retorted Layne inelegantly and probably incorrectly but Blom got the message and went chalky. The policeman gave him an ungently shove. "All right, John, get movin'."
"Why" asked Evey, when the door had closed. "Did you not prefer charges?"
Layne laughed, feeling very light hearted and gay. "Because I struck the first blow. I'm getting tired of being a patsy for every woman beater on the coast. From now on I'm getting in the first lick. I couldn't have made a charge stick without perjury and I haven't gotten that bad yet".
"Can he, as he said, smash you?"
Layne shrugged. "Time was, a threat like that from a man like Fritz would have frightened me to death. No more, Evey, believe me. No more".
Evey eyed her curiously. "You I do not understand. Here there are too many things you do not like. Why do you stay? You have money, you have property and your father could buy you out of last month's sale of steers. This will all be yours and your brothers' some day. Why do you do it?
Layne sighed. "You could ask that of a lot of people here and you'd get a lot of different answers. I guess I think too much of bright lights, people who adore me...." She stopped at Evey's furious grunt. She smiled. "I used to think that. They don't adore me, they don't even like me. My fans do ... all the way and I get three thousand letters a week telling me so. I suppose it is the glamor and the glitter and the excitement. We pay more attention to the decorations than we do the Christmas tree".
"And yet" said Evey wisely, "without the tree what do you have but baubles to shove into the closet?"
"I'm coming around to that, gradually" said Layne thoughtfully. "I just don't want to be like some I know who pretend to want out but won't take the step. They hate crowds yet they're always in the midst of one. They don't want to be seen so they dress up in ridiculous disguises, smoked glasses and such and then go where they're most likely to be recognized".
"That" said Evey, affectionately "is not you. Many things you may not be but honest you are. In our time here I have come to know the maids and servants of many of the greats. Never have I heard of such carrying on, such insanity, such drinking and the taking of dope, and sleeping with anyone but their own". Tears came into her eyes. "It is that I do not want that for you chiquita. That is all".
Layne sighed. "I'm in a muddle right now Evey, but I'm beginning to see the light.
Mangel Wadsworth was a name not many people were familiar with because it was the way Mr. Wadsworth preferred it but those who knew it well always seemed to discover a bit of the spaniel in their makeup and begin at the mention of it to genuflect, if not in body, in attitude. Mr. Wadsworth was the man at the top of Acme, the man who had discovered Blom who had scouts out at all times looking for promising flesh both male and female. He was a man who hired the best money could buy and used them to make more money. The women and men who worked for him interested him rather less as individuals than a breeder of cattle, a scrub bull. They were necessary nuisances and the salary he paid them was the end of it as far as he was concerned. He was a brutal disciplinarian and was never so annoyed as when someone in his fold became too big to chastise. He had broken as many actors and actresses as he had developed. Blom went to Wadsworth incoherent with rage demanding that she be "schmatsched" and it all took the latter by complete surprise. "You astonish me, Fritz," he said in his habitually condescending way. "I have always thought of Miss Conners as a model actress. She has never been temperamental, has never been overly demanding. She takes the rigors of location without a whimper and Fritz...." he chuckled heavily, stroking his thick iron greyhair. "She is a very valuable property. Her pictures draw crowds in crowds". He chuckled at his wit. "Crowds pay money. Their money pays your salary".
"I have never been so humilated ... humiliated in mein life" raved Blom churning his crewcut with long fingers.
Mr. Wadsworth was a heavy man so he didn't exactly flounce in his chair. It was more like a minor terrestial upheaval. "Her contract comes up for option soon, remember". A touch of indigestion which annoyed him when he was upset began to burn. "It is unthinkable that she will not renew but we must be careful. I need not tell you that she is the most valuable piece of property that Acme holds at the present".
"I verstehen that wery veil", stuttered Blom, "but what if it comes to one of us having to leaf. Vill it be me or her"?
"Come now" said Wadsworth chidingly. "Surely it won't come to that. You must be very deeply wounded to even consider it. Tell me what happened".
Fritz told him with pointedness possible in only one place in the world. He hadn't the slightest qualm about revealing his innermost secrets in this particular case. "A merely chit of a woman does not tell Fritz Blom such a thing. It is she would should be honored".
Mr. Wadsworth was well acquainted with Blom's opinion of himself so he was not surprised. "I can see where it must have come as a shock. For you, Fritz, I'll see what can be done. I am most anxious that everyone remain happy. As for her agent, I couldn't care less what happens to him because I never liked him anyway. He's too damned assured and self satisfied to suit me. In fact, I could even find it possible to laugh at his predicament were it not so parallel to your own. "She is not a usual person. She is very necessary to me. I will not be told to go stand in a comer like a misbehaved school boy by a mere rag and a hank of bone".
"I think it is a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair" corrected Mr. Wadsworth gently.
Blom didn't even hear him. "When will you discipline her and how?"
Mr. Wadsworth scowled at the top of his immense desk. "I shall cogitate on the matter. It must be done right. We can't afford to slip in any case".
"Neither can you sit in dis office and do nottings" exploded Blom struck by a fresh tide of rage. "I must be considered, yet".
"I" said Wadsworth icily, "will do what I must do. You're a good man Fritz, but you are not indispensable". "Is she?"
"You know this business. No one but an ass would kick a box office find like her in the teeth. Go get drunk and let some of this steam out of your collar. You're making a mountain out of a molehill".
"You do not know her like I do. Let me tell you...." He told and in considerable juicy detail just what set Layne Conners so far above the rank and file of women. Mr. Wadsworth was intrigued but he did not let Blom know it.
"I'll think on it, Fritz. Good day".
Blom left still savagely furious. He took the boss's advice and went out getting steaming drunk, waking the next morning hoping to die. He was not a drinker and liquor was almost poison to him. It did have the effect of making him forget Layne's attitude, the humiliating blow in the face and another on the back of his head which both intrigued and infuriated him. He never knew where it came from.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Layne, I want you to meet the head of the clan. John Prometheus Wolff". Kenneth Wolff looked smaller than ever standing beside his tall, erect father.
Layne smiled and held out her hand. "This is a great pleasure, Mr. Wolff".
He took her hand in his strong flexible fingers and pressed it gently. "If I were about twenty years younger," he said with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes. "I'd have pinups of you all over the place".
"Mamma'd murder you, if you did" put in the son. "This is the gal who needs handling".
"You couldn't handle her"? asked the elder Wolff, brightly.
"Don't try to be clever. You know what I'm talking about".
"Sit down" said Layne, "both of you. We can't talk business standing. Evey, a drink for Mr. Wolff...."
"And", said John Prometheus, "the young Mr. Wolff would like one, too, scotch on the rocks".
"It runs in the family" said Ken apologetically.
They made small talk while Evey fixed drinks and Layne had a chance to study the old man. He was tall, impeccably dressed in sober blue which on him did not look quite so sober. There was a piratical air about him, a quickness of gesture and a mind no less quick. His face was surprisingly free of lines, sharp with planes and angles. His thick hair was nearly black with a faint sprinkling of grey.
Evey brought drinks and the elder Wolff took a long swallow. "Now, what's this about you ducking out on Bob Russell?"
"Didn't Ken tell you? It's not a pleasant subject".
"Ah, yes, of course. No need to drag through it again. Tell me, did you ever meet the head of Acme, Mr. Wadsworth?"
"I think I've seen him once. He's rather a mysterious figure".
"An understatement. He's both mysterious and malevolent. You're a model gal from all accounts and you've never needed a dose of his famous discipline".
"Would he do that?"
"He would. He has".
"Why would anyone put up with his ... discipline?"
The old man lit a long cigarette, "Careers are made and careers are broken. Who is most concerned? Those with the most to lose. Naturally, some will be pushed just so far. Some are too valuable to push. I should think you come into that category and it is un-likely that he'll try anything on you for that reason. Dollars speak louder than the eagle can scream. Unless he had some personal inmity working I'd say you're safe. If he did then he'd turn the place upside down to ruin you. He's a peculiar man who at first blush is a dollar chaser all the way. He is ... most of the way but he's vengeful. You don't remember Velma Cullen because she was on her way out about the time you finished high school. For some reason Velma hated Wads-worth's guts. He'd just come into the business, self-important punk with inherited money and delusions of greatness. He had the touch. Have to give him that. He took out after Velma and she insulted him publicly at a Nob Hill party one night in San Francisco. He never forgave her for it and in spite of her box office pull, he did his level best to break her and he did. First it was a series of turkeys that no one could have saved then having her frozen in an ironbound contract he just shut her off from work. She went down then, from bad to worse, gin, the needle, God knows what. She died of an overdose of heroin. He sent flowers. True gangster style".
"Why" she asked feeling a chill, "are you telling me all this?"
"You had a brush with Blom. Blom is nuts about you. Right now he's in a white rage and he's Wadsworth's personal boy. I'm telling you so you can be prepared for the worst. If it doesn't happen we can all be happy".
"But I'm not going to renew my contract. If I can't make it free lance then no one can".
"The pure truth. It's a step I'd advise in all seriousness. I'd prefer that you didn't stay with Acme. I can name any number of places that are panting for you. Naturally, the word got around when you dumped Russell. I've had several bites even before I get you on contract. I take it you've thought it over, this business of coming with us".
"I haven't thought it over at all, sir".
"What?"
She smiled. "The instant Ken suggested you I accepted and haven't given it a thought since. I wanted him, but after all he has his law practice to consider".
"Hmmm". He looked his son over critically. "I hear he inspires confidence. Never could see it myself. When he was young he was an awful cookie thief and a general pain in the neck. Got kicked out of three colleges for this and that. Once for whaling the tar out of the Dean of Men".
Ken laughed. "The dean was a bastard. He accused me of something I didn't do".
"That's because you hadn't thought of it". He turned to Layne. "Then you're ready to sign?"
"Did you bring the contract".
"Yes."
"Let's have a pen".
It was soon over and they had another drink. "About your property and business managership, there'll be a separate contract for that which I'll bring around as soon as the auditor is through checking. He's about through and has found no shady dealings. You're in excellent shape. Russell is a smart business man whateve else he is".
Layne looked the old man straight in the eyes. "Mr Wolff, it is no more than fair that I tell you...." She shoo her head. "It's hard to say because I'm confused about i myself. It's just that I've become pretty disillusioned in the last week or so and this whole thing is beginning to choke me. It might be that sooner or later I'll throw the whole thing up. Maybe you wouldn't want to handle me under these conditions".
The old man cackled. "Hell, woman, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Since you know Ken it's probably easier to believe that I'm handling the only part of show business that I'd touch with a slaughter pole. In a vast majority of the cases I don't really care what happens to the denizens of this zoo. They ask for it and they get it. Some can handle it, some go to pieces like a rotten sheet in a high wind. If you ever want to chuck it Uncle John Prometheus will applaud to beat all get-out. Actually it'd be smart of you if you did".
When they left Layne relaxed with a feeling of complete confidence in her future. Even if she decided to quit show business she had Uncle John Prometheus' approval. She had to chuckle. She'd seen the old man once and now she was, even in her mind calling him uncle. She knew now where Ken had gotten the attitudes which encouraged confidence.
Evey came in bearing hot coffee. "It is now eleven o'clock. It is days and you don't leave the house. Soon Ali Baha y su cuarenta ladrones will launch into the place and unless you drink with them ... in which anything can happen, you will send them with their tails dragging with much hot language and great fuss. You will be unhappy for the rest of the day. Take your car. Drive up into the mountains, drive anywhere. Eat lunch out. Maybe even dinner. Come in late and tired when you will have a good night's sleep. That I recommend."
Layne laughed. "You recommend and I take it. It is a good recommend".
"Do not" sniffed Evey loftily, "make small of my talk. I can do along in three languages. You speak one with difficulty".
She dressed in a shorts-skirt-jacket ensemble of dusky red bound her hair with a matching turban and called for her car. As she replaced the receiver it rang. She hesitated then picked up the receiver.
"Layne, Doll. Your custard contralto is balm for my aching ears".
"Knock it off" she said crisply. "What do you want?" Evey's prediction was threatening to come true and she was not going to give it any help. At the moment the thought of Randy and his gang put a lump in her stomach.
Evidently Randy had been casting, but now he didn't like what he'd hooked. "Look, Doll, enough is enough. We're coming by to put you on the track. Once a member, always a member or hadn't you heard".
"I've got one for you" she retorted, "I don't claim originality either ... something you're never honest enough to do when you steal a gag. There are exceptions to all rules. Smoke that in your hashish pipe". She banged the receiver down and called Evey.
"That bunch which you so accurately dubbed el cuaren-ta ladrones might come bucketing by here. If they do, don't even let them in. Understand?"
"Very clearly. We have three vases left. The big blue one I am making an especial for Senor Cochino Mallory. I yearn to test the soundness of his cabeza".
Kito Kabaguchi the parking attendant knocked on the door to announce her car. Kito was a great fan of hers and in addition to that was a unique Japanese American. He stood six feet even and professed to be proficient at karate. "Madame" he said with a very Nipponese bow. "You chariot awaits".
"Straighten your back Kito-san or I'll think you're an Imperial Marine ready to slit my throat".
"Madame" he said severely, "I am an American. I was a United States Marine who made hash of chinks in Korea even to yelling epithets at them from my foxhole. Who's the character below with the retinue? He called you from my box".
"Oh damn" she said with a disgusted gesture. "They're here?"
"They're there. Two dames with hair about the color of a dry Martini and puffed to the shape of a mushroom. Gorgons. If they smiled their faces would split. Like something out of a snake pit".
"I know them but I don't want to see them. Got any ideas".
He frowned. "Your car is at the foyer and they're on either side of it. You're boxed". His dark eyes lit up. "If you would deign to ride in a rod of the hottest you could have mine. I guarantee its parts to be from eleven separate makes and models. It's hot and its dependable. If they dog you, you could lose them which you might not do in your tank, if you'll pardon the term".
"Oh Kito ... I couldn't take your car".
"Well, you'd have to drive it. It doesn't think for you but if you want to wring it out it'll go along with you. Think of the conversation I could use for years. 'Chick, where you are now resting your derriere rested the most fabulous one in the U. S. and A'!".
Layne laughed. "You've made a deal. Where is it?"
"If we go down the service elevator it will be fifteen feet away from ground zero."
"Let's go".
The car was not as roddish as he had advertised. It was obviously custom in glistening red enamel, chromium exhausts and no top, but it was long and low and made for speed and handling. Layne turned to the tall man. "Kito, I won't forget this".
He laughed. "Hell, Madame neither will I. It's fulla gas. If you run out use top grade. It don't dig the cheaper grades".
"I'll remember and I'll do something for you some day".
He bowed. "Madame, you have ... many times".
Layne shot the swift vehicle into traffic with such effortless ease that it frightened her. It was like a tiger on a leash. She savored the hungry agility of the powerful car and the muted roar of the exhausts. She almost wished that Randy and his thieves would chase her. He was so inordinately proud of his imported sports car and his driving ability.
She drove north and east for awhile then took the road directly east. She'd drive to Redlands, maybe keep on until she came to the Salton Sea. It was a spot that always intrigued her. Also intriguing was the vineyards and date farms where they might wake some morning and find that sand, drifting like snow had invaded their fields.
She drove at a modest speed winding in and out of canyon roads quartering toward the road through the pass that would lead to the desert. Higher and higher she climbed until she could look back on the sprawling Los Angeles, the coastline obscured by lowlying smog. To her right she could see the vast blackened area where millions of dollars in homes and furnishings had gone up in flames during one of California's worst annual brush fires. She had almost bought a home in the area, encouraged by Fritz Blom who, she could now see, had had an ulterior motive. He was notoriously thrifty and had a reputation of being slow on the draw when the check was presented.
She cursed under her breath hating that thoughts of Blom had invaded her peaceful drive. Ahead the road leveled off riding a ridge. She knew that for ten miles the road was relatively straight and level then dipped downward and curved into the pass. The next town of any size would be Pomona then Redlands, Beaumont, then Indio, Oasis, and the Salton Sea. She shook her head. It was too far, but it was good to think about. Some day soon she'd make the trip. At the moment she was comfortable, contended as long as she didn't think of her troubles and ready for a good lunch. Evey's wonderful Mexican cooking had developed an appreciation for it and she vowed that in the very next town she would be on the lookout for a good Mexican restaurant. She thought of chicken enchiladas drowned in rich red gravy with plenty of steaming tortillos on the side and a bottle of dry red wine.
Almost before she knew it a shining blue sports car drew alongside and she heard a jeering laugh. In it was Randy and Sissy Silver. "Thought you could give us the slip? Think again, Doll. I got your number. Turn around and listen to eloquent reason. This zombie will pilot the Big Blue. I'll ride with you". Never had Randy Bronson been so repugnant to her and rage mounted. In a fury she slammed her foot into the accelerator and the result was astonishing. Like a spurred animal the red monster leaped ahead the rear skidding directly in front of Randy's car. She righted it and slammed up a cloud of crushed rock that had sifted from trucks hauling it onto the roadbed. It had caused the skid and now acted about like a discharge of shrapnel. It smashed both Randy's headlights and speckled his windshield with pecks. The car under control now, Layne let it out and felt herself tighten as the speedometer slewed around with tremendous speed. Randy, she could see, was striving hard to keep up with her, but as the big red car reached a hundred and ten miles an hour, Randy began to drop back. Layne gritted her teeth, held to the steering wheel strongly but with practiced hands and fed the car more gas. She had a good eight miles more of fairly straight, level road. At a hundred and twenty she felt a sensation of flying and at a hundred and twenty five she began to get scared but she only let it back a few miles an hour. There was no traffic ahead, the road not being heavily traveled so she clenched her teeth and held her speed. The road tilted downhill now and she, in a burst of defiance gave it more gas. The wind ripped and tore at her turban but she squinted her eyes and stayed with it. She could hear nothing but the battering of the wind and the velvet roar of the powerful engine. She peaked at a hundred and thirty five then as she approached the intersection gradually let up on the accelerator until she was doing a modest ninety, held that until she could see the intersection then let off on the accelerator and began to nudge the brakes gently with her toe. She swung into U.S. Highway 60-70 and with Pomona coming up fast she throttled back to road speed. There would be cops on the Federal Highway and anyhow she had left Randy so far behind that he was but an angry memory. That would give him something to talk about and Sissy was sure to make a full report of it to the rest.
She laughed exuberantly and settled back into the seat. A long lean dream of a car that she knew was a Sun-beam-Exel slid past her hissing a song of power and affluence. The top was off and the elegance of the car was equalled by that of the driver, but of him she had only a passing glimpse. He was a broad shouldered, lean faced military man which she could tell from the uniform he wore except that it was unfamiliar. Ahead the long car pulled into a roadside restaurant that advertised the best Mexican food this side of the border, so Layne without more thought on the matter pulled up beside the Sunbeam-Exel just as the driver got out. He turned, looked at her looked away then did a ludicrous double-take and looked back. A chill shot through her that transfixed her as though she had suddenly frozen.
CHAPTER SIX
He was improbable, just as Ken had said, tall broad of shoulder and chest, lean of flank and leg and his uniform fitted with such staggering perfection that she hardly believed it. It was expensive, made of some light tan material. On his left chest there was a blaze of ribbons. His face was what had frozen her. Even in repose there was a latent, tigerish ferocity imprinted upon it. It was sculptured with such perfection that only the angles and planes kept it from being pretty. Suddenly the man smiled and the ferocity was gone replaced by an impression of mellow goodfellowship. "Was that you back there on the ridge who slaughtered the Alfa Romeo".
"I ... I ... guess so" she faltered. "The blue one?"
"Yes. You really creamed him as well as carving up his windshield when you threw rocks at him."
"I know him and I don't like him".
"I've seen him" he said, his face relaxing into repose again, "and I don't like him". The startling blue eyes flicked up then the smile came back. "You can't be anyone else".
"Neither can you" she burst out, the spell breaking. "You must be Filipe Soldarez. There simply can't be two like you".
"It's been said that one is three too many. You are Layne Conners?"
She opened the door of the car and slid out. "Of course. How many other strange blondes know you".
She gave him her hand and he took it in a firm steady grip. "Ken said you were something for the eyes. He lied simply because he hadn't the words to tell the truth".
She laughed gaily. "Oh, get out! He told me about you too except that he didn't say you wore a military moustache so perfectly. I'm tempted to see if it isn't false".
"Please. My moustache is the least false thing about me.
All Mexican villains wear them or hadn't you heard?"
"I've heard. I was stopping to eat".
"I, too. I know the proprietor because he's from our part of the country. I also know that he is serving wild turkey with black sauce, stuffed with cracked corn, chili pequenos, mushrooms, livers and tiny smoked sausages. I know because I brought him six when I came to California. He's been after me ever since to come eat before they are all gone. Will you join me?"
"I'd be delighted ... uh oh. Here comes bad news. The great Randy Bronson with his vanity pricked".
Soldarez turned easily. "So that's the beaten swain. He looks angry".
"He is angry. He's burned black".
Randy jumped out of the car and strode over to Layne. "Think you're hot stuff don't you?" he grated savagely.
She laughed in his face. "From what particular angle? It's been whispered around that you had a fast car and could drive. What happened, lose a cylinder?"
"I've got a good notion to flatten you right here", he mouthed beside himself. "You cheap little flick-hooker".
"One more crack from you" said Soldarez, jerking him around so hard that his hair popped, "and I'll injure you for life. I was behind you both. She blew the world in your face. Whoever told you, you could drive a car?"
"Take your hands off me, guy" yelled Randy pulling his arm slowly loose from the grip. "Maybe you're new around here or are just playing tin soldier, but, Son I can ruin you. Now just back off, Spick, while I tell this bitch what I think...." He never finished it because a teak hard fist nearly tore the side of his face off and Randy Bronson, pack leader, wit and toast of the night club circuit rolled on the dusty asphalt.
"You shouldn't become insulting unless you have Peg to back you up" said Layne grinning down at the stunned Bronson. "Shall we lunch, Colonel?"
"We shall."
She looked into the blue eyes and felt an internal shiver. They were glacial and as hard as chipped flint. Randy sat up and pointed a quavering finger, "I'll be seeing you later guy. Just mark my words".
"I'm not hard to find" said Soldarez softly. "Just don't let your words get you in trouble again".
Randy got up, holding his face which was beginning to swell and turn blue.
Layne laughed again. "It'd be interesting to hear how you explain your face tonight at the Pendulum, Randy".
"I can fix it so you'll have some explaining to do too, Layne" he gritted, his eyes blank with rage. "I don't know what's come over you but you've some lumps coming".
"You want to be on your way or will you need help?" said the. colonel in a harsh voice.
Randy accelerated his pace toward his car. "Both of you ... I'll see you burn one way or another. Just remember, I promised it".
Soldarez turned her deftly toward the entrance and said, "Cheap threats always amuse me". He opened the door and assisted her through. Inside Layne relaxed and was immediately beset by an attack of the shakes. The past few days had been rough on her nerves and this morning what with the race and Randy's reaction had been rougher. Now, woman-like, she was frightened after the danger had passed.
"Wait ... a moment, please".
He turned back to her in instant alarm. "What is it ... you're pale. Do you feel badly?"
She shook her head. "Will you order a double scotch, straight, please. I'll be all right".
He summoned a waiter in voluable Spanish which to her Latin-practiced ear was not mestizo patois but smacked of Andalusian. They took a table and about the same time the proprietor spied the colonel. He rushed forward, Soldarez stood and they embraced smiting each other affectionately on the back. There was a brief flood of Spanish and the proprietor went back to his books.
"I had to promise to come out some night and spend some time with him when business pressures are less".
"Yes. I understood that much".
"Then you speak Spanish?"
"I can get along in it. Yours is polished and his is practiced".
He laughed and made room for drinks. He had ordered scotch and water. "His is certainly practiced and you must have a discerning ear. My parents were always sticklers for the purest form they could instill in us". He put down his glass and lit a long, black papered cigarette. "Now ... what happened to you a moment ago?"
She took half her drink and held out a hand. "Might I try one of those. I did once and they were delivious".
His grin was infectious. "Yes you tried one five years ago. I gave your father three cartons for Christmas".
She flushed a little. "Yes, that's where I got it, but that isn't what you asked me a moment ago. She sighed and blew a cloud of fragrant smoke upward. She turned her soft brown eyes to him with a steadiness that reminded him of her father. "May I call you Filipe?"
"Of course." His voice was low and soft noted. It made her comfortable and seemed to invite confidence.
"It's a terribly long story not without sordidness". Her look firmed. "I hope I won't ever hate myself for telling you but if, as Ken seems to think, you'd make a good escort while I'm under threat then ... Oh, hell I didn't mean it to sound that way. You've not even asked me. You haven't had a chance".
His face softened. "Put that as the only reason. Layne, may I make a boast?"
"Of course".
"I admire your father tremendously. Your brothers, Zack and Herb are my friends. I know Hollywood and what it can do to people. I'm not your judge. Please feel as free as you can".
She sighed and took another short drink. "Well ... that does make it easier. If you know Hollywood then there are some things I won't have to tell you. They would be the hardest ones". She dragged deeply at the cigarette. "There seem to be two general roads to take out here. You follow your nose and your friends' urging and what at times amount to a command performance. The other road is one of disillusionment especially when it appears that all men are after the same thing. Some take some paths others take divergent ones. Either you play or you have to be so good that no one can reach you. I'm about to find myself in that position but I took the first road early in my career. I don't make any excuses for it. It just seemed the easy way. Lately, I've begun to hate it. I've begun to see myself for what I am...." She shook her head. "This can't be me telling my secrets to a man I've just met by accident What must you think of me?"
"I think you're a confused person who has had a belated awakening. Your friend Bronson asked what had come over you, probably not the first time he's asked it one way or another. Maybe you've asked yourself. Also you're not really talking to a stranger. If you'd heard Ken brief me regarding you, you'd have been impressed as I, that, indeed, you are something quite special, that you are in a period of difficult transition, that most of this business has been sliding off you like rain off a roof because you're late waking up. You have waked or the old life wouldn't pose any problem now. For your information, I'd already told Ken, that, if for no other reason than my regard for your family, I intended looking you up, something I'd promised I'd do long before I heard of your problem. I was faced with the shy man's reluctance to wangle your telephone number from those who peddle such things and call you cold turkey. Speaking of turkey, here comes ours. They made small talk about nothing much while they ate then Soldarez ordered Alexanders.
"Lunch disturbed your train of thought" he suggested gently. "Care to start again?"
She shrugged helplessly. "But I shouldn't be burdening you with all this."
The hard blue eyes came up and met hers almost physically. "Let's dispense with that part, shall we? I'm to be here for six more months give or take a little. I hate carnivorous women."
"But isn't that exactly what I sound like weeping on your shoulder?"
"No. This meeting was, as you say, accidental. It was also fortuitous. I was going to phone you this evening. I have your number and your address in my wallet".
She sipped her liquor. "I'm not a very admirable person, Filipe. I know how you've been reared. I know what you must think of me. Didn't Ken tell you?"
"I'm afraid he did. Ken doesn't know how to dissimulate unless he's in court. He can claim professional privilege when that happens. Have you noticed any signs of revulsion since we've met?"
"Now you're being logical. Of course, I haven't. Since when did a Soldarez let something like that creep into his actions?"
He grinned. "Now you're quoting Ken on me. Ken's a good friend who has an outsized appreciation for what he calls my polish. I've no polish, Layne. Not in that sense. I'll admit I was carefully reared and my instructions were thorough, my punishment for lapses vigorous and prompt. If I have a certain air it is because that's the way I was reared. Naturally, I had to have something to let it plaster to".
"And that, probably explains it all. All right I'll talk. Please know that I'm aware that Ken rather wished me off on you. Tell me, you have your work, your friends and I know that he simply made a package of me and presented me to you. Won't that be an imposition?"
"It will not. My job is purely technical. Sometimes I examine the set and correct some flaw in pyramid structure, heiroglyphics and the liie. The producers and directors and set hands are almost as well up on Ancient Mexico as I am. Only in the deepest technical sense do they require assistance. Please go on without further reference to any inconvenience".
"You're kind. Well, as Ken probably told you I'm getting a good look at what I am."
"Were" he corrected. "And not even that. You were in Rome so you tried to be a Roman. You failed like many a Greek, Etruscan, and Egyptian".
"All right, 'were'. I didn't like what I saw. I want to change but I'm coming to the frightening conclusion that people are not going to let me change. Already, I've had two very scary encounters, three in fact ... No. I must be losing my mind. Four times it has happened. First, Russell, my agent simply wouldn't believe me and when I got mad and accused him of having a boyfriend in spite of his carefully masculine outer shell he slapped me flat".
Instantly the sharp angular face went iron hard and the eyes slitted. "Did you say his name is Russell?"
"Yes. You know him?"
"I know him ... that is,...." He nodded, a peculiar light in his eyes, "I'll know more of him, I think."
A strange muscular contraction found being in her stomach. The cat-savagery stood stark in his eyes. "Then Randy Bronson. I won't deny that I lost an encounter with him, but I won today, didn't I? With your help."
"You did without my help. How did you lose the first one?"
She flushed and looked away. "I went true to form". "Continue". "His voice apologized for probing too deeply.
"My producer simply flipped when he heard of my tiff with Russell. He came dashing over spouting German and bad English and frantically told me that my body was necessary to his genius. Imagine the nerve of such a man".
"I take it" said Soldarez silkily, "that he had no objections to sharing you with Russell".
"Yes ... that. Then he said he loved me and had even considered marriage. I asked him if I was to entertain visiting firemen under this ducky little arrangement and he grinned weakly and reminded me that this is Hollywood, Twentieth Century".
She was so furious she could hardly see and tears welled into her eyes and spotted her shirt.
The colonel nodded stiffly like metal bending. "If I didn't know your background I might have a different feeling about all this. I'll make you a bet you're just coming to realize that these men care less than nothing about you as a person. They're only interested in you as a bauble and a money-maker".
"Yes" she cried, "I'm nothing to them. I'm not a person with a heart, feelings, pride and some worth. I'm a slut, a bitch who is simply constructed to their specifications. Oh, Felipe, I'm so ashamed of me I could die".
"That you will not do. In your indignation I could see old Duane Conners. Like a weathered boulder standing on the lands that his father fought Indians for. Something he helped make with his own hands. I know what he'd do if some misguided person dared to desecrate that land. As long as your father's blood springs into being when needed you have nothing to worry about. He lit another cigarette after offering one to her which she accepted. "Layne, what does your career mean to you?"
She shook her head. "I can't answer that. I'm not faced with any immediate prospect of losing it so I can't answer honestly. I can tell you this. It means a great deal less to me now that I've started thinking".
"That listens good. When some woman tells you that they're going to have that career and run it to the last breath then I give up and walk away. They're prepared to do, literally, anything to see that it is advanced. I've heard them utter those very words. They can't have ignored the implications of the remark and they mean that such minor annoyances with which you are now at war are simply a part of the game. For those people there is no hope. They are addicts to this mirage. They'd have withdrawal fits if they had to leave and to leave a failure is unthinkable. Have you thought of these things?"
"Yes".
"And what did you conclude?"
She sighed and shook her head making her tawny hair dance. "If it takes that then I'll just pack up and go home". "You're sure?"
"I'm sure. I've had my eyes opened. Could I just close them and breeze merrily on my way?"
"No. I don't suppose, being your father's daughter, you could. Unless I miss my guess you'll fight".
"That's what frightens me. Felipe, you don't know the kinds of pressure they can put on a woman ... or a man, I suppose".
"I know of them, which, of course, isn't the same thing".
"My director, Fritz, Blom, threatened to smash me".
"Ah, the Teutonic knight. I know him too. He does sound desperate. I can't believe he could do it on his own and I can't imagine higher ups casting you adrift".
"They won't have to. Once out of this contract I won't sign another with them. I'll even refuse to be loaned out to them. As far as Layne Conners is concerned, Acme has had it".
He inhaled deeply and looked toward the road. "You seem to have made some enemies. When they discover you won't sign again then the fat will be in the fire. What if they approach you with a big figure much over your last salary?"
"That could happen. I still won't sign because I can't and won't work with Fritz Blom again".
"Fritz might be made to see the light".
"Can you imagine working with a man who has been forced to perform? And you don't know Fritz. He's just about at the top now. His pride is pathologic. His vanity is unbelievable. Right now all he's concerned with is smashing me. Unless he could be certain that a picture starring me would be a dog he wouldn't direct it. If he did that it would be a blow to his vanity. See what a spot he's in?"
"And in a spot like that almost anything can happen?"
"Yes and that's what frightens me. Felipe, I never had to fight anything like this. I'm a child when faced with men who have no regard for women except what you mentioned. Some terrible things have happened here and I don't have to draw you any pictures."
"But Duane Conner's girl isn't running".
"No. She isn't but I'm going to have to let people like Ken and his father who's my agent now do my fighting for me. Dad would go smoke someone up. Where he lives he could still get away with it because everyone knows him and that if he went smoking, someone needed it the worst way. Here it's different. This is the backbiting jungle. Here is dog eat dog, vampires sucking blood they can't manufacture themselves".
He ordered coffee and they drank in silence. Soldarez was concentrating, his inscrutable face wooden and still. Layne was examining him all over again. If he had a single psychic tic or discoloration it did not show. What showed was a man with impeccable personal tastes, a marvelous body, and a keen penetrating mind. His dress was a little bizarre but she realized it was because of his piratical air, the elegance of its origin, and the utter, careless nonchalance with which he wore it. The fact that it was different and might cause staring was something that bothered Felipe Soldarez not a whit. It happened to be what he liked and the opinions of unimportant people were weak weapons against his granite aplomb. She thought of the slavish devotion of her acquaintances to what passed for proper in matters of dress, speech, gesture and even entertainment. Even the beat population aped each other and had invented a vernacular to which they were slaves.
A truly different person, she decided, didn't care what people thought nor did they affect carnival attitudes to claim attention for themselves. True, Soldarez's uniform might cause comment but she couldn't imagine him having copied another officer's clothes. Apparently he had merely altered and rearranged his uniforms within the structure of military rule, something the United States Marines didn't hesitate to do in bleaching their khakis and wearing tailored blues with certain points of fit and decoration that were not to be found in the Table of Basic Allowances.
The blazing array of ribbons on his left chest she knew could not have been acquired in any manner other than that prescribed by the various nations who had bestowed them.
She came back to consciousness realizing that he was watching her directly. She flushed and he laughed.
"I'd give much to know what you were thinking right then".
"Well, frankly I was comparing you to some people I know. They didn't stack up very well".
"You don't know me very well, Layne".
"Just the same I don't think you're too hard to know. A person looking only at the buccaneer in you, looking only at your elegant military getup might think so, but I don't.
He shrugged. "Many people forget the Latin's flair for dress, his love for the spectacular. I don't apologize for that any more than I do for my name. Does a matador apologize for his finery?"
"What a wonderful bull fighter you'd make, Felipe".
He shook his head. "I took a fling at it once. Somehow after flying Spitfires against Messerschmidts and Stukas bullfighting seem a little tame and the showmanship and glamor of it never really reached me. I've watched Mano-lete in Spain and most of the other good ones. After seeing Manolete, the others ... Oh, you know how it is. No boxer on earth could have whipped Dempsey in his prime. I've heard your father say so. Somehow those who came after him were mere plodders. That's the way I feel about Manolete. I'm being untrue to his memory when I give 'Ole' to a lesser light. Shall we go? I'd suggest a short drive toward the desert unless time presses you".
"Oh no. Could I leave my car here?"
"Of course. Pepe will watch it for you. I'll drop him the word on the way out."
He whipped the long Sunbeam-Excel onto the highway with exactly the fluid ease she expected. "Even your car" she said with a laugh.
"How's that?"
"It even looks like you, lean and long and swift. Strong and sure".
"If you're handing out a line" he said quietly, "you manage to give it a sincerety I might doubt if I didn't know your folks. The Conners don't deal in talk for the sake of noise".
She gripped his right upper arm in gratitude. "Thanks, Felipe. It would be very easy for you to think it's just talk since you have to listen to so much of it out here. That along with the fact that you know I've behaved in a most un-Conner fashion".
He was quiet for a moment. "Ken had an opinion on that which I don't care to elaborate on at the moment and I think it explained you very well. Generally, it was that anyone who woke up as you have couldn't be what you're thinking of yourself. Naturally, you, in a burst of self punishment try to make it sound as badly as possible".
She nodded slowly. "I suppose I do. Is it because I want people to argue with me?"
His smile was gentle and understanding. "That is possible, of course. Layne, a loose woman has points of identification you don't possess. I can't say just what the chemistry of your acts were, but I don't think they'll have lasting effect upon you unless you become bitten by melancholy and remorse. Even a little of that isn't bad. It becomes bad when it reaches the point of fixation."
She sighed and settled back. "Then I better shut up about it. I know you're tired of listening to it".
"When I am I'll tell you so".
"Tell me something a great deal more interesting. Something about you".
He lifted a thick, swallow winged eyebrow at her, his blue eyes glinting in the sun. "You know how to get a man strung out don't you. I could hardly call my life dull. I use up quite a lot of energy and time to prevent it".
"What about your father and mother?"
"Well, they stay at El Hacienda del Sol in Tamulipas".
"How many acres?"
"Something around a hundred thousand and as thin as the grass is we need it all. The oil and silver helps".
"You also own El Hacienda del Sol in Texas, don't you?"
"Yes. We call them One and Two. Naturally, the one in Mexico is Number One. My father is eighty one, but you wouldn't believe it. Mamma is seventy and she hasn't a grey hair. Father is the greybeard. I have three sisters, all married and two brothers. One in Fort Leavenworth at the Army Staff School. The other is at Texas A&M trying to learn how to raise fat cows on poor land".
"Why did you never marry, Felipe?"
He shrugged. "When I was young and impressionable I was in love with flying. My life with the RAF was kind to me. I learned much".
"And they seemed to appreciate you ... all the allies, or they wouldn't have garnished you up this way". She motioned toward his ribbons.
"I was lucky and they were kind. I had three planes shot from under me and I got one trifling wound in my left leg. All three times I made it back over the Channel".
"What was your score?"
"Twenty-two, officially. I also flew key underground men in and out of France at night. France was grateful for some totally unrehearsed assistance I was able to give them. It was shoved down my collar so to speak".
"But you were so young".
"I soloed at thirteen much to Mamacita's objections and annoyance. Father, for some reason, though he wouldn't fly to save his neck, always encouraged me in my flying".
"Do you still fly?"
"Oh, yes. Often. Your government still remembers me. I fly jets out of the Marine Base in San Diego whenever I wish. They are very nice to me."
"Would your being a white card man have anything to do with that?"
He was silent for a moment. "So Ken told you that".
"He was also afraid he shouldn't have. He said not to press you about it".
"On the contrary I'm as proud of that card as I am any decoration I earned. I don't have to tell anything I don't want known, of course. There are maybe a hundred of us now. We are under the nominal command of a government agency in Washington. In the event of a catastrophe or national disaster we are to be the nucleus of a force that will try to see that freedom maintains. We have weapons caches and thousands of men ready for call although they don't know it yet. We will recruit spotless men who are to our knowledge, right. They will, in turn, draw upon their own fund of acquaintances for the same type of men and so on until we have quite a force. We are scattered all over the free world. I've seen maybe half the total force? I've worked with maybe a twentieth of them already. So far, all we've done is sort of stamp out little irritant fires that could be more than that if they should run wild. Wc goofed on Cuba although there wasn't much we could do, what with the left hand in Washington not knowing what the right hand was doing. We have two men in Cuba and their warnings were ignored or poorly evaluated."
"Was that why you flew to Washington the other day?"
"No comment" he said grinning. "Or don't you read the papers. I brightened the escutcheon of the Soldarez family as well as that of the Marines, not that they needed it. I broke the existing cross-country speed record for jets".
She clapped her hands. "Of course. I saw the picture of the plane and ... well, I guess it was you, but the picture wasn't very good".
"It was terrible" he replied, "except of the plane which was the real reason for the picture".
"The real reason?"
He looked perplexed. "Why not?"
"I was thinking that if you wanted to make a visit to Washington appear really harmless why not make a great to do over it?"
He laughed. "I'd better stop talking about that. You're turning out to be sharp".
"Pursuing my sharpness Felipe, are you really a technical adviser or do you have other reasons for being here?"
"Work pursues me and you pursue your curiosity. I am a colonel in the Mexican Air Force. My name is Phillipe Aristide de la Salle D'Ortego Soldarez-Peon. My serial number is five-o-four-three-seven-six. Geneva Confererence Rules say that that's all I can tell you".
"All right. Have your mystery, but I'm glad I ran into you today".
He chuckled. "I am also glad to have'run into you today'. What say we do the town ... I almost said tonight but I can't make it. Tomorrow night?"
"I always make it a habit to refuse the first request for a date. Make it tomorrow night and my pride will be saved".
He shook his head. "Can't make it tomorrow night. Will tomorrow night do?"
"Tomorrow night will be fine". She laughed at the silliness and felt relieved.
CHAPTER SEVEN
She blew into the apartment making Evey think of days past when her mistress would come in fresh and exhili-rated from some new triumph. She hoped that this new attitude too, signalled a new triumph.
"I had the most marvelous day, Evey," she said breathlessly. "I ate the most wonderful lunch in Pomona with the most beautiful man alive".
Evey grunted disgustedly. "Another of those, yet? I will see to the supply of vases. People have been calling all day, only one of whom was my Pepe. I hope you can spare me tonight. With all that has been happening, I feel the need for tequila and Pepe".
"You may have both, but don't sneer at my new man. He's a colonel in the Mexican Air Force and his name is Felipe Soldarez".
"Soladarez. Madre de fortuna. Is he the Soldarez of El Hacienda del Sol?"
"The same family and you should see him".
"I have and in truth he is beautiful but I do not trust beautiful men. Most of all I do not trust beautiful Mexican men. They are too much in awareness of their beauty".
"Not this one. He is a true caballero. He could wear a saber and be perfectly in character".
Evey shrugged philosphically. "It is that he might be a welcome change. Such cabras as have been fouling our doorway. Are you sure you will be all right?"
"Certainly. Get along with your tequila party. I'll be fine".
Felipe Soldarez pulled his car to the rich marquee of the Hotel Moctezuma and got out with the light step of a trained athelete. He surrendered the car to an attendant, walked into the lobby and was lost from sight. As the attendant was parking the car in the garage a slender dapper man approached. The left side of his face was swollen and discolored.
"Nice car" he began conversationally.
"Sure is" said the attendant enthusiastically. "Man, what I wouldn't give for one like it".
"I'd be willing to give you a ten spot for a starter".
The man immediately became suspicious. "Well now. Like why, man?"
"I'd just like to know the man's name. I'd like to talk to him about it".
"I dig the ten spot, but maybe it might be worth more".
"Not a dime more" snarled the man losing his affability.
"Okay. Leave us not lose our temper. Scratch my palm and I'll give".
The bill changed hands and the man said. "He's a guest. Name of Soldarez".
"Thanks for nothing" said the other, still in a temper and walked away.
Fritz von Blom who had, for reasons that had nothing to do with modesty or a democratic spirit seen fit to abandon the von, sat in his apartment and drank vodka, something he hoped would not provide him with a monumental hangover of the species usually visited upon his suffering soma, inevitably the after aftermath of injudicious tippling. He had never liked alcohol and alcohol seemed to have a similar if more vindictive dislike for him. For the first time in his life he felt the need of something that combined carelessness with courage then combined them both with a certain amount of oblivion. Freed, miraculously, it seemed, from the just revenge of many people who would have exchanged much for his blood, by the kind offices of a smooth cheeked second lieutenant of the American Army, whose suspicions, if any, had been lulled by the presentation of a magnificent camera, he was feeling again the pinch of pressures. First, it had been the inexorable pressures inherent to being one of Hitler's Elite Guard who had transgressed. He had been sent to the infamous Belsen and from there to several other gas factories and crematoriums. In his defense it must be admitted that Fritz Blom was not an intrinsically evil man. This duty had galled him, sickened his sensitive artistic soul and there had been years of hideous nightmares since. Now he felt himself being encircled by another net. This one, in ways, was worse even though it did not threaten his person. Instead it threatened his career which he loved almost as much as he loved Fritz Blom. He would never forget that first briefing session any more than he would forget the blonde bitch who had inveigled him into attending. This same blonde Brenda Watters had frequented the bed of Mangel Wadsworth and knowing of her natural commercialism as well as Wadsworth's natural aversion to paying for anything so plentiful as feminine favors, drew his own conclusions. They were many and varied and it is possible that some of them by the obesity of numbers, were correct.
As if Blom hadn't enough worries, his own choice of feminine favor had turned her back on him, something that had happened very few times in all Blom's years. This rankled terribly and it seemed that a kind of madness had come upon him. Hitler's mistake in dealing with Blom had been in not making him a general. It is certain that he could not have been worse than some of Der Fuhrer's choices and it is not un-likely that he would have been better.
At the moment he sat, drank vodka and lime juice, and constructed broad, many faceted strategems. They em braced his predicament with the thick bespectacled man who was the head of the Red cell and went under the innocuous and unimpressive name of Jim Smith. This he had discovered in his own fashion, having recognized another fellow worker at the studios attending the briefing. If blackmail was the order of the day then it would be stupid of him not to use some on his own account. He held double-fisted ammunition in this particular case, being nominally in charge of the man's future. Although the victim had long espoused questionable causes having to do with dividing the wealth he seemed singularly reluctant to divide any of his own. Instead he bent every effort to amass as much as swiftly as was commensurate with existing statutes having to do with taxation and acquisition. So he had talked after extracting a potent sounding oath of silence from Fritz Blom, an oath Blom would keep sacred as long as it suited his purpose to do so.
Blom, upon finding a pipeline to the inside and also discovering how it could be maneuvered set about to quietly amass such information as he could keeping a careful record of his findings. In this fashion he discovered that the arrival of a certain Soldarez from Mexico was to be an event of importance and though he could not at the moment see that it could be of any value filed it dutifully with other information. He even sought the company of Randy Bronson, something that galled him to the ankles because he cordially hated the assured, voluble M.C. with his scathing tongue and air of immoderate enjoyment of life which he knew to be spurious. Randy had too many hidden fears to be happy. He was too elated over to small victories and too immersed in love of self. That Blom himself was similarly afflicted, of course, never pentrated his armor plated Germanic arrogance.
It was in the company of Bronson and his gang one night that Blom had found himself at the Pendulum paired off with Brenda Watters upon whom he had cast an acquisitive eye at one time only to succumb to the lusher attractions of Layne Conners. Brenda proved to be stupid in matters of intrigue by assuming that since Blom apparently knew of the coming arrival of Soldarez he was on the inside of things and when he left her he was considerably better off in his pursuit of intelligence. She didn't know too much it was true, but he discovered that Soldarez had been an important figure in the Cuban insurrection as well as an abortive attempt in the Dominican Republic not long past although he had managed to remove the greatest stumbling block to ideological invasion, Generalissimo Trujillio.
She didn't know why Soldarez was coming nor did she know why it was to be a signal event. Blom felt certain that high operatives came and went with great frequency. He was in an itch to know what was so special about this man from Mexico and why was he coming to the United States.
At a party later that same night at Blom's apartment, one that had been born during a similar get together at the Pendulum, a party that found Brenda making one of her expert fades after a mysterious phone call, the subject of Randy's face came up. The others had drifted in pairs to hidden nooks and bedrooms leaving only Blom and Randy in the living room scowling into drinks. Randy had made a howling success of his face at the club that night, calling repeated attention to it and giving a masterfully spurious and different excuse for it each time recalling most of the ancient excuses the husband gave their wives when surprised trying to sneak in, shoes in hand. The audience loved it, forgot the face and had a ball, but Randy couldn't forget it.
He was now drunk and Blom was as fuzzy brained as get without keeling over. This time he was trying cognac and so far it was treating him well.
"Found out who the sunnabitch is though" mumbled Randy, hardly conscious of Blom's presence. He caressed the tender side of his face. "Don't know what's geddin' inter Layne...."
"Layne!" Blom sat erect too suddenly, he almost fell over.
"Sure. Long time she's benna good gal. All sweet 'n cuddly 'n soft...." He sighed tremulously. "Now dammid she's a gardam hermit 'n won' let y' touch 'er. He stroked his face.
"Started to whang the hell outer her the other day. She threw rocks at me in that red monster she was drivin'...." He made gestures in the air. "Sunnabitch ... he knocked me on my can and swole up m' face." He sighed again and Blom could have killed him. He knew about Bronson and Layne, but as in the case of Russell he had ignored it but Russell had better taste than to talk about it before Blom until the axe had fallen upon him.
"I'll geddim" mouthed Randy bitterly. "By God I'll ged-dim and I'll ged her too. She laughed at me siddin' on my can in the asphalt. Laughed...." He hiccoughed violently and poured more whiskey.
"Who did it"? asked Blom watching his accent.
"Oh...." Randy rolled his eyes triumphantly. "I know who did it, awri'. See...." He leaned offensively close and breathed in Blom's face which revolted the latter unendur-ably. "See ... He's got one o' those big long Sunbeams ... y' know like Curt Flamey's got. Only two I know of in town. This'n's blue, sapphire blue." He drank and put the glass down.
"Who was it"? asked Blom annoyed to extinction. He was further annoyed because he really didn't give a Bavarian damn who the man was, but if he could get it out of Randy maybe he'd shut up and pass out.
"Ahhh ... Bet he didn't realize about tha' car ... Stands out too much an' I saw 'im comin' in down Wil-shire so I tailed 'im". Bronson blinked and let the enormity of this act sink into Blom.
"Tailed 'im, by God, and know who it was?"
"No", snapped Blom with titanic restraint.
"Ahhh. Bet he don' know I know either". He swayed and took another drink. He leaned close again. "Know sumn'. He was tailin' Layne".
"He was?" Blom was considerably more interested now. Knowing that some man in a long blue car had knocked Randy Bronson on his can was a matter of vast satisfaction, but now the matter bade fair to grow.
"He was".
"Well, who was he?"
"Ahhh." said Randy dramatically. Blom cursed in German and his face grew red. The ass would maunder all night.
"Bet he don't know I know either, but I tailed 'im till he stopped tailin' Layne then I tailed 'im to the Moc ... Ummm, er, hotel. Then I give a car jockey a bill and he spills".
"Does he?"
"Sure. Sunnabitch name's Sol ... Soldraiz ... Gardamit...." He concentrated. "Soldarez. Tha's who".
"What'd he look like" asked Blom excitedly.
"Him ... Hell ... jus' a man". Randy hiccoughed. He sighed and lay back on the couch and in seconds was snoring.
Blom thought back on that night as he tasted his vodka and lime juice. It had been a brawl all right and after unsuccessfully trying to get rid of them he had gone to bed on another couch. He had wakened with the father of hangovers in company with six people similarly affected and the results had been chaotic and maddening. After that night he put cognac into discard along with bourbon, beer, scotch and slivovitz. Now as he sat and plotted and drank vodka he was chancing that this time he might be able to arise without hoping that it would be fatal. Cultivating Randy's mob had been fortuitous. He had learned some thing that apparently no one else in the cell knew. That Soldarez was already in town and moreover, was using his own name. He had wondered if Randy had been wrong and made a test. He had put a call through asking for the name and had been told that Colonel Soldarez was out, would he leave a message? No, he'd call back. Still, it seemed odd. Why would a man advertize in such a fashion? Possibly he had some deep plot afoot and this was a part of it. Also the car. With only two in the city, certainly , he knew it would be spotted and wondered about.
Blom shook his head and tasted vodka. It was too deep for him but at least he had the information. He wondered if Randy had told any of the rest about it? Probably not. He certainly hadn't mentioned anything at all about the swollen face that night until he had gotten drunk, except his joking before an audience at the Pendulum.
The next day Blom was elated. He had risen with a fairly clear head. Maybe vodka was his drink. During the day he had the opportunity of speaking to his man and asking a few questions. No, the man was sure Soldarez had not arrived. Yes, he was certain. He'd certainly know when he came in. Why was Blom curious?
Blom was only in the mood for asking questions. He wasn't answering any. He made further furtive inquiries and discovered that Soldarez registered address was Xnipec, Tamulipas, Mexico and he was certain this was the right man. Who on earth would use such an address which to Blom sounded like the Mexican equivalent of Squeedunk, Idaho, unless there was something to hide? Blom's abilities as a tactician and a hatcher of plots while imaginative did not approach his self styled state of genius.
Layne Conners was in a near pet. As near as her father's daughter ever allowed herself to get. Soldarez had called the night he was supposed to appear, but only to announce that it was impossible to do so. He offered no excuses and worse, no reasons. He hadn't been in a talkative mood either and this set up an irritation possible only in a woman who has had men hanging around begging for favors for a long time. She took time out to be grateful because Btonson and his pets had apparently decided to desert her. She realized that it was too much to hope that it was permanent, but their next move might be something she didn't like to think about.
Steadfastly she refused to open the door of her heart, even in prospect, to the terrific magnetism or Felipe. She knew or felt that if she did she would hit the skids and go down as on a greased chute. So, although she could not and did not try to keep him out of her mind she allowed him to float about on the surface of her consciousness, never allowing him audience to the depths of her thoughts. In this she was indulging in self-illusionment but this, of course, she could not know. At the moment she lay sprawled on her couch in a frothy little thing that was neither a nightie nor lounging pajamas combining some features of both. Like all her clothes, Layne had bought the creation with fit in mind and the way it fit was breathtaking. Evey came in to announce that she was now through with the dinner dishes and would like a smoke.
"It is that a woman is forever washing something. Clothes, dishes, herself if she is the least bit concerned with her pride." She sighed and lit a Delicado.
"Pour yourself some wine" suggested Layne flipping over and falling flat on her stomach.
"That, I think, I will do" said Evey and proceeded to the little bar, opened it and poured herself a generous serving of brandy.
"That stuff will get you crocked if you don't watch out".
"And why not? El sopelotes are leaving us alone. They do not threat. They do not visit. It is very nice. One can of one's self, relax. It is work washing dishes and cracking cabezas with vases".
Layne laughed freely. "You know, since I met Senor Soldarez I haven't even wanted a drink".
"That is well" said Evey looking at the girl critically. "In that ... whatever it is, you make me wish I was a man. It is like you were illegal, that the Rurales should lock you up for exposure. Yes, I could wish that I was a man".
Layne cocked a thick symmetrical eyebrow at Evey. "Did you say was or had".
"Was ... which you correctly heard. A man I have!" She shuddered ecstatically. "The other night my Pepe was magnificent, He is so strong, such a man, such a night of love after tequila had brought the blood to the fast boil".
Layne felt a disturbing stir in her loins, like distant thunder on a summer night. All she needed was about three Martinis and she'd be a bitch again. It was something she knew like she knew she was Layne Conners. Her lips tightened. In that case, no drinks. Still, it was like a penance. Why shouldn't she have a drink if she wanted one? The phone rang and Evey answered it. She turned covering the mouthpiece with her hand. "I thought it was too good to last".
"Which one?"
"Senor Mallory and he has had too much".
"All right. Bring it here. I might as well get it over
"Layne". The voice was coarse and slurred.
"I'm gonna tell y' sumpn for your own good". "All right" she said frigidly. "Get it over with. I'm expecting company".
"Randy told me about the other day".
"I was sure he would, but did he tell it all". "All what?"
"That I out-gutted him in a race in a handmade hotrod. I chewed his Romeo to bits. I blew rocks in his face then when he tried to get rough with me later a certain friend of mind knocked him cockeyed. Now, how much of it did he tell you?"
There was a short humid silence at the other end. "Just about the guy sluggin' him".
"So I thought. If you'd listen to the phony you'd think he won the Indianapolis Speedway Cup".
"The other guy is the one I'm talking about. I don't know what's with you these days. I think you're off your rocker, but if I see you around with that tin soldier I'm gonna muss up his uniform".
"Your insurance paid up?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Because, son, he'll pull your arms off. He could take two like you. Goodnight". She crashed the receiver up in Mallory's ear and sat in fuming silence for a moment. Then she turned loose, had a good Texas cuss and felt better. Then the phone rang again. This time it was a surprise.
"Miss Conners?"
"Yes".
"This is Mangel Wadsworth".
She almost made an exclamation of surprise, but with great effort managed to keep her voice coolly impersonal. "Yes, Mr. Wadsworth, what can I do for you?"
This flustered the great man because he floundered badly for a few seconds. Mangel Wadsworth didn't phone people, personally, so it came as a shock when Layne accepted his call as either a curiosity or her due. Either contingency was fraught with an equal amount of annoyance to Mr. Wadsworth.
"I ... er, that is...." he coughed gently and settled down. "I was wondering what the trouble is between you and our Mr. Blom."
"He didn't tell you?"
"Well, as a matter-of-fact he did, but I find his tale most strange."
"I'm sure you do" she said. "That is, if he told you the truth. A great many people, Mr. Wadsworth, have been taking me for granted. That I do not like and I come from a long line of people who do something about what they don't like".
"Ah ... um ... yes of course. So do I, as a matter-of-fact. Witness the fact that I'm calling you which I seldom if ever do. I was thinking maybe we'd better talk it over. We must keep Fritz happy".
"I'll tell you what. You keep him happy. As of a few days ago his happiness is of the most abysmal indifference to me".
"But you must realize that it is very difficult to work with a man and have a feud with him at the same time".
"No one knows that better than I, but since the feud is the sole property of Fritz Blom, be assured that as long as he treats it as such and demands his pound of flesh as well as whatever talents I may possess there can be no working with him. None whatever."
"Your contract will be up for option before long" he reminded her ominously.
"I know that and here's something to fatten your knowledge. I won't sign any contract with Acme in the future.
There was a silence generally termed pregnant. "Are you fully aware of what you're saying?"
"I'm not asleep if that's what you mean".
"My dear girl, you're overwrought. I've been hearing about it. Why not see me tomorrow in my office. We'll discuss the matter in full".
"I'll do so if it pleases you" she said with distinct bluntness. "But it won't change anything".
"I don't think" he said heavily, "that you're aware of many things. We made you what you are, you know".
"Yes, I know. What's the gross of my latest three pictures".
He strangled on that, but finally mentioned a fantastic figure.
"I think we could say that Acme has been repaid for making me, couldn't we?"
"Let's talk it over tomorrow" he said in a strangely chastened voice.
Layne returned the receiver to its cradle and stretched out again. Her legs were long cool columns of the rarest ivory and the romper-like bottom of her costume revealed them to the fullest. Her breasts pouted high, hillocks of firm youthful flesh, their sharp tips fighting the sheer material which revealed their outlines duskily. She sighed and writhed slowly savoring the stretch deeply. She wished Felipe would ... She cut off the thought short. It had almost slipped up on her and this she could not afford. Once in she knew he'd be terribly hard for her to eject him. She recalled the fierce ache of her heart the one time before when she's been in love. No more of that, she told herself, and again she could not know that she was wrong.
The next call was Felipe. "I'm crushed" he said, his voice making mice chase over her skin.
"It has been two days and, alas, I'm still stuck on something that demands my time. May I make plans for tomorrow night?"
She almost accepted with haste. "Well, I'd better think it over. It isn't often I get stood up flat".
"For that I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. Tomorrow night?"
Suddenly she realized she'd been feeling childish about the whole thing such as coming close to the edge of a pet. "Of course, Felipe. I'm just kidding. I know you have a lot of important things to do".
"Fine. I'll pick you up and we'll do the town".
When she hung up her heart was hammering in the old way and there was nothing she could to about it. For a few minutes she fought herself out of the miasma of excitement that his voice had stirred and had to do deep breathing exercises to quell the runaway emotion that had almost pounced upon her in an unguarded moment. Still, she didn't look ahead to try to see what would happen in a sweet private moment, under the stars or the moon. She didn't because she couldn't. She knew deep down what it would do to her so she refused to treat with it in prospect.
The next morning she dressed in smart, colorful simplicity. The dress was daringly cut and the creamy globes of her breasts revealed exciting quarter-moons above the close fitting dress. Her skin was as smooth as ice cream, deliciously touched, but not punished, by the sun, to a milky, peach-blush touched with tan. She wore no makeup except lipstick and her hair fell in deep natural waves to the nape of her neck. Her choice of dress was deliberately chosen to inflame. Now that she had no intention of capitulating she was twice as conscious of it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The office of Mr. Wadsworth, was as are the offices of the Messers Wadsworth the world over was designed to give the impression of modern enormity. To Layne, it seemed about the size of a modest basketball court. At the far end stood his desk, a gigantic thing of mahogony and glass richness. The carpet was deep and noiseless as she walked across it to the desk. Her stride was a little too natural for the actress and model, but perfect for the way she felt. It was a sinuous glide that was just short of stalking, her hips moving in a natural rhythm and Mr. Wadsworth who had spent the better part of his life peddling flesh in one form or another, hardly restrained a gasp. Although he was a great one for sampling his own wares, with advancing age he had gradually restrained his amorous interludes and possibly nature had assisted no little. He needed someone like Brenda Watters whose inhibitions, assuming that she had ever had any, were indiscernable now and whatever it took to stimulate Mr. Wadsworth, Brenda was only too happy to provide.
"Please be seated, Layne. I may call you Layne may I not?"
She sat down and crossed her nylon sheathed legs. "You already have."
He laughed hollowly. "Yes, I have, haven't I. What can I make you, a drink, coffee...?"
"Nothing, thank you. I believe we were to discuss contracts".
"Ah ... yes, of course." He heaved seismically in his chair and frowned. "Suppose we begin by saying that it is a rare thing that we don't get our way in matters of a contract. If it is money that's worrying you I'm sure that can be satisfactorily adjusted. As you forced me to admit on the phone, you are a very valuable property".
"Fritz speaks of smashing me. I'd be a fool to stay around with a director who felt that way".
"Fritz will do as he is told, but we must keep him happy. Fritz is a genius".
"I was not aware of that, only that he thought so".
He gave the hollow laugh again. "He is, believe me. Fritz has imagination and a rare talent for putting that imagination on film. My fool writers can only put it on paper. He can take it from paper, channel it through people and onto film. Any studio in the city would give their right arm to have him".
"Some several have given notice that they want me too ... on my own terms".
He shook his head sadly. "We can't spend on a girl what we've spent on you and have you walking out".
"I can name you twenty without thinking hard, now free-lancing who had contracts."
"How many" he said, his voice edged with malice, "do you know who are free-lancing who were under contract to Acme".
Her gaze was sober. "In other words you're all ready to give me the Velma Cullen treatment if I don't agree?"
A wave of sick pallor chased the blood from his face. He leaned forward, his teeth bared, his breath coming raspy and hard. "Don't you ever, as long as you live mention that name again in my presence".
A slight smile twitched the corners of her mouth. "I think it'll be fun. I'm neither a potential alcoholic nor a snow bird".
He breathed heavily for a long minute. "Cross me, girl, and you'll hate yourself for life".
She nodded. "As I said. I think it'll be fun".
"Maybe you'll think it's fun, but then you're young and foolish. Layne, I don't want to fight with you. You've been a model actress. You don't complain, you accept the parts we assign to you, you cooperate with publicity, you don't beef about the discomforts of location. Now all of a sudden, you want to kick over the bucket. I don't get it, Fritz doesn't, Russell doesn't...."
"And neither does Randy Bronson" she finished for him.
He shrugged. "And I'd been thinking about a picture costarring you and Randy. He's about ready for pictures."
"You can forget it. I wouldn't appear in a charity short with him".
He looked at her. "The unbelievable thing about you is that you went along so well for several years. Oh ... there are some women who were carefully reared and balk at certain prerogatives which we of management retain for ourselves but they usually wake up when they know what the score is. He pointed to a little alcove. He pushed a button and heavy expensive wine colored drapes pulled aside to reveal a sumptuous couch that by its very shaped argued against it having been constructed solely for sitting.
"I call it the Mayflower" he said cornily. "You'd be surprised how many tender pullets have come across on it".
She was sickened and angry because a month ago she wouldn't have been. "How many failures" she wanted to know.
"None" he said flatly. "Not a single one". Her eyes were opaque. "Mr. Wadsworth, how much damage would it do your pride if you lost a battle?"
He shrugged. "The probability never entered my head. I can look at you and see that I stay in my office too much. I never really appreciated you before".
"It came late" she said crisply. "And if you ever tried to get me on that couch, I'd do my best to tear your head off". She was so furious she couldn't see.
"My dear" he said with deadly malice, "before you pursue this any further you'd best stop and think with whom you have to deal. I'm not a temperamental director or a stumbling agent".
"I came to talk contract. I've talked it". She stood up. "I hope you have no assignments until the expiration of my contract because I will never put my foot on a set of yours again".
"I think you will regret this". His face was was white and taut.
"I doubt it" she said and walked out of the office.
Layne went directly home, undressed and lolled on her couch in the pure nude. She got a thrill of sorts exposing her body, even when there was no one to look at her. She revelled in the ants she had put in Mr. Wadsworth silken underwear. She rather imagined that he had smugly considered using his couch then probably would have called Fritz in and gloated over the fact, pointing out that while relative youth might exercise often it was the past-middle-aged man who could add up the choice morsels. Mr. Wadsworth had a peculiar streak in him which took the form of seeing himself as the irresistible, lusty male and this never left him even when he was forced to use threats against a real or desired career to gain his ends. He had been given the cold shoulder once in public and he'd never forgotten it. That he had ruined the woman who'd done it causing her to go down and down until only the bottom was left was weak revenge. When Velma Cullen died he felt as though she had betrayed him. She'd left him with nothing to hate, nothing upon which to vent his sadistic revenge, nothing but the still bleeding scar she'd left when she cut him down before a grinning crowd.
Randy Bronson was in a dilemma. He, along with the others, had received quite a volume of literature and to him it was hot. He feared no search and subsequent revelations to minions of the law, but it could happen and he went weak at the very thought. His part in the subtle campaign in addition to that mentioned at the meeting was to poke fun at dignitaries, public officials in a manner that would reflect upon their abilities, the idea being the gradual undermining of popular confidence. To Randy, who had always ridden the popular waves of funpoking had in his day taken some pretty rough swings at public figures, all in good clean fun. He knew other comics whose principal forte was satirizing politicians and other well known figures. Riding a popular trend was his principal weakness as a comic. It all seemed far fetched to him, as if anyone would listen seriously to a night club comedian. He was successful and now pictures and TV had begun to beckon and the thought of losing all this to an ideology which he imperfectly understood and with which he had no sympathy sat in his throat like a lump of frozen acid. His past had been discovered by the heartless Jim Smith and he had no doubt the man would use it where it would do the most harm should he have to.
Now he had received a summons that he would like to ignore, but Randy Bronson was no man of courage and he knew he'd have to answer it. It was couched, in clear concise language even though brought to him by word of mouth, the mouth being none other than the voluptuous Brenda Watters. He followed the shifty course to the meeting place and was promptly ushered into the presence.
"I hear" said Smith, "that you and a certain Soldarez have a vendetta".
"We do"! said Randy grittily. "He knocked me down and insulted me before witnesses. I said I'd get him and I will".
Smith cocked his ponderous head on the side. "It has come to my ears that such is the case. I must warn you that if you so much as mention the man's name in the future, please believe me, Mr. Bronson, the entire contents of this dossier will reach the proper persons. Am I understood?"
Randy went pale and gulped. "What's this tin soldier to you?"
"To you I will say a little. Not much. Soldarez is one of us. He is a very, very important man on a very important mission. I must admit a certain mystification as to why he chose to put himself up in one of our best hotels, dress in a uniform and otherwise act what to me seems the epitomy of ignorance. Also he has not contacted us which we expected him to do immediately. Had it been another, I would have to investigate and ask questions. Soldarez, no. Whatever his reasons, they are good ones, believe me. Do not, I pray, involve yourself with him. If you should seriously annoy him he would cut your throat without an instant's hesitation. He has done so many times before. Should you annoy him at all I will act and it is possible that you would prefer to have your throat cut. That is all, Bronson. Get out of my sight."
Randy almost galloped out of the dingy office, his throat thick with fear and rage. A freezing thought stopped him in midstride. Mallory had already said in a loud voice what he would do to the tin soldier should he ever see him. If he was with Layne the beating would be worse. Panic was clutching his throat now and grew worse when he recalled how he had baited the big man into making this declaration and how he had, in his glee, promised to do something great for him. Now he was faced with the prospect of begging him out of it. He whimpered with distraction. He was close to hysteria. Peg would think him insane and probably go ahead with his plan anyhow. How would be explain his change of heart? How could he admit to Peg that another had information that could ruin him? He groaned again. He simply couldn't do it. Then like Blom, he felt trapped and any rat will fight if there is the means. He couldn't fight Smith directly because Smith seemed eager to deliver his information. Randy realized that to Smith he was a very small, not very important cog in a gargantuan wheel, one that could be chiseled out without affecting the whole at all.
No, he couldn't say anything to Mallory. Of one thing he was certain, he could and would stay far far from any warfare concerning the two. He had intended to see it but never join battle. Battle was for jerks and Randy Bronson thought too much of his hide. Also like Blom, he began to plot.
While Randy Bronson sweated, plotted and suffered, Fritz Blom also sweated, plotted and suffered. At the moment he was assuaging his suffering with liberal jolts of vodka and orange juice. Very carefully he went over everything that had happened to put him in this predicament beginning with the briefing in the dingy room and his one-sided discussion with Jim Smith. He shuddered and drank then a blaze of intense nationalism flared through his veins. Who was Jim Smith? Who, indeed, to tilt with a former Elite Guardsman? He got up and strode across the living room with hard heel jarring strides, his face grew red and emotion choked his throat. A schwein-hund, a dog of a Communist threatened him with personal danger and the extinction of his career. At the meeting there had been others who had been exposed by a Congressional Committee ... Fritz Blom stopped dead in his tracks. Every man and woman at that meeting in some manner had been or was connected with Acme Studios. That simply could not be a coincidence. He wondered if there was a connection. Bronson was being considered for a role. Russell, while, only an agent, had placed all his stable with Acme. When Layne drew the axe on him to whom did she run? To Acme in the person of Blom. Was it because he knew Blom also had an interest in the girl?
Blom grew excited and strode across the room singing Die Wacht am Rhine in a thundering baritone. He dialed the number of his pipeline into the red cell, the one whose future he held in his hand, the one whom he was now blackmailing in a way that had not yet become open threat.
No, he did not know just why all those at the meeting had been connected with Acme, but did not Blom know that Acme was paying for scripts written by those who had been blackballed by other studios? Did Blom not know that this had been going on almost as long as Wadsworth had been at the Acme helm?
"Who is Wadsworth and where did he come from" Blom wanted to know.
That information was not forthcoming because the man did not know, so Blom hung up and stood stiffly at attention for a moment. He gave the Nazi salute, shouted "Deutchland uber Alles" and fell flat. The vodka had been accelerated through his system by his increased heartbeat and had thrown him temporarily. He giggled and lay on the floor for a while without attempting to get up. Strangely, he did not resent Layne Conners now. They were it seemed, in the same boat. He now saw Wadsworth as some dark influence and he recalled the vague threats he had uttered when they last spoke. The pipeline had told of the meeting with Layne, and even gave a rough outline as to what had transpired. It was common talk that Layne would not renew her contract, had told Wadsworth off in round numbers and was a very likely candidate for some of his famous "discipline".
Blom giggled again and fell into a restful sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
Layne, dressing for her date with Soldarez, had to quell an impulse. It was an impulse to dress as obscurely as possible and as far as possible from her usual habit of dressing to cause the general raising of male blood pressure. She knew that the impulse was born of a desire to appeal to her escort's sense of propriety and she forcibly put it aside. If he knew anything of her at all he'd see through it instantly and she didn't want to start off on a dishonest foot. She was ready an hour ahead of time dressed like a school girl in a simple cocktail frock that complimented the blue of her eyes and revealed the disturbing lines of her figure. Like the one she had worn to her appointment with Wadsworth, it was daringly cut in front. If she leaned over, the dress fell away a bit in the front and a watcher might feast his eyes on the creamy hillocks with a gesture support of a nylon lace bra that did not cover more than two thirds of their firm bulk.
Kenneth Wolff preceded Soldarez and Layne, looking fresh and very young with only a touch of lipstick and her hair brushed until it glistened like tawny gold, falling simply in deep waves to the back of her neck, raced to him and kissed him resoundingly. "I'm so glad to see you" she said sparkling so vividly that Wolff felt like he'd been touched with an electric arc.
"I'm glad you're glad" he murmured. "However, at the moment we must discard this admiration caucus. I must tell you something before Felipe gets here. Not that he'd mind, but it might be something he feels reluctant to tell you."
"I've felt that there was something like that" she replied, soberly. "It was when I questioned him about the white card. He spoke freely up to a point, then that was all".
"Yes ... Well, he's on something important up here. His job with the Mexican studio while authentic is merely fortuitous. His real job is much more important. The reason I'm telling you this is because it is possible that he might have to take you home suddenly from a date or might not be able to show at all. Luckily, the last time he had an opportunity to call you. He might not be so lucky again. The point is, I don't want you feeling hurt or put upon if he acts strangely in certain things. I sound silly telling it but what we want from you is absolute obedience and no argument no matter how strange something might seen to you".
She looked at him steadily for a moment. "I have good instinct, Ken. I'll behave. I've sensed this for some time".
"Good. That's all we want".
"'We'? "In other words you're in it too?"
"Ask me no questions and I shall be forced to concoct no fiction".
At that moment the chimes sounded and Evey went to the door. Soldarez bowed to her as though she were a princess and shot a flood of Spanish at her. Evey, taken aback flushed violently answered like a person just learning the language. He gave her his cap and turning walked toward where Layne and Ken sat in the living room.
"Buenos tardes and other polite expressions indicative of cheer, greetings and affection", he said breezily shaking hands with Layne with a strong firm grip which pleased her absurdly. She had always been of the opinion that men who shook hands with women did so with great choice and it held more than the usual meaning.
"Talk" said Wolff sourly, "was never your shortcoming. I speak only of the quantity of it".
Layne, still grateful for the handshake and feeling like she'd known him forever gave him a short moist kiss. "Then I shall speak of the quality. It is of the highest".
Soldarez bowed and clicked his heels together elegantly. "When milady speaks so truthfully shall I listen to the maunderings of a jealous man? Nay. Will you join us in wassail, Ken?"
"I'm not wanted. Both of you are hoping for a refusal".
Soldarez accepted a drink from the still dazzled Evey who had forgotten to fix one for Ken or Layne, apologized profusely when Layne reminded her of the oversight and was back in a twinkle with more drinks.
Tonight he was dressed in another uniform, similar to but with points of difference from the previous one she had seen. Like the other it fitted him with that sort of perfection of which Ken had appraised her. His hair was slicked into careful place and his eyes seemed even bluer than she remembered. His teeth glistened when he spoke and there was a kind of subdued excitement about him which, woman-like, she immediately translated into a compliment to herself. He emanated a kind of mocking aura that excited her too. Against her every effort, her body ached for him with a sweet nagging fire, but she still refused to deal with it on a conscious level. She didn't ask herself what would happen, if, under the fiery lash of stimulation, he should kiss her, and yet she knew what would happen just as surely as if she had thought it all out carefully. There was too much of the raw male about him in spite of his cultured air, his polite suaveness. She had long known that she was a raw fundamental female with only a glaze of inhibitory varnish that would crack and shred away under the proper stimulation.
With one of his sudden changes of mood, Soldarez put down his drink and faced them squarely. "I must now speak of unpleasant things. Layne, why should anyone watch you?"
"I can answer that" said Wolff, wilfully dense. "She has a rape shape".
"You kill me" said Soldarez shortly. "She's being watched ... followed very step she takes out of this building".
There was a short silence then Wolff said. "I can think of several reasons. One to do with that vacuous mob she used to hang out with. One to do with Bronson's ideas of revenge such as arranging a battle between you and Mallory and one to do with the fact that she told Wadsworth to take that contract and shove it".
"Exactly why, to that last"? asked Soldarez poised like a cat on the edge of his seat.
"Wadsworth is by way of being a harsh man to cross. He has performed some peculiar didoes when balked".
"Do these didoes include violence?"
Wolff shrugged. "No. Not overt violence. It is whispered around that on Velma Cullen he amassed a stack of photographs that would singe your hair. They might have been used as blackmail, threat of exposure. Even in Hollywood there are limits to which freedom can be advertised. He ruined her career single handedly but no one could ever have proved anything on him".
Layne felt a swift bite of fear in her stomach. "Ken would Randy Bronson be a party to any such thing?"
"He'd be a party to anything you can imagine if it would benefit him. Why?"
Because the last time he was here he had a hayburning all arranged and he wanted me to drag me into it. I played drunk and ducked it. It was unashamedly advertised as an orgy and it was the first time they ever approached me with such a thing. What a beautiful setup for picture taking".
"You hadn't talked to Wadsworth then" Ken reminded her.
Soldarez said. "I know something about the man. He had already heard that the worm had done an about face. He might just have been clever enough to consider the future need of some pictures".
"Do you know him well" asked Layne, surprised that the colonel knew him at all.
There was a short silence, during which time Soldarez face seemed hewn out of granite. His eyes were chipped sapphires and each contained a tiny yellow flame.
"What do you know about him, Ken?" he asked.
Wolff thought for a moment. "Rich man who used to manufacture mining equipment. Does yet as a matter-of-fact. With his money he could hire the best people. He walked into movies cold turkey and has made millions".
Soldarez nodded slowly. "Suppose I'd tell you that Mangel Wadsworth, the mining equipment manufacturer has been dead for years".
Wolff sat upright. "Then who is this man? Why the masquerade?"
"I know who he is", said Soldarez slowly. "What I don't know is, why the masquerade. I don't know, but I will know. Soon, I hope".
He stood suddenly, "Lights call". He quirked a thick eyebrow at Layne. "Shall we answer?"
She didn't move. "Looks like we were in the midst of talking about something that affects me. Why stop now?"
Soldarez made a quick smooth move that was merely a bodily gesture. "It would be useless to tell you not to worry and actually, I'd prefer that you do worry a little. Let no one in that you don't know and those of Branson's crowd are not to be admitted under any pretext whatever. You know Kabaguchi don't you?"
"Oh yes. The parking lot attendant. I know him very well. He's nice".
"So he is. In the event of trouble, call him first. He'll be there twenty-four hours a day. Even when he sleeps, the night attendant will wake him if the need arises".
Layne frowned. "Then Kabaguchi is something more than a parking lot attendant?"
"Much more...."
"Which is all you need to know", interrupted Wolff.
She sighed and got up. "All right, but I feel so helpless and futile. Too much is going on that I don't know about".
"You will know in good time" said the colonel. "I'm sorry we can't tell you more".
"But I'm concerned" she cried. "I should know".
Soldarez eyes grew wintry. "No one can deny that you're involved, my dear. It just happens that there are others and other things also involved. It isn't you alone".
She felt chastened and was silent as they went out of the apartment.
As the long Sunbeam slipped along through traffic responding like a blooded horse to the colonel's sure hand, Layne said. "I feel perverse. Let's go to the Pendulum. I want to see Randy Bronson's face when we come in".
He grinned. "As you say. You seem to have undergone quite a change regarding Mr. Bronson".
"Now that I've had time to really examine him, I think he's not all there or there's something in his background
"Your instinct is performing. Mr. Bronson is not a noble fellow at all".
She looked at him queerly. "Felipe you seem to know so much about so many people".
He laughed. "Put it down to an insatiable curiosity."
"I've been warned not to pry" she replied. "So, I won't, but it surely makes me feel funny".
An idea suddenly struck Layne and she said, "On second thought it would be exposing you to the crudest tongue in the strip. No. Let's go some place else".
Soldarez chuckled. "On the contrary, we'll do no such thing. I'd like to tilt with the gentleman".
"There's another thing too. He's sure to put Peg Mallory onto you. There'll be trouble".
"Wasn't Mallory the real reason why Ken wished me off on you? We'd better see if your protection is all it's cracked up to be".
"You're impossible" she sighed, but she didn't bring the subject up again.
Both sides of the combatants were in for a surprise. Bronson merely gave them one malignant glance and went on with his glib routine. The rest of the gang occupied a big table in a corner. Mallory eyed them with stony indifference.
This surprised Layne who had expected instant offense from Mallory and a flood of cute cruelties from Bronson.
The head waiter came around and spoke to Soldarez behind a menu. "Sir, there has been hints that trouble might brew in the event you escorted Miss Conners ... You are Colonel Soldarez, are you not?"
"I am".
"I just wanted to say sir, watch Mallory. He's a bad one".
"He seems peacable enough now".
"Yes sir, but if you will note he has started drinking faster. I suggest that he's working up to something with liquid courage".
Soldarez looked hard at the tall man. "You sound like you'd enjoy a little fracas".
The head waither grinned. "Oh no, sir. Not personally, but I've heard it said that Mr. Mallory could get his plow cleaned. That, the management would like to see above all things. You have our official blessing in the event of trouble".
"Thank you" said Soldarez smoothly. "I'll try to save the furniture".
"If you do the job right the furniture will be cheerfully taken care of by the management. Also the tab will be our pleasure to pick up".
"I believe you would like to see him get it".
"Believe me, sir, it would be no end of pleasure to the entire establishment".
He left and sent a lesser light to take their order. They had Martinis before ordering dinner. They had several more and Layne's consciousness of Soldarez was becoming harder to hold back.
Their dinner of squab broiled with bacon, parsley potatoes, buttered broccoli, tossed salad with chives and anchovies was delicious and Layne for the first time in months forgot to count calories.
Later they danced a slow languorous rhumba on the miniscule dance floor. Soldarez was as light as a feather and as supple as spring steel. Layne was a beautiful dancer and put a great deal more into her part of the dance than was strictly called for. The sight made Bronson go white with fury, but he didn't say a word to Mallory. He had asked the big man earlier not to tangle with Soldarez, but gave no plausible reason. Mallory took this to mean that Bronson thought Soldarez could take him. This provided the necessary anger to make him move and now he had sufficient liquor aboard to allow his natural quarrelsomeness to assert itself.
Layne and Soldarez went through the sinuous movements of the rhumba. Layne's fabulous body moving flawlessly through the paces as boneless as the body of a snake. She arched her back and threw her breasts against the front of her frock making a collective gasp go up from the watchers. The creamy globes strained against restraint striving to burst from confinement. Her hips pivoted smoothly and her tawny hair swished about her face and shoulders as she abandoned herself to the blood stirring rhythm.
It was at the end of the rhumba that Mallory got up and walked ponderously to the edge of the floor.
"I", he said with distinct offensiveness, "don't like the way your face is screwed on".
Soldarez stepped a pace away from Layne and looked the big man over coolly. He stood six feet four and weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds. His best playing weight had been two hundred and thirty. The rest was suet. Soldarez grinned.
"Cleats, feet, elbows, whiskey and a natural tendency towards rhinocerine ugliness has done plenty to yours, my friend. One can only ponder upon what it looked like when you were a baby. Would you like to alter mine?"
Mallory had turned blood red. "I'll alter it" he said grittily and swung hard. Soldarez merely moved his head back four inches and Mallory's big fist whistled by, throwing him off balance so he couldn't block the chopping left that smashed into his temple. He sat down with catastrophic suddenness, a bright new constellation swirling gaudily before his eyes and bells ringing dischordantly in his ears.
"I'd better stop this" said a young policeman who had strolled in from his beat to get a free breath of night club atmosphere. The head waiter grinning widely put out a restraining hand. "Oh, no you don't. Not unless it turns into a riot. This I must see". When Mallory sat so suddenly, a ringing storm of applause broke forth and it penetrated even Peg's fogged brain. The great Mallory, terror of lesser men and beater of many was down for the first time in his career. Downed by a fancy Dan in a soldier suit. This couldn't go unavenged. Shaking his head the big man climbed to his feet then charged suddenly. Soldarez stepped nimbly out of the way and Mallory, head down, collided shatteringly with the stout mahogony bar that shook resoundingly but didn't break. Mallory taking the blow on the least vulnerable part of his anatomy was up and around in a flash but he did not charge this time. His rage had cooled considerably and he realized that the more he charged the sillier he looked.
He advanced cautiously now because his head still buzzed like a bee hive. He knew that beneath that suave exterior ran muscles of steel and more deadly was the flawless coordination and timing of this tall sinewy man. He'd crowd and fasten the lighter man in a corner then he'd murder him.
Soldarez knowing his man was ahead of his reaction and had no intention of getting crowded into a corner. Mallory came close pawing out experimentally with a long left and Soldarez, knowing that to prolong the encounter could not only give the big man more chances than was safe, but draw the battle out. Soldarez did not like public brawling for a number of reasons, the least of which was not the fact that a small dance floor ringed in by tables and people is not an ideal site for battle. Suddenly he sprang in like a tiger, batted the left aside with his own and brought up a chopping star-tagged right that smacked with such solidity against Mallory's jaw that everyone in hearing winced. Mallory stopped dead in his tracks and stared fixedly at nothing for a moment then collapsed very gently to the dance floor.
Soldarez massaged his fist with the other hand and took a deep breath. His eyes sought those of Bronson, but Bronson wanted no part of the eyes or combat. In seconds he had disappeared. Mallory was taken to the back by several muscular men who did not seem disposed to be gentle and there they doused him with water with more liberality than attention to his clothes. Fifteen minutes later Mallory left under his own power wondering why his jaw didn't seem to act properly and his teeth fit so poorly. It was the next morning before he knew his jaw was broken in two places. Layne said to Soldarez, "Felipe, let's go. You're so popular no one notices me. It'll traumatize my tender psyche".
"As you say querido. All this attention irritates my normally concrete aplomb. Flattening yon porker was no trick. He was as clumsy as a boar".
The ride back was all too short and to his observation that it was early suggested continued at her apartment. "At least we can drink in quiet and privacy without being challenged by ex-football players".
He shrugged. "A mere trifle. Did you ever see anyone so universally disliked"?
"They had reason. No one loves a bully and Mallory is a perfect one".
"Mr. Mallory will be in for a surprise when he visits his physician".
"Why?"
The colonel grinned. "I could feel his jawbone crack like a stalk of celery".
She shuddered. "All the same I can't feel sorry for him. He's had it coming for a long time." She thought for a moment. "Did you see Fritz Blom?"
"I did. Blom is keeping strange company these days. I didn't think he'd spit on members of the mob".
"I've had a similar impression but there he sat silent but present." She turned to him. "Felipe, you know an awful lot about a lot of people, or have I said that before?"
"You've said it. It happens that it is my business to know a lot about a lot of people. I'm sorry I can't enlighten you further at this time".
"The way you speak you might be able to tell me more soon".
"I hope it will be soon".
"I think I felt all this unspoken business the moment I saw you".
He chuckled. "I'm sinister. People start thinking things the moment they see me". In this he was not incorrect. Kurt Blom's first look at Soldarez had set mixed emotions into being. To him the colonel had a vaguely familiar look. The dashing mocking attitude, the scintillant uniform, the ramrod bearing. Maybe it was some arrogant cold eyed Prussian officer whom Soldarez resembled.
In any event Blom was impressed. In all his experience with intrigue he had never seen a operative who travelled under his own name with such careless insolence. Everything about the man advertised his presence.
Although Evey lived on the premises, she was given the night off. As on numerous occasions before Layne didn't examine the object of her suggestion to Evey. She had never before let the presence of her maid interfere with projected plans conscious or unconscious. The very act of sending the woman away might have been indicative but Layne was still living in her make believe world. It would be short-lived.
CHAPTER TEN
She was partial to Latin music so as soon as Evey had departed and drinks were served, she put on a program of music from south of the border, muted the huge stereo set and returned to the couch.
"As much as my nonconformist soul revolts at the idea" he said, "I must say something very trite, but like many trite things, very true"
Layne smiled and relaxed, her head resting on the couch, her hair falling in silken masses as fine as gossamer, shimmering dully in the subdued light. "It will be an experience to hear you say something trite".
"You're a very beautiful woman. Maybe it is the feeling that beauty should have its applause that compelled me to say it. And there are not a great many ways a man can make this recognition. I won't even say that you're the most beautiful woman I ever saw because that would come close to a flowery lie. There are so many kinds of beauty. My grandmother was a surpassingly beautiful woman although she was ninety three when she died and as wrinkled as the age would suggest. It is impossible to divorce a woman's actions, impulses, emotions, temperament and general outlook from her physical beauty".
Layne dropped her gaze. "In that case I must look like a gorgon".
"I never pay compliments to gorgons or their human counterparts. That Watters woman is a tarantula and a cannibal. I understand there are people who think her beautiful. I never could, because I taste poison whenever I look at her".
Layne sighed. "Felipe, knowing about me, do you think you could ever forget what I've been?"
"I'm not certain I know what you've been. No man can ever pass judgment on any given action unless he was privy to every thought, lack of thought, impulse and emotion contained in it. I think your actions were a combination of a lusty nature and the established if not generally accepted mores of your environment. You did as others did-and it was not until you realized in just what regard these others were held that you decided it was not worth the toll it extracted".
"You haven't answered my question".
"The answer is this. As far as I'm concerned, it might never have happened. It is not sin itself that distorts and maligns, but the effect of it upon a given person. The moment the impact and implications of your life made its impression upon you, you gave it up".
She sighed and her eyes went pansy soft. "Thanks a great deal, Felipe. Many another man might not have driven me to that question but you, in a manner of thinking, are the supreme test".
"I think" he said slowly, "that you're taking my Latin background too much into consideration. My mother being French was no Mexican nor was she reared in the old duenna school of thinking that no man and woman should ever be alone unless married. You must consider that Mexico has become a very modern country. The old way still persists, but it is going the way of all old ways. Giving way to the new". He turned his head and stared directly into her eyes. "You seemed to enjoy the rhumba".
"I did enjoy it. Let's repeat it. This one is better and more fundamental".
She got up and turned up the volume until the room was alive with the pulsating rhythm.
"It was the fundamental part I was thinking of when I mentioned it. For a space you weren't even at the Pedu-lum. You were in a jungle clearing with palms making lacy patterns on the grass in the moonlight".
She smiled a little. "That is true, although my first response was that Blom and Bronson were sitting on the sidelines, envying you, hating you and wanting to choke me .
He joined her in the dance and swirled her through the basic steps for a moment then they both seemed to forget where they were. They separated, their bodies moving sinuously to the hushed, blood stirring rhythm, which was enlivened by stacatto bursts of bongos, the unchanging click of claves, the light crispy rasp of guiros, the steadily changing delicate clashes of maracas and the bass thump of the marimboola. The piano carried the weight of the melody tripping light fingered over the keys providing a waterfall of bell-like notes.
Then suddenly all instruments ceased save the percussion group which began a thundering cracking blast of the purest tesselated rhythm.
Her hair was disordered now and her eyes blazed with reactions to the most fundamental rhythm in the world and her body followed its basic urging. Soldarez kept up his part in the dance, but his mind was on the utter desertion by the girl of civilized restraint. He led her into a writhing descent, stopped only by the floor. She went with him without losing a single movement of rhythm, down ... down until he could glimpse the long reaches of her satiny thighs until the view dimmed into suggestion and the suggestion was more intriguing than what he could see.
The music stopped and she melted into his arms, grateful, breathless, not yet seeking the trigger to passion, but just protection and a momentary respite from the thunder of her blood and the fiery tingle of her nerves.
They had another drink in silence her right hand resting softly within the muscular confines of his left.
"This is so wonderful" she said simply then offered him a small smile. "How's that for being trite".
"It's like eating melon in the field at dawn when you burst it open with a fist and feel the cold spatter of dew under your hand. It is not neatly sliced and sprinkled with salt. It is cold, crisp, natural and tastes the way melon should taste. Simplicity is trite only to people whose appetite is so jaded it is supine. The good things don't need frills and adornment. Their beauty is born with them".
She clutched his hand nudged his sinewy shoulder with her nose. "You seem so complex and yet so wedded to simplicity".
"I can't help what I seem. Only what I am. Complexity is the tribute that imagination pays to the lack of full knowledge. For either of us to be complex and mysterious at a time like this, safe from the world of prying eyes would be faintly idiotic wouldn't you say?"
She nodded and looked him full in the eyes. "Felipe, if I take another drink, I'll be almost at that state".
He grinned. It lightened his hard angular face and his sapphire eyes lost their light mockery. "I take it that you wish to avoid that state. May I ask why?"
"Yes, I do want to avoid it. The reason is simple. I wouldn't want to lose a single second of acute consciousness while with you. Something might happen, you might say something that I'd miss or imperfectly appreciate. I don't want to miss anything when I'm with you. I'm being blunt and simple, but I can't play games with you. I don't want to because I don't feel I have to. No other man ever affected me like that".
"I take it as a high compliment. May I react?"
"Please do" she replied breathlessly. The kiss seemed to be the answer, the needed provender for a peculiar kind of emotional starvation which she had endured without knowing it for a long time. It reduced her to limpness for a moment and brought a scalding freshet of tears to her eyes. She felt a sudden electric shock travel through the man, but it was something barely within the confines of her reduced level of consciousness. In a moment he moved his lips from hers and spoke softly in her ear. "Don't show a single reaction. In a moment I shall release you and speak. Follow my lead and when I leave, lean back on the couch as though overcome".
"That won't be a fake" she whispered tremulously. "Something's up?"
"I think so. Do you have a fire escape?"
"Does the hallway below connect?"
"Yes. At the west window across this room".
He released her and took a moment to recover. He ran his hands over his smooth hair and said. "I have a present for you", he said in a clear voice, not necessarily loud. "The kiss reminded me. I'll drop down to the car and get it".
When he left, she lay back on the couch and was thoroughly infuriated that whatever was transpiring was inserting itself between her and the almost frenetic ecstasy that the kiss had provided. She forced her eyes to close because she felt impelled to look at the window.
There came a short hoarse scream then Soldarez voice, "Open the window, Layne".
She sprang to her feet and raced to do his bidding. He stepped through dragging a mousy looking little man who was equipped for picture taking on a small scale. He wasn't laden with equipment, but carried a small but efficient camera with a miniscule flash attachment.
"Did you hurt him?" she asked and felt stupid instantly. He should have broken the little man's neck.
"Not fatally" he said coolly. "Now, John, you will talk or it might be that you will lose your last chance to make vocal noises. That little tap on the neck was mild. Another one to your adam's apple would mangle your talk box permanently".
The little man trembled and sweated although the night was cool. "Mister, believe me, you could pull me limb from limb and I couldn't tell you nuthin".
"Tell me what you can" requested the colonel silkily.
"It was a job. I'm a job photographer. This is a infra-red rig. You wouldn't see the flash go off. I was told to come here and take shots. The hotter, the better".
"Now the big question. Who told you?"
The little man essayed a weak grin. "He don't know I know him, but I do. Years ago before he stopped workin' we was in the same union. I seen him at meetin's. That was before I took up photography"
"I'm waiting, John. I'm waiting".
"Yes sir" said John, which was not his name, but a matter he didn't feel pressed to argue at the moment. "Well, see this feller...."
"Names, John. Names".
"Er ... A Mr. Smith".
"A nice, inoffensive name. Preferred by romanticists visiting obscure motor courts with other mens' wives. John Smith, I presume".
"No sir" said John with such openfaced innocence that Soldarez knew instinctively that the man spoke the truth. "His name's Jim Smith".
For a brief second Soldarez seemed turned to a block of fumed oak. His eyes were lances of cold light and John took an involuntary step backward. "Jim Smith. How jolly. John, do you know who Jim Smith is?"
John looked puzzled. "No sir, I don't. He uster be a pretty hot union man...."
"Always ready for trouble was he? Wanted to strike at the drop of a hat?"
"Yes, sir. I guess that's why I remember him. He was one of them agitators who was always wantin' to walk out. Me, I ain't and that's one reason I went to high school after the war and took up photography. It ain't a rich man's game, but it's steady and if I want a job I take it. If I don't I tell the man to peddle his onions some place else. That's the way I like it".
"What sort of deal did Smith give you on this project?"
"The idea was...." He flushed and glanced at Layne who was watching him maligantly. "Well, don't seem proper to talk about it in front of the lady".
"You were going to watch the lady" she barked making the little man flinch. "You were going to take pictures of the lady so now, by God, you talk in front of the lady".
John talked and sweated and sweated and talked and in the end under Soldarez expert stimulation he was wrung as dry as a sponge.
As the colonel suspected John knew nothing not included in the bare bones of his assignment which was to earn him a hundred dollars for the try. Five hundred if the poses were sufficiently attractive.
Soldarez shot his cuff back and glanced at his watch. "You may go, John. Back the way you came. Did you get any pictures?"
"Just a couple of you smoochin' ... Excuse me, lady. That's all".
"Deliver them. I'm afraid our Mr. Smith will have to know that you were known to be here. There's no way out of it. What you tell him is your own affair. One small reminder. If there are any more assignments like this, you're to let me know immediately. I'm at the Moctezuma Hotel and my name is Soldarez. I'll pay you double what you were offered. If I catch you taking any picture without letting me know, I'll toss you bodily to the street below and tell the police I saw you fall. Do you read me, John?"
"Loud and clear, sir" he quavered. "I'll do just like you say".
"You'd better". He saw John to the window then turned. "Excuse me" he said shortly. He went to the phone and dialed a number.
"Bueno! Six? Three, here. Arrange an immediate meeting with Eleven. I don't give a hoot how difficult it will be. Immediately. I know where the place is. Something has happened and remember one thing. No one but Eleven is to know. Is that understood? I can't give you any more details. Something has just come up that requires immediate conference. No, you won't be needed".
He turned to Layne. "If this event is a bone in your throat it's twice that in mine. It forces me to do something I hadn't wanted done yet, but no matter ... I'll be back if you'll wait up for me?"
She came close and kissed him sweetly, without a passion. "I'll wait Felipe. All night if that's what it takes".
"It won't" he said, his voice clipped and razor -edged.
It will probably never be known how Felipe Soldarez knew so well the location of Jim Smith's little hidden clubroom, but he did now and preceded Smith by some twenty minutes. He entered by the devious methods utilized by other members and used a bit of thin steel on the lock which was no problem, went in and took a hard chair in a dark corner.
Smith came, grumbling under his breath at the inconvenience, unlocked the door that the colonel had locked behind him, turned on the light and peered short sightedly about through his thick lens. He missed Soldarez in the first sweep of his eyes and finally saw him standing at his elbow on the second time around. Smith uttered a squawk of dismay and stepped back so quickly that he almost fell.
"Who're you" he quavered, then realized who it was and tried to cover his confusion by a show of truculence. "And who let you in. This is a private clubroom".
"I'm impressed" said Soldarez cuttingly. "Also, I'm Philippe Aristide de la Salle D'Ortego Soldarez-Peon, which you should know".
Smith, a little dizzy from the impressive name, gulped. "Senor. I am enchanted. I have awaited this meeting with bated breath".
"Spare me your efforts at Spanish. I understand your argot and I speak English. You recently hired a photographer".
The denial was too quick. "Upon my word of honor I did not. If he said...."
A mallet like fist flashed out and Smith spun twice out of control and crashed to the floor. With a tigerish leap Soldarez hefted him from the floor and with a savage expenditure of bull strength slammed the bulky Smith against the wall with such force that the stout building shook. Soldarez seemed to stroke his left lower leg with a hand, but when it came up it carried a blade of thin razor steel which he rested point first against the point of Smith's thick chin. "It is possible", hissed the colonel, "that you have heard my name without hearing other more important things. Deny the photographer again and I promise you that Moscow will receive a detailed account of your passing not failing to mention a few things I know, which you think I don't". Soldarez pressed the point and a trickle of blood started from Smith's chin. "It is a nice morning" he said with deliberate intonation.
"It will be a better afternoon" parrotted Smith hoarse-ly-
"It is well" said the colonel," as far as it goes ... which is not far enough". He swung the big man about like a sack of hay and threw him bodily into a stout chair. "Now you will talk, my man. If you lie I will know it. When I know it you will be sorry but the sorrow will not be with you very long because you will not be long with us to bear it".
Smith's face was pasty white with a trickle of claret attesting to previous contact with the sharp blade. A sheet of greasy sweat shimmered in the light of the dingy overhead bulb. "What is it you want to know?"
Soldarez waved the knife gently. "This evening I was at the apartment of a capitalist wench. Why is much too high for your thick head. Let us say it was social. This photographer appeared, but he wore cheap shoes. They squeaked. I have excellent ears. He knew nothing because he didn't hesitate to tell me your name".
"He didn't know it" blurted Smith almost going into shock when he realized he had talked too much.
"He did know it. That's why I'm here. You sent him. You have one half minute to tell me why."
"It was not you, Senor. As God is my witness. It was not known that you were keeping company with the girl. We knew you knew her, but not that you were keeping company. Soldarez eyes narrowed. "You speak of the capitalist invention God ... then you were just to acquire pictures of her in an embarrassing situation. Is that it?"
"That is it, believe me. Had we known it would be you no horses could have dragged me into this".
"How has she offended?"
An opaque veil seemed to drop over the man's eyes. He gulped uncontrollably for a moment. "It might mean my life if I told you" he managed to get out.
Soldarez whirled the knife in a short swift arc. "Have you heard of me, Comrade Smith?"
"I have sir".
"Then the key word in your previous sentence is 'might'. You might die".
With a swift irresistible movement he descended on Smith and rammed a hard knee into the man's belly wringing a sharp bleat of pain from him. Soldarez grabbed a handful of the man's thick greasy hair and tilted his head back with a savage wrench. The needle point of the knife dug a quarter of an inch into the man's neck over the carotid artery. "This misty danger might take your life. You are right now three seconds away from absolute certainty. I can find out. I think I know already, Comrade and your paltry existence is of such abysmal indifference to me that to kill you will even be a mild pleasure. You can save me a little trouble that is all."
"You'd kill me ... just to save a little ... trouble?"
"It is the trouble you have already caused me, Friend. You have also interferred in party business. I am not of your beloved America where you cowardly swine whine and sneak behind laws you profess to hate. You are a tawdry assortment of asses. We utilize you because you are citizens. You are convenient. You are neither indispensable nor irreplaceable. Talk"! He twisted the blade and Smith was too scared to scream. He broke out in a torrent of sweat and a large area of his trousers below the waist turned a suspicious shade of darkness. "I'll tell ... I'll tell".
"Then be about it". He took his knee from the man's stomach and the knife from his throat.
"I can't tell you his name" said Smith chattering with the backwash of a terror such as he had never known before in his life. He knew he had escaped death by the merest whisker.
"That will be inconvenient" said the colonel smoothly. "I might become seriously annoyed".
Smith seemed to deflate like a pricked bladder. "I know it" he said dully, "because I've known him a long time. I receive orders from him on a tape. I report on tape."
"How long has he been giving orders" asked Soldarez.
Smith opened his eyes wider. "You must know him yourself. We are confused. We don't know why you advertised your arrival, why you dress so obviously, why you put up in a fine hotel. We know none of these things".
"You know" replied Soldarez softly, "what it is desired that you know. You probably know that you take orders from two-ten Avenida D'Oro in Mexico City".
"That we know".
"Then know more, little man. I am two-ten Avenida D'Oro".
The voice had been muted and menacing, the eyes narrowed slits of blue ice. Smith gasped and sweated again. "That" he said hoarsely, "we did not know".
The knife blade glittered again making a small silvery circle. "The name".
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Layne had not realized what a shattering experience the kiss had been until Soldarez left then the reaction came down in a battering avalanche and left her bereft, trembling and so aflame that it frightened her. His magnetism still held her in a kind of avid eager thrall. Other men could excite her and many had, but this was a first touch affair. She clenched her hands and wondered what the full treatment would do to her. She had bathed before they went out but she bathed again with great care, then feeling delightfully sinful she put on a simple ankle length robe that was tailored to her usually exacting fit.
She poured a weak drink and sank back to let the sensuous rhythms from the phonograph lull her senses, but it was not the lulling kind of music and had the opposite effect. She bit her full lower lip gently and let it slide lubriciously from the pressure of her teeth. In spite of the slow rich hammering of blood in her veins the turgid throb of her loins and the keen longing to see the laughing mockery of Soldarez's blue eyes, she was conscious of an annoying feeling of being hemmed in by forces that both did and did not concern her directly. What was it that sent Soldarez dashing away from her when the bonds were being forged? The little man with the camera, certainly, but what did he have to do with things in general? She felt that he was an emissary of Wadsworth whom she expected to begin his move for revenge. Soldarez, on the other hand she was sure, considered it something more. She had seen him turn to stone at the mention of Jim Smith, a name she did not know and to which she could not ascribe importance.
Her doorbell chimed and with a bound she was on her feet racing toward the portal. Caution stopped her. She paused before touching the door and called, "Who is it?"
"Me" came the crisp voice. With a glad cry she flung the door open. She gasped and fell back and Fritz Blom, his face flushed with drink stepped through the door. She had wanted to see Soldarez so badly that she allowed the simple pronoun to open the door, translating to it a tone it did not have.
She recovered swiftly and pointed. "Out Fritz or I'll call the cops".
He slammed the door, caught her bodily turned her around and shoved her against it and overpowered her resistance. His lips were searching and frantically avid, finding hers and bruising them in his half drunken, hungry atack. Her arms were down, pinioned and helpless but Blom had overestimated the impact of his attraction. She lifted one hand, found the door latch and slipped the button making it possible to open it from the outside.
He released her, expecting to find an eager subdued woman on his hands and instead he found a fulminating demon who tore at him with a ferocity that set him back on his heels.
"Leibchen" he said hastily backing up. "It is not that I came here for...." a nail caught him in the mouth and cut his lip and his temper, never the staunchest began to fray. He shoved her back on the couch so hard that she bounced like a tennis ball and at that moment Soldarez burst through the door.
Blom turned to meet a sizzling left that exploded upon his chin with such devastating force that Blom's contact lens squirted from his eyeballs and fluttered to the carpet like a pair of dried fish scales and he went down, his protest of peace dying upon his lips.
For the first time Layne really got a closeup of the tiger in the man. He stood poised on the balls of his feet, his hands hanging in limp readiness, his eyes glacial and pinpointed, his face cut into sharp angular segments. At the club there had been distractions such as the spectacle of Mallory getting the ears beat off him and the reaction of the others to it. Here was a private showing and she found herself strangely thrilled although she was not a lover of violence.
"He's drunk" she said shakily getting to her feet.
"We didn't get him drunk" he said softly and flexed his shoulders, moving his arms like an eagle readying to launch himself into the air.
Blom, a man of considerable physical stamina now began to stir and after some effort managed to sit up. Guten tag" he said muzzily, stupidly.
"Tag ist nicht" retorted Soldarez. "Ist nacht".
"Ja...." He blinked a few times and felt of his jaw "Sehr gut".
"Oh, damn" exploded Layne disgustedly. "You knocked all the English out of him".
Blom, reason trickling back steadily managed a sickly grin. "Nod all off id, Leibchen". He started to get up and Soldarez gave him a hand.
He stood unsteadily and passed a hand over his chin again, his eyes still dazed and slightly out of focus.
"Achtung"! barked the colonel harshly.
Instantly Blom went to ramrod attention, his chin tucked, his stomach in and his hands at his sides.
"So I thought" said Soldarez softly. "Von Blom, the unwilling executioner. I thought so. Besser ein sperling in der hand als sehn tauben auf dem dache"."
Blom seemed to be stung to consciousness "Herr Colonel, if you know so much you must know...."
"I know. I said, unwilling. Your activities since coming to his country are known and nothing has been placed against your name except in the last month when you agreed to take orders from one Jim Smith".
"Gott mitt uns" quoted Blom gloomily, doubtfully.
"It is questionable" replied Soldarez smoothly. "That I will decide when you have talked. It is known that you have done some investigations on your own. I will be interested in knowing what conclusions you reached. Let us begin with me. You wanted to know about me. What did you discover?"
Blom was too cowed to resist. "That you iss ... are a Red agent who worked in the Dominican and Cuba. That you are a high and respected member". Blom, almost in command of his faculties looked hard at the dapper figure. "One thing I understand not. Why do you advertize yourself?"
"I have my reasons. I think the fact has annoyed others too".
"It may be that I am a dumkopf but there is much I do not understand. You do not appear as you should".
"What would you say should it eventuate that I am not as I seem" asked the colonel.
Blom thought for a moment. "Then I would feel free to tell you more".
"Then you are not disposed to follow the good Smith's instructions."
"Schmidt is a fool and an ass. Who is he that he should tell Fritz Blom to prostitute his art in the name of cheap propaganda? Who is he that he should rake up a past of which I was never with my heart a part, taking orders as any good soldier is thought to do, and hang it over my head like a sword". Blom's heart was like lead. If this man was indeed what he was supposed to be then Blom's goose was cooked. There was, however, a feeling that as he said, he was not what he was supposed to be. In that case he could be nothing if not a man of the other side a side Blom had bowed to cultivate out of sheer desperation.
Soldarez gave him a tight smile. "Fritz, it is possible that for you there is a way out".
"It is to be hoped" replied Blom humbly. "As you have said, in this country I have tried to be a good citizen. I have broken no laws...."
"I'd like to break your neck" Layne lashed out. "Coming in here and swarming all over me".
"Leibchen" he said earnestly, "please to believe me, I did not come here for that. Seeing you as you are...."He spread his pale hands. "I have been drinking. I was not myself. I did not come for that. I came to tell you that we are in the same boat ... in a sense".
Soldarez leaned forward. "Ah ... tell us more, Fritz."
Blom talked with great earnestness for half an hour and when he had done he got up. "I have discovered much" he said. It may be that I shall discover more. Do I make reports to you?"
"Not in person" said Soldarez. "I'll get in touch with you or one of my men will. In the meantime I suggest you play it cool. Right now your lift isn't worth much.
"It is not my life for which I fear" said Blom stoutly. "My reputation could suffer and die. I have spent much time and effort trying to keep it intact".
When he was gone Soldarez walked to the small bar and fixed a large authoritative drink. "Your own cargo must have leaked away by now" he said. "May I construct one for you?"
"Please do" she said striving to digest what she had heard. "Then make me forget what I've heard. I had hopes for this night and it looks like it is doomed to battles, photographers and anything else I can think of".
He handed her his drink. "Get started on this. While I fix mine, try to remember where we left off".
She laughed freely. "That will pose no problem". She put her drink down and with an excess of shyness that drove the blood to her face she beckoned to him with her fingertips. He came and sat beside her and looked at her for a long moment. "Maybe I should have said this before the first kiss". "Said what?"
He frowned. "Something so palpably silly that I'm glad I didn't say it". He took her in his arms and again the explosive joy rammed through her vitals and a keening ecstasy probed her brain like white hot needles.
The soft flower of her mouth spread and became malleable and subservient, her jaws slackened and admitted entry and her head swam with a wonder that drew a muted note from her throat. He leaned back against the couch bringing her with him and encompassed her in strong arms the hands of which made gentle mice-like forays up and down her back sliding the soft material of her robe over the softer surface of her skin. It was impossible for her to remain still. Her head twisted back and forth under the electric stimulus of his lips and now her body began to answer, without volition, a call as old as woman. Urged by the strong pressure of his arms, little by little her body became a second outline of his. She crept into every cranny and crevice to every bulge and outline that he presented she made a fabulous moulage of herself seeking to increase, wherever possible, contact skin area, like some wondrous antenna reaching into the universe that he presented reaching for the electric response, the messages, the tremulous throbbing radio activity, the broadcast of male to female. He the sender, she the receiver. An emotional peak was reached and by mutual consent they relaxed, she more than he because he was a human container, boxing her within the protection of his arms and body, forming a repository for the warmth of her humanity, his presence as stout as a concrete wall within which she felt so safe and so utterly without any necessity for concern, past, present or future that suddenly she melted and was swept by a warm unrestrained emotional overflow that presented itself in tears of complete relief, tears that trickled and dotted the material of her robe where it was peaked by the swollen bulk of her breasts as they lay gently against the rock ribbed surface of his chest.
"Felipe....".
"Yes". His answer was no answer just as her speaking of his name was no question. She spoke to assure herseF of his conscious presence. Needless but necessary. His answer was acknowledgement, nothing more.
She shoved her face into the smooth warm curve of his neck and savored the faintest tingle of the tips of a beard which had been shaved several hours before and now spiked slightly on the olive surface of his fine skin. A hand moved up her back and slid gently under her warm armpit, thence to the base of a taut passion swollen breast. She sighed, drew away from him a little and arched it toward his caress. The warm palm of his hand was a benediction, neither rough nor hurtful, merely the gentle possessive placement of a touch of affection upon the rigid mound the token of her exultant femininity, the symbol of womanhood and fertility. She sat up, still within his encirclement, but under muscular control. Gently her fingers toyed with buttons and opened his blouse. It had a stand-up collar like Marine blues, without shirt or tie and as it opened button by button she could see that he had scorned an undershirt, probably in deference to the exquisite fit. His skin was smooth, dark and in an excess of emotion she placed her satiny cheek against his breast. His hand touched her head like a blessing and disordered her hair that flowed like a silken rapid across the broad expanse of his chest.
"I think" he said in a low soft voice, that you've more than your share of something I always admired about the Conners family. It's a sort of quality that you can't doubt any more than you can doubt the purity of sterling, or the color of gold, the star in a sapphire or the blood deep in the heart of a ruby".
"I haven't smudged the quality"? she asked with aching throat.
He chuckled deep in his throat. "Most things of quality spring from a mean beginning. A diamond from blue mud, gold from craggy quartz. A perfect human ... as near as that can be achieved always springs from a wild insane blaze of passion. The crash of one breeding animal with another. A thing of wonder, yes but as common as humanity itself, which is well. I think it was no accident that congress between the sexes was made the most magnificent expression of which the human is capable. The most delirious joy that human sensation can withstand".
She sighed and realized that her left thigh had escaped from the gaping slit in her robe, had encompassed and retained one of his, possessively. It glimmered in the soft dim light like a prophecy of something to come, something that would come. She realized too that with another two inches of exposure she would not have a secret left and felt a kind of perverse joy that there was no secret she wanted to keep from him.
He gathered her closer again, within the circle of protection which seemed to narrow their world into a tiny cocoon outside of which there was nothing. Their faces were close, but not touching. Their eyes sought each other and their breath fanned their cheeks. Slowly he raised a finger to the tiny opening of the robe that gaped at her throat. He hooked it in the V and drew it gently downward. Her head collapsed on his shoulder a cry welling unvoiced in to her throat as she could feel the slow slide of the cloth over her left breast until finally she knew it was uncovered and like a chalice of rare porcelain, available to his gaze. He stared in rapt awe for a moment then touched the tip with his lips, the touch branding her to the depths like the touch of a hot iron.
It was the beginning of the end because her lips found his then and the touch of her breast on his smooth hide was almost more than she could stand.
Tears dripped from her eyes and her heart seemed ready to break from the fearful load of emotion it was trying to carry.
Something like fear seized her and for once she dug deep for the well springs of it. This was her heaven and she knew it. This was it in large print. Felipe Soldarez was her man. Once she had soared to the heights with him there would be no other men in her life, ever. All her mature existence she had sought for just what she was feeding upon now. None of the crying hysterical urgency. None of the sordid drunken organistic lunacy. This was to be a poem, an epic to the union of man and woman. Everything else she had done had in the last few months turned to tasteless dust and had blown wildly to the four corners of nothing. The fear was. initiated by her full store of knowledge of what Mexican men expect of their women. True he had claimed membership in the new order of Latin thinking, but she wondered if he hadn't been motivated by kindness rather than any intrinsic facet of personality. If he'd been reared in the tradition could he or had he moved from the very roots of his consciousness? This was her fear but it could not mount sufficient strength before the warm prison of their miniscule world to cause too great concern.
She was an appliance now and the connection which made her operate was the contact with his avid active mouth playing upon hers supplying the needed current. The contact had long since ceased being a kiss. It was now the interlocking of souls, the corridor of communication so close and so understanding that when at long last the robe fell open and revealed her in all her extravagant witchery to his seeking flexible hands she felt like a fabulous violin in the hands of a master, wringing music from her, performing classic passages, the notes of which were both soundless, yet audible, music that seemed to seep from her like notes played by nature upon some nat-tural phenomena, like breeze through the pines, like the harmony of wind through a chasm. Not a single flit of resistance opposed him, not a single note of reproof came from her languishing conscience. This was right and her soul sang a song of achievement the mightiest she had ever experienced, knowing that it was merely a preliminary, the great act yet to come, the curtain still down but she, the audience, rapt and trembling with lurid excitement for the play about to be inacted. She lay in his arms now her body glowing and palpitant in the subdued light, her eyes stark and open feeding upon the manna that glowed in the sapphire depths of his, awaiting his pleasure, quiescent but expectant, hungry and aching but content in the knowledge that both would be assuaged.
He rose, carrying her easily. Her cool silken sheets caressed her back and she waited for him like a child told to be quiet.
His movements were sure and quick and when he turned to her her vision grew dim with expectation. Again she went into the comforting prison with him, the confines of his strong arms and the muscular power of his body but this time she knew how complete this prison could be and the sharp flare of ecstasy that had been promised climbed the scale and thundered through her blood like a cascade of fire ... and she knew this was a prison from which she'd never escape.
The rains came and inundated them in a beneficent flood cleaning away mental and physical debris, leaving them as free and unincumbered as a clean swept beach. Layne felt that she'd never move again, that she would never want to move again. For time that seemed sweetly endless she remained in his embrace, protected, safe and so utterly sated that she seemed disembodied, a woman suspended above the call of time and substance. By infinitesimal degrees they emerged from the pink tinted cottonwool world, the fairyland that can be visited only by two people so wholly in accord that they completely became one, losing their separate identities to a greater whole. Never again would she be whole of herself as, indeed she had never been before. She had been relatively happy in her ignorance, but ignorance had fled and now she knew herself to be fragments that only through this new knowledge could be joined into a whole.
With sure feminine knowledge she sensed the tremendous victory that had been hers. Later she might doubt but now she could not be wrong. Felipe Soldarez had been taken along with her and to him the journey had meant as much. It was a warm secure feeling. Of a sudden such things as fame, money, contracts men of the stripe she had known, were ants toe crushed if they annoyed. She laughed freely and hugged him with fresh ardor and eagerness.
The night was theirs and of it they made full use. Dawn found them sleeping, sprawled in graceful disorder, her head cradled in the crook of his strong left arm, the other draped heavily over her back even in slumber completing the walls of her prison.
Evey, who had come in in the early hours and snatched a few hours sleep was now awake and interested. One sneaked look through the half opened door had sent her back to the kitchen her eyes very soft and damp. Even to the critical Evey this was something that bore the immortal stamp of eternal Tightness.
When Layne woke the sun had bored a hole through the smog and was filtering palely through the blinds and drapes. For a long time she lay still and listened to the measured leisurely beat of her heart. There was nothing to this awakening to relate it to so many previous ones that made her clench her covers and go into fits of remorseful shudders. This morning she was calm and so completely relaxed that it rested upon her like a delightful malaise. She didn't want to move because she was too comfortable. She remembered the times when she hadn't wanted to move because she was afraid to. Afraid to face the memory of the night past. Afraid to awaken that would amount to a horror, a horror she had, in her cups, soughtl like a vicious animal. Last night she had been an animal, too, but a normal natural animal with an animal's complete lack of a sense of guilt or wrong doing. Suddenly she was suffused with energy and with a single sinuous' flounce she sat up sitting on her heels like a golden jade figure in a pose of worship. She looked down at him sleeping with the same relaxed ease which characterized his every waking action. She examined the magnificent length of him, his strong muscular legs, rounded now in relaxation, his slim hips, the curve above the waist that gradually widened to the tremendous expanse of his chest and shoulders. His arms, like his legs were smooth in repose, but she had seen and felt the steel that flickered like darts of rope-lightning beneath his dark skin. Soldarez was too finely constructed a machine to awaken with yawnings, pawings, gruntings and flounderings. His eyes came open suddenly and found her like a magnet. A slow smile touched his lips and lifted the corners.
"Hi," he said inconsequentially.
The simple greeting had a strange effect upon her. Her eyes flooded and a trail of crystalline tears rolled down her cheeks, to the proud promontories of her breasts and thence to the alabastine surfaces of her taut thighs. "What is it" he asked gently.
"Everything" she said, her voice thick with emotion. "Everything that happened' last night. You ... Me ... It...."
He sat up and gathering her close kissed the gems of moisture from her breasts then held her close and let her stifle a few pent up sobs on his chest. She stirred after a time and kissed him with soft unheated affection. "I'll call Evey but we'd better get decent first."
He nodded and caught her to him firmly. "Call Evey ... but not right now".
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fritz Blom held a cold towel to his swollen jaw and cast a jaudiced eye at Randy Bronson who was, it seemed, in the last stages of funk. Bronson had waked him from a troubled aching alcoholic sleep to talk. It developed, however, that Bronson had nothing to talk about. Nothing constructive, that is. He repeated the question he had been asking, "What's going to happen to me?"
"I'm not an oracle" mumbled Blom losing his temper, "Frankly, my shaky friend, I care not a small burnt coal in hell what happens to you. My primary concern is with myself. In that we are in agreement ... that our precious selves are the important things at stake".
"Who struck you?" asked Bronson, taking a gulp of vodka and tomato juice.
Blom was pardonably annoyed that it was the first time the other had noted his painfully swollen jaw. "The same man who struck you. He does have a hard fist, doesn't he?"
"I'll get him" said Bronson without conviction, such lack of conviction that Blom laughed jeeringly.
"I used to think that most people are fools", growled Blom. "I'm now convinced of it. I'm no child to be pushed around but he laid me flat as hard as I've ever been struck in my life. Your precious pachyderm, Mallory has his teeth wired together and will dine through a straw for six or more weeks ... or hadn't you heard?"
"No. How did you know?"
Blom's pale blue eyes glittered. "I received a call from the universal trollop, Miss Watters this morning before you arrived. She told me. She had instructions".
Bronson's eyes lifted. "For whom ... Me? But she didn't know I was coming here...." His voice rose to a screech then threaded away into silence.
"Not for you. For me. A strange bit of instruction. No efforts or acts until further notice" Blom tasted a bloody Mary, a sister to Bronson's.
"No word for me?"
"No word. She asked if you were here. She must have called you right after you left home".
"In other words, you expect new instructions?"
Blom sighed and drank. "I don't know what to expect. I'm confused. I don't believe Soldarez is what he's supposed to be. I think if Smith knew he'd faint and fall in it.
At that moment Smith was in a hotbed of indecision. He sat in the dingy room and stared at a jaundiced wall, pondering heavily. Soldarez had talked to him at length after Smith revealed the name of the man above him. Was it possible that this man was not genuine? Smith writhed inwardly at the thought. If he wasn't then the cell was in serious trouble. What about Soldarez? How could he be certain about him?
Smith sighed gustily and brought out a small tape recorder. He spoke into the small microphone for a few minutes, sighed again and detached the roll. Fifteen minutes later Brenda Watters came into the room. "Memorize this tape and contact all the men and women mentioned. You spoke to Bronson and Blom?"
Brenda looked him over with expressionless eyes. "Just Blom. I'll talk to Bronson later. You seem disturbed."
"I am. I'm so confused I don't know where I am."
"I find that unusual".
"If you find it unusual" he snarled, "think how I must find it. Be on your way. Don't miss anyone. This is very important.
Felipe Soldarez walked into the office of a world famous federal bureau and approached a young man seated at a small desk. "I'd like to speak to Creighton Miller, please."
The young man looked up importantly. Soldarez could see that he had just earned his position and was smug about it. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No."
"In that case, I'm afraid Mr. Miller is too busy to see you".
Soldarez whipped a paper thin billfold from some hidden pocket and flipped it open for the young man's examination. The change was electric. He jumped to his feet and almost saluted. "Oh ... er ... pardon me, Colonel. I didn't know you. Please, pardon me" Almost frantically he punched a button on his intercom box.
"Yes."
"Sir, a Colonel Soldarez to see you".
"Soldarez...? Send him in on the double".
"You may go in sir" said the man tensely.
Miller met him at the door and grabbed his hand hard. "Felipe. I wondered when you'd get around to us. We knew you were in town, of course".
"Of course" said the colonel with a wide grin. "How could you miss me?"
Miller said, "Sit down. Coffee?"
"Sure."
They had coffee and Miller lit a cigarette and said. "We've had wind of something you were to pull off and have orders to give you any possible assistance. Tell me about it".
"Okay. You know of Soldarez, I presume?"
"Sure. That's what had us buffaloed. We got news that he was to pay Los Angeles a visit. We had a very elaborate plan all ready to have a couple of plants bending their ears in his direction. Then comes this fancy Soldarez of R.A.F., Mexican Air Force, white card fame. Mind spread-I ing the sheet and giving us a look?"
Soldarez chuckled. "It's a short story. Soldarez is a very distant cousin. There aren't many by that name so it isn't hard to keep up with them. Cousin Mario was always a sort of frustrated Pancho Villa without Villa's passionate patriotism. He'd like nothing better than to place Mexico under Moscow ... as his personal toy, of course. We knew he was coming through on his way here for an important conference with another high man. By the way, have you discovered much about the man we spoke of earlier this year?"
Miller's eyes were opaque. He nodded slowly. "Yes. We've discovered a good deal but we still need the clincher then we can act on the strength of this new registration law. Naturally, he hasn't registered but until we can make a case stand up we won't move against him".
"I think I can help there. I've discovered that he and your good friend Smith communicate by means of tape. That has a double purpose. They don't use the telephone which can be tapped and they have a record of communication to prevent any misunderstandings that might pop up later. That tape collection will be a treasure trove".
"How'll we locate it?"
"Make him afraid of its presence. My guess is that he has it in his office. He practically lives there." Miller nodded. "Now, about your cousin?"
"Yes, well, when he got back on home grounds from his coup against Trujillo he relaxed and was plied with liquor. He slept it off but in the meantime we had done a little work on him and he woke up only to go to sleep again, this time from a judicious shot of sodium pentothal. We played a little tune on him with the drug and he spoke with great truth and at some length. He now languishes in a maximum security cell in Mexico City and sees no one except a very trusted turnkey who brings his food. He has no recollection of what he said. At his trial we will also make use of a tape recording from which many things will appear that have long been in the dark. He was very excited about this meeting up here as well he should have been. It would curl your hair".
"Can you tell us?"
Soldarez inclined his head. "As you know one of our headaches is the danger that a nuclear bomb could be so constructed that it could be brought into a strategic place in increments, assembled and detonated when desired. So far, this has not proved feasible, but they have come up with an alternative plan that is worse."
"And that is?"
"I'm sure you're aware that our nuclear stockpiles ... by ours I mean yours. I identify myself with you unconsciously, are more secret that protected. This plan doesn't involve a really destructive bomb. Merely a trigger mechanism which would make it relatively simple to transport and assemble, placed near enough to a stockpile to detonate the whole thing. I leave the possible result to your imagination. The megaton potential of any such occurrence would be astronomical".
"But how would they discover these locations?"
Soldarez smiled diabolically, "That, I'm happy to report is the slight wrench in the works. My cousin was on his way here to work out a plan by which this might be discovered. Actually, I don't fear it very much because of its basic flaws and the fact that we know about it now. What I don't like is even the outside possibility that they might get such information. As we saw recently when those two men defected from that coding department just what can happen".
"I agree. Now what's the next move?"
"Do you have a man who can install your newest camera and sound equipment in a woman's handbag?"
"Yes. It's quite small. If the bag is big enough...."
"I've seen some as big as a saddle bag. That part will present no problem."
"Can you deliver it to the proper place without detection or arousing suspicion?"
"Easily. This is another case of using a man's self-styled magnetism and cleverness against him and utilizing shock. I aim to scare the breeches off him then watch him react".
Miller went taut with excitement. "Just like a man dashing to save his securities when the building catches fire?"
"Precisely and when he does his actions will appear on film. Then we'll all pay him a little visit".
"Boy, I'm getting excited. This is the break we've been looking for".
"If everything goes right. Now I'll depart and make plans. I'll send the bag to you by messenger".
Soldarez next move was to visit Blom. He found both Bronson and Blom in the act of drowning their fears with vodka and tomato juice even though it was nearly noon.
Bronson got up with such suddenness he almost fell. Blom who had admitted the colonel looked on with gloomy eyes.
Soldarez had one word to say to Bronson. He cocked a thumb toward the door. "Out".
Bronson got out with haste if not grace.
"Now" said Soldarez as he took a chair, "Tell me about Wadsworth. Will he discuss a change of heart with Layne Conners?"
Blom thought a moment. "I think he would. I have a feeling that Wadsworth is not nearly as assured in this case as he has been in others. For one thing, she's represented by Amanco. Trifle with their clients and you can get burned. Their lawyer is Kenneth Wolff and he's too sharp and tough to play loose with. If she offered to talk I think he'd agree. Is it important?"
"Very. I shall expect you to help get him in a good frame of mind".
"Why should I" asked Blom glowering. "You haven't told me anything yet".
"You have imagination. I'm Soldarez but not the one they expected. I'm on a different side of the fence but this is something they don't know as yet. To prove that Smith is acting under my orders did you not get instructions to cease any activity until further notice?"
"I did. This morning".
"Very well. You have too much at stake to draw to a losing hand. You don't have much time to make up your mind."
Blom thought for a moment. "All right. I'll talk to Wadsworth".
"Talk very persuasively" said Soldarez, in a voice that carried persuasion of its own.
That night Evey prepared dinner for Layne, Wolff and Soldarez. It was a poem of Mexican gastronomy which they enjoyed greatly, Soldarez's praise causing Evey to blush and squirm with delight.
After Alexanders they went to the living room where Soldarez said, "Sorry to eat and run, Layne, but business presses both Wolff and myself. Tomorrow we'll want you to see Wadsworth in his office and talk contract".
Layne gaped. "Talk contract? Are you mad?"
"No but before you burst a blood vessel, I should point out that you will call Wadsworth, tell him you've had a change of heart and mind, that you're willing to talk contract. Try to make it for tomorrow afternoon."
She looked at him incredulously. "I can't believe my ears".
"I didn't finish" he said with a chuckle. "All this is a ruse. You'll sign no contract. I want to get you in that office. After a few moments you will be interrupted and I assure you that'll end the contract session for certain. Have no fear".
"It all has to do with this mystery?"
"The mystery will be mystery no longer after your appointment. I promise".
She was mollified but she still didn't like it. To her Wadsworth was a snake and she had the same-fear of him.
"You will carry a bag which I shall purchase for you" he continued, "the purpose of which will be explained to you before you go to the office. In fact, getting that bag in his office is the purpose of the whole thing".
Now she became excited and watched them leave wishing tomorrow was today.
Soldarez parted from Wolff with instructions to see Creighton Miller in the morning and brief him, also to pick up the bag which the electronics expert was working on. He made his way to the meeting room and found Smith there as he knew he would. He gave the thick man a stiff nod and said. "You use this Watters woman as a courier don't you?"
"Yes sir".
"Very well. I want you to listen to this well. If there is any mistake you'll be sorry. At an exact moment I want her to carry a tape to Wadsworth. You will tape it now and read it from this copy." He handed a typed sheet to Smith who read it, his hands shaking badly. "Is this true?"
"We want Wadsworth to think it's true".
Smith looked undecided. "I'm afraid this is going too far".
"I didn't ask you about your fears. You will do as I say or...." The knife appeared like magic and glittered before Smith's eyes.
"But why?" he wanted to know.
"Wadsworth has those tapes you've been sending him doesn't he?"
"I assume that he does. He says he does".
"Names, places, incidents. You've given him much. What would your own tapes reveal?"
"They aren't in his voice" said Smith hoarsely, his-face going a dirty white.
"Ah ... In Miss Watter's voice perhaps?"
"No. In a man's voice whom I do not know".
"In other words you have been giving him all sorts of information. He has been giving you little and in someone's else's voice. How very convenient should he ever choose to use those tapes against you.
"Do you fear that he might?"
"Sufficient to say I'm here to discover some weak links in the chain. I have more than a suspicion that you're sitting on a powder keg. For you we care nothing. For the cause we care much. Am I making myself plain?"
"I ... think so. But he is a high man".
"And will have farther to fall. If I thought for a moment that you'd consider falling with him clinging to him because you have become accustomed to it, you'd be a dead man when I left. I think you're more intelligent than that. What will it be?"
Smith looked old and sick but he pulled the recorder from the drawer. "Very well. I shall do as you say".
"Tomorrow at noon you will telephone me" said Soldarez. "I will then know the exact time you are to send Miss Watters into his office with this tape. I'll then inform you. This must be done with great exactness. You will ring me and when I answer you're not to say a word. Then I will give you the exact moment. Understood?"
"Understood".
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning when Layne thought Wadsworth should be in his office she called and was put through to him.
"What is it"? he asked shortly.
"I've been thinking Mr. Wadsworth and fighting you seems to be futile. I'm ready to talk contracts. May I come to your office this afternoon?"
"I hope" he said with silken lechery, "that you have reconsidered many things. You may come this afternoon at two but come prepared for a nice long chat. Understand?"
"Oh ... quite" she said with a tittering lilt to her voice that made him squirm. He hung up abruptly. Pressure, he thought. Pressure and toughness. That always brings them around. He chuckled deep in his chest and his pulse picked up a faster beat. What a choice berry, what a succulent dish. Blom had paid him a visit earlier and had talked about the advisability of getting her back in the fold not failing to draw a vivid picture of just what it would mean to Wadsworth to have her back and ready to cooperate. Blom had started him thinking along the right track and when she called repentant and willing to get along he was ready. He smacked his thick lips and indulged in a bit of daydreaming. He touched the button that drew the curtains of his little love nest and smiled to himself. This would be all the sweeter because it represented a battle won.
Layne dressed for the appointment with Mr. Wadsworth with her usual care and when she was done Evey envied her openly. "It is that you are something for the male eye. Are you not afraid to dress with such lusciousness when visiting a man like Wadsworth?"
"Not this time" said Layne with assurance. The fact that Soldarez was pulling the strings provided all the courage she needed.
She drove slowly toward her appointment and let her mind dwell upon that night of love that had made such a profound change in her. She had had to force herself to dress as she had because now she did not care about attracting men. Only one man was important now and when she remembered what her life had been like before Soldarez came and filled her entire world she shivered with dread.
He said he was of the new order, that he didn't think like Old Mexico but could she be sure? Moreover, he had not said a word about love. Loving gallant words, yes, but no declaration of undying devotion. She stopped that train of thought because it was getting corny. She even blushed a little at the trite thought. Had she mentioned love to him? She couldn't remember but she thought not. She hadn't realized love as an entity until she'd wakened that morning to see him sprawled nakedly in her bed. In that moment it flooded her mind and those things she had kept well strangled in the basement of her mind arose then like a flock of frightened quail. He had provided her with something that could be taken away and the thought was almost too harsh to consider. Wolff had predicted that when the right man came along she'd melt. It had happened involving a man who had avoided marriage for a long time and would probably try to avoid it in the future.
She was not sorry for what she had done. It was too dear for that. If she achieved nothing else she could always remember what it was like, the heights of which she was capable.
Tears came to her eyes and she was glad that she never wore mascara. How could she possibly go on without him? How could he bring such light and color and joy into her life and then leave it without looking back. She almost scraped a parked car as she drove down Santa Rosa Drive. It brought her back to full consciousness which she maintained until she was safely parked. She was ushered into the opulent office by a svelte secretary who discretely withdrew and closed the door behind her.
"Come in" said Mr. Wadsworth a trifle coolly. "I'll be with you in a moment".
He shuffled papers on his desk as she took a seat, palpably to kill time then cleared his throat importantly. "I'm sorry you saw fit to place yourself in this embarrassing predicament" he said. "Now you are put in the position of asking to be taken back".
"I was wrong to fly off the handle" she said sniffing. She pawed in her bag, withdrew a facial tissue, placed the bag on his desk so she could use both hands and pretended to dab tears. She pressed and rubbed hard so they'd show up red then blew her nose noisily.
"I didn't realize what it would mean" she said brokenly. "That man and those pictures...."
"What man and pictures?"
"Why ... I assumed the man who was caught taking pictures of me from the fire escape was your doing."
He smirked. "Perhaps. I give orders. I forget them. Since you've come to your senses, I won't keep it from you that I make it a habit to keep a file of little known information on people who work for me. If they're indiscrete then I often acquire some rather artistic pictures. They come in handy".
"That's clever of you" she admitted timidly.
"Of course." he said smugly. "How else would I handle temperamental people? By judiciously applied force". He got up and came around to her dropping a questing hand across her shoulder covering her left breast and pressing gently. She almost cried out from the terrible wave of revulsion that poured over her. She hoped Soldarez wouldn't take too much time interrupting this meeting.
"Suppose we have a few drinks and relax on the couch" he said, his voice thick with desire.
"Suppose we talk contract" she said willing herself away from some furious act of resentment at his familiarity.
"Still the business woman. Well, it will be at a substantial raise in terms of money. The rest of it about like the other one. There is a clause, however, that will not appear on paper. It has to do with certain privileges of mine which I shall demand be satisfied upon request".
She affected to misunderstand. "You mean to get around labor laws...."
"Nothing like that" he simpered stroking her neck. "These privileges are to be my personal property and will affect you personally".
At that moment Brenda Watters was announced over the intercom. Wadsworth frowned but said, "Send her in".
Brenda came in dressed in knit toreadors with a matching sweater that fit her so tightly she must have had trouble breathing. "He said it is very important and for you to play it immediately".
The scowl deepened as he punched a button and a tape recorder with a playback attachment emerged at one side of the desk. He pushed a switch to cut off the speaker, donned earphones and started the tape. As it played his face grew paler and paler. Layne could see the furious working on his mind and a wet patina of panic glistened on his face. It was ghastly now and his eyes seemed to stand from his head. Abruptly he snapped off the switch and leaped to his feet. He was so pale his lips appeared blue. '"There'll be no answer as yet" he chattered, beside himself with some powerful emotion. "No answer ... No answer. Not now. Out ... Get out, both of you".
Layne demurred. "But what about ... "
"Nothing ... what about nothing". His voice rose shrilly and his eyes were glazed with fear.
"Both of you get out of here".
Layne followed Brenda Watters out of the office and heard Wadsworth's voice on the intercom as they reached the outer office. "Miss Black, you're to allow absolutely no one to come through that door for thirty minutes, understand me."
"Yes sir".
"On second thought, I'll lock it from in here".
At that moment four men walked into the outer office and stationed themselves in strategic places. Two men walked calmly to the desks occupied by the two secretaries and pulled the plugs on the intercoms then backed up and waited.
"What's the meaning of this" shrilled Miss Black, leaping to her feet. I'll call the police. I'll call...." Creighton Miller took his hand from his coat pocket and palmed it in her direction. She took a look at what he held, clamped her lips shut and sat with a thump. Miller did the same to the other secretary. "Now" he said in a mild voice. "We'll just wait until he comes out".
Soldarez came in at that moment and caught Layne by a trembling arm. "Was it bad?"
"Horrible" she said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "Horrible, but she came in in time".
"The bag is on his desk?"
"Yes".
"You remembered to throw the switch?"
"Yes, when I got a tissue from the bag".
"You pointed it to take in the desk and the love nest?"
"Yes".
"Then all's well".
"Unless" said Miller as he came up, "he burns it rather than try to take it out".
"That stuff makes an awful stink when it burns. He's alarmed but he thinks he's far enough ahead of danger that he can take a chance on smuggling it out of here. That's the gamble we'll have to take. I feel certain it's in the office. I was banking on him shooing the girls out as soon as he heard the tape through."
Brenda Watters tried to sneak out but a man caught her. Miller turned. "You'll be needed, Miss Watters".
"Needed for what?"
"For questioning. For being unregistered Red and a few other things we can dig up".
She went pale but accepted a chair held for her by the man who had stopped her. She sagged into it, suddenly old and drawn and ugly.
Soldarez put Layne in a chair and took a seat on Miss Black's desk trailing a long sinewy leg. He was resplendent in a smooth new uniform and his decorations blazed across the left upper corner of his blouse. He was the cool lithe feline now, the look of latent ferocity hardening his dark face, his eyes pinpoints of icy blue.
It took Wadsworth considerably less than thirty minutes to gather his secrets. In less than fifteen minutes they heard the lock on the door snick back and he marched out straight into the hands of Miller and his men. His jaw dropped and his face went livid. "What is the meaning of this?" he croaked dropping the bulging brief case, retrieving it instantly. It was the immortal phrase uttered earlier under similar if not exactly the same pressures, by Miss Black. Miller produced a paper. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Timothy Wadsworth. You are charged with not registering as an agent of the Soviet Union. There will be other charges."
Wadsworth sneered but his face was still like chalk. "I'm Mangel Wadsworth and you haven't a thing on me".
"What's in that bag?"
"Tapes belonging to a friend of mine. He left them with me for safe keeping."
"That's very interesting. The tapes will no doubt make interesting listening. Especially the one you received a few minutes ago from Miss Watters that triggered this storm of activity. Take him boys and shake him down good right now. A suicide would be most inconvenient".
Two hours later they were assembled in Layne's living room. Wolff, Soldarez, Blom and Miller. Blom was nursing vodka and orange juice. He spoke. "Colonel, you're the only man who ever convinced me of anything by knocking me down. Right then there was something that told me I didn't know as much as I thought. You have certainly saved me more than you know. I shall always be grateful".
"You helped" said Soldarez. "Maybe more than you know. Thanks to you, Layne was able to make an appointment, leave her handbag on his desk and get a sound movie of him making indelicate conditions and demands upon her person. Also we found out where he kept the tapes and considerable other information. He punched a button on his desk and a section of the ceiling came down. It's fitted so well and is so solidly, I doubt that we could have located it without a lot of trouble. The control was also hidden well. There was other things in the safe that we wanted. He had taken all he could cram in the brief case and doubtless intended coming back for more".
Miller said, "Felipe, we'd already established that he wasn't Mangel Wadsworth but an older brother, Timothy, almost a double of Mangel. Neither of them had mingled very much and there were only a few pictures of them. Fingerprints did it. I salute you, your cousin and Sodium Pentothal.'"
Wolff drained his glass and handed it to the silent, but available Evey. "What will happen to Acme now I wonder?"
"What will happen to all those fellow travelers Acme has been supporting" wondered Miller.
"Will any of them be arrested" asked Layne of Miller.
"The one Blom told us about will be. He's a card carrying member. Smith will be for the same reason and Brenda Watters also. We'll have to check your old agent, Russell. Tracing it back it seems he was the one who set fire to the fuse when Layne sent him packing. However, something would have sooner or later."
Soldarez nodded stiffly. "It surely would. I came up here for the express purpose of setting fire to it".
Blom asked, "Then you're not an expert on Mexican antiquity?"
Soldarez lit a long black cigarette. "Oh ... I suppose you could call me that. It was something to give me a good reason for appearing here".
"The blatant announcement of your presence here has intrigued me" said Blom. "Why did you do it?"
"For the sake of confusion. They expected one thing. I give them another and all hands are understandably bemused. I succeeded rather well, wouldn't you say?"
"You can say that again" said Blom profoundly, showing that he had been in the States long enough to pick ,p slang. He turned to Layne. "You need have no fear for your future, Leibchen. Continental has been after me for a year. Unless Acme has a much better offer I shall accept Continental's. I feel I can assure you an equally good contract with them".
Layne shook her head. "Thanks, Fritz. No more contracts for me".
Wolff said, "She'll free lance now and have a great deal more to say about script, co-star and everything else not excepting money. With that sound film of Wadsworth's filthy proposition she could nick him for a cool million bucks and I'd take the case out of sheer malice".
Blom's face was serious. "Layne, please believe me, I've learned a tremendous lesson. I learned that I'm not as important as I once thought along with many others. You will have no trouble from me and I shall consider it a rare privilege to direct you again".
"Thanks, Fritz. I'll remember that".
Wolff stood up. "I think" he said slowly, "that our welcome is wearing thin. I note a suggestion of annoyance in Layne's priceless orbs. What say we duck out ... er, all except you, Felipe".
Soldarez grinned. "The annoyance you noticed was in my baby blue eyes. Good day, souls".
Layne watched them go with an inner gladness that was so acute it was no wonder that Wolff, who was an extremely sensitive person, detected her anxiety to be alone with Felipe even before she was well conscious of it.
The door closed and she stood up and went quickly into his arms. "It seems like years" she breathed savoring the gentle caressing hand on her back.
"When hours seem like years a great many things speak loudly without being uttered" he replied softly and tilted her head for his kiss. As before her head reeled and torrid blood exploded through her veins like a cataract of rich effervescent wine. Again her overloaded heart brought a freshet of tears to her eyes. Her jaws slackened and her tongue was a darting avid serpent. They reached the first peak and she went slack in his arms. "Oh Felipe how can I want you so much? Do you suppose it could hurt me?"
"No. To pain of this sort there is always a cure". Her smile was tremulous. "I'm glad the cure isn't permanent".
He laughed. "That would be calamitous. I hope never to be that much of a doctor".
She laughed and gave him a quick affectionate peck. As much as she wanted him the certainty that she would get him removed anything suggesting feverish avidity. There was just a simple fundamental hunger that she knew would be fed.
They sat on the couch and she came into his arms again, wishing she had on nothing but her robe. She" moved her mouth just enough to let slurred speech through. "Damn these clothes, Felipe."
He rubbed her nose with his. "That can be remedied without any damning ... and I want to be the remedy".
She kissed him hard. "I want you to".
They walked out of the living room hand in hand and Layne felt through his fingers the excitement that flickered through him, traveling through their fingertips like a sharp strong current.
Little by the tiniest little he disrobed her, an almost religious joy shining in his eyes. She allowed him to handle her like a baby feeling not the slightest shame only eagerness to give him the joy she knew he felt at the sight of her young exciting beauty. Slowly she emerged from the confining textile like a rose being born through a mound of snow, like an edelweiss emerging from a drift. Finally he stood away and admired her. The unblemished purity of her golden skin, the soft silken texture of her thick tawny hair, the fecund curve and richness of her hips, the exultant revolt of her passion hardened breasts with their erect strawberry tips.
He then performed a gesture of obeisance that struck her so deeply that it was a kind of shock. He dropped to his knees and embraced her holding his face close against the satiny expanse of her stomach. She hugged his head with a quick clutch and folded forward, every muscle in her body turned to jelly. He caught her and kissed her with a kind of wild hysterical eagerness his hands caressing her until she was weeping and massaging her face against his so ripped by emotional pain that it seemed unendurable. He picked her up, placed her on the bed. She held to her senses by a dint of pure will power then he came to her, tanned, musucular, the finest specimen of manhood she had ever seen ... and she was his.
Layne awoke at midnight and as before she was so completely relaxed she felt partly not there. It seemed that she remained at the heights to which she had been carried, everything had the same mystical feeling of cold purity, brilliant colors and the echoes of fabulous music. Then she noticed that Felipe was not with her. A pain struck her in the breast like the thrust of a dagger. Then Layne, for the first time in her memory, went all to pieces. She screamed for Evey who soon appeared, her eyes wild with an unidentified fear that had pierced the heavy curtain of sleep.
"Evey ... My God ... He's gone. Did you see him . .? What time did he leave? Did he say anything to you? Did he say where he was going...?" She stopped and gulped air and Evey, pardonably annoyed that she had been awakened from a sound sleep and frightened half out of her wits was inclined to be short tempered with Layne's hysteria and the slap seemed to contain not only medication for the girl's malady but also a touch of malicious revenge. Layne collapsed on the bed and began to weep softly. Evey was instantly repentant. "I'm so sorry to have slapped you chiquita but you were hysterical all over the place".
Layne, her mind running wild knew he had left her for good and the thought was unbearable. She cried until she was weak and sick and Evey was in a state of distraction. Finally she said, "This I cannot stand. Are you losing your mind?"
"I ... think I am ... He's gone Evey and he'll never come back. I just know he'll never back back and I'll never see him again and I simply can't stand it. I'll die ... I know I'll die".
"This is a matter too knotty for me" said Evey and made her escape into the living room where she called Wolff. "Senor Wolff, my chicken has flopped her top I'm afraid. Is it that you could come over and maybe you could put a little quiet on her".
"What seems to be the trouble, Evey?"
"It is the Senor Soldarez. He left while she was asleep and now she is going loco in her cabeza".
"I'll come over. Get a slug of brandy into her."
By the time Wolff arrived she had two slugs of brandy in her and was relatively quiet but tears came in a seeming unending stream from her eyes.
"What is all this" he snarled frowning ferociously as Evey took his hat and coat".
"He's gone, Ken" she sobbed. "He's gone and he won't come back."
"What utter nonsense. He's a man with many things on his mind. Maybe he had business that he couldn't mention to you".
"His business is all finished. He left and didn't even say goodbye".
"His business is never finished" he replied, sitting beside her.
Layne, with a tremendous effort forced the panic from her mind, took a deep shuddering breath and could even feel a little silly now that the first sharp edge had been dulled.
She shook her head. "This is a terrible imposition, Ken. I must have completely lost my mind."
"Let's hope it is temporary" he said shortly.
She took another deep breath. "I'm all unstrung and of course I'm being silly but there's something terrifying about this. Suppose he doesn't come back?"
"Your world will have to go on" said Wolff kindly. "This is most unlike you, Layne".
"I know ... I know. I can't understand this in me. I was never this way before".
"Maybe you've never been in love before".
She was silent for a while. "Why can't I admit that to myself? Why do you have to tell me? After all, I'm the one most concerned".
"Maybe it is too close to you to see clearly. Get angry. Hate him for a while. I'll be a switch if nothing else."
"I can't hate him" she moaned shaking her head. "I love him and like a fool I wouldn't let my mind dwell on the subject and it all caught me unprepared. I might as well face it. He won't want me on a permanent basis. He knows too much of my lurid past".
"I must remind you that you don't know him very well. Thre's no need to punish yourself before the need makes itself apparent. Any man in love, no matter how he has been reared, can usually forgive anything. My father always said, up until he found himself in such a position, that he wouldn't marry a woman who smoked. He always said that no respectable Jewish lady would smoke and what did my mother do, but hook a smoke ring right around his prominent nose".
Layne blinked her swollen eyes. "What did he do then?"
Wolff laughed. "Just what you might expect. He had to take an agonizing reappraisal of his philosophical stand which, of course, ended in his admitting that maybe a few Jewish ladies did smoke and that maybe it wasn't a brand of immorality after all".
"Ken, you're giving me hope. Stop it".
"Oh go soak your head. You're out of swaddling clothes."
"Maybe another brandy would help".
"Maybe I did wrong in suggesting it in the first place. Suppose he doesn't come back. Will you take to the bottle?"
"I don't know. I really don't know. I even find it hard to consider that he won't come back. That's because my mind simply will not accept it".
"Don't you think you're getting sillier the further you go? Do you expect him back tonight?"
"Why not" came a lazy voice from the doorway." Soldarez stood there, tall, piratical, with a grin splitting his face from side to side.
With a leap she came to her feet and flew into his arms sobbing wildly. "You came back ... you came back ... you came back...."
Soldarez, his arms full of frantic Layne glanced anxiously over head. "Say ... what gives here?"
"It seems that the lady awoke up and found you gone. It was too much for her so she threw a really colorful hat-full of hysterics. I'm disillusioned. I thought better of her and such a sad provocation. A clothes horse who happens to be a Mexican colonel".
Soldarez whose soothing hands had stroked away much of Layne's agitation led her to the couch.
"Now what's all of this about" he asked her gently.
"You were ... gone" she said a sob jerking into the remark.
"Oh, that. Well, I came to a momentous conclusion and I'm impulsive so I had to do something about it. So I stole your keys and went out on the town for a while."
"Now you may look for no hysterics from me" put in Wolff, "but that was a moderately idiotic thing even for an impulsive man who is a Mexican colonel".
"I haven't told the whole story yet" said Soldarez stroking his perfect moustache. "For a plugged centavo I'd put you out in the cold and let your curiosity keep you awake all night".
"I'm here to stay" said Wolff solidly. "What made you take a sudden notion to go out on the town"?
Soldarez pulled a small elegant box from his pocket and flipped the lid. "The owner of the store was also somewhat incensed until I mentioned size".
Wolff got slowly to his feet not failing to observe that Layne's eyes were frozen on the object her jaw hanging slack.
"Ye gods what a rock" breathed Wolff examining the blazing gem. "Was his name Goldberg? "Nup. His name is Abrams".
"Good solid Israelite. I'd have had him drummed from the synagogue if he'd given you any lip." He squinted at the stone again. "Man...."
Soldarez took the ring from the box and reached for Layne's left hand. "Would you consider letting me put up this sign reading 'Reserved'?"
She let him place the ring on her finger while she turned her face to the couch and wept with harsh strangling relief.
"Well" said Wolff beckoning to Evey for his hat and coat. "No one can say I don't know when I comprise a crowd. See how silly you were, Layne?"
She looked up and nodded. "Ken ... thanks so much for coming and holding me together. I'll never forget this. I'm an awful weakling where this Mexican colonel is concerned".
"I demand to be present at the wedding" said Wolff donning his coat which Evey was holding for him.
Soldarez grinned. "That's a promise. We'll even promise to have all our sons circumsized".
Wolff chuckled. "That's a gentile habit now but I recommend it anyway".
He left then and Layne drew a shuddering breath. "Felipe, I think I died a little when I found you gone".
"I'm really sorry about that" he said contritely. "You were sleeping so soundly I didn't think you'd wake up. I was overcome by the cuteness of this idea I had".
She smiled at him wistfully. "Felipe, we're engaged and you've never said you loved me".
He frowned. "You might find this strange but I avoided thinking about it, actually, until tonight. He caught her face in his hands and brought it close. "Layne, you weren't quite believable tonight. The other night was equally wonderful, but at that time it was just a successful bit of cavaliering, because, as I said, I hadn't admitted something to myself that was there all the time dogging me in the deep distance. Tonight it blew up in my face. I love you, Layne, for all there is in the future. I never meant anything so completely as I mean that".
Her eyes went damp again and she caught his hands and pressed them closer to her face. "Felipe, please believe me, I mean this, too. I love you and nothing whatever is going to keep me from making you a good wife. That will be my career".
"I'm glad you said that" he answered soberly. "I was a little concerned about it. Show business has a way of hanging on its own. Frankly all this tinsel and glitter is not for me. I want to raise fat cattle and strong children. I want the wind in my face and the sun hot on my back. I want to be a part of the seasons and feel the changes. I want to watch the land grow things and help it when needed. Naturally, I'll want to take a breather occasionally and do something different. I think the reason I never married is that I never met a woman whom, the thought of having to do without, sent me into aching nausea. I knew tonight that it was you who had me feel that way for the first time in my life".
She went into his arms and tears of relief flooded her eyes and her kiss was a hungry possessive connection with him, completing the circuit and the current was a shocking deluge of ecstasy rendered sweeter by the sure knowledge that he was hers for all time.
He lifted her from the confines of her robe, like lifting a rare gem from a nest of velvet, letting it trail and fall from the couch to the floor. As on other occasions she gloried in her nude loveliness and the knowledge that from him full appreciation was forthcoming.
He stood straight, bearing her weight as though she was no weight at all. He drew her close and kissed her. "Did I ever tell you that you're too lovely? That you make my senses reel and I'm no longer master of myself?"
She slid a soft golden arm about his neck and whispered "You're my master and all those wonderful simple things you want are what I want. You're my only light, Felipe. Please shine for me".
He nodded and carried her out of the living room ... and shone for her.
