... She'd completely loosened his buckle, then undone the clip holding the top of his trousers together. Using both hands, she eased the waist over his hips and let them fall to the floor...."Come here, and undress me."
CHAPTER ONE
As he flicked on the beam of his pocket flashlight, Frank Rojeck realized with a wry grin that was lost in the darkness that he was finally seeing Kelly O'Donnell in the nude.
She sat up almost immediately after he'd played the beam over the appetizing length of her long, shapely body that seemed to glow with urgency and appeal, even in the thin light. Her arms moved to cover her full, ripe breasts, but from the way she did it, and from the hard look on her slender, angular face, Rojeck knew she'd reacted from irritation rather than surprise. "Is that you, Rojeck?" she said wearily.
Frank told her it was.
"Oh, God," she moaned. "I might have known. Why does it always have to be you?"
"Because," he replied acidly, "they know how much I love you." He played the beam of light a few inches to the left taking in the outline of a sleeping male figure some inches shorter than Kelly O'Donnell. Her right leg was entwined with his left, as though they'd been playing a slow, leisurely game of footsie before drowsing off to sleep.
Kelly O'Donnell's bed mate still dozed and Frank found himself pausing for a careful scrutiny of the famed O'Donnell figure. There was a radiance about her skin that made you want to touch, and no matter where you touched, you'd be in trouble. No matter which direction you chose, it couldn't help becoming better. Her arms, for instance. They were long and smooth, with a faint suggestion of muscle. They led delicately to a wide pair of shoulders-Kelly was a big girl, but on her it looked good-which gave a man ideas about kissing, biting and just holding on. They made a good handful. Her chest was like a delicate swell of sand dune on the desert. Her breasts were Taj Mahal's of perfection, round and supple, coming to jaunty, almost insolent points. She did not have to wear a bra, they were perfect, with just enough of a delta between them to add a note of gentle mystery.
Kelly's waist was tiny, an effect she liked to emphasize by wearing wide leather belts. But there was nothing tiny about her hips. They swelled gently into large, touchable crescents. Legs? Yes, Frank thought, Kelly had those too. They had that same, long slenderness of the arms, bulging with the smoothness of swimmer's muscles, moving exquisitely down to narrow, delicately boned ankles.
There wasn't a visible ounce of fat on her. All leanness and that radiant quality, particularly about the flatness of her stomach, that moved smoothly down to the delta of her thighs.
Seeing her like this, Frank took in a gulp of air. Despite the animosity he felt toward her, he couldn't help himself. Kelly O'Donnell was not just attractive, she was-she was-he hated himself for thinking it under the circumstances, but she was probably the most desirable woman he'd ever seen.
"When you've finished contemplating my belly button," she said, "you might as well get on with your little act." With her eyes, she seemed to add the tag, "you bastard."
Frank clucked his tongue in admiration. There were some things that just did not ruffle her, even being caught in bed with someone. "Who's lover boy this time?" Frank asked.
"As if you didn't know. As if you didn't know everything. Sometimes I think the only way you get your kicks is chasing after me."
"Just doing my job, Chicken," he said. "The public has an image of you. I've got to help protect it."
The man beside Kelly stirred. His lean brown arm reached out for and found her breast. He began fondling it with a dreamy expression on his face. Kelly regarded him tenderly for a moment, not disturbed in the least by Frank's presence. After a few seconds, she twitched. "I know what I'd like to do," she said, "but I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of letting you watch."
"I'm getting closer all the time, aren't I?" Frank said snidely. "Who knows, maybe next time-"
The man next to Kelly sat up, a string of profane Spanish spewing from his lips as he shielded his eyes from the probe of the flashlight.
"Good morning, Matador," Frank said in Spanish.
"Who the hell are you?" the man said in Spanish.
"I'm the party pooper," Frank said. "I've come to take Venus home to Hollywood, where all the good little girls stay."
The man described an impossible biological function for Frank to perform on himself. Frank found the light switch on the wall and flicked the switch. "I'm sorry as hell" Frank said to the man. "I have a great respect for you as a torrero. I've watched you in Tijuana and I saw you in the Plaza de Mexico the day you cut ears and tail. But when you begin cutting ears and tail on the property of Videlity Studios, I have to step in."
Kelly looked fondly at the bullfighter, running a hand over his brawny bared shoulder, trailing off into the matted hair of his chest, where she wound a strand of hair into a curlicue. "I wish I could speak Spanish to explain to you," she said to him.
The gentleness in her voice made the bullfighter look questioningly. He pointed to Frank. "Quien es este hombre?"
"He wants to know who I am," Frank told Kelly. He picked up her silk negligee from the floor, where it had been tossed. "You get dressed while I tell him."
Kelly glared at him for a moment, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. When she stood up, Frank had to gulp again. He felt like a yokel at a carnival. He reminded himself of a tourist from Nebraska, craning his neck, looking for movie or TV stars while taking a Tanner Grey Line tour of Hollywood. But there was no getting around it, Kelly O'Donnell did have a body. Her breasts jogged impudently as she made her way to the dressing closet, leaving Frank alone with the bullfighter to explain.
He must know, Frank said, that millions of people watched Kelly O'Donnell every week. She played the part of a young mother, happily married. How would it look if the news leaked out? It was bad enough that Kelly had been married three times. Now if the Matador would be a good fellow, Videlity Productions would be happy to kick in twenty-five hundred dollars to take care of his bruised feelings. He was about to give the matador the alternative and describe what had happened to a few of Kelly's former lovers who'd thought they could strong arm him out of the way. He could mention the broken arm of the tennis player, the broken nose of the biology professor at UCLA, the battered face of the TV actor, he could even throw in his Black Belt judo rating as an additional inducement, but the matador did something unorthodox.
Mexicans were always doing something unorthodox. This one bolted from bed, giving an unflattering description of Frank's ancestors. Frank was totally off guard for the quick flash of a fist rushing to meet his jaw. For a moment, he thought someone had switched off the lights, but turning off lights did not seem to jar your brain loose, nor did it jab you in the gut ... or turn everything into spinning emptiness....
When he awoke, Frank saw that Pablo Higuera, the excellent young matador, was killing two birds with one stone. He was taking advantage of Kelly O'Donnell's lavish body and showing his contempt for Frank and Videlity Productions in general. He was, in fact, staging quite a nice little production of his own, right on top of the king-sized double bed.
For a moment they looked like a statue that might have been done by an old master like Donatello or Leonardo, fused together in a rhythmic, flowing motion, the firm whiteness of Kelly's long body enveloping the matador's rich brown, muscular frame.
The act had no connotation of the profane about it. Clearing his head, Frank was in awe, and he experienced a pang of envy for the matador who was fondling the breasts, running his hand occasionally along the insides of Kelly's thighs, kissing the coils of her long blonde hair, running everything quite smoothly until Kelly, in a burst of womanly passion, began taking over.
She did this with a gentle but firm insistence and Frank saw in a moment that the young matador was no match for her. By an adroit scissors kick of her long legs, Kelly had reversed their position. The matador let out an exclamation of surprise. "Just hold on and stay with me," Kelly said.
The matador did not understand. His sense of dignity was damaged by having this tall monument of womanliness dictating the motions, her head tilted back now with her eyes closed in enjoyment, her blonde hair trailing down her white, well-formed back.
It was a lesson from an expert, Frank thought, marveling at the way Kelly regulated the graceful motions to the point where he felt himself fired with a desire of his own. The entire length of her body flowed in a continuous tide, increasing to a crescendo.
In another moment, the matador began to cry out in release. Kelly reached forward, touching him on the stomach and loins with a gentle, tickling motion. The matador began writhing in spasm now. She was clearly as much a woman as he'd ever had. He was going along bravely, but as Kelly began, breathing heavily, on the point of release herself, the trueness of her superiority and womanness came out. The matador was a small boy in the arms of an expert. When it was all over for him, it was still happening to Kelly. She no longer seemed fused to him, she was something apart, a full, pliant, naked woman, with a glow of fulfillment about her.
The show was all Kelly's.
Frank did not feel like an eavesdropper as he watched her fall to her side, breathing heavily, sighing with content. He was aware of something burning inside of him, an intense desire. A challenge was on. No wonder Kelly attracted so many men. She seemed to embody womanly love-making. Despite her tramp's nature and her lack of taste in men, Frank was actually glad he'd seen this. You did not have to like someone to respect them. But he knew that from now on, he would measure any woman he'd have against the performance Kelly had just put in.
What a damned shame, he thought. All the talent and none of the morals. All the awe-inspiring beauty and not one bit of the discretion. Nature played some ironic jokes and in a way, this was one of her most grotesque mutations. A girl with Kelly's body and technique. She was built for making love. She had the stature, the hips, the breasts-everything a man could possibly hope for when he thought of an ideal love partner. And Kelly obviously enjoyed it, too. There was just one catch, one god-awful catch that fouled up the whole thing. Kelly O'Donnell didn't care how often or with whom.
CHAPTER TWO
Frank sat up, rubbing his chin. Kelly noticed him with a snicker. "That was one you couldn't stop. You're falling down on the job. You're supposed to protect my maidenhood."
He rose to his feet wtih a wobbly motion. "Get dressed," he told her. "We're going back now."
She giggled. "Shall I ask Pablo to knock you out again, so we can sneak in another one?"
"Pablo won't get the chance," Frank told her. "Now do as I say."
The bullfighter sprang out of bed and came at him again. Frank sidestepped the attack this time and stood poised, his weight evenly distributed on his feet. "I don't want to hurt you, matador. If I offended you by offering the money-"
"You bet you ass," Higuera said.
"-then I'm sorry. But I've got to take her back now. Can't we do this peacefully?"
"In a pig's ass," the bullfighter said. He charged Frank again.
"I'm sorry," Frank said. He caught the matador's intended right cross between a lever made of his own forearms. It was a basic jiujitsu maneuver, simple but effective. He literally pried at the matador's bony arm until he heard a snap.
No mistaking it, the kid had guts. The scars on his body had been his baptism in pain from the bulls. A look of surprise came into his face when his arm hung limply, obviously broken, but he did not cry out
"I'm sorry," Frank said. "I guess that takes care of your fight Sunday. You can send us the bill for the arm. And that isn't a bribe."
Higuera told Rojeck a place to put the money.
Kelly giggled. "Do you realize this is the first time you haven't been able to make me feel cheap?" She went to the naked bullfighter and dropped to her knees next to where he sat on the edge of the bed, cradling his arm. She kissed him on each knee. Then she kissed the broken arm. Her final gesture was to take his head tenderly between her hands and press it to her bosom.
Higuera responded in cavalier fashion by kissing each of the red aureoles that adorned the tips of her breasts like freshly crushed strawberries. Then Kelly stood up. "Adios," she said. Then she asked Frank the Spanish word for lover. Frank told her. "Adios, amado," she said. "Now, Rojeck, will you kindly get the hell out of my room while I dress?"
How do you figure a thing like that? Frank wondered. After what he'd just seen, Kelly had picked a fine time to be modest.
Women, he thought. There was no understanding them.
Ten minutes later, Kelly O'Donnell appeared. Dressed, she had a completely different effect, but it still led to the same thing. She wore girlish flats, which in no way diminished the trim line of her legs, a simple black skirt that caught the high-canted swell of her buttocks, and a thick white ski sweater. Her blonde hair hung in a horse's tail, emphasizing the slenderness of her neck and accentuating her cheeks, which ended in dimples on either side of her slightly oversized lips. Kelly was nearly five eleven, but it was a well proportioned tallness that left an over-all impression of delicacy and femininity.
Helping on with her orange nylon raincoat, he thought of the title of an old Restoration play " 'Tis Pity She's A Whore." It was a pity in Kelly's case. She'd have been a lot of woman for the right man.
"The back way out," he told her, "unless you promise not to make a scene."
"What good would that do? You'd plant a story saying I was suffering from the strain of overwork, or that I was sorry my business manager wouldn't let me donate more money to the starving Navajo Indians."
"That's an angle I hadn't thought of," Frank said.
"You would have," Kelly retorted vehemently. "That's what I like about you."
He escorted her to the elevator. Downstairs, the lobby was nearly deserted. A few die-hards could be heard at the craps table in the casion and an occasional croupier called out in nasal English, tinged with a lazy Mexican accent, "All bets down, please."
Five hundred dollars paid in cash to the night manager at the desk was insurance that Kelly O'Donnell had not been a guest of the Playa Paradiso Hotel this week-end. They hadn't even seen her. The night manager assured Frank he was the very soul of discretion. He knew just what Frank meant. He hoped on behalf of the hotel that someday they would have the pleasure of Miss O'Donnell's patronage.
Outside, Frank sent the bellboy on a wild goose chase with a five dollar bill as bait. He quickly ushered Kelly into his black Corvette. He couldn't avoid the excellent view of her legs as she swung into the car. "I suppose I should be sorry I've got them," Kelly said, noticing that he was watching her.
"Not at all" Frank told her when he was in on his side. "You just have to remember that you represent young matronhood to millions of television watchers. Young matrons don't go rushing off to play house for the weekend with bullfighters. They may think about it, but that isn't the same as doing it."
"Maybe I'm looking for something," Kelly said. "What would that be?"
"I don't know. Sometimes, I think I know, but most of the time-" there was a note of plaintiveness in her voice as it trailed off.
"Most of the time, the itch comes right back, doesn't it? Frank said, starting up the Corvette.
"I read you loud and clear," Kelly said, digging into her purse for a pack of Camels. "You think I'm a tramp, a nymphomaniac."
Frank shot her a sidelong glance. "You said it, KeL not me."
She pursed her moist lips about the cigaret. "Dear old Videlity Studios. They sure pick the right man for the right job. I'll bet you wouldn't even know what it felt like to be a man."
Frank eased out the clutch and let the car move forward over the gravel drive. They'd gone through this gambit every time he'd had to haul her away from some guy she'd gone off with. It was beginning to wear thin, he told himself. Or perhaps the constant repetition of it was beginning to get to him. At any rate, he felt bothered by it. "Try not to fight it," he told her. "The Studio is bigger than both of us, and part of the reason for that is you. You are built, Kelly."
"You must be getting soft, Rojeck. Do you realize that was nearly a compliment?"
"I'll have to watch myself," Frank said, trying to make it sound flip. He wasn't sure he'd managed to bring it off very well. Perhaps if he hadn't seen Kelly O'Donnell in the act of making love ... this might have rolled right off his back like all the other times. He could have repeated the title of the old play to himself and let it go at that. Just another part of his job as publicist. Just part of the routine.
But as the Corvette found the highway and began streaking north toward Tijuana and the border, he couldn't get the thought of Kelly out of his mind, or out from under his skin.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her skirt had moved up just beyond her knees. She stared out the window, watching the rain, unconcerned about her skirt. Or had she realized she was getting to him?
He felt his throat go dry. He tried to concentrate on the road. So she had nice looking legs-so what? He'd seen legs before. But his mind was racing on, remembering what it had seen beyond the knees. He could visualize the taut thighs and that inviting apex where her stomach and hips flowed together.
He gripped the wheel tightly. It was going to be a long hundred-fifty miles back to L.A.
CHAPTER THREE
The night desk clerk in the Playa Paradiso Hotel waited until the Corvette crawled out across the gravel drive and up onto the spur road leading to the highway north. Then he casually told the night phone operator that the switchboard could wait while she took a ten minute break.
When she was gone, he put on the headphone and dialed operator. He gave her a number in Tijuana.
He drummed his well manicured fingers impatiently on the switchboard, waiting as the phone at the other end of the fine rang, four times ... five ... seven ... and then the operator returned, saying she was sorry there seemed to be no answer.
The clerk asked her to please keep trying. Fourteen ... fifteen ... and on the twentieth ring, there was an answer.
"Hello, Enrique ... I'm terribly sorry to call at this hour but ... yes, Enrique, I know what time it is, I'm sorry ... but this is something you should know...."
Enrique thought he was going to explode. Of all the luck, of all the miserable luck. Just when it had been going so well, that idiot had to call. "All right," he said into the phone, "if it's so damned important, tell me."
He listened to the message, watching the woman who lay next to him, trying to decide if he could detect any traces of a changed attitude in her face. There was no clue until she noticed him watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts. Then she smiled and reached for his hand.
Enrique listened to the details on the phone only halfheartedly. He realized Martin had done the right thing in calling, but he was preoccupied, now that his hand had been directed to her small, but sharp breast, a gentle kneading motion started by her.
Her eyes were still glazed and dreamy and he wondered if they, would remain that way once he told her. He debated with himself. He'd seen her mad. Would it be worth it? Damn the luck.
It had been with him since he'd first seen her. The fact that she had such a light skin had something to do with it, but it was the insolence on her eyes and that high, bouncy motion to her buttocks when she walked that really did it for him.
He'd thought about it before, but this afternoon, he'd made up his mind to try something after propping his courage with a bottle of tequila.
When they'd all been in her room that afternoon getting the plans straight, himself, Pepe, Tonio and her, he'd let his eyes meet hers frankly. His ache for her had been so strong by then, he was positive she'd recognize it.
At first, he couldn't believe his luck. Her eyes boldly returned his inquiry, directing him to look at her breasts as she arched her back slightly. He didn't think he could bear the pressure that was mounting within him as he watched her breathe, those small, plum-like breasts moving rapidly up and down. His palms sweated from the desire to cup them, to touch them.
Then she got him to look back at her face. Deliberately she moistened her lips. Then her eyes had dropped toward her knees. Entranced, he'd followed to see her slender legs, crossed. Her right foot was kicking and bobbing. He was hypnotized by it, watching it move as she talked. Hearing the voices of Pepe and Tonio, but being unaware of nothing but that foot of hers, twisting, working her black patent leather pump slowly off her heel so that the shoe now hung precariously from her toes.
He was caught up in the suspense, waiting for the shoe to drop and each time he thought it would, she saved it by a wiggle of a toe.
He thought he heard his name being called, but he was too fascinated by her shoe, by the neatness of her ankle, the sight of her bared heel, the rhythmic twisting, to care.
"Enrique." It was her, it was actually her.
"He's thinking about a woman," Pepe had said. "When he gets that way, he loses track of everything else."
"Is that true, Enrique?" she'd said. "Were you thinking about a woman, or were you just concentrating on your part?"
"I'm sorry," he'd said lamely. "I was just thinking about what I would have to do."
"Good," she'd said cloyingly. "I'd hate to think you weren't paying attention to the plans."
But he knew she'd understood. She knew how fascinated he was. She knew he wanted her.
And then she managed to keep up the suspense again. The twisting of the ankle, the slow revolving of the foot, the precarious hanging of her shoe from her toe. And then quite suddenly, she'd let it fall. He'd been startled, but when he looked up, her eyes were boring right into him with a determination. As he watched her smile, he knew he'd won. He'd have her.
He hadn't gone for dinner that evening. He'd waited in his room, lying on the couch as the darkness came on. He hadn't heard her approach his door. There was a slight knock and then she was inside. He saw her stockinged feet.
Letting his eyes move up slowly over the slender calves and further on, toward the tiny, pinched waist, he saw the same black leather pumps that had held him so spell bound a few hours before. She held them in her hands.
"No sense making any noise, is there?" she'd said.
He'd stood up quickly, awkwardly trying to show some politeness. "Would you care for a drink? I have some tequilla and I think there's a fresh lime left."
She shook her head and gave a wry smile, "Get you a cigaret?" he said, fumbling in his pocket.
She let the shoes fall out of her hands as she shook her head and moistened her thin lips with the pink tip of her tongue. Enrique felt the same stabbing ache of desire run through him. If the same thing happened in an electric circuit, a fuse blew. What happened, he wondered, when it took place inside a man?
"Can I get you anything?" he asked.
She moved to him. Her chin rested against his chest and her hands explored his belt buckle. He was aware of her small pointed breasts pushing against him. And for no reason he could be sure of, he had the peculiar urge to see if her toe nails were painted with the same dull red polish as her fingers.
He didn't get the chance to look for quite some time.
She'd completely loosened his buckle, then undone the clip holding the top of his trousers together. Using both hands, she eased the waist over his hips and let them fall to the floor. Then she stepped back and smiled. "Now do you know what to offer me?"
Enrique said he did.
She walked to the edge of his bed and turned on the night light. "Come here," she said, "and undress me. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
He nodded emphatically and ran a hand through his wavy black hair. In a moment, he was at her side, on his knees. Slowly, he reached along the slimness of her thigh to disconnect her stocking from her panty girdle. He peeled the length of nylon slowly over her leg, admiring the daintiness of it. He raised her foot to his lips.
"No," she said. "Not yet. I want you to undress me first. I want us to make this long and good. Do you understand?"
His hand trembled as he removed her other stocking. What a pleasure it was, running his finger tips over the expanse of soft, white thigh.
He had more difficulty with the elastic panty girdle, but when it was off, he gasped in admiration. There was just the faint suggestion of a bulge at the lower portion of her abdomen. It was something he'd heard referred to as a love bump. Running his finger tips over it admiringly, he couldn't help agreeing. It would be nice.
A sudden sense of urgency came over him and he tilted his head forward until he felt his lips touching the soft warmness of her flesh. He felt it twitch beneath him.
"You have nice instincts, Enrique," she said. "Now finish undressing me."
Her skirt gave him no trouble, nor did the loose fitting black orlon sweater. He gasped again at the sight of her slender body, reclining on the bed, legs bent forward toward him.
"Be patient," she said. "You've waited this long."
It suddenly seemed ludicrous, the sight of her with nothing but a brassiere, made of black lace panels to contain her small breasts. He opened the fastener and removed the garment. And then she smiled again.
"Now," she said, "you can kiss me if you'd like?"
"Where?" he asked.
"That's up to you."
His head bent toward the love bump. He felt the flesh of her abdomen quiwer again with her own excitement. He looked up blankly as he heard her giggle.
"It's true about men with moustaches," she said.
He did not think this was a time for making jokes. Later, perhaps. Then he could join in on the joking.
Now, every fibre in his body ached for release in this slender, girlish body that lay before him. Yes, he'd had Gringas before, some of them good lookers. But there was something about her that fascinated him. He knew, by looking at her body that she could not yet be thirty. There were none of the tell-tale wrinkles about the neck or hips or backs of the hands. There was no flabby skin along the underside of the arms. With her small breasts and delicate aureoles, she reminded him of a ripe, firm plum. She was like a girl at some exclusive Eastern college. That was part of the charm. The way she looked, contrasted with the orders she'd been giving since he'd come to work for her. As sweet and as innocent as she looked, he knew there must be something deeper inside. He was eager to find out.
"Now it's my turn," she said, pulling him up toward her so that he ultimately lay on the bed next to her. She bounded to her knees and began removing his shoes and sox. He was potent and ready for her then. When she saw this, she closed her eyes and let out a soft moan.
If she likes it so much, he thought, why can't we? Why all this build-up?
He felt her cool fingers play in slow circles over his chest as she unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it off to one side. For a moment, he'd lost sight of her, then he felt the smoothness of her entire body, pressing against his back. Her breasts, firm and full, were tantalizingly boring into him. He set his teeth on edge and tightened his fists into balls.
He felt the moistness of her tongue, tracing designs along the small of his back. He could feel the tingle-shards of electricity-gapping across his nerve endings. To hell with it, he thought. She can play later. She can play all she wants, but now....
He turned to face her, gripping her tightly by the shoulders. "Listen," he whispered, "I want you. My gut aches to be a part of you."
To his surprise, she merely smiled and nodded.
He raised himself to his knees and then, by running his hand along her inner thighs, he knew she was just as ready, just as anxious as he.
They came together slowly. "Please," she said, "be careful at first. It's been a long time, a very long time." This struck him as odd, since she was obviously accomplished in all the delicate maneuvers of build up. He nodded. "Don't worry," he said.
"Please," she said, sounding like a shy bride on her wedding night, "promise to be careful."
"All right," he said. And then he slowly, deliberately became a part of her.
She let out a gasp. He could not tell if it was pain or pleasure. He decided it was a bit of both.
He realized then that if he did this well, there was no telling how far he could go. She might be his boss in the business with the girl and the money, but where it mattered the most, she would be his.
Carefully, he began, trying not to let himself be carried away too far-not this time. Later. But this first time was important. She had to think he was invincible in the bed department.
It was hard to be objective. The comfort and moistness of her body enveloping him was almost unbearably good. Her hands gripped his arms firmly, her nails digging into his flesh.
The rhythm of his motion was reaching her and he realized with a burst of pride that he could control the rhythm of her soft moaning.
And then the telephone rang....
"I'd better tell you," he said. "That was from the hotel in Playa Paradise"
Some of the passion seemed to drain from her narrowed eyes as she considered.
"It could be serious," Enrique said, immediately wishing he hadn't.
The eyes flickered again. "Nothing could be that serious," she said. "You can't leave me this way. You know that, don't you?"
"I'd hoped...."
"I'll make a bargain with you, Enrique, dearest. Tell me after."
She lit a cigaret while he took the details from the desk clerk at the Playa Paradiso Hotel. Immediately after he hung up, she held the cigaret to his lips for one puff, then her body moved across his as she reached for the ashtray. A shower of sparks fell when she missed the bowl of the ashtray, but she payed no heed to the coals. Her hands began probing his chest and loins again, and in another moment, they were together again, in the controlled, rhythmic motions.
Despite his admonitions to himself, he felt too much a sense of urgency now, as though this were a dream, miraculously resumed after an interruption. The softness and warmth of her body flowed about him. Her breath quickened and it was in his ears like an insistent bongo drum, beating relentlessly. Soon, all his senses seemed to desert him except the ones that told him of her moist, supple body, of the subdued acrid odor of her body, of the pulling excitement that ranged through him at the knowledge that he had possession of her.
There was nothing, no plan, no motel room, no bed, nothing but his body enveloped in her soft whiteness.
She writhed in an exquisite spasm of pleasure and he felt himself carried along at the same moment. He matched her motion for motion, breath for breath.
When it was over, she would not let him move away from her, a thing he would have done only out of consideration. He estimated her weight at an even hundred, at the very most, giving him a seventy-five pound edge on her. But she did not mind the weight. She seemed, if anything, to welcome it as she entwined her arms about the back of his neck and drew lazy circles on his back.
Lying this way, with his face buried in the strands of her short black hair, he knew he'd done well. She crooned into his ear, telling him how good he'd been to her, how she'd be good to him.
Everywhere she touched him, whether it was the lobe of his ear, the small of his back or underneath his arms, the electric joy sparked. He hadn't noticed himself become potent again, but when she discovered it, she let out a squeal of pleasure and playfully shifted her position so that her ankles were crossed-in back of his neck.
This time, he abandoned himself, spurred on by the growing redness that appeared in her cheeks.
"Now," she cried out. "Forget all the rules. Forget everything except that you're with me."
He felt the length of her legs, pinching against his neck, not painfully, but just enough pressure to remind him they were there. He became obsessed with the idea of kissing them and he did, with a hearty abandon.
"Hit me," she said.
"What?"
"Just once, please. Hit me. Hit me hard."
"I don't understand."
"Bite me. Hit me. Do something that's violent. Please. Just once. Please, oh please."
He did not like the idea. She could see it in his face.
"Please," she begged. "Just once. I won't ask you again if you do it this once."
What the hell, he thought. With the palm of his hand, he slapped her, catching her just at the jaw and cheek, leaving the imprint of his large hand. She moaned softly and tears came to her eyes. Perhaps he'd slapped too hard.
"That was wonderful," she told him. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I knew you'd be this good."
This was an element he hadn't counted on. It was as though the act of making love revealed an entirely new facet of her. On one lever, there was the plaintive young girl who wanted to be loved tenderly and with consideration. Then, on the other level, she wanted a repayment for her hardness and directness.
He saw her eyes probing his face for a reaction.
"Does it bother you to do that, Enrique?"
"It doesn't seem natural."
"But it makes me so aware of you as a man."
"A man should not have to hit a woman. There are other things." He made a few motions that caused her to write with the sudden stimulation. "That," he said "is more of a normal thing."
"Yes," she said, "but if you could just do it once or twice ... I'd love you for it, really, I would."
When he hit her this time, it came as a surprise to both of them. He experienced a surge of power that comes from knowing a weakness. She let out a gasp of excitement. Her eyes glistened and she was the innocent young girl again. He knew then that he could have her whenever he wanted.
"Relax," she said. He did and she, from her prone position, controlled the movement, writhing in deliberate, sensous circular motions with her slender hips until the friction of it carried them both to the plateau where they were aware only of each being a part of the other.
When it was over, she moved obediently, leaning her body across his, reaching for the night-stand and the pack of Delicados, his Mexican cigarets. She lit one, took the first puff and held the cigaret to his lips, making sure her breasts crushed against his forearm. "Now," she said, "you can tell me about the phone call."
"It was from the desk clerk at the hotel in Playa Paradiso. The girl is gone. She left with a man from Los Angeles. He paid five hundred dollars for the clerk's discretion. He also broke the matador's arm." She bit at the thinness of her lower Up. "It isn't that important," she said, "not really. We simply advance the plan slightly. It will happen on the road instead of in her room." Her hand found his loins and squeezed. "You see, querida, it doesn't matter in the least that you waited before telling me. Call Miguel and Hugo. They should leave immediately. That will put them in a perfect position to intercept before they get too close to here."
As Enrique reached for the phone, he' heard her whisper "please," before he felt the moistness of her lips on his shoulder. The switchboard operator rang the suite where Hugo and Miguel slept.
As he listened to the insistent ringing, he felt her lips exploring the small of his back. When a sleepy-voiced Hugo answered the phone, Enrique found it difficult to concentrate on the orders he was to give them.
"Nothing is wrong with me," Enrique said with a certain amount of irritation. "Just do as I say. The girl will be in a black 1959 Corvette, driven by a man named Rojeck." He called out Rojeck's California license number. "Do it on a lonely stretch of road. If possible, force them off to the side and pull the Corvette off onto the shoulder." He twitched at the sudden feel of her silky hair, brushing his loins. "I tell you, nothing is wrong with me ... no, there is not a woman with me. You remember what she said about women until this is over. Now, do you have it straight?" He listened while Hugo repeated the license number, muttered a quick all right and hung up.
She had him aroused and ready again.
"Shouldn't I go along with them, just to make sure it's done right?" he asked.
"Not when I have you like this," she said. "Let them go alone. I'd hate the thought of you being out in the rain and my being here, all alone."
"I just thought I'd ask," he said.
There was a hardness in her voice that baffled him. made him wonder if he'd been correct in judging her.
"From now on, querida, there is only one thing you ask for. I am still the boss, remember that."
He grunted.
"And now," she said, offering him a puff of the cigaret, "I want you to show me something. I have heard that Latins are imaginative lovers. I want you to show me some of that imagination. I've had to be a good girl for a long time. I don't like it when I have to be good for so long, not when I notice someone like you, looking at me the way you did." She reached for his hand and drew it to the hollow between her breasts. "You aren't sorry you looked at me that way, are you, dearest?"
Enrique said, "No, of course not," but he was glad she could not see his face while he was speaking.
CHAPTER FOUR
Frank tried to occupy himself by staring at the road through the incessant splatterings of rain droplets, flattening themselves against the windshield.
The hypnotic sweep of the wiper seemed to clear his mind with every completed cycle, leaving him only the memory of what he had seen back in the hotel: the naked body of Kelly O'Donnell, in bed with the matador.
The only trouble was, Frank found it increasingly difficult to allow the bullfighter to remain in the picture. He began substituting himself as Kelly's partner. And that, he nearly said aloud, was no damned good. Imagining yourself in the sack with a desirable woman was one thing, but there was absolutely no future in Kelly O'Donnell.
Since he'd been moved up in the Videlity TV Productions publicity chain of command to the point where he was head publicity writer for the Jim's Wife show, in which Kelly was star, the statistics had become unbelievable. Frank had compiled a score he'd believed to be reasonably accurate. In addition to her three husbands, there were fifteen other guys he knew of. Some of them had been, bluntly, one night stands. The most successful amongst them-husbands not included-had lasted two weeks. The statistics on the husbands was just as discouraging. They'd lasted an average of eight months each.
Even assuming that he could get Kelly to set aside the antipathy she must feel for him, there were still strong odds that he couldn't possibly last.
How was that for spelling it out in big, block letters?
And instead of letting it go at that, Frank found that he was still watching Kelly, still fascinated. The thought rankled him, but what was a guy supposed to do?
He watched Kelly light a new Camel with the butt of an old one. He was expecting her to behave according to a pattern that had been set up on these return trips. She'd go along in icy silence for a while, then she'd begin taking out all her venom on him, on Ed Fink, Videlity's director of publicity, and on the program, Jim's Wife. Then there'd be a solid portion of bitterness toward Hollywood in general, then reminiscences of her girlhood in Sausalito, across the Bay from San Francisco, then tears, then tight-lipped silence until he got her back to her apartment in Westwood.
This time was different. He'd never seen Kelly this nervous before. His own awareness of her set aside, there still seemed to be something in the air; a crackling of tension and excitement.
Kelly took a deep sigh. "Well" she said, pursing her sensual lips into a resolute pout. "Isn't it about time?"
"Time for what?" Frank asked her, turning his head to look full at her. It was a gesture he immediately regretted. Her lips looked so moist and inviting, so soft and controlled that he feared he'd do something completely adolescent and absurd, like pulling over to the side of the road and kissing her.
"The usual trip home lecture. Last time, you had a lovely new approach. Remember. 'What is it you're looking for with all this playing around, Kelly?' "
Frank bit his teeth into his lower lip. Yes, he'd said that, all right, but hearing her repeat it made him twitch. "No more lectures, Kelly. I've had it."
"I see," she said. "You're completely revolted by what happened when Pablo knocked you out. I'm just a little slut, beyond all salvation now. You wash your hands of the whole thing, is that it?"
"Was it ever in my hands?" Frank asked, regretting this, too.
"Why, Mr. Rojeck." Her voice was tinged with mock concern. "You must be getting soft. I thought the heart of every publicity man came in a vacuum packed tin."
"Stow it, will you, Kelly."
She wiggled out of her flats and propped her bared feet up on the padded ledge over the dash. "This is a new twist for you. I'm supposed to be the sensitive one."
He was about to answer her when he noticed the headlights of the approaching car, veering dangerously over into his lane. "Damned fool," he said and started to swerve the Corvette over into the left-hand lane.
The approaching car swerved too. The two cars were on a collision course.
"Brace yourself, Kelly," he told her, firmly but gently pushing her legs off the dash. "I think this guy is drunk."
He cut sharply back into the right lane again, back-shifting to second for greater traction on the slick road. The approaching car-he could see it was a battered 55 Plymouth-deliberately maneuvered into a fish-tail and the only way Frank could avoid contact was to head off onto the shoulder at the side of the road.
The Corvette took the jogging well, but at the last moment, he had to make a tug at the wheel to keep The Plymouth from making contact.
It seemed like an accident with a drunk, until the doors to the Plymouth opened and Frank saw the two men with guns.
"What do they want?" Kelly asked, a note of fear in her voice.
"I thought you might know. You've been acting sort of strange."
"Me?" she said in surprise. "What would I know? Unless they're friends of Palbo's, after a little revenge for what you did to his arm."
The two men were both dressed in Aquascutum raincoats, making them look more British than Mexican. One of them tapped gently on the window of the Corvette, showing Frank he had the gun and gesturing for both of them to get out.
"Stay close to me," Frank said, depressing the handle. Then, as an afterthought, "And for God's sake, try not to look sexy."
"Why, sir, you flatter me," Kelly said, sounding like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel.
Frank, at that moment, could have cheerfully throttled her.
Outside, they stood in the thin, slanting rain. One of the men shined a light on Kelly. A thin whistle of admiration eagerly came from his lips as he played the beam from her waist, over the top of her coat, past the tightness of her sweater, on up to her shiny, attractive face. "That's her, all right, Hugo." he said.
"You sure, Miguel?"
"Hell, I've seen her enough times on television."
"Nothing like making sure," Hugo said.
"Don't tell me you boys did this just to get my autograph," Kelly said.
"That's her, okay," Hugo said. "I heard she was like that."
"Like what?" Kelly said. "Tell me. I'm curious."
Frank nudged her. "Will you cut that out?"
"All right," Hugo said. "It's her. Let's go to it."
"Right," Miguel said, undoing the belt of his trench coat. He reached inside and emerged with a small opaque glass container with a glass stopper. It looked like a small bottle of cheap perfume. But Frank had a moment of sickening doubt and apprehension as Miguel removed the stopper and extracted a wad of cotton, which he pinched gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. He let it fall to the muddy earth. "Right," he said, "all set."
The strangeness persisted in Frank. He felt tiny beads of nervous perspiration break out on his forehead and in the palms of his hands.
Hugo moved in a few steps, brandishing his gun in Frank's face. "Just don't try being heroic," he said. "You start anything and the girl gets finished." He seemed satisfied that there was enough menace in his voice and moved toward Kelly. His free hand snaked out, pulling at her rain coat. He tugged at the collar, pulling the coat down over her shoulders. He took a quick glance at Miguel to see that he had his gun trained on Frank. Then he pocketed his own gun and took a huge fistfull of Kelly's horse's tail. With his other hand, he tugged at her sweater, grunted when it did not tear and dug in his pocket for a switch blade knife. He thumbed the long blade open. "You just hold still," he told Kelly. Then he deliberately hacked the front of the sweater opened.
Frank felt himself boiling with rage. Miguel grinned at him. "You can do anything you want, but at this range, a .38 can make a whole the size of a man's fist in her."
"Damn you," Frank muttered.
"You ought to chew gum," Miguel said. "I hear that's good for relieving tensions."
Kelly's eyes darted nervously from Hugo to Frank. All the arrogance had drained from her as her sweater hung loosely, revealing the perfect white cones of her breasts, held back by her brassiere, moving rapidly up and down as she breathed. Hugo moved in with the knife again, slitting the elastic of the bra, where the two cups were joined in front.
Both Miguel and Hugo gasped at the sight of Kelly's bared breasts. "My God," Miguel said, "they're beauties, aren't they?" He bunched his finger tip and kissed them in tribute. "They're like small melons. Mmmmm, would I like to---"
Hugo stopped him short. "Remember what we're here for."
"It's almost a shame," Miguel said. "Almost. It is, a shame. I've never seen anything as good as that."
Frank had to admit he hadn't either. Despite the tension and the look of intense helplessness on Kelly's face, there was a haunting loveliness at the sight of her, naked to the waist, that smoothe, glowing skin of hers, glistening with tiny droplets of the rain, reflecting the thin moonlight and the more intense probe of the Cole-men lantern, flickering at their feet.
Hugo moved around behind Kelly and took hold of the blonde coil of horse's tail again, this time pulling her head back so that her chin tilted foreward. What Hugo hadn't planned was the sudden, dramatic upward thrust of her breasts. Now it was Hugo's turn to be impressed by them. He swallowed and muttered something to himself that had a strong ring of admiration to it. Then he cleared his throat. "All right, Miguel," he said. "Now! Do it now."
As Miguel reached for the bottle, Frank felt a sense of outrage overcome him. The idea of men holding guns on him and Kelly, plus the wanton stripping of her like this was too much. His suspicion about the contents of the bottle added to his feeling of helplessness. He had to try something. If that was acid in the bottle-and he strongly believed it was-this would be a real outrage.
He rushed at Miguel, trying to hit his arm and knock the bottle away. But for his efforts, he felt the heavens come crashing down on top of his head, hard. He saw several shooting stars, and then the ground came fore-ward to meet him, soft and muddy and cold. He rolled over in time to see Miguel aim the contents of the bottle at Kelly's face, then toss. Desperately he tried to move a leg to trip up Miguel, but it was too late. He saw the contents splash in Kelly's face. There was a sizzling sound. Kelly screamed and raised her hands to cover her face. Then there was nothing for Frank but darkness, a spinning, damp, dizzying darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
He had no idea how long the spinning sensation continued. It seemed to lessen gradually, being replaced by the shining image of Kelly, naked to the waist, her breasts jutting proudly toward him.
Then Frank was aware of being cold, particularly about the side of his face. He knew there was warmth in this shining vision of Kelly. He wanted to bury his face in those marvelous, comforting breasts, to feel the warmth and firmness of them remove the numbness from his face.
In his mind's eye, he could see the milky whiteness of the skin, with the inky blue veins outlined in a minute network.
It was so perfect, so wonderful.
Then the memory returned to him. The two men. Kelly. The bottle. The splashing contents on Kelly's bared chest and face. The sizzling sound before darkness overtook him.
He bolted to his knees, aware of an ache in his head. It was cold and dark. The rain had thinned out to a modest mist, being tossed in small whisps by the gentle wind. He heard Kelly, sobbing near the car.
He stumbled foreward and got to his feet, despite more pain and dizziness in his head. He found Kelly, in a heap, lying against the side of the Corvette, her head still buried in her arms, her back moving in spasms as she sobbed. Her hair flowed foreward, matted somewhat by the dampness of the rain.
"Kelly," he called. "Can you hear me?"
"Frank?" at the sound of his voice, she cried even harder.
He pulled at her arms. He had to know. He tugged them away from her face, expecting the worst. But instead of what he'd expected, there was nothing but dampness and a swelling around the eyes from crying. "I thought it was acid," he said.
"So did I," she sobbed.
"Then what...?"
"It was soda water, Frank. Goddamned soda water. But they told me it could have been acid. Oh, Frank, I'm frightened."
He didn't blame her. "Come on," he said, tugging her to her feet, "inside the car."
He helped her inside, turned on the overhead light and fired up the engine to get the heater going. Despite his own coldness and the throbbing in his head, his first instinct was her.
Gently, he pulled off her coat and the remnants of the sweater. With his handkerchief, he daubed at the wetness of her face. He found a use for the extra handkerchief he always carried in his breast pocket. Her legs were stained with mud.
He rubbed her feet between his hands for several moments, trying to restore some of the warmth, then placed them right in front of the heater. He removed his own coat, then his jacket. He took off his shirt and handed it to her. "Here," he said, "put this on."
She'd recovered somewhat from her hysterical crying. "You'll freeze," she said.
He shook his head. "What about you?"
"Your head is cut," she said.
"First things first," he told her, holding the shirt to her.
She leaned forward. Everything was all right until she got her arm in a sleeve, then suddenly she was against him. "Oh, Frank, I'm so scared," she said. Then his arm was about her, holding him close to her. "Tighter," she said. When he complied, she shifted her long body so that she was sitting on his lap, her legs tucked up on the seats. "Oh, God, Frank, I don't know what I'd have done without you."
"I didn't do anything," he said lamely.
"You tried. And you're doing something now." She tilted her angular face to his. "You're making me not so frightened." And with her eyes still searching his, her hand found his, directed it to her breasts. "Hold me," she whispered, then leaned foreward to be kissed.
He tasted some of the salt of fresh tears, then the soft warmth of her lips. At first, he thought she wanted to be comforted, she was like a little girl who'd been awakened by a nightmare. But there was no mistaking the tip of her tongue, insistently forcing its way against his lips, nor of her hands, tracing little designs on the back of his neck. This wasn't being done for comfort, this was becoming urgent.
Frank tried to stop himself. There was still something wrong about it-he was being used as a convenience-that made him think of the tremendous odds. When it was over, she'd be unbearable. She'd hate herself for having done it with him, she'd hate him for having gone through with it.
"You're not thinking," he said. "You don't know who I am?"
She directed his hands back to her breasts. "I know perfectly well. It's you, darling Frank. You want this as much as I do. I can see it all over you. You want to give me something now to fight this awful fear. You want to give me a great deal. I can tell that about you."
"What about tomorrow-or fifteen minutes from now?"
"You'll feel the same way."
"But what about you?" Frank said. "I'm the first convenient person with pants on."
"You know it isn't that way." Her mouth covered his. He felt the pounding of her heart, the gentle probe of her hands, testing to see if he was ready for her. He was, that was the hell of it, and he knew how it would be once it was over, but he was too aroused now to stop himself. He helped her slide her skirt off, then her black nylon panties, revealing again her lithe legs and the firm, roundness of her buttocks, where they joined the smoothness of her thighs. "This is a small car," she said. "You don't impress me as being the kind to make a fuss if conditions warrant the woman being on top. You won't consider me a domineering female, will you?"
Frank nearly laughed.
Kelly gripped his chin firmly. "If you think you're being raped, I'll stop. I want you to want this."
"We should talk first," he said, "as crazy as that may sound."
She wound her arms tightly around his waist and buried her chin against his bared shoulder. He could feel her breasts crushed against his bare skin, he could feel the pulse coursing through the veins of her breasts. "Whatever you say, I want you to believe that."
"This is all so crazy," he said. "But damn it, Kelly, I-" he couldn't finish. He was touching her, running his hands over the smoothness of her inner thighs, kissing the fullness of her calves, the taut skin stretched over her collar bone, the flatness of her stomach. Her hands moved over him, working in slow, lazy circles. She even crooned softly in his ear when she saw that he'd realized this was absolutely NOT a time for words.
When their bodies merged, they both gave a simultaneous gasp of pleasure, bringing a smile to Kelly's lips. They held hands tightly for a moment, then the exploration began again as they familiarized themselves with each other's body.
Despite the desperateness and strangeness of the situation, Frank was lost in it, given over to it and his thoughts were to think of Kelly with tenderness, as though she were his bride, as though she'd never known the intimacies of a man before. Each touch, each kiss, each motion was done with a slowness and consideration. Even though their bodies were merged and he ached for release, he made each caress of her arms, her legs, her breasts a delicate one. And she accepted his domination from the beginning.
He had none of the reactions the matador had when Kelly had gone to work. Now, as he gripped her bared, warm shoulders, her eyes were half-closed, a look of ecstasy on her face, as though she were perfectly content to be the pupil instead of the teacher.
When the movement began, Kelly sighed with pleasure. She took his hands, kissing each finger tip. The greater part of her technique, above and beyond her control and eagerness was a gentle touch, with a modicum of suspense. Frank had no idea where she would touch next. It might be the shoulder blade, it might be the wrist, it might be a sudden, impulsive kiss. But each time it occurred, he felt a surge of pleasure and refreshment. And there was a nut-like freshness to the smell she radiated. The overall effect, he decided, was like being with coarse, hardened prostitutes or opportunistic Hollywood tramps who were always on the prowl, then suddenly having the privilege of taking a young, innocent girl to the circus, holding hands and sharing the same box of popcorn.
That was it! he thought. The memory of the other men in Kelly's life was being completely obliterated in this act they were engaging in. It was filled with an innocence and freshness. Kelly wasn't responding or moving the way she did from knowledge, but from an instinct. It was because she was truly a woman.
Frank couldn't remember when he'd been longer in the actual act. When release came, they both knew it would happen for them at the same moment, not by any words, but by a common understanding there in the darkness.
Even the release was different, Frank felt. Always, when he'd been just on the verge, he'd lost concept of the particular woman. Now, he was very much aware he was sharing something with Kelly.
He rode the crest of the wave, born along by her warm, moist eagerness, until they were completed, locked in each other's arms, breathing heavily from the explosion that had been built up in each of them.
As awareness of external things returned to him, Frank felt his skin glow with a pride. He'd done his share of catting around in Hollywood, but he'd never been left like this. It was like a long day of skiing. Tiring, draining you of energy, but exhilarating. And when it was over, you felt newly, happily alive.
"Now I'll take the loan of that shirt," Kelly said, and then she bit him playfully on the ear. "Or do you have other ideas?"
"The spirit is willing," he said, "but you leave a guy rather well satisfied."
"A special technique, just developed. I call it Kelly's plan for keeping Rojeck happy."
"I'll buy that," Frank said.
"You don't have to," Kelly said, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "You've already got it" She hummed while she dressed, fashioning the shirt into an acceptable blouse. And Frank had to agree, he'd never seen a Brooks Brothers shirt so agreeably occupied before. She dipped onto her purse for a brush, worked out the dampness and tied the golden sheaf with a bright orange scarf that matched the color of her rain coat.
Frank simply put his jacket on and his rain coat over that. He lit two cigarets for them, noticing he felt very much the way a happy groom is portrayed "the morning after" in movies.
He eased the Corvette off the shoulder and onto the road. Headlights were not really necessary any longer. The sun had begun moving up in the East, casting long, purple shadows over the sand and scrubby brush. Frank headed toward Tijuana. "I can get a shixt and we can have some breakfast. But let's get down to cases, my love."
"That's easy," Kelly said cheerfully. "I'm honest to gosh, sorry about all of your predecessors-except maybe one. I did love my first husband, Frank." She bit her Up for a minute. "A lot of what happened was my fault, and because we were so young. But you erase everyone else."
Frank patted her knee affectionately. He noted with surprise that the mere touch of Kelly was enough to set off a tingle that shot through his nerves, coursing down the back of his neck. "I want that," he told her. "I've got some plans for you. But I meant something else. This acid business. We can't just forget it."
Kelly shuddered. "Forget it! How could I ever forget a thing like that. I wish I could."
"Maybe we can give it some help. First, you've got to think. Why would anyone want to give you a scare like that, making you think soda water was acid, making you think they could get to you that way?"
She shook her head. "I don't know-unless-"
"Unless what? You've got to tell me, Kel. If they'll do this to scare you, they've obviously got something up their sleeve, whoever they are."
"I was thinking, maybe it could have been one of the men. You know."
"I don't mean to be indelicate, Kel," he said, "but this is important. I figure there were fifteen before me. Did you keep score?"
"No," she said, "but I could probably give you a list." She said it with a straight face, meaning to be helpful. Frank shuddered, despite himself. It was a hell of a thing to hear from a woman you'd just been with.
"Well, fifteen and three husbands. That means a possibility of eighteen different people."
"If it's one of them."
"If not, who? And why, Kel? Why?"
She shivered and hunched closer to him. "I don't know."
"You set that pretty head of yours to coming up with something."
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime, I've got some figuring. If we go to the police with this, that might be just what they want. The publicity and such. It would pinpoint you as having been near the Playa Paradiso, which has illegal gambling. And the combination of Higuera with a broken arm."
"You mean, I might have been a sap for Pablo?"
"I don't know."
"I do want to tell you some of the reasons about the men," Kelly said seriously. "It might help you to feel easier about us."
"That's fine," Frank said. "But right now, we've got to see what comes next. I have one idea so far and if that doesn't work out, I'll admit I'm stumped. We're going to Tijuana. I'll try to find someone who looks like you, at least, enough like you for my purposes. I'll drive over the border with her, park the Corvette in San Ysidro, rent a car and come back for you. That way, if we're being watched, we might convince them you're on your way back to L.A. with me. And that element of surprise will make a nice cover for a return visit to the Playa Paradiso Hotel."
"Where will I be all this time you're playing Counterspy across the border?" Kelly asked.
"At the Sierra Motel in Tijuana. We can use that as a base of operation for a spell."
Kelly giggled.
"The thought of you. You drove down here to protect my reputation and drag me out of a hotel. Now you're going to register in a motel with me."
"Separate cabins," Frank said.
"Separate adjoining cabins," Kelly said with emphasis.
It was crazy, it was ridiculous, but Frank found himself borne along with the idea. Yes, there would be adjoining cabins. Yes, he would be glad to see her after he'd completed the subterfuge at the border. Yes, he was involved.
Someone was out to get Kelly. He wasn't sure how yet, but he was committed to find out. The bond between them had been cemented and tied with a double loop.
He found his mind filled with questions as he sped toward Tijuana. Kelly took his right hand and placed it firmly on her knee. "That's your new driving position," she said, holding his hand in place with both of hers.
He felt the glow of her pliant skin, radiating through his finger tips and he knew that whatever problem or danger awaited Kelly, he was now a part of it, too.
CHAPTER SIX
Martin smiled to himself and waggled his toes. Life was good, very good. It provided jobs like the one he had at the Playa Paradiso Hotel. It provided unexpected windfalls ... like Lydia.
"I don't know why you should object," he told her. "It isn't anything unusual. It isn't as though I asked for a commission or interfered with your making money."
Lydia pouted. She had a lovely mouth, he thought. Large, moist lips. Silky, "dark hair. The high cheek bones that betrayed the Indian blood in her ancestry. "You know that is the one thing I like to reserve for Raymond. When a woman makes her living as I do, there is one thing she likes to keep sacred for her own man."
"Well," Martin said, "Raymond and me. If you think differently, you must get used to the idea that you will not get customers here in the hotel. I charge you nothing. I don't even ask you to pay for the room. I steer only the better class tourists to you. This is a small thing I ask."
"I would make no complaint about going to bed with you," Lydia said, peeling the black silk stockings off her long, rather skinny legs. "Some sort of favor is to be expected. But why is it, you chose Concha for the regular and me for the other? She does not object. It is as though you were deliberately trying to offend me."
"Nonsense," Martin said. "Concha has wide, big hips. You are a bit skinny for my taste. Yet, you are attractive, Lydia. I am drawn to you ... for this."
"Before you worked here, while you were still driving the taxi in Ensenada, you would have been pleased for anything. I remember one night, you begged just for a kiss."
"But," Martin said, watching with satisfaction as she removed the other stocking, then unhitched her garter belt, "that was before. Things change. Ambitions change. I was content with kisses before. Now, you have the power to satisfy me in a far greater way."
Lydia pulled her dress over her head. "I will make a bargain with you. If you promise not to tell Raymond, I will come to you two nights each week. I will sleep with you. I will truly satisfy you with every trick I know."
Martin shook his head and smiled. "No," he told her. "I like our arrangement this way." He lifted a hand to stop her as she started to unhitch the strap of her brassiere. "Leave that on. The underpants, too." He liked the contrast of the pink bra and panties against the chocolate smoothness of the rest of her body. As for seeing things, he could have his fill of that with Concha. "Now," he said, patting a place next to him at the side of the bed. "Come sit here next to me. And mind, I want you to face me so that I can see you. I want you to proceed slowly, Lydia, as though you were enjoying this."
Lydia moved next to him, on her haunches. "You see," she said, "you are not even ready."
"That is for you to accomplish, my dear," he said, then lay back, his head on the pillow. Yes, life was good. If Lydia continued to give him his pleasure, he could see to it that she had nearly two hundred dollars worth of business each week. Perhaps then she would appreciate him as a man who could accomplish things. But until then, she would have nothing sacred to save for Raymond. It was not true that he thought her too thin. Actually, he fancied her body, the shortness, the small, firm breasts, the Indian face. And Concha was too large. If she were not so skilled, he would take money from her instead. But this was having everything. "You may begin," he told Lydia.
She aroused him by running the tip of her tongue over his stomach. He could tell by the smoldering look in her dark brown eyes that she did not like this and that knowledge gave him nearly as much satisfaction as if she'd told him she was through with Raymond, that she would be his woman.
Ah, this was good. Life was nearly perfect. If Lydia had been truly his woman, there would have been a trip to Mexico City or Vera Cruz, living lavishly on the five hundred dollars from the American from Hollywood. That would have been the ideal. As it was, he was enjoying this.
"Tell me, Lydia. Don't you find me at all attractive?" he asked. Lydia did not answer him.
He sighed luxuriously. "I am a patient man. In the meanwhile, I surely appreciate your abilities." There was a knock at the door.
Irritated, he looked at his watch. He'd told Concha to give him an hour with Lydia. She was far too early. He did not like to hurry with Lydia. He liked to prolong it as much as possible.
Lydia looked up questioningly when the knock was repeated.
"Who is it?" Martin called out.
"Open the damned door," a man's voice said. "Right now."
Martin suffered a moment of doubt. It sounded like one of them. She'd given explicit orders that if any of her employees were found shirking their duties because of a woman, there would be severe reprisals. It sounded like Hugo and he did not want to take a chance. Reluctantly, he pushed Lydia away and in a sweeping motion, gestured for her to remove her clothing and herself into the bathroom.
Wrapping a towel about his waist, he moved to the door and nicked the latch. He was quite surprised when the door moved rapidly open and the American stepped inside. The report had been that the American and the girl had cleared the border at Tinuana, nearly three hours ago.
But there was no mistaking the American's presence as Martin felt himself jerked to his feet and slapped viciously across the face. "Okay," the American said in idiomatic Mexican. "Who did you call when I left here?"
"There must be some mistake, Senor."
"Don't give me any of that. You were the only one who knew. Who did you call?"
Martin shook his head. "No one. I swear. I told none of the newspapers."
The American hit him in the stomach, sending him skidding back against the side of the bed. Instinctively, he clawed at the cover, but succeeded only in pulling it off. The American saw something and kicked underneath the bed. One high-heeled white sandal flew out. The American looked about for a moment, then moved quickly to the bathroom door. He threw it open and told Lydia, in that same, idiomatic Mexican to get out, to sit quietly on the side of the bed and she would not be hurt.
Lydia smiled. She told the American she'd be only too pleased to remain quiet if he were going to beat up on Martin. She said she would be more than happy to show him a sample of her appreciation when he was through.
The American told her to sit down and shut up. Then he grabbed Martin again. "All right, who did you call when I left here?"
Martin shook his head. He could not say he didn't understand, because the American spoke such good Spanish. He truly did not know what to do. The American took his arm and twisted. "You want this broken?" No, Martin did not.
"Then tell me, because I'll twist the damned thing until it breaks like chicken bones. You'll be able to visit the same doctor as the matador."
That did the trick. Martin remembered vividly the limp, broken arm of Higuera, performed by the American. He gave the American the number of the motel where she was staying with Hugo and Enrique.
The American picked up the phone, asked for an outside line and called the Tijuana number. While he was waiting for the party at the other end to pick up the receiver, the American turned his head for a moment. Martin bolted for the door.
The American dropped him with a flying tackle, then did something to the back of his neck that brought on a numbness and unconsciousness.
When he awoke, Martin found himself tied with torn strips of the bed sheet. The American had allowed Lydia to put her dress on, but he was just doing the finishing touches of tying her ankles together with one of her stockings. Her wrists were already bound behind her and the American had lifted her to the bed and propped a pillow behind her. "Comfortable?" the American asked.
"Quite," Lydia said. "You really don't have to do this. I would stay if you told me."
"Sorry," the American said. "I have to make sure. How about the ankles? Too tight?"
Lydia shook her head. "Everything is fine the way the Senor does it. I wager he is accomplished in all things. I wager he is accomplished at my profession as well."
"I like to think so," the American said. He reached into his pocket and pulled a few bills off a money clip. "In case the stockings are ruined," he told her. "Now I'm afraid I'll have to gag you, too."
Lydia bowed her head to the inevitable, even flashed the American a smile before he stuffed a gag in her mouth. Her eyes were filled with amusement and Martin realized that Lydia had meant it, she'd have given the American for nothing what she sold-to other Americans.
The final insult had been her asking the American-and he was sure she had-to allow her to put her dress on, knowing they would probably remain tied-up and in the room for a time, not wanting him to be able to see her, even if it was in bra and panties.
When American was finished with Lydia, he returned to Martin. "All right," he said, "there was no one at that number you gave me in Tijuana. The operator said the party had checked out. I want information." He poised his fist above Martin's face. Martin still had the vivid memory of the ache at the back of his neck and the blow that had made him lose consciousness.
"I can only tell you there are several of them. They work for a woman, a Gringa, I mean, a woman of your country who is rather young, but hard, very hard."
"Her name?" the American asked him impatiently.
"I don't know. We call her Morena. She is very strict with us and knows Spanish as well as you. I don't know where she comes from, I swear it. The first time I saw her was nearly three months ago. Enrique and Hugo brought me. I-used to drive a taxi. I know Ensenada and Tijuana very well. I was given this job here, and a card allowing me to enter the United States. I have been sent, a few times to Los Angeles, a few times only to San Diego. She has been emphatic that I go across the border only at her orders."
"What do you know about the blonde girl, Miss O'Donnell?"
"Only my orders. I called this number when she came in with the matador. I call the number again when you take her away. I know nothing else."
"Nothing?"
"Well, I heard you had crossed the border, with Senorita O'Donnell?"
"From whom?"
"From Tonio. He is one of them."
The American lit a cigaret and thought for a moment. "Where is the matador?"
"He caught a plane for Mexico City. You can understand. He was concerned about his arm. He wanted it set by a specialist. I swear it, this is the truth."
There was a knock at the door. "Are you ready for me?" Martin shuddered. It was Concha. "Tell her to come right in," the Ameriacan said, moving behind the door.
Martin did as he was told. The door opened and Concha entered, her blouse already unbuttoned, according to the ritual he'd demanded, revealing a large, round swell of breast exposed almost completely.
When she saw the American and Lydia, she gasped.
"All right," the American told her. "Just be quiet and you won't be hurt. Nothing happened to Lydia because she cooperated. Did I hurt you at all, Lydia?" Lydia shook her head and Concha appeared visibly relieved. She was a bigger girl, with hennaed hair that came to her wide shoulders. With big round hips and legs inclined to fattiness, Martin had been able to consider her more of a comfort. She was certainly good to be in bed with and she was much less proud about what she would do with him than was Lydia. He thought affectionately about her, always telling himself that she was luxury, that he cared more for Lydia, that he would give anything to have Lydia as his alone. He really liked to think of Concha as someone with whom he could experiment, and was not above taking her measurements and sending away for various negligees, uplift bras and panties advertised in the men's magazines. He'd longed to do this with Lydia, but he did not know how far he could push things. She was proud enough to refuse altogether.
"Take off your stockings and sit down on the edge of the bed," the American asked.
Concha adjusted herself, with an arch of her thickly painted brows, to the fact that the American spoke Spanish. "May I ask a favor?" she said.
"Make it fast," the American told her.
"May I button my blouse. If I am to be here, tied up, I don't want this pig looking at my bared breasts."
"Go ahead," the American said, giving Martin a funny look of appraisal.
"Are you going to hit him?" Concha asked the American.
"That depends on him," the American said. "I hope you have to."
The American smirked. "I think I get the picture. You've got a little blackmail thing going here."
"He is a pig," Concha said, showing the American her legs as she unfastened her stockings from her elastic garter belt. "Look what he makes me wear." She pulled her skirt to reveal panties that were made of a bright, net-like material, that left nothing to the imagination. "He isn't right. Last week, he had things he got from the mail in Japan. A woman shouldn't have to use things like that. It is an insult. I can satisfy a man enough. And you should see some of the things he wears when we are together. I tell you, it is degrading."
The American nodded and Martin wished Concha would shut up. He'd have his revenge.
"Look, look at this," Concha said, exposing her buttocks to the American. She showed a tatoo, that was merely crude lines in groups of four, with cross hatching. A running score of how many times Martin had had her.
The American turned to Martin. "You're a real ladie's man, aren't you? Can't keep the girls away."
Concha laughed at the ironic humor.
"Never mind the stockings," the American said. "I've got a better idea." He turned toward Lydia. "Untie your friend, then have a cigaret for a minute. I want to find out something." He turned to Martin. "What else do you know about Miss O'Donnell?"
"Nothing," Martin said. "I swear it."
"I think you're lying," the American said. He moved over to help Concha untie Lydia. While Concha worked on the wrists, the American loosened the gag and unknotted the stocking tied about her ankles. Lydia smiled at him. "You are a gentleman, Senor. Some of the circulation is gone from the ankles. Would you...?"
The American smiled and massaged her ankles briskly.
The little bitch, Martin thought. It would be just like her to arouse the American and make love to him to show her contempt for himself.
"You have a nice touch, Senor," Lydia said. "I could cheerfully allow you to do this all day, but then I'm afraid I'd have circulation troubles elsewhere."
Martin glowered. The bitch, the little bitch. He'd show her. He'd really fix her when he got the chance. The only trouble was, now the memory of what the American had interrupted was haunting him and he knew he was aroused.
The American bowed to the girls. "He has information I want. I believe he is lying. Perhaps you would be good enough to help me."
The girls smiled knowingly. They understood and exchanged a giggle. With Martin tied and trussed, he could offer no resistance.
Lydia approached him, grinning. She touched him on the thigh, stroking gently. He was potent in a moment. Lydia laughed at the sight of him. "You see him as he really is," she told the American. "He has his virility, but that is all. He is powerless to do anything about it. That will always be him, trying to force others to perform for him He would like nothing better than to have me relieve him now, and I would like nothing better than to keep him this way, always just on the verge. I think that would be wonderful ... Concha and I could take turns. Four hours each, keeping him aroused like this, then stopping, just as he was ready. If he fell asleep, I would pinch him until he awoke. If he became tired and a was difficult for him to stay so aroused, I would dance nude for him until he was ready again."
"That would be fitting and fine," the American said, "but I can't spare the time. Surely, you can think of something for faster results."
"Of course," Lydia said. "I am just telling you what I would like to do. For quick results, we can do something Concha and I have often discussed when speaking of this pig. Concha ... the razor."
The American said, "Sorry, no blood."
"There will be no blood, Senor. We are simply going to shave him where he has never been shaved before. We are going to make one little refinement. No lather."
The American grimaced. "That seems pretty good."
"You see," Lydia said, "we know how to please a man. We like to please a man. We would cheerfully please you. But him-well, we have our feelings about him-we want to displease him."
Lydia took the razor and moved toward him. "Look," she said. "He is frightened, but he still has desire. Do you want me, darling?" she asked him.
"Please," he told her. "I'll be good to you. You don't have to do this." He appealed to the American. "I swear it, I've told you all I know."
The American shook his head. "Sorry, I don't believe you."
"Let me hold him so there is no danger of slipping," Lydia said, relinquishing the safety razor to Concha.
He felt Lydia protecting his manness and even now, her touch thrilled him. But that was over in a moment as he felt the scrape and pull of the razor. He was about to cry out when the American stuffed a towel in his mouth. The pain, across his groin was excruciating as Concha pulled on the razor. It was too much. He pleaded with his eyes. Concha held up the razor. It had several long strands of hair caught in it. His tender skin ached from the burn and pull.
"Are you sure you know nothing else about Miss O'Donnell?" the American asked.
He shook his head.
The American removed the gag from his mouth.
"They have a plan," he said. "I will tell you all I know. They mean to frighten her. There is something she knows. They do not want to kill her unless it is an absolute necessity. They want her quiet. You understand?"
"I understand," the American said, "now what is it she knows."
"I swear, they haven't told me."
"Lydia, the razor again."
"I swear it. I don't know."
"Your turn, Lydia."
They shaved him until there was nothing left, each taking turns protecting him from an unfortunate mishap with the safety razor.
There were tears in his eyes from the pain and he felt as though his entire skin were burning. When the towel was pulled from his mouth, he found himself begging for mercy, to Lydia, to Concha and to the American.
The American told the girls he was satisfied Martin had told all he knew. He politely refused the offer each girl made him, an offer that had no financial strings attached.
The American refused again.
Each girl kissed him on the cheek, and then the American was gone, leaving him helpless and alone with the two girls.
"You know, Lydia," Concha said. "I like that idea of yours, the one about keeping him going."
"Shall we?" Lydia asked. "Yes, let's."
And so it began. Lydia found she could not arouse him by touching or caressing him, so she made a great show of taking off her dress, removing her brassiere and firming her breasts with her hands. Then she removed her panties.
She began dancing on the tips of her toes, making him acutely aware of the muscles, bunched in the calves of her fine legs. It was, he recognized, an Indian love dance. Her torso moved in slow, undulating circles, her hips facing him, the intense brownness of her skin glistening in the light.
Despite his pain, he was fascinated by Lydia. She danced for nearly fifteen minutes, pausing occassionally to let the tips of her breasts slide tantalizingly across his bare chest.
"There," Concha said at length. "Look at him."
It was true. He was ready. He wanted her terribly. He tried to think about other things, about a large steak, about the Mercedes-Benz he'd been saving for, about watching the bull-fight Sunday. But it was no use. She would touch him, or touch her lips to the muscles of his stomach and set him all aquiver, aware of wanting her, aware of the throbbing that was his desire for Lydia and her small, neatly sculpted body and the look of satisfaction in her dark brown eyes. Was that how she looked with Raymond? Was that the look of completeness and satisfaction she had when she was pleasing Raymond?
The expression emblazoned itself in his mind. His fists gripped tightly and he tried to fight off this terrible ache for her.
She sat next to him to watch. And the moment he showed signs of wavering, she was right there with a touch, or a teasing maneuvering of her stocking across his stomach or thighs, causing him to quake with the desire.
Concha, meanwhile, was dressing. She left for dinner. Lydia got the idea of rubbing some petroleum jelly into the shaved area, to remove the sting of the razor. The constant, pliant motions of her hands, kneading the tender flesh filled him with even more of an ache, until it was more than he could bear. "Please, Lydia, help me" he tried to say through the gag.
Lydia smiled. "Do you think I'm desirable, dear?" Lydia said.
He nodded.
"I'm so happy," she said, sweetly, cloyingly. "If you think I'm desirable now, just think how much you'll want me tomorrow. Just think how nice it will be to tell your friends, you were virile for twenty-four hours, without any interruption."
He groaned.
She kept him that way, aroused and aching until Concha returned from dinner. "I think I'll take off my blouse," Concha said. "I'm not warm particularly, but I know how it excites him."
"Is he the excitable type?" Lydia asked with a feigned innocence, and they both laughed.
When the telephone rang, he suffered the worst pang of all. Lydia answered. "I'm sorry," she said, "Martin is busy. He said he is not to be disturbed. Who am I? Why, I am a friend. A very old, very dear friend. Well, he is engaged right now with another, very old, very dear friend and he's given orders not to be disturbed until tomorrow. Yes, I will tell him Enrique called, I'll be happy to. Is there any message? Yes. I'll tell him." She hung up and sat on the edge of the bed next to him, touching him, then lying next to him so that the length of her body was against him, naked and warm. "That was a friend, dearest," she said. "His name is Enrique. He said to tell you he was most disturbed and that you would be hearing from him soon. Isn't it a shame? You won't be able to talk to your friend Enrique until tomorrow. Or does that bother you any?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
"And that," Frank said, "is the story. Someone is out to get you, to scare the living hell out of you, for some reason. An American woman and several Mexican men."
Kelly adjusted the bath towel about her waist and perched on the edge of the bed. She looked good, just out of a shower, Frank thought. Her skin had that freshly rubbed glow to it and her long legs had a bright sheen. But now she bit her lower Up and reached out a hand for one of his. "I don't get it, Frank. It's different if we knew why. Then we could try to do something about it. But not knowing...."
Frank Ut two Camels and gave her one. "And more than that, according to this guy, Martin, they are not above murder. Think, Kelly, try to think."
"I've been thinking, nearly all the time you were gone. Do you realize what that's like, trying to pick out someone from all the people you might know who hates you enough to do something like this?"
Frank unbuttoned the cotton shirt he'd bought at one of the tourist stalls in downtown Tijuana. "So far, all we know is that we can't go to the police-not yet-and that we've got to watch you like a hawk."
"I won't mind that so much, if you're the one who does the watching," Kelly said, trying to sound cheerful.
Frank gripped her bare shoulders and pulled her toward him for a long, Ungering kiss. Kelly seemed to melt in his arms. "What a way to be watched," she said. "I'd like to have you make a career out of it."
"That's great, but how would we pay the rent? I don't intend living off you."
"Oh, I suppose I could let you get away to write publicity about other actresses. But on second thought...."
Frank worked his shoes off. "Let's get to that we can afford the luxury. I think the best thing now is to get back to L.A. and see what happens next."
"Leaving me as bait?"
"That's about the way it looks." He pulled off his pants and started in to the stall shower.
The sharp spray felt good, jabbing at his skin in warm torrents. He lathered himself with the small cube of soap and tried to think. There was so much, so damned much. There was Kelly. What was he going to do about her? How was he going to protect her from this conspiracy when he didn't even know what kind or why? And his own feelings for her? What about that? Would he be sticking his neck out, thinking about becoming number four? And wouldn't there be a resurgence of the old jokes about him being Mr. Kelly O'Donnell? He shuddered thinking about it. Kelly's last husband had had his troubles. Jerry had been a promising man, a director of real talent, who'd made the grade on his own, working summers at the La Jolla Theater and the Pasadena Playhouse, getting good results from aspiring and unknown actors, getting even better results from the better known actors who liked to work summers at the small theaters. Then Jerry had married Kelly after a whirl-wind courtship, and just as a coincidence, Jerry had been brought in to one of the big TV networks to direct a weekly, half-hour filmed show. Then it had started. How was Mr. Kelly O'Donnell this morning? How did it feel, going home nights to a woman like that? Did he think he could keep her? And the inevitable fan magazine stories, actually giving odds that this marriage could not last. Frank had managed to squelch all of these, but Jerry had seen two of them in galley proof. Result? Week long drunks.
Then came the pranks. People leaving Jerry bottles of vitamins to improve his virility. People sending him things in the mail, canned oysters, goat milk cheese, ostrich eggs, all things that were supposed to make a man perform better.
Jerry, a sensitive young man, had not been able to stand up under the pressure. The first real explosion had been when he'd slugged Percey Heath, producer of Jim's Wife, Kelly's TV show. Frank had had a real job, keeping that out of the papers. And the inevitable explosion against Chip Burton, the dapper young man who portrayed Kelly's husband on the TV show. There was no chance of Frank keeping that out of the papers. Jerry had picked The Luau Restaurant in Beverly Hills as his battle arena. The fight lasted fifteen minutes, starting inside at the bar and ending out in the parking lot, with Jerry shouting curses in Italian and Chip Burton throwing old fashioned glasses.
They'd sent Jerry to Palm Springs for two weeks after that, saying he'd had a nervous breakdown from the strain of work, but there were several people who noticed that the Western show Jerry directed was no longer considered a strong contender for the TV Emmy Award and the sponsor threatened to cancel out unless Jerry was replaced.
From then on, it had been down hill, all the way, climaxing itself when Jerry, at a premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater, had tried to kick teen-age idol Terry Mannix in the groin for alleged remarks about Kelly.
The papers said Jerry misread the label on the bottle of sleeping pills. He hadn't really meant to attempt suicide, the story said. But Jerry, from his bed in the County General Hospital Police ward had told the press, hell, yes, he'd known they were sleeping pills.
Was a pattern like that in store for Frank if he stayed with Kelly? It was surely enough to make a guy think.
He lathered up his short hair, that had been cropped close to the scalp. A sudden blast of cold air made him open his eyes to see if the shower door had slipped open. He was surprised to see Kelly, standing naked before him. "I was lonesome," she said, stepping inside.
It was like throwing a switch. All thoughts of the future vanished and he was aware of Kelly's tallness, her warmth radiating against him. Droplets of water splashed down the length of her superb, white body. He became fascinated by one rivulet that coursed through the v between her breasts, moving in a lazy meander across the flat expanse of stomach and then curving down the right leg.
"I'll scrub your back if you'd like," she said.
He handed her the soap without a word and closed his eyes as she finished the job he'd started on his hair.
"Just like Brillo," she said, massaging his scalp with her fingers. "But distinguished Brillo. I like the patches of grey. I like to think I might have even caused some of them."
"You did," he told her. "I'm grey before my time."
The dampness of her body was against him, and then her arms twined around him, pressing her entire length against him. It was a fine feeling, with comfortable warm droplets showering down on them. Her skin had that same, urgent glow, but each droplet of water seemed to magnify it.
He felt her heart beating and the comforting sensation of her chin, resting on his shoulder blade. "I'm glad you're so talk" she said. "We fit together so perfectly. There's something so natural and wonderful about our bodies touching everywhere."
"There is also a phenomenon," he said with a wry grin, "that is just as natural in a man, when he is up against such pleasant odds."
"See, I inspire you."
She reached to touch him. "I'm jealous of those two prostitutes back in the hotel. I'm jealous because they liked you. I think I'm jealous of any woman who likes you." She shifted her weight against him.
The feelings of desire for her overcame him. "Do you realize how fast everything has happened?"
Kelly caused their bodies to merge, ready for the act of love. "I'll stop being a domineering female and taking things into my own hands the minute you stop being so damned thoughtful at the wrong times. This isn't a time to be thoughtful. I need you. I missed you. I want you."
Frank began the movements, holding Kelly about the waist so that she would not slip on the tile. The water, showering down on them and the closeness of the shower stall gave a curious intensity to the feeling of intimacy. He'd been with Kelly twice, once in the car, once on the bed in his room of the motel, but this was unique. It was warm and comfortable and pleasant, like floating, like being enveloped in pleasure. Even the movements seemed more pleasing, more electrifying.
But he could not help himself. He had to think, to keep a part of his brain clear. It was a proof that this was not simply lust, something to be forgotten once he and Kelly were back in Los Angeles. He found himself wishing he could be crass about it, to have his pleasure and forget the rest, to turn the other matter over to the police or the FBI and wash his hands of it. Life would be simpler. That was for sure. But, he thought, looking at the valleys and mountains of Kelly's lavish body, who the hell wanted simplicity when he could have that? And particularly, who could even think about it, when he was already merged with it?
He felt the small patch of consciousness slowly blur and he gave himself over to this intimacy with her, being aware now of the odor of her body. It reminded him of moss or crushed grass. There was a steamy cleanness about her, mingled with a spice. He couldn't pin down the origin of that part of it, but it gave vent to excitement and he leaned forward to taste the firmness and wetness of her smooth skin.
This excited Kelly and the slow undulations, the controlled rhythm became increased as she pressed harder against him.
Frank realized then how completely taken he was, how powerless he was to remove any of the involvement. He gave himself to it, hugging Kelly tightly against him.
She began moaning. "Oh, Frank, oh, you're so good, oh, you're so wonderful Be good to me, I'm so frightened."
It was hard to believe anything about Kelly, particularly any of her past. She was with him now, in the most intimate way a woman could be with a man. Yet, there was more of the appealing little girl to her, crying out for a satisfaction that was really a comfort and a protection.
This was so pleasurable for him, having her this way that he could not imagine how the sensation could be any more acute, yet it continued, climbing toward the ultimate pinnacle, still mounting even after she had begun to find release, until he found himself crying out from pleasure.
Every fibre and tendon in him took part in the shouting. His own release was to frighten him when he thought about it later. He writhed, actually slipping once or twice. His entire awareness seemed to come from the nerve endings close to the surface of skin where his body touched hers. The spasms came again and again, not diminishing. His entire body seemed to funnel out of him. He grunted and fell to covering her with moist, impulsive kisses and when this passed, they hugged each other tightly, wordlessly for nearly ten minutes.
"Golly," Kelly said, "this isn't getting us back to L.A., but it sure is fun. I think I can last a while after that."
"You'll have to," Frank said.
Kelly shut off the water. "I can see where I'm going to have to take good care of you."
Martin could not have seen the rented Ford, so Frank reasoned that crossing the border into California wouldn't cause any difficulties. They brazenly approached the immigration service, answered the usual questions about place of birth and no, they were not bringing anything purchased in Mexico back into the United States, and they were passed without incident.
They returned the Ford at San Ysidro and walked to the parking lot where Frank had left the Corvette. At first he thought the paper fluttering on the windshield might be some advertisement for the dog races or Sunday's bullfight. But closer inspection revealed a note.
That was only the beginning. The note was unsigned, written in a crude block printing. Frank did not like the implications. "That settles it," he said, "I'm going to do something about getting you protection."
He eased the Corvette out onto the highway. They went through San Diego, flaring off onto the freeway that went down the coast and branched off to the inland route that would funnel into the Santa Ana Freeway.
As he drove, Frank began considering the futility of his statement about protection. The police might send a man to watch Kelly's apartment. They might not ... actresses who feared anonymous threats were rather plentiful and the newspapers, when they got wind of it, always managed to make a mockery of the whole thing, suggesting that publicity was behind the whole thing. A member of the studio security staff might be sent, but what would he look for, what would he screen against? This was a good campaign. There was no doubt about Kelly being frightened. There was no doubt that she was at the mercy of someone's whim. But who and why?
"I'm trying," Kelly said, earnestly knitting her forehead in concentration. "All I do is draw a blank."
Frank veered onto the turn-off of the freeway. "I think," he said, "that I'll join you and slowly go nuts, waiting to see what will happen next."
They made good time on the freeway and Frank was surprised to note that the interchange-the branching off of the freeway system in all parts of Los Angeles-was not congested. They were out of the Civic Center in a mattter of minutes, and onto the Hollywood Freeway.
He took the Santa Monica Boulevard turn off and Kelly showed a surprised lift of her thin eyebrows when Frank turned off into Beverly Hills, heading for Alden Drive.
"I live in Westwood," Kelly said. "I know and so does someone else. You're staying with me for the time being." She squeezed his hand.
"That isn't strictly the reason," Frank told her, returning the pressure. "I do happen to value that pretty hide of yours."
"Then," Kelly said triumphantly, "it is strictly the reason."
At Frank's apartment, Kelly made good use of a pair of his bermuda shorts, a necktie as a belt and a clean shirt for a lounging costume while Frank phoned his office and checked in with the Videlity Studios over in Bur bank.
Kelly found the Jack Daniels and mixed them doubles on the rocks.
"Here's the picture," Frank told her, pulling her down next to him on his Swedish sofa. "I told them I gave you the usual temperance lecture on the way home. You had a crying jag. I gave you enough Seconal to knock you out, then I left you. The studio says you aren't on the roster for two more weeks. They're still cleaning up some shots of the kids and then they go on location to get the scenes in the County Museum."
"The little brats," Kelly said. "Thank goodness they aren't my real children. If I had kids like that, I'd drown them."
"They're supposed to be America's little darlings," Frank said drily.
"The girl isn't so bad," Kelly said, "but that little Jackie Donovan, uh. He's a regular little satyr. Every time we have a close up together, when I'm tucking him into bed or something like that, he's all hands, always trying to cop a feel. I told him if he did it again, I'd slap him, and you know what he did? He tried to put his hand under my skirt. Can you imagine that? He's only six."
"I just sent out a story about him wanting desperately to join the Cub Scouts," Frank said.
"He's already fine material for a psychiatrist. It gripes me the way his mother ruined him. People like that kill me. I may flit from pillar to post, but if I had kids I'd want them to grow up beUeving in things and discovering things naturafly. You know that woman Olga, who's always on the set with Jackie?"
Frank nodded. "She's his governess."
"That's not all she is," Kelly said. "That's what makes me so mad. Olga is his wet nurse. Doesn't that slay you. His mother says, if grown men need to drink scotch after a hard day's work, her precious Jackie deserves his treat, too. I saw it with my own eyes. Olga wears a milking bra and whenever Jackie gets the urge...."
"There must be some Freudian significance in there," Frank said. "I think I'll do a story about Jackie wanting to become a gentleman farmer and raise milk cows."
Kelly sipped her drink. "I don't see how you take it, inventing all these phony stories. Is this your idea of happiness?"
"Believe it or not," Frank said, "my idea of happiness would be owning a bi-weekly in some small town up in the Sierras and being editor."
Kelly kissed his hand. "Noble ambition. You'd never be rich, but you'd be happy. May I be your social editor?"
"You're hired. Now listen to me carefully, pet. No one knows you're here. I want to keep it that way. I'm going to my office and see if I can dig up anything about anyone having it in for you. I've got a key, so if anyone knocks, you forget it. If I have to talk to you, I'll let the phone ring three times, hang up, and dial right back. Otherwise, forget the phone, too."
"You'll be back later?"
"You know I will."
"Frank."
"What?"
"I want to tell you something. It's surprisingly easy for me, all things considered."
"What is it?"
"I think I love you."
"I'm sure I like it that way."
His office was on Argyll Street, just off Sunset in Hollywood. When he arrived and fitted his key in the door, he heard the sound of a woman crying.
Inside, he found Ginny, his secretary, her hands cradling her head, her slender body racked with sobs. When she saw him, she immediately tried to calm herself.
"Okay," he said, "what gives? You don't start bawling for nothing."
"It's all right," Ginny said. She was petite and slender, about twenty-three. The thing Frank liked most about her was her innocence and the fact that she, unlike most secretaries, was not trying to parlay her way into an acting career. Her idea of a favor to ask of a boss was tickets for the Red Skelton Show for her grandparents who were visiting from Pocatello, Idaho. Only once had she really gone out on a limb and asked for tickets to the Academy Awards presentations at the Pantages theater. That, she said, was more for her boyfriend than herself.
Her innocence was disarming and it often got Frank out of ticklish situations on the telephone, or with people he didn't want to see.
She could type eighty words a minute, she could forge his signature fairly well, she knew instinctively when to bring him coffee, and she could tell, without asking, when to bring him a bloody mary on mornings when waking up was more than a slight problem.
Ginny fitted neatly into Frank's theory about girls. There was some outstanding feature about every girl. A girl could weigh three hundred pounds and have something outstanding in the way of sex appeal. It might be eyes or voice or a gesture, but every girl, he thought, had something. That is, everyone but Kelly. She had everything.
Ginny's particular something was her legs. They were a bit on the skinny side, but they were dainty, with just enough bone, just enough meat. Her legs looked good even when she wore flats, but on the occasions when she'd indulged her self in high heels, Ginny's sex appeal radiated from her legs. Elsewhere, she tended to straightness, particularly at the fanny and breasts. Almost as if Ginny knew this, she wore tailored skirts and mannish shirts or blouses, and she was forever tugging at the hem of her skirt, as though she could cover up her excellent legs and thus, avoid problems with men who agreed with Farnk.
One other thing, Frank liked. Ginny did not fly off the handle or become emotional. When she cried, it was for real.
"Don't tell me it was nothing," Frank said. "Something happened. Family trouble? Broke up with the boyfriend?"
"It's-It's something about men," she said.
Frank tossed her his handkerchief. Comforting women seemed to be the order of the day. "Want to talk?"
"Well," Ginny said after blowing her nose, "I suddenly find myself with my hands full when it comes to men."
"You're not the ugly duckling, you know."
"Last night, Herbert took me to a drive-in movie. I know it was a mistake and I should have said so then. But honestly, I thought he wanted to see the picture."
"And he couldn't have cared less about the picture?"
"Well, Ginny, men will be men. He's probably all hot and bothered by you. Have you thought about marrying him?"
"He's still got more time to get his master's degree."
"People who go to college get married. It happens."
"He said it was so much more mature to find out if we were really suited for each other before we married and made a mistake. He said his religion doesn't believe in divorce and it would be a nice thing to see if we were compatible before we talked about marriage. I must have lost my head."
"You had a back-seat affair and now you're sorry?"
"Oh, it didn't happen the way you think. I still have my virginity. But I let him take off my brassiere. He was very nice for a while, then he seemed to go berserk. He made the most obscene suggestions, and when I wouldn't let him, he said I was nothing but a tease. Then today, when Mr. Chambers...." She hurriedly put a hand over her small, immature mouth.
But Frank already knew about Mike Chambers' record with secretaries. Any and all secretaries he met, Chambers considered fair game. He thought he was sudden death on them but the trouble was, Chambers was not very subtle.
"What did Chambers do to you?"
"I shouldn't tattle."
Frank was growing irritated. "You wouldn't be like this if he hadn't done anything. It isn't tattling, Ginny. Tell me."
"He tried to take me to lunch. You know I always have a sandwich and a glass of tomato juice right here. Naturally, I refused him. Then he tried to kiss me. Then he tried to feel me, here." She pointed to her small, pert breasts. "He actually lunged at me. I tore my stockings on the side of the desk. He said he was terribly sorry and wanted to see if I hadn't scraped my legs, too. He got down on his hands and knees. He wasn't looking to see if I'd been hurt. He began kissing me on the legs and knees. He said if I'd be his girlfriend, he'd give me cashmere sweaters and silk underwear and ... oh, it was awful. What is it about me that makes men try to do those things?"
"You're sweet," Frank said. "That gets to guys who see nothing but tramps all the time. They naturally want you."
"Will it always be like that?"
"That depends," Frank said, "on the business you're in. If your business is being Mrs. Herbert, you've got less to worry about."
"I don't think I'll be seeing Herbert again. He was never really that important to me."
"You're young. Play the field."
Ginny was alert and dry-eyed now. "Oh, no. I couldn't do that until I made sure about something."
"There's someone else?" Frank was edging toward his office.
"Sort of."
"Well," Frank said, opening the door to his office, "there's only one way to play a thing like that. Give it all you've got."
"Really, Mr. Rojeck?"
"There's nothing like finding out, Ginny. Now you shed those torn stockings while I do some phoning. I may need you to do some bloodhounding for me."
The inside room of his office was done in cedar paneling, a gift from a friend who owned a lumber mill. The furniture was modern, built for comfort and utility. There was a king-sized Olivetti typewriter at his desk, several files within easy reach plus an FM tuner and small, refrigerated bar, for times when things became too hectic.
He reached for the phone and dialed a downtown Los Angeles number while perching on the edge of his desk. The operator who answered told Frank he was speaking to the Los Angeles Daily News. Frank asked to be connected with Vicki Sharpe.
After giving his own name to the girl, Frank was connected with the saccharine voice of Vicki Sharp, the Hollywood columnist, who'd been with the News for what seemed like ages. Vicki was forty-five, with steel grey hair and harlequin glasses. When you spoke with her over the phone, that part of her seemed to convey itself to your mind, even though you may never have seen her. She was the Hollywood version of Mrs. Mala-prop, and several of her famous misspellings had been reprinted as fillers in The New Yorker Magazine. Vicki had referred, on different occasions, to someone reaching the penochle of success, she'd maneioned French-Indoor China, and she'd written an account of the Christmas Carols she'd heard sung by a lovely Acapulco Choir.
In spite of these gems of misuse and misspelling, Vicki was feared and disliked. She had the one thing a good gossip columnist needs to keep alive-power.
"I was just thinking of you, Frankie," Vicki said when Rojeck greeted her. "That wasn't a very nice thing you did last week to that lovely girl I introduced you to."
"She had the horrible combination of dumbness and dullness," Frank said, remembering the incident with painful clarity.
"But she comes from a fine family in the South and she will probably do quite well in Hollywood and you had no business pushing her into a swimming pool."
"I'm sorry," Frank said acidly, "and I promise never to push her into a swimming pool again."
"I do worry about you, Frank," Vicki said. "A man should be married and settled by the time he's thirty-five. You don't have long to go, and I would like to be the one to introduce you to someone."
"I thought all your nieces were married," Frank said.
"That isn't at all nice, Frankie. Not at all nice, especially not after the way I feel about you."
"Okay," Frank said wearily, "I'll be a good boy. I'll come to your next tea and promise not to have more than two Jack Daniels and not to pinch anyone's fanny. Now down to business at hand." He put a cigaret in his mouth and was somewhat surprised to have it lit for him by Ginny, who sat down in front of him and crossed her legs in a manner that was not at all like her. "I want to know, on the quiet, if you have any bits of information about anyone having it in for Kelly."
"There's nothing wrong at the studio, is there?"
"If there is, you get first crack. So far, she's all right."
"There was something about the bullfighter, wasn't there, Frank?"
"What bullfighter?"
"Higuera. Don't play with me, Frank."
"It isn't a romance, Vicki."
"Just so long as you keep me informed, Frankie, dear."
Frank mashed out the cigarette. "I promise." He noticed that Ginny was watching him with unabashed adoration in her eyes. "Now what about my question?"
"As a matter-of-fact, Frankie, I had meant to call you about some things I've been hearing. Things I'm not sure you may know."
"Can you tell me?"
"Meet me for a cocktail at my place, Frankie. Four thirty, and be prompt." Frank looked at his watch. He'd have two hours. "Okay, Vicki. It's a date." He hung up and began dialing another number, but his attention was drawn to Ginny, who regarded him with a shy, but determined smile.
"I've been thinking about your advice," she said.
"Good," he told her. Then he was speaking to another operator who told him he was connected with the Darrow detective agency. He went through the ritual of giving his name and became connected with Jules Darrow.
"Some on the sly work for you, Julie. I'd like you to dig around and see if you can find out anything about a person or persons who are out to do Kelly some dirt. Let me know the moment you turn up a worthwhile lead."
Then he dialed his home number, let it ring three times hung up and dialed again. Kelly was right there on the fourth ring. "All calm and peaceful here," she told him, "except that I miss you, and I've become slightly suspicious of you."
"How?"
"That bed of yours. It's huge."
"I like room," Frank said.
"If there is no such thing as a chasity belt for men, I'm going to design one and make you wear it."
"Cute," Frank said. "I'll give you one. We can swap keys and have a HIS and HERS set."
"You will hurry back?"
"Yes," he told her.
When he hung up, Ginny got to her feet. "I've thought it all over carefully," she said.
"Good," Frank said, reaching for the Jack Daniels.
"I'd like to take you up on that offer you made a while back."
"What offer was that?"
"You said you had passes for the Hollywood Bowl. Friday night is all right with me."
"Swell. I'll make the call tomorrow."
"Is-is it all right with you?"
"Sure," he said, "why not?"
"I'm so relieved," she said. She moved to him impulsively and kissed him moistly on the cheek. "I'll make a dinner for us. I make a very nice chicken casserole."
"For us?"
"Yes, when you come to pick me up, you can come early. I'll even buy a bottle of wine."
"Now wait a minute, Ginny, what's my getting you tickets for the Hollywood Bowl got to do with-" Then it dawned on him. He was the other guy. Ginny was making her play for him in the only way she knew. A casserole dinner, possibly holding hands, a kiss at the doorway, and then a whispered promise of more. Would he like a night cap? And then the old routine about changing into something more comfortable, which probably meant something daring like taking off her bra, as she had for Herbert. Then the party would get a little rough and she'd plan to call a halt. She'd cry and say she'd meant to be a good girl, but couldn't help herself, not with him. That would mean real trouble.
"I'm sorry, Ginny. It wouldn't work. There's no use pretending. You'd just be hurt."
A storm threatened in her eyes. "I think you're wonderful," she said. "I can wait. You're just too used to women like, like her. But you'll see. I can wait."
He supposed that Ginny had meant Kelly, when she made the indictment, women like her. Well, Ginny was not exactly in the same league as Kelly. And maybe if this business with Kelly hadn't started, he could have found himself enjoying a girl like Ginny. But he was in too deeply, too committed to give it any more thought.
He was quite prompt in reaching Vicki Sharpe's place, located just off the Sunset Strip in one of the new, modern co-op buildings that looked out over the city of Los Angeles, toward the south.
She greeted him at the door wearing a bright orange Hawaian mumu, which was nothing but a long, shapeless gown that hung in a straight line from neck to ankles. Her shrimp-like toes curled under thick-soled Japanese sandals.
She wore her harlequin glasses and her grey-black hair was done up in a bun. When she greeted him, her sallow cheeks reddened somewhat and her skinny hand trembled as she extended a Jack Daniels to him in a tall glass with only two ice cubes.
"Come in and sit down, Frankie," she said. "We're all alone. I haven't seen you in ages, not really, and I want you all to myself."
He was glad there were none of the usual hangers-on moving about the apartment, paying homage, as it were, to the imperious goddess.
"Make me a martini, will you?" she said. "I love your touch with a cocktail."
He mixed the ingredients indifferently and took them into the living room, where they sat on a large chaise lounge that commanded the view of the city below.
"All right," he asked, "now what do you know about Kelly?"
"I'll give you a hint. Does Kelly like to gamble?"
"Not that I know of."
"Does she owe anyone any money?"
"Kelly has a fetish about paying bills. She was born during the depression and it left its mark. I doubt if she owes anyone a cent, except for the current month's spending. Now what are you leading up to?"
"What I'm leading up to is, there might be someone in Las Vegas who is not too happy with her."
"Las Vegas? I don't get it, Vicki."
"I can be more specific, but you know me, Frankie. There's something I want first."
"I told you on the phone. The minute anything comes in, you get it first. I've been pretty good to you, Vicki."
"I know you have, darling, and I appreciate it. But that isn't what I mean."
Frank drained his glass and rattled the cubes for a moment. "Then what? What do you want?"
Vicki's face flushed again and there was a peculiar glint in her eyes. Her toes moved nervously between the thongs of her sandals. "I want you, Frankie."
"Wait a minute," Frank said. "Are we thinking the same thing?"
Vicki kicked off the sandals. She lifted the mumu up over her flabby white legs, showing a patch of varicose vein and embarassingly shapeless thighs. "Yes, darling, we're thinking the same thing. And if you'll just move a little closer, I'll whisper something to you. I'll tell you why you don't dare refuse me."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Frank looked at the sight before him with a strong feeling of revulsion. Vicki Sharpe was not particularly an ugly woman when she was dressed, although some of her tastes in dresses and shoes ran to the bizarre, but the idea of her baring herself, primed for the act of love-why, it was almost monstrous.
"You'd better tell me," Frank said, "and you'd better make it pretty good, Vicki. I don't like anyone telling me I have to do something, particularly something like that."
Vicki smiled with a saccharine sweetness. "I hope you didn't mean that, Frankie. I hope you didn't mean the thought of making love to me might cause you any discomfort."
"Hell yes, it would," Frank said.
Vicki wiggled out of the mumu, revealing the rest of her nakedness. It was not, Frank thought, a very inspiring sight. Many women her age had managed to preserve and cultivate a mature beauty and charm. Vicki was a flabby monument to self-indulgence. Her breasts sagged, her shoulders hunched slightly forward and her skin gave off a white pallor suggesting the many creams and beauty preparations that had been rubbed and burnished into it, all without much apparent good.
"I don't have to watch my weight the way some people do," Vicki said. "I can get what I want from a man simply because I'm me, Vicki Sharpe."
"You're a grandmother," Frank said. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Yes," Vicki said with a grin. "It means I no longer have to worry about becoming a mother. It means I no longer have to worry. I was thinking about this chaise lounge right here, Frankie. We can look out at the lights of the city. Or if you prefer, I have some well-placed mirrors in the bedroom."
"And if I refuse?"
"I'll break you. I'll gradually build up the notion that you've been carrying on with Kelly. I'll make some of the dirty details of your job public. I may not be a good writer, Frank, but I have the name and the power. You think there isn't a magazine that wouldn't be interested in a by-line story of how you're sent to bring Kelly back when she goes off with her bullfighters or tennis bums?"
"You know what that makes you?" Frank asked, lighting a Camel.
"A bitch," Vicki said. "Oh, I know that, Frankie. But unlike most bitches, I'm a happy one. I get what I want. I have a dream-come-true. I have many attractive Hollywood men. You'd be surprised at the ones I have. Some older and mature, some not even in their twenties. I've wanted you for a long time. Now I've got you."
"How do I know it will stop here? How do I know you won't use this as further blackmail?"
"You don't," Vicki Sharpe said. "You simply have to stay on my good side, Frank."
"All right," Frank said, "those are your terms. Here are mine. No. Not now. Not ever."
The telephone rang in a soft tinkle. It was not the one sitting on the desk, near Vicki's file and typewriter. This was her well-known private phone. She grimaced at Frank, then snaked out a flabby arm to lift the receiver. She listened for a moment, the frown gradually disappearing from her face, being replaced by a grin so broad Frank thought her face would crack. "Thank you," Vicki said into the phone, "thank you very much." She hung up and turned triumphantly to Frank. "Trust the Gods," she said. "Trust them to help out Vicki in her moment of need. Now I have got you, Frank. I've got you good, because I know where Kelly O'Donnell is. She's at your apartment."
"I'll be damned," Frank said, more for himself than for Vicki.
It was awful.
Vicki's demands were sickening, and as he performed them, caressing that flabby skin, hearing her profane sighs and directions, he couldn't help realizing how the two prostitutes in the Playa Paradiso Hotel must have felt, being forced to perform for Martin.
Vicki had a large command of Anglo-Saxon expressions, which she practically shouted as Frank touched her. She wanted a long preparation. Frank shuddered as he kissed her, fondled the breasts that reminded him of dried out apples.
He recalled an earlier, high-school affair with a woman nearly Vicki's age. She'd been a widow for two years, but she'd been sweet and attractive, a considerate, warm, appreciative tutor into the pleasures and meanings of sex, and she'd firmly impressed on Frank the fact that the relationship had to have beauty and meaning or it was nothing at all.
This seemed to contradict the warm, pleasant memory. Vickie had an appetite, but she hadn't the ambition to feed herself. She wanted to be fed, to be waited upon, to be catered to. He felt like a servant who could do nothing to please his master.
His skin crawled at the moment he came together with Vicki. She had languidly propped silk pillows under her hips and head, making her look like a grotesque satire on Goya's famous painting of The Nude Maja. In fact, this scene was something Goya might have dreamed up himself, for one of his satirical etchings. He moved rapidly to have it over with as soon as possible.
"No, Frankie," she said. "If you rush, you'll just have to start all over again. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I want to enjoy it"
Kelly, he thought I'm doing this for her. I'm doing it to keep this woman from ruining Kelly with her awfulness.
He tried to keep his mind a blank, to prevent the crawly feeling of revulsion from overcoming him as he moved in slow tempo. But it was hard to ignore Vicki's voice, shouting in a tinny, vulgar encouragement right at his ear.
When she was ready, she lost all control of herself and began screaming, shouting and clawing at him, her bulbous hips writhing in an ecstasy that seemed unnatural to Frank. If he were really a man, he'd have refused her, no matter what he thought If other guys performed this macarbe ritual with her, that was their business. They were selling their manhood down the drain. And that's all Vicki was. Well, at least he could save himself the ultimate indignity. He would not allow himself to find release in her.
"There'll be none of that" Vicki said. It was as though she'd sensed his resolution. "No holding out on me. Go on ... go ahead."
It felt like a nightmare. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and had it over with, eager to be away from her, thirsty for a drink, hungry for a cigaret. He thought about a shower and that rekindled what he'd had with Kelly.
Kelly. Another problem. If someone knew she was at his place, would she be all right?
He did not look at Vicki while he dressed. By the time he was finished knotting his tie, she had a drink poured for him and, he noted happily, she'd had the decency to put the mumu back on.
"That was quite nice, Frankie," she said. "I always feel better after I've had my loving."
That was a strange way to think of loving, he thought, but he said nothing.
"Yes," she said, "I get a thrill out of the way some of them refuse me at first, as though I weren't good enough. But I have my way. You should only know how I have my way, Frankie, and how delicious it feels. Some of the lovliest people in this town have made me feel very good."
"People," he said derisively. "They aren't much when you finish."
"Now, now, Frankie," she chided. "I've had some very nice friends, men and women."
"Women?"
"Why yes, you have no idea how nice it is, having a beautiful woman do things for me. I like it almost as much as I like you, Frankie."
He set the drink down, hating himself for having taken part in this grotesque horror. Even the idea of drinking her liquor seemed repugnant now. If people like this wanted to get their kicks, let them find their own kind. BlackmaU, this particular kind of blackmail was so bad it was unthinkable. No person should ever be forced to submit to such indignities.
"Now," she said, "I'll keep my part of the bargain. I'll tell you what I know about Kelly."
Frank Ut a cigaret and waited.
"You might be aware of the fact that several people in Las Vegas are unhappy about the gambling down at Playa Paradiso. In fact, it was Las Vegas people, not reputable business people, mind you, who were responsible for some of the opposition to gambling in Baja California."
"The police were also against it," Frank said. "Now tell me something I don't know. TeU me, for instance, who called to tell you where Kelly was."
Vicki gave him a bland smile. "A newspaperman does not reveal confidential sources."
Frank laughed. Vicki was so far from being a newspaper woman, a real one, that the comparison evoked pity.
"But just this once, Frankie, I'm going to make an exception. I'm going to violate a confidence, after I tell you something first. If a person had something in their past, something that had been made public, something that couldn't be covered up, and that particular something could be associated with an illegal interest, wouldn't that someone want to smoke screen things a bit?"
"Stop talking in riddles, Vicki."
"I'm sure it will make better sense to you when I tell you who called to tell me Kelly O'Donnell was at your apartment."
"Okay, I'm waiting. Who was it?"
"I almost hate to tell you, Sweets."
"Cut the crap. Who was it?"
"It was Kelly O'Donnell, herself."
CHAPTER NINE
Enrique lit his second cigaret from the butt of the first, enjoying the strong, but purer taste of the American cigarets and motioned to the waitress to bring him another order of the chicken chow mein.
He sipped at his tea, taking in the people about him at Ah Fong's restaurant on Sunset, wishing he did not have to meet her. It was beginning to wear thin. The whole business was starting to wear thin, particularly all the intrigue. It was what happened, he thought, when you got yourself mixed up with American women. He thought he'd learned his lesson with the school teacher in Acapulco. Thinking about it, he guessed not.
The waiter brought his plate of chow mein and Enrique piled in, taking large forksfull stopping with a load in mid-air when he saw her.
She gave no sign of recognition, walked right past him and seated herself at a table facing him. Looks, he thought, were deceiving. The way she dressed sometimes fooled him, gave him to believe she was a typical young lady, harmless, rather highly moral, certainly not open to her voracious sexual appetites or her flare for suddenly becoming hard and stern.
He watched her as the waiter took her order and brought a pot of tea. She poured daintily, making it difficult for him to believe she'd done her fair share on the bottle of tequila they'd had last night, making it even harder for him to believe she'd not been satisfied until he made love to her five times.
That was the part that was wearing thin. She was too-he tried to think of the word-demanding. It was as though she would store up her energy for one big feast, then want everything in sight, down to the last few crumbs.
His eyes were drawn to the fine shape of her legs and the familiar tingle ran through him with such an intensity that he had to laugh. She laughed, too, almost as though she'd deliberately displayed herself so that he'd notice.
He wondered how she'd contact him. Would it be a note? A phone call?
He pushed away the empty chow mein plate and allowed the waiter to set almond cookies and fortune cakes before him. He refilled his cup of tea, fired up a third cigaret, and absently reached for an almond cookie, crumbling it into bite-sized bits.
He was surprised to find himself drawn to watching the legs again, intrigued once more by the balance of her pump on the toes of her foot. There was some true, clever drama to it, after all. Thinking he could do without her, then seeing her and finding himself drawn all over again, only too eager to be of service, to be inventive. He shrugged his shoulders in a typical, Mexican gesture. If this was being a weak man, why it was perfectly all right.
When he opened his fortune cookie, the aura of desire left him and he began laughing so hard some of the cookie lodged in his nose. Tears came to his eyes as he tried to dislodge the particle by blowing it out his nose and into his handkerchief. A waiter moved over to see if he could be of some service. Aman in the booth behind him said sharply, "Put up your hands." Enrique put his hands up as though someone had a gun on him. When he realized this was friendly advice for his coughing, not a threatening command, he laughed all the louder, carrying the man in the booth behind him along with the raucous Mexican chortle. One of the waiters began giggling.
Enrique's eyes met hers and the laughter died in his throat. She glowered at him. He'd made himself quite conspicuous. He took a sip of tea and tried to calm himself. It was funny. Using the fortune cookie to tell him where he was to meet her. He wondered if he hadn't, perhaps, found a chink in her armor, that she was entirely without humor and that she took everything dead serious. Either that or she had a marvelously subtle sense of humor. He couldn't decide which, but he decided to find out. He memorized the address on the slip of paper in the fortune cookie, set it in the ashtray and held a lit match to it.
When he looked up to see if she had any expression on her face, he saw nothing but the hardness.
"You're a fool" she said. "You're a miserable, damned fool."
Enrique sat on the edge of the bed, toying with a cigaret. He was watching her legs as she moved back and forth across the narrow confines of the motel cottage, her muscles bunched, her high heels clicking like an impatient person pressing the receiver of a phone.
"You had to make a spectacle of yourself. You had to make everyone notice you. Do you think I'd do these things if they weren't absolutely necessary? I'm in a vulnerable position and if I'm seen with you, it could ruin your effectiveness."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I will make it up to you."
"How do you propose to do that?"
He grinned broadly.
"God," she said, "is that all you ever think about?"
He Ut the cigaret and shrugged his shoulders. Women, he thought. You had some small chance of understanding a Mexican woman, you could usually get a general clue as to where you stood with a Cuban, but there was absolutely no way to cope with the moods of an American.
After a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the clacking of her heels as she continued her nervous pacing, he gave her his report.
The American had left the apartment where Vicki Sharpe lived and made for the nearest bar. He's had four double shots of Jack Daniels. From there, he'd driven in to Beverly Hills, stopped at the Gourmet for another double, stopped at Ye Little Club for a single, then walked to Canon Drive and the Julius Darrow Detective Agency. He'd gone to the Luau with a man he'd left the detective agency with, had two more singles, gone to Paul's Restaurant on Burton Way, had a chicken salad sandwich, a tomato juice, a small pot of black coffee and three more double Jack Daniels. At this point, Enrique reported, he'd left the photograph, made with the polaroid camera, of Martin, very dead, with a very large .38 hole in his forehead, on the driver's seat of the American's Corvette, driven on ahead to the American's apartment, and let himself in. By this time, the Senorita O'Donnell had been removed. Enrique had hidden behind the door and, when the American had barged in, shouting for the Senorita O'Donnell, Enrique had, with the side of his gun, completed the job the American had undertaken by drinking so much of the Jack Daniels.
He'd left, driven to Ah Fongs, had two orders of egg roll, an order of fried shrimp and two servings of chicken chow mein.
She now knew everything.
"All right," she said. "I want you here for a day or two, just in case."
Enrique nodded and fingered the dimple in his tie. He put on his jacket and started toward the door.
"And where do you think you're going now?" she asked.
He told her about the wide-screen picture that was being shown at the Paramount Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
"Damn, but you can be exasperating," she said.
He gave her the shrug that told of his mystification at the hands of American women.
Abruptly, she reached for the button at the side of her skirt. She undid it, then tugged at her zipper. When it was unmeshed, she let the skirt fall to the floor, over her sheer white half-slip. She stepped over the fallen garment, then deliberately edged out of her shoes. She pulled at the elastic waist of the half-slip and tugged it down over her slender, but nicely defined hips and stepped out of it. Her legs were long and inviting. She managed to disconnect the garter belt from her stockings and peel off the silk sheaths without leaning against anything or losing her balance. The only garment now was her simple white panties. She removed these and poised herself, arms akimbo.
Enrique marveled at the sheen of her skin and the neat, bony cuteness of her knees.
She threw the panties at him. "Do you still want to go to the movies? I thought this was what you wanted."
CHAPTER TEN
Vicki Sharpe could not remember buying anything recently that would have to be delivered, so her anticipation was doubly sharp when the voice at the other side of the door said he had a package from Robinson's, Beverly Hills.
Vicki loved presents-which this must surely be-and she loved the possibility, the wonderful, adventurous possibility that the delivery boy might be a bit more than a boy, a man perhaps, a darling, charming young man, who might like to earn a tip.
She was somewhat surprised, then, to open the door and see a young Mexican, wearing a fifty dollar, ready-to wear suit that was an outlandish, knobby immitation of Italian silk.
She was even more surprised when he pushed his way inside, looked about to see if they were alone, then hit her across the face. Vicki couldn't believe the searing pain that spread across her cheek, nor could she believe what the young man was doing to her desk. He pushed all the papers to the floor, gave the typewriter a shove and up-ended the table. Then he came toward her.
"What do you want?" she said. "I'll give you money. You can take the money. You can have all the jewelry."
Like anyone who has a sudden outrage performed on their person or property, Vicki's sense of disbelief was acutely sharp. This was a joke. Someone had hired an actor to do this, to frighten her. Then the men from Robinson's would come in with a new desk and there would be flowers. A joke. She could even use it in her column tomorrow, a story about the vividly real joke So-In-So played on her as, as yes, as a publicity stunt for his next picture.
That slap was carrying things too far, though. She'd have to talk to whomever it was responsible for that. Even as a prank, you didn't slap people.
When he undid one of the cords from the traverse rods of the drapes, she began experiencing true fright. She bolted for the telephone, but he headed her off and yanked the cord from the wall. She started for the bedroom, but he was next to her before she could close the door. He moved continuously foreward until she was back against the bed. She clawed at him, but his gloved hand slapped her again and ripped at the top of her mumu.
Fear dictated her next move, which was to bring her knee up into his groin. A look of pained surprise came into his face and he immediately let go of her, acting now as his own instincts dictated, by protecting the vulnerable place.
"What do you want?" she said hoarsely. "I'll give you money if you leave me alone."
"You old bag," he said. "If you weren't such an old bag, I'd really fix you for that. I'd really fix you for what you did." He was still doubled up in pain as he reached for her, caught the hem of the mumu and dragged her to him.
For a moment, Vicki felt a flash of excitement overcome her and she found herself wishing he would make good on his threat. The violence of it excited her. She tried to raise her knee again, hoping to infuriate him.
"You damned old bag," the man said. He tore at the mumu and this time, it came apart, carrying her to the floor with the force of the tug.
She saw then what he meant to do and she fought to keep from smiling. As he neared her, she kicked and clawed, thinking how good it would be if only he would.
He was on his knees, next to her. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out for his groin, knowing it angered him, hoping it would arouse him.
His gloved hand on her naked flesh made her tingle with excitement, and then she felt the cord go around her neck. No, she thought, this was all wrong. Why should he? Why should a thing like this happen to her?
The cord tightened around her neck and she felt her lungs fighting for air. A pressure built up inside of her head, like a bad cold with stopped sinuses, but this was more intense, like an explosion threatening to go off.
The cord pulled tighter. She opened her eyes and saw him, knowing he was killing her. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
And then it was all over. She was no longer there, in the room like that, with the man beside her, his weight on her chest.
She was back, twenty-five years ago, in the shadow of a 1934 Ford, a shadow cast by a full moon. There was a faint trace of warm Sant'Ana breeze coming in over Santa Monica Mountains from the desert. There was a heavy tartan plaid blanket. There was Roy, admiring her nakedness, her beauty, her long black hair he'd begged her to unbraid so he could run his fingers through it.
"Take me," she said. "For God's sake, Roy, take me."
His handsome face was close to hers. "I love you too much to do anything more than we have. What you want is for people who marry and love each other that way. That's the way I want you, Vicki."
"For heaven's sake, Roy, don't you see what an opportunity you have? Go ahead. I want you to. Do you think I'd show myself to you like this if I didn't want you to?"
Roy ran his hands lovingly over her breasts. They were full then, young and proud. "If you'd only say yes to the real question, Vicki. We could be so happy."
She grabbed at his manness. "Will you stop behaving like an idiot. Of course I won't marry you. I'm too poor to take on another burden. I'm going places. If you want me for now, you can have me. I'll be your girl all summer. We can do this whenever you want."
Roy's handsome face with its cleft chin, showed his disappointment. "I want love and you offer a cheap substitute. I'm sorry, Vicki, I can't take it. Desirable as you are, as much as I'd want to, the answer is no. Maybe you think I'm a hick in comparison to some of the others you know, but I believe in love, I believe in honesty. If you want to laugh, go ahead, but I'm not the kind for a one night stand or a summer affair."
He'd rolled a cigaret and dressed himself. She had bitter, fiery thoughts as he drove her back to the small farm her parents had just outside Palmdale. She'd show him. She'd show him what he was missing.
Two days later, she'd made a point of letting Roy discover her with Timmy, his younger brother. She'd planned it so that Roy would catch the two of them in the hayloft, and when Roy had seen them, her all naked, instructing the fourteen year old Timmy in the lustiness of her body, Roy had screamed and had gone rushing from the barn.
Timmy had moved away from her out of fear of being discovered, but she'd pulled him back to her, made him finish. She'd laughed and told him, "There, now you're a man. You know what a woman likes." Then came the blast of the 12 gauge shotgun and even then, when she'd heard it, sated and happy from Timmy, she'd known what Roy had done to himself because of her.
The actions happened so clearly, surely she was back in time, given another chance.
She felt Roy's hand on her breast, tender, warm. "If you would only say yes to the real question, Vicki. We could be so happy."
It was a reprieve. A chance to have it all over again. She'd been taken right back to the turning point. "Yes," she said. "I'll marry you. I will, I will I will. I want love the way you give it."
But something was wrong. Roy was not hearing the words, he was giving her the same dejected look, he was getting up, rolling a cigaret.
She tried to say yes again, but there was a constricting in her throat. She tried to gasp for air. Then the dream was gone and Vicki Sharpe never dreamed another dream or took another breath again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Frank sat up in the dimness of his apartment, his head roaring with ache, his mouth dry, his eyes burning. He had all the symptoms of a hangover, including a general numbness.
He ran his hands over his head and winced at the sore spot. Then the memory jolted him awake. He'd been slugged and Kelly was gone.
Kelly. That was a good one. She'd done it again, made one more notch in her belt, and left him really involved, caught in a neat vice between himself and Vicki Sharpe, so that either way he turned, he was caught in a vice that added up to blackmail. How dumb could a guy get?
It was as neat a maneuver as he'd seen, and he'd gone for it all the way. He was in Vicki's clutches, he was in Kelly's. Any time he'd have occasion to go after Kelly again, to bring her back from one of her romps, she could simply remind him of this and tell him to go peddle his papers or lose his job. He wondered if she'd been the one to conk him as he came in, or if she managed to get some other guy to do it for her.
He made a cup of instant coffee, shaved and changed his shirt. His mouth still felt like a soggy old bath towel, so he made another cup of coffee, threw half of it away after two swallows, and gargled with Lavoris. That tasted lousy too, so he poured a tall Jack Daniels and decided to call Kelly to congratulate her on what a fine job she'd done, making a patsy out of him.
He had the phone in his hand when he remembered the one thing that did not jibe with the rest. There was that picture he'd found in his car. There was no mistaking who it was; the hotel clerk, quite dead. Someone had gone whole hog. It might have been the two hookers he'd left Martin with, but he didn't think so. It might have been the American woman and her two accomplices that Martin had mentioned under his duress.
Either way he looked at it, Martin was dead and the people who'd done it knew him, knew just about every move he'd made. How did you figure that?
Any way you figured, it added up to the same thing, a big, inconclusive zero.
But the part of the crazy pattern that intrigued him the most right now was Kelly? Where was she? What the hell was going on?
He called her apartment and her answering service, cut in after the customary three rings. Miss O'Donnell was not in, would he like to leave a message? Did they know when Miss O'Donnell would be back? No, they didn't. Another blank.
He called Julie Darrow's office and was given another blank. Mr. Darrow had a few ideas, but nothing concrete. They'd keep in touch with Frank.
That left the office. He went there, feeling at loose ends, but the sight of Ginny perked him up. She had a bouncy zest about her that had her young breasts bouncing as she moved in front of him with a bloody mary.
"I guess you made it up with Herbert," he asked.
"No," she told him, "I decided to be more determined in my approach. Notice anything different?"
Frank scanned the neat, fine legs, the trace of line at the hips, the buttocks pushing against the seat of her skirt like a small mellon. Nothing new. It just seemed that what was there was even more so there.
"It's my determination," she said and she sat on his lap.
Frank did a double take. Was this Ginny?
She reached for him in a most surprising way.
Could this be possible?
"Don't I excite you just a little?"
"Not nearly as much as you surprise me."
Despite the surprise, there was a disturbing amount of attraction there, a disturbing amount of ... what? He couldn't place it. Both her hands were busy, one unbuttoning his shirt, the other moving about his thighs. He had somehow been maneuvered to the position where he was holding her shoulders. She moved a few times so that his hands were now squarely over her breasts.
What the hell? He'd been slugged, seduced, made love to, and now this, from a young girl who should be doing public relations work for Clean Living.
But there was no hint of clean living as she hiked her skirt up to her waist, revealing the firm thighs that were equally as fine as her legs.
He noticed she wore garters, the old fashioned kind, about two inches wide, with frills, small flowers and lace. It was altogether a pleasant sight.
"Look, Ginny," he told her. "I'll say it, you're damned nice, you're damned attractive, I could go for you, but there'd be no percentage in it for either of us. You'd be hurt. If we made love now, like this, you'd think you were in love. You'd want to get married. Nice as you are, I don't think marriage would work with us."
Her thin lips pursed into a pout. "All I know is, a girl has to lose her virginity sometime. She has to trust her instincts about the man she decides on. My instincts tell me you, you, you!"
Frank tried to push her hand away, uncomfortably aware that she was succeeding in her attempts to arouse him. "Look," he told her, "if I let this happen, it will just be a momentary thing. It might last you for a few days, even a week. You'll want it again. And I'll level with you, you're attractive to me. I'd probably do it, but then something will happen. I'll date someone else or forget your birthday or break a date with you and the illusion will be broken and you'll end up hating me and hating yourself for having had the illusion, you'll be so bitter, you'll rob the next affair out of all its magic."
Her probing continued. "Those are just words."
"But damned good ones. That's wisdom. That comes from having hurt people or having been hurt myself. I tell you, there's someone else for me, Ginny. At least, I think there's a chance. Anything I did with you would be counterfeit."
She pulled down his zipper. "There's nothing counterfeit about what I'm seeing now," she said. "Can you honestly admit that you don't want me?"
What could he say? The evidence was right there, and it was pretty damaging. "Remember what you told me yesterday, about it seeming like every man in creation wanted you? Well, now you know how I feel." And it was true. He did not consider himself a satyr, nor did he like to keep a running score of his exploits with women. In fact, if there wasn't someone special, he'd just as soon do without one night stands or pick-ups in bars or at parties. Even if there was no drinking, you usually woke up the next morning with a hangover, a moral hangover. You could kid yourself once or twice and say you slept with some gal because you were lonely, but sleeping with a person was removing the loneliness only for a few moments. There were better ways to cure that, like friends, real interests in real things.
"I must sound like a YMCA lecturer," he told Ginny.
"You sound like the man I'm quite fond of. You sound like the man I want to make love to me."
What the hell? he told himself. All right. He'd try to be considerate and make her introduction to sex as tender as possible. She deserved that much for all the faith she'd put in him.
He eased her off his lap and locked the outer door.
Then you'll make it tougher on the next guy and maybe the office. When he came back, she'd already pulled off her skirt and sweater.
Watching her undress and reveal more of her not-quite-skinny young body, he couldn't get a certain uneasiness out of his mind. There was something about her freshness, about the way she slowly peeled the stockings off her legs, that disturbed him.
She knew she had nice legs. She curled and flexed them a few times and wiggled her toes. Her breasts were small and set with an athletic firmness. She could have done without a brassiere. Her ribs showed slightly in front, and particularly in back. Her spine stood out, bonily, yet appealingly. "Do you like me?" she asked.
Before he could answer her, she struck a pose for him, one slender leg thrust forward, her hips canted toward him, her arms raising her dark hair off the back of her neck, accomplishing at the same time, the raising of her breasts.
This bothered him. For a virgin to be so well versed and poised, it must mean something. "You've got a nice figure."
"I exercise a lot. Horseback riding, swimming, skiing. The more active the exercise, the more I enjoy it. Would you believe it, at one time, I wanted to be a ballet dancer."
He lit a cigaret and sat on the sofa. She moved next to him, removed the cigaret from his hand, crushed it out and leaned herself against him, probing with her hands again. She began purring like a Persian cat as she maneuvered herself onto his lap and sought to fuse them together that way.
As if she sensed his surprise, she spoke haltingly. "I've been reading marriage manuals. I didn't want to be dumb and helpless the first time. There's one book that says a woman, even if its her first time, has a definite responsibility. And I'm not taking chances. I want you to like me."
She must have been reading some pretty good books, Frank thought. She always managed to stay one step ahead of him, until she had brought about the fusion of their bodies and the beginning of the slow bmld-up of friction, rising and lowering herself on her haunches expertly.
He had no idea how muscular she was until his hands rested on her legs for support. With each movement, he felt the flexing of the muscles, giving power to her motions. She was also pretty adept, he noticed, at internal muscular control.
The thing that surprised him most was that Ginny was good. She seemed always to know just when to stop, remaining perfectly still when the slightest touch or contraction would have had him racing for release. Damned good books! Very damned good!
She worked very hard to keep this precarious balance maintained, using the tips of her fingers on occasion to brush the lobes of his ears, the back of his neck and the small of his back.
He did the same to her, fondling, caressing, halting things for a long kiss or embrace. Then, to his surprise, he ran his hands lightly over her sides and she lost all pretense of delicacy or gentleness. She writhed, moved convulsively and rapidly, reaching the crest of her excitement with a loud groan, pinching her body to him, holding him in a vice-like grip with her powerful legs, having long, violent spasms that carried him to his own enjoyment and continued until she reached the crest again and cried out with even more intensity this second time.
Her body did not relax when it was over. She held them together, her legs and arms tightly wrapped about him. The hell of it was, Frank liked it, he liked it now particularly. Not from anything she said or did, but from something she radiated, a certain dependence and blind want of him, as though she were now a sponge, drawing energy and emotion and feeling from him to use in her own personality. He could feel himself giving her this nebulous substance and the thought of it was just as exciting, just as thrilling to him as the contact with her warm body, panting against him.
It was ridiculous, but he was falling for her, in a curious way. She was not nearly as attractive as Kelly, and for all her reading, she could not make the act of love come as alive, as dimensional, as inspiring. But right now he was giving something to her. And in return, he was receiving images Kelly hadn't provoked. Ginny was the kind of girl you bought a house for and maybe a Volkswagen to do the shopping. You kept her pregnant and that meant you kept her happy. His mind focused on an image of Ginny in maternity clothes, of backyard barbecues, of cute little notes left under her pillow when he went off to work in the morning.
What the hell was happening to him?
The life of a publicist was hectic, all right, and there was something screwy to do nearly every day, some character to deal with, but this feeling about his personal life, it was crazy.
What was happening to the neat, orderly life of Frank Rojeck?
It was like his first week away from home, after graduating from highschool in Placerville, up in the Mother Lode Country, near Sacramento, and moving into the fraternity house at Berkeley. There'd been five or six attractive girls in his high school and he'd managed to date four of them. But during his first semester at CaL he'd nearly flunked out, seeing all the good looking coeds, dating his fair share of them. What the hell? When a guy was thirty-three, it was time to narrow down the field, not beef it up.
"Now," Ginny said, "do you still feel the same way about me?"
"Sweetheart," he told her. "I don't know. I don't think I know anything right now. I'd like a drink. I'd like to take a long walk. I'd like to visit a Turkish bath. I'd like to swim a mile. You have really knocked me all to hell."
"I want to know," she said, with a disarming tone of stubbornness. "It's important to me."
"I've got news for you," Frank told her, "I want to know, too." He started to get dressed.
"Aren't you going to tell me anything?"
"I'm trying to. I'm trying to tell you I'm so confused right now, I don't know what's coming off." He tucked in his shirt and fumbled with his tie.
"You're going to see her, aren't you?"
The disturbed feeling came out again. Why was Ginny so jealous of Kelly? It was almost as though she knew what the areas of his confusion were. That streak of stubbornness and jealousy from Ginny didn't help his complacency any. "Yes, I probably will. You wouldn't want it any other way, either, believe me."
Still naked, Ginny stood up. "All she can give you is trouble. Don't you see that? I can give you ever so much more."
"There are some things I have to find out. I wouldn't be human if I didn't. You've got to trust me. I told you it would be like this."
"All right," Ginny said. "All right. Go ahead. Go right ahead. Just see what you find out. Just you wait and see."
He tried to tell himself this was the after effect of a highly emotional thing, that Ginny's vehemence and stubbornness were a natural part of losing her virginity, and not being one hundred percent sure that her gamble had paid off.
He tried to tell himself she'd be more reasonable after she'd had time to think it over. He threw her a kiss and started out of the office, feeling helpless and confused.
He tried to tell himself he'd find a way to work things out.
But that didn't mean he had to believe it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Julie Darrow had a round, boyish face, large blue eyes and thinning brown hair. "When he spoke, he gave you the feeling he was just covering, keeping your attention, while some practical joke was being played on you.
"I've gone over everything you've told me, Frank," he said, toying with the rim of his glass, "but there's nothing on the surface. I don't know why anyone would want to scare hell out of Kelly, unless it was a gag. She's pretty clean, unless you want to count her favorite hobby, men. No drugs, she isn't a booze hound, she doesn't perform illegal operations, she doesn't owe any money."
Frank sipped at his own Jack Daniels. The lunch crowd from the Beverly Hills shops and the near-by electronics plant was beginning to fill The Little Club with an assortment of good looking secretaries and electronics engineers who were thinking about more personal types of circuits.
Every way he turned, there were fresh, crisp young girls perched on bar stools, their long legs displayed neatly, their happy, animated chatter sending out a sensual, busy sound that stirred the place with the busy, determined noise of female sexuality.
Julie Darrow noticed it and turned for a survey. Frank noticed it with a pang. There was enough of women in his life without subjecting himself to more.
"What do you make of Vicki Sharpe?"
"I make this of it," Julie said, "you can do your duty as a private citizen and tell the police you were one of the last few to see her alive. They'll want to know what you discussed. When you tell them it was about Kelly, some dirty laundry is going to come out and you may find yourself implicated. If, on the other hand, you keep quiet and they find out you were there, you'll get a bit more pressure and the added disadvantage of looking like you were trying to cover up."
"Then either way, I'm screwed."
"Let's not use language like that," Julie said. "We'll have the young ladies descending on us and I never like to engage before lunch, unless I've started the night before."
"There's got to be a connection somewhere," Frank said. "Kelly tells Vicki about us. Vicki is murdered. I question that punk hotel clerk. He gets his. You can't dig up anything on Kelly. I stand to be a patsy two ways, one for falling for Kelly's line, the other for having seen Vicki Sharpe just before she gets killed."
"And just to make your day complete," Julie said, "you have a motive for having killed Vicki. That black-mail she pulled on you. Oh, don't worry. I don't think you did it and I'm not about to tell anyone what you told me. But if an autopsy is performed or the police get wind of the fact that Vicki had relations with someone, they'll sure as hell want to know who, and they'll sure as hell tell the district attorney and he'll sure as hell try to get an indictment for rape and murder, and he'll sure as hell ask for a conviction for Murder One, which means if you think you've had trouble with smog before, just wait."
"Thanks," Frank said. "You're reassuring."
"You could go to the horse's mouth, my friend."
"You mean, Kelly?" Julie Darrow nodded.
"I've tried. She isn't to be found. Her exchange doesn't know when she'll be back and I've tried all of her haunts." He reached into his pocket for his money clip. "That, sort of leaves me in the dark." He left a ten for their drinks and sandwiches and got to his feet.
"Where you headed, my carefree friend?"
"Damned if I know. The office maybe. I've got a file of clippings on Kelly. Maybe if I go over them, something will stand out. Maybe that double talk of Vicki's will make some sense."
Julie Darrow tugged at Frank's coatsleeve. "You bought me food and drink. Let me reciprocate with another round of Mr. Daniels."
"Too tempting," Frank said. "I'd love to get drunk But that's a luxury I can't seem to afford right now."
"I have an even stronger inducement than Jack Daniels. I told you I couldn't come up with anything factual. Now that doesn't mean, buddy boy, that old Julius, here doesn't have a theory. Care to sit down and listen?"
Morty Wynn had a large office on the Sunset Strip. It was near The Chez Paulette Coffee House, and on the side of the street that faces south, looking down at Beverly Hills, the Wilshire district and the Park La Brea Towers, apartment buildings.
In order to get into Wynn's personal suite of offices, you had to go through a frosted glass door with a neat, almost unimaginative lettering, M. Wynn and Associates. Then you found youself in a small ante room with a PBX girl and a receptionist. The PBX girl looked the way Ingrid Bergman might have, fifteen years ago. She had a high, shiny Nordic beauty, with straight, white teeth and an ingratiating smile.
You would think this fresh beauty was the reason she'd been hired to grace the outer office. That is, you would think so until you heard her answer the phone. She would say, "Good afternoon, Wynn and Associates." If you were a man, you'd immediately forget why you were calling. You would remember all the times you'd been in bed with someone you cared for. You would remember the intimate whispers, the personal suggestions. You would want to hear more of this husky, sexy, throaty whisper. And more important-in fact, the reason why the girl was paid ninety dollars a week-you would not be too disappointed if you were not connected with Mr. Wynn. You would not be disappointed at all. You would be making plans for conversations that would lead up to taking Delia (her name) to, lunch. You might, if you were a persuasive talker, succeed.
That might get you to first base, which was an evening date. You would be quite pleased with yourself, at having done so well with such an attractive girl. You would engineer a date at a place like Jack's Rack on Pico, where you'd sit near the fire, drinking beer and talking, with the background of the excellent jazz on the juke box. You'd find yourself with Della getting under your skin. She could excuse herself to go to the ladies' room and you'd think you'd spent the night with Brigitte Bar-dot. Della's voice could do that to you.
Then you'd make the inevitable pass and discover that Delia didn't object too much if you plunked your hand on her knee or patted her fanny.
Then would come the big let-down. Delia would tell you in that same voice-that, by now would have your skin crawling and aching with desire for her-that she thought you were very nice, but....
But she preferred girls.
You would be shocked, but every time you called Morty Wynn's office and heard that voice, you'd think to yourself, what a damned waste, what a damned shame. But you still wouldn't be disappointed if you didn't get through to Wynn.
Maggie, the receptionist, was one of the anemic New York model types. She would be the one to lead you into one of the associates' office or, if you were lucky, into Morty Wynn's suite.
You would think about pinching Maggie. You would think about wanting to get her drunk, you would think about copping a feel in broad daylight, because you'd want to do something to ruffle that shell. There wasn't a hair out of place, there were no wrinkles ever detected in her stockings, it was rumored that she did not even have wrinkles on her skirt after a day of sitting.
She had no breasts to speak of, her legs were rather on the straight side, although her ankles were models of delicacy. It was her face, always serene, with big, brown eyes and high, Indian-like cheek bones, that got to you. It was the hair, long, dark brown, painstakingly done up in elaborate curls and sweeps, merging at the back in a complicted, braided bun. You would have wisions of Maggie making love without batting an eyelash, without changing that tight, thin expression, without mussing one hair. You would think about it and you would want to be the one who mussed her, aroused her, infuriated her, did something to her to get her to loosen up and swear or moan.
When Maggie took you inside, you caught a glimpse of the steno pool, where five girls worked, typing away at scripts or story outlines. You would see pictures of the actors and actresses who were the clients of Morty Wynn and associates. You would see copies of the Daily Variety and The Reporter, and you would get the idea that you were in a rather exclusive agency that handled some of the biggest names in writers and actors in Hollywood.
You would take a second look at the stenographers and errand girls and realize what it was that bothered you. They were trying to be noticed. They were exuding a musk that was much less subtle than you'd find at The Little Club. These girls were interested in being discovered, in being noticed, in having their pretty little faces etched on film or appearing on the screen of your TV set. If they had to plunk their pretty little bodies on your sofa or bed or the back seat of your car to do it, they'd go along with that. But they were shrewd and hard and if they did not think it meant something to be seen with you, if they did not think you could do something for them, they had the ability to be able to look at you and not see you, as though you were a pane of glass, as though you did not exist. And if you saw something you liked, if the swell of a thigh or the jut of a breast or the pout of a lip got to you and excited you, and made the sap run hot in your veins, why that was too damned bad, sucker. You'd just have to suffer in silence, or do the best you could elsewhere.
Frank Rojeck went through the ritual.
He entered the office, nodded coldly to Delia and presented himself to Maggie. "Tell Wynn I want to see him."
"I don't think he can be disturbed," Maggie said coolly.
"Tell him I know just how to disturb him."
"He wasn't expecting you, was he?"
Frank leaned on the desk. "Maggie, everyone knows what a wonderful job you do, protecting him from slobs, bill collectors, process servers and would-be actresses. Your name is legend wherever distinguished women of history are discussed. Now will you kindly press your little button and let him decide whether he'll see me or not?"
Maggie didn't bat an eyelash. "I'll see if he's busy," she said. She flicked an intercom and, when it was answered, announced Frank. "He wants to know if it's urgent." Maggie said.
"No," Frank said with sarcasm. "I just wanted his permission to ask you for a date."
Maggie spoke into the phone. "Mr. Rojeck says his business is of the highest importance."
What a broad, he thought, wondering if anything or anyone could ruffle her. He remembered a rather small young extra, whom Natured had cheated in height, but had lavished loving care upon when it came to other things. He'd been given fifty dollars as a joke, to exhibit this bountiful sign of manhood to Maggie. Even that had failed to evoke a strong reaction.
"Mr. Wynn will see you in his office. I'd escort you, but I'm sure you know the way."
Frank felt irked by her attitude. 'Your job is to lead people to the Inner Sanctum. I want to be led. Besides, I like the way you wriggle when you walk."
True to form, Maggie did not break that straight-mouthed expression. She scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it to Frank as she got up to lead the way. "This is my phone number," she said. "If you're truly interested in the way I walk, I suggest you call me some evening."
When Frank said he'd be damned, he was so surprised, Maggie asked him if she could expect his call, but she still did not, Frank noticed, change her expression.
Morty Wynn's office had a good deal of room to it, Morty Wynn's stomach had the same, expensive hang. The room was cluttered with pictures, paintings, hand carved lamps, a large desk, a battery of telephones and an executive chair. His head was sparsely furnished, with the final, last ditch attempt at keeping its hair.
Morty was a big man, nearly as tall as Frank. He had broad, heavy shoulders, big feet and big hands. He wore a red blazer, charcoal grey slacks and black loafers with no sox. His shirt had been buttoned with haste, leaving the seams out of alignment. "What's the big rush, Rojeck?"
Frank plunked down into a naugahyde chair. "Where's Kelly?"
Wynn's large, round face colored with rage. "You come bursting in here like this, knowing the set-up, getting me away from something I'm doing, to ask me a question like that?"
Frank nodded.
"How the hell should I know where Kelly is? You think that's all I've got to do, look out for Kelly?"
"It could be an interesting pastime, Mort, You ought to try it sometime."
"Damn it all, Rojeck, forget the games." Wynn blustered and lit a cigaret.
"I'll forget the games when I know where Kelly is. I don't like being a patsy, and I've really been set-up."
"So, why come to me? Have I ever done you dirt? Have I ever crossed you?"
"Not that I can think of," Frank said. "In fact, I always sort of liked you. I come in asking a few innocent questions and you're about the color of a fresh cheese pizza."
"Let's just say I was busy then, and you and I can go right along being friends."
An interior door opened. Frank could see the small John and stall shower through the hallway, and he knew that beyond there was a bed. Morty Wynn sometimes liked to work late. Other times, he liked a quiet place for a special project.
"You might as well tell him where I am, Morty." It was Kelly. Frank felt his heart skip a beat. He was aware of adrenalin coming into his blood, giving him more fuel to fight the surprise, the rage, the frustration that settled over him like a shroud.
"You know something," Frank said, "I've heard it whispered about that the ones with the biggest coating of cynicism are precisely the ones to get taken in the most. If that's so, I must have been pretty hard, pretty ready for a fall. You had me believing you, Kelly."
"You got what you wanted, didn't you?" she said, matter-of-factly.
The sight of Kelly clad in nothing but a white terry-cloth robe was the finisher. The robe was obviously Wynn's-either that or he kept a spare around for his special projects. The sleeves had to be rolled up some-I'll what, the hem dragged way below her knees. It was knotted loosely at the waist, but that didn't stop a large slash of her generously proportioned leg from showing. And her hair, that looked as though Morty Wynn had been playing find the needle in the haystack. Kelly looked more mussed up than a bed in a brothel.
"You got all the nice sweet words and you got all the action," Kelly said. "Now it's time to pick up your marbles and go home like a good boy."
Frank looked at Wynn. "Maybe I'm just a chump," he said. "I wasn't expecting this. I suppose I end up as another notch on Kelly's chastity belt. I suppose you and she have a very mature, adult understanding about grownups having urges that need to be satisfied, and tomorrow we may all be dead and all that sort of jazz. Okay, I won't make a scene. Rojeck knows when he's had it."
He felt the calmness returning to him. So he'd been taken in by Kelly. Well, whatever her problems were, let her find the way out. He'd had it. He'd had the whole mass. He'd go to the police, tell them about having seen Vicki Sharpe and invent some story about going to see her for the purpose of giving her some publicity to be planted in her column. If there was a stink, he'd have to find out what he could on his own, or with the help of Julie Darrow.
But Kelly O'Donnell? That was water under the bridge.
"I don't believe it," Kelly said. "He's actually taking it well."
Frank flashed her a look. "So well that I'm going to forget all about what I'd like to do."
"What's that?" Kelly said derisively. "Give you a nice big, shiny black eye." He turned on his heels and started out the office, hearing a maddening sound of Kelly's laughter as he closed the door. Through a corridor, then into the bull-pen where the secretaries clacked away on their typewriters. You think you know the score, told himself. You can spot the phonies, you find yourself attracted to the rare exception who has some sincerity and you gradually become more civilized and accepting of things. You meet a girl who has the morals of an alley cat and she gives you a story-and the crazy thing is, you fall for it. You've seen dozens of them, heard all the angles and thumbed your nose at them. Then you meet one who's been married three times and gone off on week-ends with five times that many and just because she does the same thing with you she's done with all the rest, you think she's a poor lad who's had all the bad breaks. And you think that you're the exception.
It was a big sexual merry-go-round. It slowed down for you just long enough for you to climb aboard, and when it had you so dizzy you couldn't see straight, you fell off and no one cared, no one got down to help you up, no one gave a damn.
Take that back, he thought. Someone did give a damn. It was a hell of a way to find out how you stood, but some guys never found out.
He walked out into the ante room, blew a kiss to Maggie, and took the elevator down to Sunset Boulevard. Out on the strip, he walked down toward the phone booth, right outside the Hamburger Hamlet. He called his office. Too late to get Ginny. The service answered. They told him he'd had a call from Julie Darrow and one from Miss O'Donnell. The message was: This isn't the time to be thoughtful. Frank pondered that for a moment. It was what Kelly had told him when they'd made love, when he'd wanted to tell her how he felt about her.
The bitch!
There was nothing like rubbing it in. The memory of her laugh came back to haunt him and he slammed down the receiver with a bang. He had to go into the Hamlet to get a dollar changed. Then back into the booth to call Ginny.
"No time for explanations," he said. "You're having dinner with me tonight. I'll see you in an hour." He hung up with out giving her a chance to say anything.
Ginny lived near the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine near Fountain, so he decided to do the shopping there. He bought a large steak, enough vegetables for a salad and a large bottle of a California pinot noir wine. He also called Julie Darrow's exchange and left Ginny's number, just in case.
Then he piled into the Corvette, ran a red light, picked up his first traffic ticket in two years, and went on to Ginny's.
The moment he walked in, he felt vaguely disturbed. Ginny was neatly dressed, the apartment was clean, but something was wrong. He'd felt it before. Whatever it was, it was back again.
He set the groceries down on the kitchen table and kissed her. She was trembling. Then he knew what it was. Ginny was different. She was sincere. She was fresh and in love and honest. What did he expect to feel after having his guts run through the wringer with Kelly? What did he expect to feel with all the phoniness and nonsense?
He kissed her again, feeling her warm body tremble as he held her to him. Get used to this, he thought, and forget the other. Forget about being a damned publicist who wrote cute stories about a nymphomaniac who happened to represent young motherhood to millions of Americans. It was more dishonest than the rigged quizz shows on TV.
When you started feeling that way about a thing, it was time to quit.
He moved his mouth hungrily over Ginny's. That same, wonderful, exciting quality was there. The freshness. She was not sure of herself. Well, he'd show her how to become a sure, positive woman, confident that her man cared for her.
Resolutely, he picked her up, slipping his arms under her legs, and carried her to the couch. Ginny melted. She guided his hands to her knees.
At first, he thought she was struggling, fighting against what was about to happen, but then he realized she was carried away with her own excitement and uncertainty. She bared her plum-like breasts for him and began heaving in excitement as she discovered his readiness to have her.
It was feverish for him, too. He could not wait for her to undress. Only the necessities came off, her panties. Then he was lying next to her on the couch and she was responding by wrapping one leg over him so that they could be together.
Her body was a raging freshness that drew from him as it had before. There was no subtelty, no by play. They were both aroused enough for the act, itself. She let him know this by drawing his hands to her, moving them over her body and letting him feel her taut, moist eagerness.
They came together and the stirring began. She found her release almost at once, and Frank let himself go without any awareness of a thing except that he was with her, trying desperately to block everything else out of his mind.
When it happened for him, he was filled with a vital awareness of Ginny, of her slender, smooth body, and this was a good moment for him. It was a standard. She drew from him and he was able to give. It was more than a momentary hunger they shared. He knew he could feel this over and over again with Ginny.
He'd been surprised when she showed him she had protection. There'd be none of that, not any more. Not when he felt so close, so needed by her. He had enough saved up to think about buying that newspaper, something he could publish himself and be editor and writer, and Ginny wouldn't be able to help, she'd be too busy with the kids.
Thirty-three. A man ought to be thinking about children at that age. And Ginny was perfect for it. She'd look good in maternity clothes and the real test of her womanhood would come out when she was pregnant the first time.
Frank looked at her in amazement. He was willing to bet that she'd look even better with each successive child.
She lit a cigaret for him and told him she wanted to start fixing dinner, but he would not let her go. He sensed the return of her nervousness and he tried to comfort her.
"Why don't you take a nap?" she said. "When I've got everything fixed, I'll wake you up."
A nap sounded good, but he was too enthused with his thoughts and the strange freedom that release in her had brought. He showed he was ready for her again. Then he told her that so far as he was concerned, there was no other woman for him, that he wanted to find her next to him when he woke up every morning and that, particularly, he wanted to know she'd be there when he went to bed at night.
She started crying.
He kissed her on the tip of the chin, and then on the soft under part of her neck and then each of her breasts. Her entire body began quivering and she told him she wanted him.
When he insisted that they forget about using protection, she began crying even more. Disturbed, he sat up and began rubbing her thin shoulders. Slowly, deliberately, he unbuttoned the front of her dress and drew it back over her bony shoulders. He kissed her bared breasts and drew the dress over her narrow hips.
Lying there naked, she seemed to him a pitiful, frightened thing and he wanted to comfort her. He did by gently stroking her back and whispering to her reassuringly. But her crying became more intense. He did not know what to do.
"Are you afraid about becoming pregnant?" he asked, her. "It's alright. It doesn't matter, it really doesn't." She started to sob. "Have I hurt you?" She shook her head. "Then what? What is it?"
She started to talk. Her thin lips were actually trying to form the words, but only sobs came out.
Frank was nearly overcome with a desire he hadn't felt before. He'd never seen anyone like this, so overcome by the emotion of love.
It made all his senses seem more acute. He was aware of a few flaws of imperfections on Ginny's otherwise smooth face. He noticed a small little indentation, probably a result of having scratched when she'd had the chicken pox.
There was a tiny little flap of skin in her navel. There was a small scar just to the right of her left knee.
Her left earlobe came just a fraction of an inch lower than her right.
What was it when you noticed a person with such clearness?
It had to be good.
Her womanness, her breasts, the delta of her thighs, they became so appealing that he wanted to touch them tenderly, to hug her nakedness close to him, to tell her he would take care of her and protect her and that everything would be all right.
She tried to answer him again and could not. She threw herself at him, kissing him where it surprised him. She was eager and, at the same time, docile and compliant. She let him bring their bodies together for the second time. She allowed him to remove the protection. She gave herself up to the thrashing of their bodies with such an abandon that Frank found release almost at once, despite his resolve to be slow and considerate, to give her something that would carry her beyond any physical pleasure she'd ever experienced.
Her arms and legs wrapped tightly about him, giving him the feeling of being completely possessed, wonderfully needed. As he lay this way, her body compressed about his, he found himself hoping that this act had done the trick, that she would be pregnant from this, that it was only the beginning for him.
Of all the women he'd had, none of them had ever had this attraction for him. This must be what a man felt when he instinctively knew what was right for him, what he wanted for the rest of his life.
He'd waited until he was thirty-three, but it had paid off. He'd found the one.
He told her about his feelings. He told her he hoped she was pregnant. He told her they could leave tomorrow morning for Yuma, Arizona, the closest, quickest way to get married.
When she heard this, she began crying again, even louder until it bordered on hysteria.
Every inch of him reacted with an electric fear. He was completely at a loss to explain any of it. To calm her, he told her how much she meant to him. He told her how he'd been taken in by Kelly. He told her about Vicki Sharpe and how he'd have to go to the police about that, to do something.
But this didn't quiet her, it seemed to make her more hysterical.
She bolted from the sofa and ran toward the telephone. He tried to stop her, but she began clawing at his arm, raking it with her nails. "I've got to do something," she said. "Please, oh, please don't try to stop me."
He grabbed her by the shoulders, but she shook loose with a fierce strength. He slapped her face, hoping to snap her out of whatever it was. But the only effect it had was to make her stop suddenly and set the telephone down. "Frank," she said, "why didn't you do this sooner, why didn't you tell me? You don't know what I've done?" She began crying again and then she sank to a heap on the floor, her arms gripping his legs, her head resting against his knees, her body seeming to have continuous spasms.
"What, Ginny?" he asked. "What is it?"
"You don't know," she sobbed, "you couldn't possibly know what I've done."
"Tell me," he said, "please tell me."
"Oh, God, Frank," she said, "it's terrible."
He reached for her face, gripped her chin and tilted it up toward him. "What's so terrible? What have you done?"
"I've killed you, Frank. It's the same as if I pulled the trigger. I've killed you, and it's too late to stop."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"If I've been killed," Frank said, "do you mind telling me how. I sure feel all right."
"You don't understand," Ginny told him. "Nothing is the way it seems."
"That," Frank said "is for sure."
The telephone rang and he looked at it with irritation. It was an unnecessary interruption. He lifted the receiver. "I'm sorry," he said, "Ginny's busy. Will you please call back?"
He was about to hang up, when he heard a familiar voice, calling his name. The voice belonged to Julie Darrow.
"Are you still with me, boy?" Julie said.
Frank said he was.
"Okay, be prepared. I've got somethings that will get to you. First you've to promise to sit down."
"Okay," Frank said, "I'm sitting. Now what's the scoop?"
He listened as Julie's voice came through, reminding him again of the young school-boy look on Julie's face, reminding him of the practical joke that was to come. His jaw sagged. There was no practical joke. What Julie said was dead serious, reported with a sort of laconic indifference. Yet, it spelled out a living hell.
There was one thing that tied together. Vicki Sharpe had owned ten percent interest in a Las Vegas hotel.
Morty Wynn owned interest in several Las Vegas hotels, one of them was even located on the strip. That tied in with Viola's cryptic bit of information, but how did Kelly fit into it? Vicki had tried to implicate Kelly and it didn't fit.
"Now hold on to your hat, pal," Julie said, "because here comes a nice big jolt. How much do you pay your secretary?"
"A hundred and a quarter," Frank said.
"Do secretaries who make a hundred and a quarter run up debts? Do they run up big debts, like maybe sixty thousand dollars?"
"What are you talking about?" Frank said.
"Your secretary has a sixty thousand dollar tab at one of the gambling spots."
"But that's impossible," Frank said.
"To the contrary," Julie Darrow said. "And do you have any idea how she got in so thickly?"
Numbed, Frank said he didn't.
"The answer is simple, buddy. She has a good colateral. She has a ten percent interest in the Golden Dunes Hotel."
"Ginny?" Frank said. "I-can't believe it"
"Then here's one more for the road. Mort Wynn. You know his last name? His real last name. Whitsocki? Does that ring a bell?" Frank said it didn't
"Surprised at you, a news hound. Wynn, alias Whitsocki has a brother. Bert Wales. Don't tell me that doesn't mean anything."
It did. It meant plenty. Bert Wales was Kelly's last husband.
Frank hung up, feeling more than disturbed. The feeling intensified itself, looking at Ginny. "We've got to have a little talk," he said. "Who was that?"
"It was Julie Darrow. He had some interesting things to say, particularly about you."
"Frank," Ginny said, "I've got to talk to you. I was so afraid when you left the last time. I knew you were going to her. You don't know everything. You can't possibly know."
"I know a few things about you, Sweetheart. Now how about it, why don't you come clean and tell me how you come to have a sixty thousand dollar tab at Vegas?"
Ginny stiffened. "Listen to me, Frank. You love me, don't you? You care about me, don't you?"
"I feel something for you, but I'll tell you the truth, I'm beginning to be fed up to the gullet with women who have ready-made complications ... complications that add up to a picture of phoniness. Now what's the score, Ginny? What gives?"
"If you know about the money I owe, then you know part of what I have to tell you. I did something that was wrong, Frank, terribly wrong. I thought you didn't care. I-I got you in trouble because I thought you were interested in her."
"Kelly?"
"Yes."
"What have you got against Kelly?"
"I've got this against Kelly. I was happy. I was very happy. I had a man. He was a good person, Frank and I loved him. I'm sorry, but you aren't the first for me. I tried to make it seem that way and it wasn't really a he, because the way I feel about you, it's as though it was the truth. Can you believe that? No one matters as much."
Frank ruffled his hand through his short, sandy hair. "If this is just because you went to bed with some guy, I guess I can take it, but I wish to hell you'd tell me about the rest."
"I wanted you," she said. "I wanted you so badly, nothing would have mattered. Everything was a substitute. And tonight, when you said the things you did-" Ginny couldn't finish. Her body racked with sobs again.
"Come on," he said, shaking her. "What is all this nonsense? Tell me."
Suddenly, Ginny brightened. "We could go away. We could go into Mexico. We could work out something if you really feel about me the way you do. The important thing is, we have to leave now, soon." She threw her arms about him, hugging hungrily.
"Look, Baby, we don't go anywhere or do anything until you tell me what's going on."
Ginny looked nervously at her watch. "It's too late for talking. We've got to get out of here." She groped nervously for her clothes, struggling into her under-things. She forgot about stockings or a bra. The skirt came on, and then she buttoned the top of the dress, fumbling at the dainty, rose colored buttons. She worked her feet into her shoes and moved to the closet for a camel's hair coat. "Trust me," she said. "You've got to get out of here. Come with me. We'll go someplace. I'll tell you all about it."
"I'd like to know just for once, what the hell is going on around here. For the past few days, my life has been a hell of confusion. You say more every time you open you mouth. Now tell me."
"Frank, just trust me, will you? We've got to go."
"If I go with you, will you tell me everything?"
"Yes," she said, tugging at his arm. "I'll tell you everything, but for God's sake...."
Frank allowed himself to be tugged toward the door. He opened it and ushered Ginny out into the hallway, not thinking anything of the rather tall young man in the overcoat who was approaching.
He thought more about it when Ginny's face turned ashen and she gripped his arm tightly. '"It's too late," she said.
"What's too late?" he asked.
What followed reminded him of a French experimental film he'd seen at the Coronet Theater on La Cienega Boulevard. It was filled with tall, statuesque nude women, dogs on roller skates, men in clown's make-up and policemen on bicycles. It was not pornographic, it was surrealistic, with the women supposedly representing female sexuality. They were quite lovely, quite convincing, despite the fact that the picture was twenty-five years old and certain standards of beauty in the female figure had changed. There were guns being shot, whistles blown and policemen falling off bicycles.
Here, there were no dogs or policemen or nude women, but it still had the feeling of a surrealistic picture. The young man in the overcoat came up with a Smith and Wesson, stub-nose revolver. He pointed it at Frank.
Ginny said, "No, don't do it!"
The young man in the overcoat said, "Why the hell not? Just tell me that." He pointed the gun at Frank and fired. The bullet roared past his head and burrowed itself in the wall, sending out a generous spray of plaster and splintered wood.
Acting on instinct, Frank dove for the carpeted floor, trying to tackle the man with the gun. He heard Ginny scream and he felt a sudden bolt of rage. Frank had been in the Army, but he'd never been shot at. He'd never been shot at in any circumstance ... except now. He recalled the matter-of-fact way fictional heroes in books and on TV reacted; as though they were brushing away mosquitoes, but damn it, that had been a big hole, torn up by the .38 slug and the thought of that happening to him made him mad.
He missed on his lunge for the man in the overcoat, but found himself within striking range again. The man in the overcoat leveled the .38 at Frank for the second time.
"Goddamn it," Frank said, "I'm going to get you for this." He rolled to his feet and let the training and discipline of his judo instruction take over. An enemy with a weapon. Disarm him.
Frank sprang just as the gun went off a second time. He was aware of the roar and flash of igniting powder, but his hand gripped the sleeve of the overcoat, jerked and pulled. The young man in the overcoat went off balance with a grunt and found himself at Frank's knees, a sharp pain roaring through his arm, followed by the sickening sound of a snap and a sudden, shooting pain that coursed from his wrist to his shoulder. The gun fell from his hand.
Frank kicked it out of the grip of the young man, who, bravely enough, got to his feet and started at Frank again. His left hand darted into a pocket and came out with a knife. "Be smart," Frank told him. "If you couldn't do it with a gun, don't try it with a knife. I'll get you."
The man glared at him, then at Ginny. "Goddamn you," he said, "you're crazy. You don't know what you want, do you?"
Frank was somewhat surprised to see that the man was talking to Ginny. And Ginny hadn't been inactive. She had the gun in her hand. Calmly, she leveled it at the young man's chest and pulled off three shots.
At such close range, it was brutal. The first shot knocked him down and took a chunk out of the overcoat. The second and third shots pounded into his body with the force of brutal kicks. All the life and expression were pounded out of him.
Frank's ears were filled with the roar from the shots. Looking at Ginny, he was aware of an animalness about her that was frighteningly similar to her attitude when she made love. At first, he felt a stirring of desire, then the thought insinuated itself over and over again, she's just killed a man.
"You saw it," she said. "He had a knife. I was only trying to protect us. He shot at you."
"But I disarmed him. His arm was broken. You're going to have a rough time with a coroner's jury, convincing them this was justifiable."
"He would have killed you," Ginny insisted.
"Maybe he would, when he had the chance. But I'm thinking something else. He might have said something you didn't want said. He was talking to you before you shot him. He was saying something to you? You were the one who was so anxious for us to get out of here. Was he the reason, Ginny?"
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to call the police, if someone else hasn't already. Five shots make a hell of a lot of noise."
"We've got to go through this together, Frank. We've got to give the police the wrong idea."
"And just what," he said, "is that?"
"You leave now, before anyone sees you. I'll say he tried to attack me."
Frank walked back inside the apartment. He went to the phone and called Julie Darrow. "I need you and fast. You've got five minutes head start and then I call the police."
Ginny followed him inside. She had a glazed expression on her face. The gun still hung limply in her hand. She held it as though it were a dead mouse.
"Sorry," he told her. "It wouldn't hold water. None of it. They'd see the bullet holes he made when he shot at me. He's got a broken arm. It was his gun. How did you get it from him?" He shook his head. "I've got to call."
"Damn you," she said. "I've done everything I could. I didn't want it to happen this way. I could have gone with you, I would have been yours and you'd never have had any reason to think I was anything but a nice girl, someone who loved you. I do love you, but it's too late."
"I think I get the picture about something," Frank said. "I think I know who that guy was. His name was Enrique, wasn't it?"
There was one more bullet left in the thirty-eight. Ginny sent it racing at Frank. It hit him high in the left shoulder and knocked him off of his perch on the sofa and onto the floor.
It was like being hit very hard. He felt the impact, and then he felt a heavy numbness.
Ginny began crying again and she moved to him, dropped to her haunches and then the tears really came with a vengeance. He was fighting off a heavy feeling that threatened to rob him of consciousness.
When she unbuttoned his jacket, he was only vaguely aware of her intentions. "My God," she said. "I'm sorry, Frank, so sorry. I didn't mean it. When you said that about Enrique...." She kissed his bare chest. "My poor darling," she said, "you need help."
She tore away his shirt and pulled off his jacket. Her hands were stained with blood and he was aware of his warmth, trickling out of the hole in his shoulder. The T pain started in as an insitent throbbing.
Ginny tore at the hem of her half slip and set it over I the wound. He wanted to tell her not to, but the sight of the material, drenched with blood so quickly, made him feel he would be sick. He struggled to keep the acid down in his stomach.
Now Ginny had her dress unbuttoned at the front. She sat so that his head was in her lap and she deliberately leaned foreward so that his face would rest against her breasts. Slowly, she started a rocking motion. "My poor darling," she crooned.
He tried to turn his face away, but she held him firmly. "Don't try to move," she said, "Trust Ginny. Ginny knows what's best." I Frank didn't think Ginny knew anything at the moment. She seemed to be a million miles away. He tried to get another look at the wound and when she saw him looking, she pressed her lips to his eyes. "Ginny will make it all right," she said. And she tried.
Off came the rest of the dress and Frank realized what she meant to do. Her hands were busy at the top of his slacks, pulling and plying, her body eager to press close to him. It was the damndest thing he'd ever seen.
Her shoulder and left breast, where she'd cradled him, had smears of his blood and now, in her delusion, in her guilt, in this sudden reversion to girlhood, she was trying to make everything all right, to atone, to apologize.
"Ginny will take care of it," she said. "You'll see. Ginny will fix. Ginny didn't mean it."
Sure, Ginny will fix. But Ginny's way of fixing things was to make physical love to it. He was surprised that she got a reaction from him. He'd thought the blood he was losing would almost certainly make it difficult.
But Ginny was moderately successful, successful enough, in fact to bring them together. He was surprised to find how comforting it felt, even though there was no tenderness to it.
"You'll see," she said. "Ginny will make you feel nice." She began a slow, undulating motion with her narrow hips.
It was the craziest thing that had ever happened. A woman had shot him, now she was making love to him, pure, basic animal love.
The only trouble was, her movements were too eager and he found himself experiencing a moment of acute pleasure followed by a moment of dull, throbbing pain.
One of her movements was so sudden and energetic that he felt himself lose consciousness from the pain. It lasted only briefly. When he opened his eyes, there was more of his blood on her and he had lost the ability to feel any of the moist, frictional sensation.
This caused him, at first, to experience a moment of fear. Was he paralyzed? But then he was aware of the pressure of her weight on him.
"For Chrissake, Ginny," he said, "will you cut it out?"
"Ginny is sorry," she said. "Really. I didn't mean it."
"Fine," he said. "Now get off. Get a doctor, for Chris-sake or I'll bleed to death."
He passed out again from the pain and when he regained consciousness, he realized he must have lost his potency. Ginny was frantically trying to make amends. Her hands on his thighs irritated him, her weight on his body was becoming unbearable.
The sight of her nakedness no longer seemed innocent, and in that moment, he realized how much awareness and tenderness play their part in the most intimate relationship of all between man and woman.
When she saw him looking at her, she renewed her efforts to arouse him, and when that failed, she frantically began trying to wipe away the blood from his wound. She had torn her half slip into shreds and they were all filled with blood. She ran into the bathroom and came back with a large towel, which she held over his shoulder. Frank had visions of the immaculate conditions used by doctors in surgery and he could see their reaction to Ginny's ministrations.
Then the thought hit him. He should be mad, too. He'd damned well bleed to death.
Outside in the hallway, he heard footsteps and he remembered that he'd called Julie Darrow. He heard Darrow say, "Jesus Christ," which meant he must have seen Enrique's body. Then he saw Darrow inside the apartment, looking down at him. Darrow seemed miles away, viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.
"Get her off of me, Julie," he found the strength to say. "Get the crazy broad off of me before she kills me."
He closed his eyes and heard Ginny. "It's all right," Ginny protested, sounding like a fledgling from the Actor's Studio. "I can do it. I can take care of him. You'll see. He'll be all right. Just go away and leave us alone."
He heard a slap, and then he felt a loosening of the pressure on his legs and chest. And then he felt the blessed, quiet relief of nothingness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When he awoke, the numbness in the arm was gone. He was aware of a firmness pushing at his arm and then, in the following order, of Julie Darrow, the fact that he was in a hospital, an attractive woman he'd never seen before, a nurse and a policeman.
"I suppose I'm popular and you'd all like to talk to me," Frank said.
"They would," the nurse said, "and they all will, but not for long. You've lost a lot of blood." She helped Frank sit up in bed by propping a pillow under his back and cranking the bed so that he was only semi-reclining.
"Okay," he said, "who's first?"
"I'm Nora Prosser," the woman said. "I'm from the police department. I'm a psychologist, but don't let that frighten you. Sergeant Saxon here wants to ask you some questions, and I'll probably have one or two."
Nora Prosser wore a neat suit, a plain white blouse and, so far as Frank could see, no pretensions. She looked, in fact, as wholesome as a UCLA coed, the kind you took to a jazz joint, bought a few drinks and kissed good-night on the front porch of her dorm. He grimaced at the appraisal. He hadn't been very accurate in his appraisals of women lately. This one probably had a repressed desire to kill her father with an axe. "Am I, by any chance in the prison ward?"
"No," Sergeant Saxon said, giving a broad, thick-lipped smile, "but that doesn't mean you damned near weren't. I'll get to my questions first and let Miss Prosser interrupt from time to time. To start off, how long have you known Ginny Taylor?"
"Three years," Frank said. "I swiped her from the PR Agency where I worked, before switching to Videlity Studios. She was an office girl. I promoted her."
"How well do you know her?"
Frank colored slightly. "Up until two days ago, I'd say I knew her only minimally."
"That's hardly the term you'd use now, is it, Mr. Rojeck?" Miss Prosser asked with a clinical smile. "I mean, considering the way Mr. Darrow found the two of you."
"Okay," Frank said. "We had been together. There was some talk about making a permanent thing of it."
"Had you ever seen Enrique Balderas before yesterday?"
That told Frank he'd been out over night. "No. That was the first and only time."
"Were you at the apartment of Vicki Sharpe the day of her death?"
He nodded. Then he complied with a request for more details. He spared them only the last, gory one, of Vicki's blackmail, making it sound as though he'd been accustomed to seeing Vicki on occasion.
To his surprise, that was all from the sergeant. Then, the sergeant, the nurse and Julie Darrow were asked politely to leave the room and he was left with Miss Prosser, who immediately got things down to a first name basis.
"I'd like to ask your cooperation in a few tests." One of these was a free association. She read fifteen words to Frank and he was to reply with the first word or thought that came to his mind. He didn't see any harm in it and he figured had there been any need for him to have a lawyer present, he'd have been informed of the specific charges against him.
He gave the answers, was thanked and left alone for a few minutes, until Julie Darrow came back into the room, eating an apple he'd managed to filch from someone's basket of fruit.
"The way it stands now, kiddy, you are tabbed as an innocent bystander. They've got it figured that Ginny and Enrique were that way about each other and she'd decided to give him the gate for you. The trouble is, if you cop out about knowing Ginny was leading a double life and being lady boss of a bunch of hoods, you also implicate yourself with Kelly."
"And," Frank said, "if I do that, I might just possibly implicate myself with Vicki Sharpe, which means you and I have to do some sleuthing when I get out of here."
"You've had three transfusions and were treated for shock, so I don't think you'll be moving too soon."
"We'll see about that. In the meantime, fill me in on everything else you can think of."
This took a few days, occurring as Frank's diet progressed from the broth and jello stage to poached eggs and, ultimately, hamburger.
Ginny was in the police ward of the County General Hospital with the charge being murder. That meant, according to Julie Darrow, that the police had no inkling of Ginny's attempts at harassing Kelly O'Donnell or the murder of Martin, the hotel clerk at the Playa Paradiso Hotel.
It also meant that there were at least two others of Ginny's crew, wandering about somewhere. It was a toss up as to which of them had killed Vicki Sharpe, but, in all probability, it had been one of them, possibly Enrique.
That left some doubt as to Kelly O'Donnell's role in this whole business, it left a lot of doubt about why Ginny should have wanted Kelly harassed, it left a head-scratching kind of doubt as to why Kelly should have told Vicki Sharpe she was staying at Frank's.
Deduction? Julie was to stay with his project of looking into the affairs of one Morty Wynn and to follow up on the lead of Bert Wales, Kelly's ex-husband.
Later that night, two irritating things happened. Frank received a huge bunch of roses, long stemmed American Beauty roses. There was an unsigned card reading: You are in too deeply to get out. It was written in a delicate, large, even script. The thing that made Frank more curious than anything was the correct, grammatical use of the word deeply. He knew it was a silly thing to pick on, but most people had grown lazy from reading ads and hearing countless commercials blasted into their Psyche from the idiot box, television. It would be more usual to say, you are in too deep.
Crazy? Well. What hadn't been so far?
The other thing was the appearance of a television set. At seven-thirty, a young nurse wheeled the set in, put it in front of Frank, turned it on and left the room without a word.
When the screen lit up, Frank saw a familiar figure that made him cringe. Under the titles of the program, he saw a young woman in slacks, flats and a sweater. She was trying to get a kite up in the air for two little kids, one a boy, the other a girl. She ran over a good sized lawn. The kite trailed and finally took to the air. The woman handed the string to the little boy, kissed his forehead and then noticed someone off screen, to whom she began waving as though this person meant the world to her.
Then came the titles: Jim's Wife.
The woman, of course, was Kelly.
And although the program was rated as family entertainment, the idea of showing Kelly in slacks, running with the kite, and then waving, had been pure genius. A man would willingly sit through the half-hour family type comedy for the promise of more of that. Wearing slacks, the sight of Kelly running was a symphony with one theme: sex appeal. Her buttocks, tightly compressed, moved with an agile grace. When she waved, the camera was pulled in for a nice close shot that couldn't help but emphasize the movement of generous breasts.
The young man who'd dreamed up that opening had been, at the time, an assistant director, respected, but not too far up the scale in TV's chain of command. After the filmed opening was shown, the young man had been promoted, had married one of the sponsor's daughters and was now directiong a show of his own.
Frank had seen the opening several times and had thought it was quite brilliant for what it did.
This was the first time he'd had the chance to appraise its effects on him personally.
Wow!
There was no denying her appeal, even over TV. The glow, the womanliness all rekindled memories for him. They were painful, yet there was something of the bittersweet about them.
He completely forgot his annoyance with the anonymous nurse and watched the show. It was not too much, something about the little boy thinking he was going to have all his teeth pulled out and being told in a sickly sweet tenderness by Kelly that this was not so, he'd simply have to wear braces for a while.
Reminding himself of Kelly's comments about the little boy and his off-stage wet-nurse, Frank laughed when he imagined Kelly's real thoughts as she played her scene with the little boy. He wondered if the little boy had tried to take advantage of the close-up situation to explore Kelly's anatomy and, if so, what Kelly's revenge had been.
When Jim's Wife was over, the nurse came back into the room, smiled, turned off the TV set, said a cheery "Good-night," and wheeled the set out of the room.
The flowers and the TV set.
Frank discovered it was piquing the living hell out of him. Who'd been responsible?
Someone, he decided, with a grim sense of humor. Someone who was trying to give him the same hard time they'd given Kelly. Someone who was trying to give him the same hard time Kelly had given him.
Another nurse came in to take his temperature. She was young, cold, imperious and efficient. She jammed the thermometer into his mouth and flicked her thin wrist to take note of the time. After the second minute, she took his wrist to count his pulse.
When she was through, she made her notations on his chart. "Is something wrong, Mr. Rojeck?" she asked. "You've been looking at me rather strangely."
"I was just noticing that you're rather attractive, which means I must be feeling a hell of a lot better. You can start bringing in the ugly nurses. I promise not to die."
She gave him his bath that night, and it was not easy for him. There was Kelly's image on his mind. Then this dark-haired Amazon, with her high, proud breasts and the white uniform and the air of efficiency. She deftly removed his pajama tops and bottoms, working over him with the warm rag and soap, her strong fingers rubbing into his flesh.
He could understand why the big cliche about patients falling in love with nurses existed.
When she got to his legs, each touch of her hands gave him a stirring. It was enough to make a guy wonder. He'd been through so damned much lately that he'd asked himself if his attitude toward women didn't need serious reconsideration. Kelly. Strike one. Ginny. Strike two. And all the girls before, a bunch of foul balls. He was at bat, but there was a pitcher somewhere who was beginning to get his number.
Now take this nurse, he thought. She couldn't be more than twenty-five. She must have had her reasons for choosing the profession. Maybe she had ideas about marrying a doctor, maybe not. Giving a man a bath was just something she took in stride, like the sight of blood, or having her fanny pinched by some old lech who was having a gallstone removed. No more of that for Rojeck. From now on, every minute was going to count when it came to women. He'd had it, so far as quantity was concerned. It was going to be like his first car. He'd worked like hell for the money, handsetting type, digging up ads for his father's paper, delivering the printed copies, squirreling away the money, all two hundred of it. Then the trip to Sacramento and the used car lots.
That Ford had really meant something because he'd taken his time. Well, in a lot of ways, a woman was like a car. If you wanted a racing car, flashy and built for performance and looks, you had to figure the car would need plenty of attention. If you wanted something to last, that was an entirely different approach.
Buck up, Rojeck, he thought, you're slipping. The massaging was getting to him, that was it.
Well, this was time to put a halter on the old animal sex urge.
But he couldn't stop it.
It was a hell of a thing. It would just mean embarrassment for him. The nurse would be used to it, she'd be able to handle it. But he'd be the one to know about it. He'd be the typical patient in the hospital who got hot and bothered because of some pretty nurse.
What kind of man was he to let this happen?
The nurse noticed it and said nothing, making him feel all the worse about it. Probably, he thought, when she got back to the nurses' dormitory, she'd sit down, take her shoes off and, over a cup of coffee, tell the others about the guy she bathed, who'd started getting ideas.
Instead of his embarrassment helping things, it seemed only to get worse and finally, he couldn't take it.
"I'm sorry," he told the nurse. "It happened because I was thinking about you. In my work, I see all kinds, mostly tramps. And in the past couple of days, I even managed to fall for one. Make that two. I know how that sounds. I'm childish and have no control. Okay, if that's my problem, I'll do something about it. I'll try. But I guess you'd better forget about the rest of the bath. I'm sorry."
She set down the wash cloth and broke out of the efficient expression into one of warm humanness. "I heard about your girlfriend, the one in the prison ward."
"You probably think I belong there, or maybe in the nuisance ward."
"Not at all," the nurse said. "Look at you. That's your manhood right there. You know you have it and you aren't trying to prove anything. You're even considerate of other people's feelings and the fact that some one like you thinks I'm attractive makes me proud." She leaned over the side of the bed and pressed her lips to his. There was a faint trace of cologne and deodorant mingled with the smell of hospital and cleanliness.
Her kiss only made things worse. His virility was as apparent to him as it had ever been.
She touched it gently. "I think you're a sweet, dear person. I'm flattered. Something like this isn't dirty, don't you understand? I know how difficult it is for a man, thinking a woman is attractive and not knowing the words to tell her properly. This does more than anything else. I think it's sweet. I remember when I was in school, the professor in psychology gave us a lecture about morals and he said there were all kinds of sex and attractions, but only one kind that would last. That was the kind that came from two unselfish people who truly desired each other. There was no way you could really explain it. Everything else fit a formula. He wrote it on the blackboard. It was two plus four equals sex. That was supposed to be the kind that was only momentary and didn't matter. It was a pun. He even said that's all it deserved, a pun. The other kind was the best."
She kissed him again. "I wish I could do something for you," she said. "I wish I could do something that was kind and beautiful that would relax you and let you sleep and not be embarrassed. I wish I could do something you'd always remember."
Frank was so touched, he thought he'd start bawling. He felt choked and he could hardly talk. "Just talking like this has helped," he said. "You have no idea how much."
She touched him again. Her hand was cool and firm and sure. "Don't ever be ashamed about the way you feel" she said.
What a hell of a time to start feeling maudlin, he thought. "What's your name? I want to remember your name."
"Connie," she said.
"You know, Connie, I wish I was in love with you."
She reached for his hand and with both of hers, held it to her breast so that he could feel her heart pounding, feel her taut, proud, firm womanness beneath her uniform. She gave him an encouraging smile and moved to the door, where she placed a DO NOT DISTURB sign. Then she came back to him and cranked the bed down so that he lay completely prone.
Connie sat on the edge of the bed, running her hand across his forehead. "I know what I can do for you," she said. "I know what you need."
Without another word, she lay next to him. She unbuttoned the front of her uniform, and then she directed his hands to her breasts. While he was occupied with caressing them, feeling the coolness and wonder of her skin, she delicately lifted her skirt and placed herself in a position for them to be together. "You relax," she said. "This is something I want to do for you."
What she did for him was to bring their bodies together. When he felt himself become a part of her, he suffered a momentary pang, remembering Ginny, but this was quickly snuffed out by a feeling of relaxation that spread slowly through him until he closed his eyes.
Something told him that this was what Connie wanted. If he watched, it would be personal, between Connie and Frank and she was not trying to be Connie to him, she was trying to be a standard for him, something he could always fall back on.
This was like no experience Frank had ever had.
Connie completely enveloped him with a comfort and a delicious sense of relaxation, as though someone he cared for very much had fallen asleep beside him. He was not aware of motions as such. He was not filled with the knowledge that he must give her satisfaction. This was a gift, a beautiful gesture and to experience the true beauty of it, he must accept it on her terms.
There was one vivid moment when his entire sense of awareness seemed centered on his potency and maleness. This passed and his release was sleep, a warm, pleasant, dreamless sleep.
He awoke once during the night and was disappointed to discover that the lights were out and that he was alone, but he smiled in wonderment at the darkness and a vision quickly came to him.
When he identified the vision, he experienced the same, sweeping warmth and relaxation he'd had when he was part of Connie. He wanted to cry at the sight of the vision and he did.
The next morning, the doctor who examined Frank said that he would be goddamned. Frank was rather quickly on the mend.
That afternoon, Frank asked to be released from the hospital. Permission was denied. He asked for second helpings on everything at dinner.
He was released the next day, shortly before noon. He did not see Connie again, nor did he even ask her last name. He knew this was the way it was supposed to be.
Out on the street, he felt good. His arm was in a sling and the idea of standing seemed a bit precarious to him, but there was something he wanted to do, and now was the time for it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Julie Darrow was there to pick him up and supply some missing links in his wardrobe. After dressing and taking half an hour for coffee, orange juice and some last minute plans, they started on the long, cross-town journey, through the Civic Center, over the Harbor Freeway to Olympic and west on Olympic until the Beverly Hills High School. From there, they turned right and threaded through the short-cut, across Santa Monica and ultimately onto Wilshire.
A quarter of a mile on Wilshire and they were at the large modern apartment building in Westwood, where Kelly lived.
Frank got out and watched Julie Darrow speed off in the traffic. He took the elevator to the sixth floor and rang the bell at Kelly's apartment.
He was greeted by Eulah, the mulatto maid. As he'd hoped, Kelly was not there.
"Listen to me, Eulah, and listen hard," he said, sitting down to conserve his energy. "I know you've got your orders from Miss O'Donnell. They include forgetting everything you see unless she tells you to remember."
Eulah, who was in her late thirties, nodded silently. She was a big, handsome woman with a cynical face that spoke of the things she'd seen and forgotten. Even knowing Frank was with Videlity Studios hadn't cut much ice with Eulah in the past. He could always remember her as being strictly noncommittal, her loyalty to Kelly beyond question. He'd even joked about it to Kelly, saying what a difficult time anyone would have, even getting Eulah to admit it was a nice day.
"Someone is out to get Miss Kelly. I saw it with my own eyes." He described the acid throwing incident. "Now I know she personally hasn't got any use for me. Let's just say we had our little fling and I lost, but she's got us both mixed up so tight in something that she can be in even more serious trouble."
Eulah took all this in without a flicker of emotion. Then she ran her stubby hands through her short, greying hair and let her wide, light blue eyes narrow. "She said you had all the makings of a fool," Eulah said, "and I'm tempted to believe her. You don't know much about her, do you?"
Frank had to admit that he didn't.
"You think Miss Kelly don't know what kind of trouble she's in? You gotta think again. Miss Kelly cry herself to sleep the night she come home with those people and they tell her to stay away from you."
"What people?"
"Them two men, them Mexican fellows." Frank leaned forward. "Did you hear what they said?"
"All I know is, they go into the den. They say they want to show Miss Kelly something. She look plenty nervous as it was. I heard her crying and I hear one of 'em tell her, she got to keep away from you. Then they leave and she call that Mr. Wynn."
This was more that he'd hoped for. Kelly being pressured again. Kelly being threatened.
"And you ain't supposed to be here now, you know that, don't you?"
Frank looked blankly at Eulah.
"She done everything she could to let you know she was with you. When she come back from that Mr. Wynn's, not far back, she call your exchange and leave that message. She sent you flowers. She make sure you get that TV set when you was in the hospital."
He wished Julie Darrow was there. It was like being hit between the eyes with something. His own feelings and instincts had known it. Those dreams he'd had about Kelly, there was more truth to them than he could admit to himself awake.
"They see you hanging around here, Mr. Rojeck, they surely going to give her a bad time."
"But why, Eulah? Do you know why?"
"Sure. Miss Kelly know something about that hotel down there in Baja California. She know plenty about it."
That bolt of lightning was coincident with Kelly's arrival at the apartment.
She was dressed in light green. Her long blonde hair was done in a simple bun, reminding Frank of her improvised horse's tail during their moments together.
When she saw him, a look of happiness came into her face, but it was immediately replaced by one of fear and concern. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be-"
"I'm supposed to be, but I'm not. I'm adding things up. I'm learning the hard way. I'm getting some ideas, mostly about you. I've got to admit it, I'm still as confused as all hell, but damn it, I can't believe what I saw in Mort Wynn's office. I can't believe what I heard. I can only believe what happened when I was alone with you a few times. Everything else doesn't make sense and I'd like to get it the hell out of my life."
She ran to him, put her hands tenderly on his good shoulder, and rested her cheek against his. "God but you're a talkative, ponderous one. You ought to be a teacher."
"I ought to be in a booby hatch by now. I ought to be yours. I ought to be a lot of things."
"Darling, it's almost over, all of it, but you're still in trouble. You can't be framed for Vicki."
"You mind telling me why you called her and told her where you were?"
Kelly tightened her grip on his shoulder. "I didn't, darling. I didn't call her at all." She tugged at his arm. "Come inside with me. I've got to change. Morty is coming here. I'll tell you as much as I can while I'm dressing."
Frank noticed, as soon as they were inside Kelly's room, that she quickly gave up the idea of changing her clothes. She sat next to him on a chaise lounge and for a few moments, they held each other silently, kissing, touching each other, becoming, Frank thought, reassured of each other.
He was still in the dark about plenty, but the intensity of Kelly's kisses told him she hadn't, indeed, meant what she'd told him at Morty Wynn's office.
"Remember what I told you about my first husband?"
Frank nodded. "You said you really loved him. He was the only one who really mattered."
She took his hands in hers. "Well, that used to be true. I mean, I still do love him. But he's only a memory. I love the memory. I've made up my mind to get some revenge."
"Revenge?"
She kissed his cheek. "This is the part where you'll have to be understanding. I'm going to tell you everything, because, well, you know why. The first few times you came after me, I really was antagonistic. I didn't like you. Then it began happening. I found myself caring for you, more and more until I got to the point where I was imagining I was with you all those times."
Frank's jaw slackened. Was he hearing correctly or had this all been a dream? He expected, any moment, to wake up and find himself back in the hospital, being bathed by Connie, discovering that her words and actions, too, had been a feverish, mad dream.
"Now listen," Kelly said. "When I first came to Hollywood, I got the usual bit from the usual people about the casting room couch. I won't lie to you and tell you I wasn't tempted or that I told each and all of them to go to hell. I was dumb, desperate and naive. I'd spent an awful lot of time in Bakersfield, planting potatoes. You don't know what that's like unless you've done it. Someone gives you a big bucket full of potatoes that have been all cut up, with a tiny little eye in each piece. You walk along in the furrow, stomp the potato in place with one foot, kick dirt over it with the other. If you've got cousins who are thinking how much they'd like to get away, how much they'd like to get into L.A. and make some of the big money in the airplane factories, it's even worse. They walk behind you, pushing, hurrying you up, taking all their mad out on you because you're a girl and they're bigger than you.
"Anyway, I didn't know how far I could get on my looks, when I came to Hollywood. I refused some offers to pose in the wrong kind of pictures, but I'd let one or two people sleep with me so that I'd get small parts.
"One day, I met Rod. He was a gifted comedian. He took me out several times and a sort of magic took over. What ever we did, it was fun. And after a wfule, the business of us being nice, sincere kids changed into playing house. And one night, I told him I thought I'd missed my period. He saw how worried I was and said he'd fix everything.
"That was all that was said about it for two days. He had a fair bit part in a big picture. It meant money and a good break. He put everything he had into it. I had two days to figure out what it was he was going to fix. I became slightly cynical and imagined a quick trip to Tijuana and a visit to some doctor.
But when Rod was finished with his work, we didn't head to Tijuana. We drove to Wyoming. We were married there and spent our honeymoon camping in the Grand Teton National Park. For a week, all we did was take hikes in the mountains, go swimming and fishing. Of course, we had a king-sized sleeping bag for nights. After the first week, I got my period and I was scared stiff he'd think I tricked him. But when he found out, he just laughed. He hugged me real tight and said he'd bet anything I wouldn't get my period next month. Can you see why I was so in love with the guy?
"Well, Rod won his bet. I was pregnant. I wanted his baby and I thought I'd give up the idea of being Kelly O'Donnell, girl actress and concentrate on being Mrs. Loretta Baker.
"In the course of six months, I lost my baby and Rod. Somehow, I stumbled in a department store while I was doing some Christmas shopping. For a while, they thought they could save the baby, but it got complicated. It was born prematurely, too prematurely to have a chance.
"You didn't know about the baby, Frank, because I never saw any reason to tell. Then, after Rod was killed in that freak accident, I wanted to forget. I wanted to forget everything. I did, too, until I met Bert Wales. He was kind and I needed something like that. He had money. Enough to do things for me. I married Bert on an impulse. We'd been drinking champagne and one thing led to another and he said, 'Kelly, why don't we get married?' and I said, 'Why not?'
"You see, when I married Rod, it was the first time I believed anyone loved me. After that, after all the tragedy, all Bert had to do was be nice to me. I married him. Then I found out what kind of person he was. He was acquisitive. He wanted something and he bought it. If he couldn't buy it, he stole it. I began suspecting things, piecing things together like you've been piecing them, mostly in a blind quandary. But when my suspicions told me that Bert had arranged for me to be pushed, that he'd arranged Rod's so-called accidental death, I knew I couldn't live with him.
"I tried everything I could think of, Frank. I went to a doctor. I even began taking night courses at UCLA, anything to build up my mind and rid myself of those horrible suspicions. But I couldn't stay with Bert. We were divorced.
"I was terribly lonely after that. By then, I'd started to be popular and didn't have to worry about anything except men making passes at me so they could tell their friends they were in Kelly O'Donnell's pants. I married again. But he was weak and couldn't take it and Bert kept needling him and wouldn't leave him alone.
"So there's the background for you. It's taken some time and a lot of unpleasant work, but things are starting to pay off. I'm getting Bert. I'm getting him good and I'm going to dump what I get in the hands of the Grand Jury and watch him squirm."
Frank had gone through two cigarets. He lit two more and gave one to Kelly. "You poor kid." That sounded so phony, but he meant it. The one love she'd had, she'd really paid for. "Then all those other guys...."
Kelly took a deep drag on the Camel. "I had to do two things. I had to get a reputation as a tramp so that Bert wouldn't be suspicious, and I had to plan my conquests so they'd do the most good. As far as Bert was concerned, I was out for any sexual athlete who came along. He couldn't fit in things like that young matador." She stopped suddenly and leaned against him. "Oh, God, Frank. That was you. If you only knew how I was thinking that was you."
He slid his good arm around her, holding her tightly. This was a real woman. He wasn't going to let it get away from him. "The thing I can't figure is Ginny and how she fit."
Kelly smiled. "That's pretty simple. Ginny was a part of the plan. Bert had something on her. He arranged it for her to sign sixty thousand dollars worth of IOU's from Vegas, which he sold for a fourth of the price. That was to keep her beholden to him. The interest in the hotel and the paid up IOU's were her share for keeping tabs on me and acting as go-between. She could kill two birds with one stone and no one would suspect her on either count. You see, Vicki Sharpe was in on this. She and Bert were partners on the Hotel in Mexico."
Frank found his head swimming with the facts. "The thing I don't see is, how does Morty Wynn fit into this?"
"Simple. Morty wants the whole cake. Playa Paradiso is a nice plum. Good take on the gambling, hardly any publicity except with the right people. He can get his brother out of the way, make it look like a Las Vegas Syndicate who couldn't stand to see the competition so close to L.A., and eventually take over the whole thing. I get some of Bert's dirty laundry in return for what I knew and for, well, let's say, services rendered."
"What about the matador?"
"He is another patsy. He brings narcotics from the interior, up to Baja. Anyone who goes to Playa Paradiso can get the stuff for a price that beats the local price."
"That's sort of a shame about him. He's good with bulls."
"He's good with women, too. He's good with spending money. He's good with forgetting he has a young wife and a few kids."
Frank patted her reassuringly. "The nightmare is over for both of us."
"Not yet, it isn't," Kelly said. "You'll probably have to see me through some Grand Jury hearings and you might find yourself with a subpoena. Ginny was out to get you. One way or another. If she couldn't have you, no one was going to."
"Why was she so determined to have me?"
Kelly kissed him. "Hard for me to be objective. I feel a certain way about you. As far as she was concerned, it was a matter of jealousy and being neurotic as all hell. The two men she wanted most had one thing in common, they both liked me. She couldn't take that That's one of the reasons I had to put on the act and pretend you were poison ivy, so far as I was concerned. I found out from Morty that she wanted you."
"Speaking about Morty-"
Kelly stiffened. "Speaking about Morty, he should be here. He promised me some of Bert's records."
"Hold on. Why does he need you to get rid of his brother? Couldn't he just take care of that himself?"
"I'd thought of it," Kelly said, "but it's a chance I've got to take now."
That problem was further resolved by the doorbell. Kelly made Frank promise to stay in the bedroom, and he would have kept the promise if he hadn't heard several voices.
He moved quietly to the doorway and saw Wynn with the two Mexicans who'd thrown the bogus acid. Wynn was suggesting that Kelly come with them for a little ride.
He saw Kelly's reaction of fear as the two grinning Mexicans held open the door for her. He saw her look toward the door, almost as if she'd counted on his breaking his promise about not leaving the bedroom. Through the crack in the hall door, he saw that forlorn, little girl's look. Was she saying good-bye?
Frank noticed Eulah, watching him quietly from the entrance to her room, further down the hall. She said nothing, but those eyes of hers shot accusation at Frank. Kelly was playing a losing hand all the way through, going almost certainly to her death. Was he going to just stand there and watch?
Hell no.
But what could he do? He had no gun. His left arm was useless. He was still on the weak side. It was him against three.
One of the Mexicans nudged Kelly toward the door. Well Rojeck, it's now or never. He pushed the door open, jammed a hand in his coat pocket and said, "Hold on, Wynn. Is this a private party or can anyone join?"
The Mexican named Hugo pulled out a gun.
Then everything happened so fast, Frank could barely keep track of it all.
He heard someone say, "Jesus Christ, not again." That came from outside Kelly's apartment.
He saw Hugo fire.
He saw Kelly fall to the floor.
He saw Julie Darrow, appear in the doorway.
He saw the lights go out.
He remembered thinking, what the hell. It was broad daylight. How could the lights go out?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was beginning to be boring. He awoke in the hospital.
He noticed some familiar faces, Julie Darrow, Kelly, the nurse he'd seen the first day of his previous visit, and Sergeant Saxon.
"I do this on my Hilton Carte Blanche Charge Account," he said. "All right. How did it happen this time?"
Kelly moved to his side and took his hand. That gave him a thought. Where had it been this time? Where had he been hit? "You poor thing," Kelly said.
"Lucky," Sergeant Saxon said. "Someone said God looks out for fools and drunks. I don't smell any alcohol on your breath, so make your own decision about how I feel."
Julie Darrow once again was munching on an apple. "The way I hear it, kiddie, you're going to have a nice, distinguished scar on top of your head. Not big enough for a hair piece, but interesting, all the same."
"I don't have any questions this time, Rojeck," Saxon said, "I just wanted to tell you I've never seen one guy complicate such a simple thing so much in my life."
"Don't worry," Frank said, "I'm still not sure what I've done."
"You damn near ruined everything with that silly grandstand play. We had Miss O'Donnell's place all staked out."
Frank looked helplessly at Kelly. "You didn't tell me."
"You weren't supposed to be there. You should have been here."
"I'm here now," he said with heavy irony.
Saxon delivered a lecture to Frank that left no doubt in his mind as to who'd been the one to say, "Jesus Christ, not again," just before the fireworks broke loose. "I've sort of taken a proprietary interest in you. You're the one screwy element in everything." He finished his lecture with a few acid comments on Frank's having withheld potential evidence, in the matter of Vicki Sharpe's death. "If anyone ever needed a lawyer more, it was you." He shook his bulbous head. "I don't know how you came out of this so damned lucky. Just on general principles, I'd like to give you a traffic citation."
When Saxon left, Julie Darrow took up his post as informant. "After I left you, I checked out Bert Wales. He had Vegas connections, just about the way Kelly says she told you. I'd pretty much decided to put the clincher on our hunch and brazen it out with Wynn. I was all set to tell him we had the battle for Playa Paradiso figured out and that our offer was our silence for Kelly's safety, when I noticed the police had a tail on him." He cleared his throat. "As an honest, upstanding detective, I should say that the police tail on Wynn noticed me. I was told to kindly stay the hell out of the way. That's why Saxon was so mad. I started back to Kelly's to tell you." He finished his apple and set the core balancing precariously on Frank's chart. "That ends Darrow's detective services. Now as a discreet friend, I think I'll be off."
"Not too much excitement," the nurse said. She, too decided to be discreet and leave Frank alone with Kelly.
"Too much excitement," Frank said. "I couldn't have too much, not after all this."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Kelly told him. "You're going to have to figure on the next forty or so years with me, and I promise you, that will be exciting. I've got a lot of real loving to catch up on."
Frank reached for her. Kelly wagged a finger at him. "First, you've got to get better."
"I am better," he insisted. He pulled her to him for a kiss.
"Frank, we can't. Not here."
"Who says we can't? There's a sign on the door. It says DO NOT DISTURB. Just stick that on the knob, lock the door and come on back here. I'll show you who's better."
Kelly's hands swept along the contour of her hips. "You sound pretty knowledgable about how to get away with things in a hospital. I think I'm jealous."
Frank felt compelled to tell Kelly about his experience with Connie. It was something he wanted her to know about, particularly the part of it that cancelled out everything for him except his feeling for Kelly.
"It was so damned sweet and good, I knew that's how it would always be with us, only better. I was about ready to flip my lid. I think she saw that. Whatever her reasons, I got her message. Especially that formula her professor mentioned. Two-Four-Sex. Automatic signals. A bad pun. Let's never have it that way with us."
Kelly listened to all the details and then, without a word, she went to the door, hung out the sign and flicked the latch. When she came back to him, Frank knew they were going to share an experience that would take off from where they'd been before.
Kelly very deliberately made herself his.
She began by slowly removing her shoes, then unlocking her stockings from her garter belt. The skin shone along the contour of her legs.
He sighed with admiration as the dress came off and he saw more of that radiant, glowing skin. She let him unhook the bra.
He spent several moments admiring the firmness of her breasts, holding them gently, feeling the pounding essence of her breath and warmth through them.
When at last she was naked, he asked her to stand there a moment so that he could admire her.
Tall, large, radiant. They were words that didn't seem to say enough. He knew by looking at her that she was in her prime as a woman. The long, honey colored hair hung nearly to her shoulders. She profiled her body to him, looking graceful and poised, like a ballerina.
Without any words between them, she sensed that he wanted her to be next to him. Slowly, she sat on the edge of the bed, letting their bodies contact in degree. First the feet brushed. They both smiled at the pleasure of that first touch. He ran his toes over the length of her ankle and calves. Then their legs twined together and he felt the warmth of their loins come together.
Their hands met and then her breasts were brushing his chest, slowly, tauntingly. He wanted to touch them, but he knew there was no hurry. There was pleasure in this as they came into firmer contact with his chest.
Then he raised his head. Their lips met and finally their eyes.
They lay this way for several moments, in a close communion. The only movement was their slow, relaxed breathing.
He put his face to her breasts and kissed, smelling the musty exhilaration of her body.
"I want to make up for all the love you've missed in your life," he told her.
She purred lightly. "You've finally learned."
"Learned what?" he said.
"Not to talk so much or be so maddeningly analytical."
"I'm convinced I have the time with you." He kissed the hollow under her chin and then the coral tips of her breasts. She responded by running her lips lightly over the side of his face and down the bony ridge that divided his chest.
When they blended together, he felt as though they'd taken a mutual possession of each other. The awareness of her body made him swell with pride. It was like being able to experience the pleasure of seeing her entire body and yet at the same time, know he was receiving all the tingling, electric happiness of her.
As the motions began between them, he felt that his sensations were not centered in one place, rather everywhere their bodies touched.
There was a gentle suspense as their hips parted, then their arms, then their faces, only to merge again.
"Welcome back, lover," she whispered. "You're exactly where you belong."
He touched the tip of her ear with his lips and felt his passion dictate more of the pleasurable tingle.
A moment of irritation came when they heard knocking at the door.
"This is a hospital, not a honeymoon cottage. That woman will have to come out of there immediately."
They were so engrossed with each other it was difficult for them to react.
"I'm going to count three and if I don't get an answer, I'm going for the police."
Kelly stopped her motions with an unhappy moan.
Then another voice was heard. "Leave them alone, Harriet. They aren't doing anything that isn't perfectly natural. Just forget about it. Pretend she went home and he's in there alone, asleep. If that's too hard to do, go take temperatures in the ward. Go do something, but leave them alone."
Kelly sighed with relief.
They were together again, moving gradually toward the ultimate plateau.
Something about the second voice outside the door seemed comforting and familiar to Frank. It might have been Connie. "
It might have been Connie out there, reminding him how to find happiness. The voice was a firm but fleeting whisper that was gone. He couldn't be sure, but it would have been nice to think it was.
