John Carmody sat in the front of the courtroom waiting his turn to testify, and let his appreciative glance take in the beautifully proportioned legs of the young woman on the witness stand.
Her attorney, Bill Wallace, had introduced her before the divorce hearing had begun; Marlene Baxter. She had the tight, stunned look of a wife breaking loose from an unhappy marriage. In his role as an expert witness, John had seen the look before. Now she was pale under the light makeup; her husband's attorney was giving her a bad time.
"Now, Mrs. Baxter, there was testimony here that your home was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $22,000, is that right?"
"About that; yes. And it was clear. Until-"
"Just answer the questions, Mrs. Baxter. Now you have said here that you had no knowledge whatsoever of Mr. Baxter mortgaging that home to his mother ,is that right?
John glanced at Mrs. Baxter Senior, sitting on the other side of the courtroom, near her son. A great pair! They looked like Bad Guys out of Little Orphan Annie, he thought, supressing a grin.
Marlene Baxter answered, "I had no knowledge of any mortgage. I certainly wouldn't have consented; the home was half mine...."
"You say you had no knowledge. Mrs. Baxter, I show you this document dated only four months ago, and ask you if you recall signing your name to it?" He displayed it briefly to young attorney Wallace.
"I don't recall, no."
"But that's your signature, isn't it?"
"It looks like my signature, but it isn't. It couldn't be. I don't remember ever...."
"Mrs. Baxter, isn't it possible you just forgot?"
She twisted her handkerchief nervously. "I couldn't forget signing a paper that practically takes my half of our home away from me."
"Mrs. Baxter, do you ever take a cocktail?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"More than one sometimes? Three or four?"
"Seldom more than two, at most."
"But once in a great while."
"Isn't it possible that when you happened to have had two or three drinks, you were slightly drunk?"
"I've never been drunk."
"Well, isn't it possible that at a time when you'd been drinking, perhaps in a careless or unthinking mood, your husband asked you to sign a document, and you did so quickly, and thought no more about it?"
She looked helplessly at her attorney. He could give her no help. She said, "I don't think that's possible."
"But you wouldn't say it couldn't have happened that way?"
She put her hand to her forehead. "I don't remember it happening."
"But you can't, on your oath, say absolutely and with 100% certainty that it didn't happen?"
"Not with 100% certainty, no."
"That's all." The attorney looked at the judge triumphantly. "Thank you, Mrs. Baxter."
She left the stand, looking crushed. Her attorney spoke. "We'll call as our next witness, Mr. John Carmody."
John rose. With the touch of premature grey at his temples, accenting his black hair, broad shoulders and wiry body, he looked taller than his actual medium height. He walked to the witness chair with the same lithe ease as when he'd been intercollegiate boxing champion seven years before.
"Mr. Carmody," Wallace said, "What is your occupation?"
"I am an examiner of questioned documents."
"How long a time, and over what area have you so worked?"
"For the past five years, and throughout this and the five adjoining states."
"What was your preparation for this type of work?"
"I majored in science at college, with special emphasis on chemistry and optics; I spent a year training with Captain Emerson, who did this work for 30 years with the police department, and on retirement became my partner."
"Have you examined this document, bearing the signature of Marlene Baxter, which she does not recall signing?"
"I have."
"Have you formed an opinion as to its genuiness?"
"Yes, I have. It is a forgery."
"Will you explain to the court, Mr. Carmody, your reasons for the opinion you've expressed?"
"Yes." He spoke carefully, for he was baiting a trap for the other side; he had no idea if they would snap for it. "I made photographic blow-ups of the signature on this document, and also of signatures taken from Mrs. Baxter's checks, made over a period of time. I examined these under accurate, machine-ruled grills, by ordinary magnifying glass and by microscope, and by compariscope. This is an instrument like a low-power microscope which enables you to move one letter over another, to see how each matches, if they do."
"I found by this examination that Mrs. Baxter has a highly developed signature; she writes quickly, with excellent hand control, and with considerable smoothness, freedom and force. There is no evidence of tremor, even under the microscope. The signature on this document, though, doesn't have those characteristics. It has a superficial resemblance, but there is evidence of tremor in the strokes, there is an overlapping of lines, and these' were made slowly and deliberately. I conclude from this that the apparent signature was made by tracing over one of Mrs. Baxter's genuine signatures."
"Thank you, Mr. Carmody. Mr. Ellis, you may cross-examine."
Ellis, a blusterer by nature, shook his finger at John. "Well, now, when you made this so-called examination with these scientific gadgets you mentioned, that's what you base your opinion on, isn't it?"
"Yes; I base my opinions on visual and other tests."
John's nerves quickened with excitement. Ellis had taken the bait! "Of her writings, and other writings."
"Oh, other writings! What sort of other writings?"
"Handwriting specimens of your client, Henry Baxter, and his mother, Mrs. Henry Baxter, Senior."
Too late Ellis realized the trap; he moved quickly. "That's all. No further questions...."
There was no escape. Wallace arose. "Your honor, I'd like to ask one more question on redirect." And as the judge nodded, he asked John, "Mr. Carmody, what did you find from your examination of the signatures of Henry Baxter and Mrs. Henry Baxter, Senior."
"I found that the writing on this document, supposedly the signature of Marlene Baxter, was in fact made by Mrs. Henry Baxter, Senior, to whom this $22,000 mortgage was supposedly given."
The judge spoke abruptly. "I've heard enough. There's no use wasting any more of the court's time. It's perfectly clear what happened; this man, knowing a divorce was approaching, and knowing the court would protect the wife's interest in the property, decided to transfer it to his mother, by giving her a false mortgage. Because in this State, a wife must sign any transfer affecting real estate, and because he knew she wouldn't sign voluntarily, he and his mother conspired to forge the wife's signature. And they did so."
"I hereby declare this document null and void, and award the entire property, and divorce, to Marlene Baxter. I also order that a transcript of this testimony be made available in the event Mrs. Baxter wishes to press criminal charges through the district attorney's office!"
There was the usual hubbub of a trial's ending. Marlene hugged her attorney; then she hugged John. She was a pretty huggable little thing herself, he thought, as she thanked him almost hysterically. "I thought everything was lost," she said, "when Mr. Ellis had me there; how could I be 100% sure I hadn't signed something and forgotten? But oh, you both handled them so neatly!"
John glanced back; Baxter and his frumpty-haired mother were stamping out angrily. And frightened, he thought, with that threat of criminal action hanging over their heads....
"I'm delighted it worked out so well for you," he told Marlene. "And besides, I get a personal satisfaction out of nailing crooks like that." She smiled back at him tremulously.
Wallace said, "I didn't think we had a prayer until John went to work on that document. This isn't the first time he's saved a case for me, either." He glanced at his watch. "I'll be glad to drive you back, Mrs. Baxter, if you don't mind waiting half an hour. I've got to file some papers and look up some records."
John said, "I'm driving back now, if you'd rather not wait."
She brightened. "Oh, would you? I'd be so grateful."
As they headed toward the residential section she glanced at him inouiringly. "You're not a local man, are you, Mr. Carmody?"
"No; home's about 300 miles west, in St. Gilliam. I get around a lot, though, mostly by plane.
It's surprising how fast you can get into a city, rent a car, attend to your business, and get back. Though I've missed the last one out now; I'll have to stay over and catch the 5:30 tomorrow morning.
He always got a funny little pang these days, thinking of home. Thinking of Rosemary, to be more exact. It was the damndest thing ... you'd think that after three years of marriage, and two years of that big-name psychoanalyst things would be different. Especially with a girl so really full of love and life and affection as Rosemary. But it wasn't different. That's what made it so tough. Patience, hell yes; no one could say he wasn't patient. But how much more? How long did he have to continue this way....?
"It feels awfully strange." The girl beside him was staring straight ahead. "Being free, I mean. After six years. I feel ... new ... and different. And I'm not sure I like it.
"It's not the freedom that's troubling you; it's realizing you're alone. It'll pass."
"But what happens? Where do couples go wrong? I loved Henry-at least at first. I thought he loved me. And then, gradually ... before you realize it, you're strangers. I tried. Really I did. But you know something? I could never really get near him. Intellectually or emotionally. There was always something reserved; something distant about him."
"He was a crook; he didn't dare let you know what he was thinking. He and that precious mother of his. I'll bet she had a lot to do with what happened. To your marriage I mean."
She darted a quick look at him. "You can say that again! I didn't realize it at first. I tried to like her because she was his mother. But that woman...!"
"Some mothers-in-law are like that. Not as many as people think, though." Not his. But then Carole wasn't exactly a mother-in-law; she was actually Rosemary's stepmother. Whatever that made her!
He braked to a stop in front of Marlene's house. "All yours now."
"Thanks to you," she said, and laid her hand lightly on his. "Come in for a drink, won't you please? I really need one, and I dread the thought of drinking alone."
She led the way into the comfortably furnished living room, and indicated the highboy. "I'll have whatever you have," she said. "Ice in the refrigerator, through there. I'll be with you in a moment."
He mixed martinis; dropped an olive in each. This was what he needed. A couple of drinks, and he'd push off, have dinner at his motel, read for a while, and get to bed early to catch that morning plane. He wondered about asking Marlene to have dinner with him; probably not; she must have plans to see friends, or her boyfriend, or someone. She was far too attractive to have to sit around moping of an evening....
He heard her voice through the slightly open door. "John, would you mind helping me here for a moment?"
He walked through the door-and his pulses began pounding.
Marlene was standing before a full length mirror, one leg bent forward; arms behind her, fingers at the fastenings of her bra. It was all she wore. She said in a small voice, "The clasp seems to be stuck, John."
He moved toward her, trembling only a little. The fastenings came part easily; he let the bra drop to the floor as her breasts, freed of restraint, rose with her deep breath.
He drew his own breath shiveringly as his hands moved forward of their own volition to take in the curve of her warm, velvety hips. She leaned back against him, eyes half shut, lips half open. He moved one hand up her body to a full, firm breast, the other he slipped across her flattened belly to fondle and caress her tenderest flesh. She rolled her head to one side and back, exposing her throat; he pressed his mouth against the throbbing soft column and heard her breath come faster.
"Ah, John," she whispered, "you're making me so hot; so terribly hot...."
He laughed deep in his chest. "And you're the girl that ten minutes ago I thought would be too proper to even have dinner with me!"
She twisted around in his arms, laughing softly, and began undoing his tie. "We can have dinner later." His mouth found hers, pressing hard, tongue flickering against hers. Gasping, she broke finally. "Much later...."
He released her reluctantly; she helped him undress, hands slipping gently over his well-muscled body, charging him with excitement. She flung herself into his embrace the moment he was completely stripped, revolving her hips against his, fine pointed breasts pressed against his chest. "Dinner, dancing, talking-all the playing around that goes with the game of seduction-I couldn't wait any longer."
"I'm glad." His mouth slipped along her shoulders and down to a breast. She drew her breath sharply as his lips nibbled the hardening tip. His hands explored her intimately. "You're all woman," he said, biting gently and expertly.
"Thank you, darling ... oh, thank you ... that's what I needed so much to know. John!" she gasped delightedly. "What are you doing?"
"Picking you up and putting you. on the bed where I can really get at you."
She squealed and kicked her legs into the air as he flung himself beside her, laughing, mouthing her belly and soft inner thighs while she groaned and twisted and his frenzy mounted with hers.. Her own hands weren't idle; they feathered over his shoulder and face and tangled in his hair. "I'm ready, John. I've been ready a long time ... ah, baby, baby, what you do to me...."
Her legs wrapped sinuously around his; she wriggled ecstatically as he moved into her; he paused for a moment. Her mouth was open, her eyes smiling at him, pupils flecked with purple. "Now, darling...."
Her cry began almost at once, almost died, and rose again as a shuddering wail. At his deep groan, she arched and rolled her hips frantically to meet his motion and then, relaxing, beat a tattoo on his back with her heels.
Spent and gasping in the after-glow, they toyed and caressed each other, as if reluctant to believe their passion had actually waned. Finally Marlene said, "About that dinner ... if the invitation still holds...."
They dressed and John drove to a quiet restaurant where he found a dimly-lit corner table. They sat close, thighs pressing, while they devoured a hearty minestrone, caesar salad and sirloins rare. Marlene was glowing; he dropped a hand under the table and slipped it beneath her skirt, stroking the silky knee. Her eyes closed, and he sensed her imperceptible shiver. John felt alive again; he had almost forgotten the deep satisfaction of having a woman respond to him.
"Everything is so good," Marlene said, and he knew she wasn't referring just to the food.
He leaned closer to her. "Let's not wait for dessert." He felt her hand along his thigh, exploring; caught her faint look of surprise as if she'd just made a momentous discovery.
"Let's not. We can have an after-dinner liqueur at my place."
It was still dark when the alarm clock whirred; he had set it an hour earlier than he'd needed to. Marlene, deep in the sleep of a woman recently loved, stirred in his arms and snuggled closer. She murmured, "Is it time for you to go?"
"Not yet. I allowed a few minutes for a goodbye kiss."
"Just one?"
Their lips met; their bodies strained together, legs tangled, hands searching, squeezing frantically. He threw off the covers to give them more freedom. He cupped her breasts, sucking, tasting, nibbling while she gasped and squirmed against the sheets. He knew her now; knew what caresses brought the most violent reactions, and he used them as she tossed and cried out and her body shivered and convulsed uncontrollably.
Perhaps something of his desperation to take all that he could, drink as deeply as he might now, came through to her. In the way he gripped her, imprisoning her, held her so tightly: "Darling, I'm here; I want you ... oh, John, take me again...."
Her legs opened at his touch, her fingers dug into the flesh of his back, biting deep as he found her. She squealed delightedly at each movement, twisting and rolling her hips even more delectably than she had last night. Then he had sensed a faint reticence and a reservation that was more of the mind than of the body, but still a reservation. Then she was a woman giving herself to an attractive stranger; now she was a woman surrendering unconditionally to a lover.
And finding pleasure almost unendurable.
This time her groan was low and long, and her body shook as though there had been an explosion deep inside. John's own pleasure rose and drove him to still higher peaks. His own spasm followed hers; she moved with him, delighting in his release.
"John," she said finally, "did you like me? Was I as good as you wanted me to be?"
"You're great," he assured her. "Everything a woman ought to be-and too seldom is."
She sighed with satisfaction. "I wanted so much to be a woman again...."
By the time he'd showered and shaved, Marlene was up and in the kitchen. The aroma of eggs and frying bacon mingled with good strong coffee. As they ate, she said, "Will you be by this way again some time?"
He shook his head. "It's hard to say. I never know where a case will break, or where I'll have to testify. Six months from now; a year. Maybe never."
"Six months is a long time."
"Don't underrate yourself. You're a lovely and gracious woman. A man who gets you will be luckier than he deserves."
"Thank you, John. But if you should come here again-give me a ring."
"You'll probably be happily married and raising a large, healthy family."
She dimpled. "Phone me anyway. Maybe we can have a drink for friendship's sake.
He grinned, glanced at his watch. "I'll have to hurry."
In the hallway, before opening the door, she unzipped her housecoat low enough to show him her breasts. "They're still swollen from your kisses," she said. He took a few moments to make them swell a little more. And embraced her again before he slipped out and drove to the airport.
Her last whisper before he left was, "You needed a good piece as much as I, didn't you, John?"
CHAPTER TWO
John had thought he might catch a nap-he needed one-on the just-over-an-hour trip back to St. Gilliam. But he felt too alert, too alive to doze. He'd been feeling like an automaton; a robot. Getting up, eating, working all day and sometimes well into the night, dinner and some not unpleasant chit-chat with Rosemary if he got home in time, and to sleep in the twin beds she'd wanted. And weekends, if he didn't go to the office to clean up some unfinished business or work out a technical problem, he'd work in the garden or fix the wiring or squeaking doors.
A half-life.
Marlene had turned him on again. And he knew he'd done as much for her. He wished he'd had more time; there were many more delightful pleasures he could have taken with that rich, responsive body of hers.
And then, as the plane banked in for the landing, he thought of Rosemary; her body was even lovelier-slim where it should be, and deliciously rounded where it counted. A sensitive, haunting face framed by dark brown, naturally curling hair. Full, sweet lips and luminous dark eyes with a tilt that gave them an almost Oriental look. Quietly exotic.
It wasn't the plane's landing that gave him that curious hurtful wrench at the pit of his guts. To him, she was as sexy-looking as a woman could be. And knew it. More than just sexy-looking. She was really sexy! in their love-play she was marvelous. But after that-
The plane trundled to a stop. He picked up his overnight bag and dispatch case and found his car in the parking lot.
His partner, Alex Emerson, hadn't come in yet by the time he reached the office; it was still early. He dialed Rosemary, "Just wanted to let you know I'm back, honey."
"I'm glad you called. I'd have come to meet you, except your wire last night said you had your own car at the airport."
"No sense getting you out so early. Everything okay?"
"Of course. How was your trip?"
"Fine. We clobbered the other side, just as planned. You never saw a madder pair than Baxter and his mother in your life! Mrs. Baxter-the wife-got all she asked for, and we're getting a nice fee."
"That's wonderful, John. John, I hope you don't mind-I invited Dad and Carole over for dinner tonight. There's a problem about Mother's estate he wants to talk over with me."
"Sure, honey; any time. We haven't seen much of them lately. I'd better bring home some bourbon; I don't think we have too much in the bar."
"All right. Is seven o'clock too early?"
"That's fine."-"Oh, and will you bring a box of those salted almonds Carole likes so much?"
"Sure, honey."
He went back to his work-a series of checks that had been found by a packing company, with endorsements they thought were forged. He mounted them in a frame and set them "up for photography.
The door opened and Alex Emerson came in, an elderly man with gray hair and a characteristic step, but with a youthful twinkle in his eye. "Hi, John; how'd it go?"
"Hi, Captain!" Emerson was retired from the police force, but John knew he liked the title. "Went fine. We dropped our little mortar shell right on target, and all was consternation and confusion in the enemy camp!"
Emerson nodded, smiling. "Glad we got that one wrapped up and out of the way."
There was something in his tone that alerted John. "Why? What's up?"
But Emerson wasn't being rushed in his big moment. He looked at the framed checks. "Pretty good imitation," he said. "Looks like the work of a pro."
"Probably was. One of the company's bookkeepers, fellow calling himself Michael Passeti, quit three days before they discovered there was hanky-panky with the check-book. Now, you were saying?"
"I was? Oh yes; we've got a new case." John played along. "Anonymous letters? Phoney deeds?"
Emerson lit his pipe and finally answered, "Merely the biggest will case we've ever had!"
"Talk, podner."
"Ever hear of Mrs. Lloyd Bannister, who has a summer home over near Lake Manor?"
"I know the lake, not the lady."
"Old lady. Just died. Of natural causes, I might add. Leaving a very fat estate."
"How much, Cap?"
"The inventory isn't in yet, though the Chicago attorneys I've been talking to on the phone think it'll be somewhere between four and five million. Dollars."
John whistled silently, "And the will?"
"I was coming to that. Very peculiar situation, which I'll have to explain so you get the whole picture. Mrs. Bannister was a widow. Had been for about ten years-maybe twelve. Her husband left her a tidy bundle. Now it seems the old lady had an assortment of no-good nephews and nieces, all anxious to 'help' Mrs. Bannister handle her money. Well, she wasn't stupid..She sent 'em all packing; had nothing to do with 'em. Then, somehow, she connected up with a character who called himself an investment counsellor. At that time he had a cruddy little office on the wrong side of town and as much business as you could put in your left eye."
"Police record on him?"
"Nothing under the name of Louis Bacalle, and if he's ever used an alias, we don't know it. Anyway, the old lady had implicit trust in him. Let him handle all her money, stocks, securities, property-the whole kaboodle."
"Oh, man! So he promptly siphons off a neat share for himself!"
Emerson grinned. "Thought you'd think so. But you're wrong. What really happened is that Bacalle turned out to be a near-genius with investments. He practically doubled Mrs. Bannister's fortune during the time he handled it-while at the same time she drew all the money she could conveniently spend, as income!"
"That's a switch!"
"Maybe. Maybe not. So now we come to the will itself. So who do you suppose inherits half the estate?"
"Not Louis?"
"Louis himself, in person. Half to him, half to the no-good nephews and nieces."
"Hell, that's not unreasonable. She didn't like her relatives on one hand, and on the other, here's a guy who's served her well and faithfully. Why shouldn't she leave him a chunk?"
"Exactly. The no-goods really don't have any evidence except the fact that about six years ago, Mrs. Bannister made another will. In that one, she left everything to them, and $50,000 to Louis."
"But that was a long time ago. Since then, he's improved her estate a whole lot. It's only natural she should increase her desire to reward him. Is that all they've got to go on?"
"That's all-except the signature on the will itself, which I might as well tell you now, looks pretty good. Though I say that without having run any tests."
"It's true you never know-but on the basis of what you've told me, we shouldn't have too much trouble upholding Louis."
Emerson grinned. "Son, we've got plenty of trouble."
"There's something you haven't told me. Louis' got a real strong position."
"Sure. The only catch is, we don't represent Louis. We represent the no-good relatives!"
John picked up a fifth of bourbon on his way home, and a bunch of chrysanthemums for Rosemary. It was a little before seven when he got there, and she was wearing the form-fitting housecoat he liked, the brocaded one in the Japanese style that suited her exotic looks. She cried out delightfully at the flowers, and flung her arms around John's neck, with a full mouth-to-mouth kiss instead of the usual wifely peck. He squeezed the soft curve of her hip before she pulled away. "Always did say you had the prettiest rump in town," he said.
"That's not all you always say, flatterer. I'd better put these in water right away. Sit down and relax, honey. I'll bet you're beat. Dad and Carole won't be here for a few minutes yet."
"Good enough. I'll set up the bar."
"I have already. Oh, and John-you might like to know, Dr. Hammersmith thinks I'm much improved."
"That's great!" Interesting news, certainly. He'd never had much faith in that psychoanalyst; still, he'd been recommended by their medical doctor, and the treatment had gone on long enough without any tangible results. This was the first time he'd had a hint of any encouragement. Before, it had always been, well, the doctor says I'll be the first to know when there's any change....
"John, for goodness' sake stop looking at me like that; you're making me blush right down to my toes."
"Which makes you look even more charming."
She fled to the kitchen with broken remarks about basting the roast.
The doorbell chimed then, cutting into his thoughts. Walter, big, ruddy-faced, still overweight despite all his talk about diet. And Carole, looking uncommonly attractive in a simple black frock that made her as young as her step-daughter.
"Come in; come in. Gibson for you, Carole, and bourbon and water for Walter." He took their jackets. "Rosemary will be out in just a moment; she's communing with the standing rib roast."
"Sounds marvelous," Carole said. The black frock really turned on her blondeness; for once she wore her hair loose about her shoulders instead of in that severe swept-back style with the chignon on the nape of her neck. A demure V disclosed flawless, warm-cream skin; there wasn't a wrinkle or hint of sag in the smooth column of her throat. For once, he thought, she wasn't wearing one of those shapeless things; she had dressed for what she was-a beautiful woman in the full flower of womanhood. Strange that she always had dressed so unglamor-ously in all the time he'd known her....
Rosemary joined them. "Drink up; there's just time for seconds before the roast will be done...."
With dinner out of the way, and the dishes in the dishwater, they returned to the living room. Walter said, "I thought we ought to talk about this letter I've gotten from the bank about Rosemary's estate. I guess it's no news that I'm co-executor with the Farmers & Seaman's Bank in New York. Which means they do all the work in connection with the trust fund that's to go to Rosemary next year when she's twenty-six; I just sign the papers."
He paused to refill his glass, and Carole added, "Actually, Walter does a lot more than just sign papers. He looks over their reports and annual accountings very carefully, and has them checked by his own accountant."
Walter resumed. "Well, the point, is the bank has most of the money-not that it's a great fortune, but it's a nice little nest-egg-in real estate. They think the real estate market is softening, and that we ought to switch to securities for continuing growth. It seems to me this is a pretty important decision, and I don't want to act without Rosemary's full knowledge and consent. I think we should go to New York and discuss it with them there."
"We?" John asked.
Rosemary interrupted. "Dad and I. Would you mind terribly?"
John grinned. "Sure. But it's your money, and you should make your own decisions about it. And you might as well have a little holiday; I don't know when I can get away. There are some great new shows opening in New York you ought to see...."
"And Carole promised to take care of you," Rosemary said quickly. "She'll see that your shirts get to the laundry and your suits to the cleaners, and she'll have dinner on the table exactly at 6:30."
He laughed. "You're only going to be gone a few days. I won't starve or be in rags in that short a time."
"It'll be a favor to me," Carole said. "With Walter away, I'll have practically nothing to do-and that's pretty boring."
"With two such beautiful women concerned about me, I yield. And quickly, before either of you change your mind!"
They left at ten; Walter having to get up early for his work as vice-president of a bio-chemical firm.
John paused, tidying up the bar. "Your dad sure belted the bourbon tonight. Nobody else here drinks it, and this bottle is a good two-thirds gone."
"He does that every time he has anything he must do or say that connects up with Mother's death. You know he still has the conviction, deep inside him, that he was responsible for her getting killed in that auto crash. He drinks far too much, I know."
"You'd never know it. It doesn't show on him that I've ever noticed."
"No, but he does his drinking in the evening. It used to be a pint a night. Now, Carole tells me, he's up to a fifth. That's why we thought I'd better go along with him to New York. That's really the only reason."
"It's a shame to see a brilliant man like Walter go that route."
"She's tried to get him to AA. He won't go." She walked over to him and turned her back. "Unzip me, will you, honey?"
He unzipped, and slipping the high-colored housecoat down over her arms, kissed her bared flesh. "Did I ever tell you, Mrs. Carmody, 'that you have exquisite shoulders?"
"I believe you did, Mr. Carmody-along with a number of other lewd and licentious remarks." She lifted one shoulder, wet with his kisses. "All designed to seduce and ravish me."
His body was responding powerfully. Her remark about Dr. Hammersmith; her warm welcome. And now-maybe this was the break they were waiting for. He slid the house-coat further down and let it slide to the floor.
She was wearing a lacy black bra and matching panties and garter belt with gunmetal nylons disappearing into gold high-heeled slippers. He turned her around to face him, and her bare arms slipped around his neck. Her face was glowing, her mysterious dark eyes luminous. "John," she whispered, "I love you. No matter what you've thought all this time-no matter what has happened, believe me. I love you, and I'll always love you."
"I know, honey." He kissed her lips, her eyes, her ears. "I believe you. I love you, too.
Suddenly she twisted out of his arms, and ran, laughing, toward the bedroom. "Last one in bed's a dirty name," she called.
He wasn't far behind her; his shirt half-off. She had already kicked off her slippers and was rolling off the second stocking. The bra followed.
"Magnificent!" he said.
She skinned out of the panties and posed for an instant, naked, arms above her head.
"A work of art!" he exclaimed.
She dove onto the bed. "I feel so deliciously abandoned!"
"That isn't all you're going to feel in the half second it takes me to shuck these shorts!" He dove happily after her. They were starting well; better than ever before. This time, he thought, this time for sure she's going to be a woman all the way....
Low laughter welled from her throat as she felt one nipple harden and rise and swell under his tonguing; the other one too responded under his hand and fingers. She had marvelous breasts; full and beautifully rounded with pertly pink little tips, molded exactly to the touch of love. He stayed with them a long time, and only when her laughter turned to gasps did he let one hand slide down her smooth, curving body, across her hips and belly to the curving mound of softer, warmer flesh.
She whimpered, head rolling, breathlessly, "Oh, Mr. Carmody!"
He paused in his nibbling of her belly. "Yes, ma'am?"
"I thought you wuz a gentleman a girl could trust!"
They both shouted with laughter. Rosemary was twisting and squirming, more aroused than she'd ever been. "Darling ... I think ... now . .
He was fully aroused himself; his loins felt almost painfully engorged. "Yes, darling ... yes! ... And kept at his artful play until she was a mad creature, tugging, clawing, clutching his body.
"Now, darling, now, now now....!" Her legs and arms enfolded him as he moved closer, triumphantly. Gently he touched her, moving imperceptibly. Her whimpers of pleasure stopped suddenly with a sharp intake of breath.
"NO!" It was a scream of sheer terror; her body froze for an instant, and then with a frantic, convulsive movement, she twisted away from him. "Don't, don't-I can't-!"
There it was again, he thought hopelessly. The same old trigger in her mind, or whatever or where-ever it was, that always clicked her off to ruin their joy.
She turned to him again, and she was still shaking. "Darling, I'm sorry. I'm so terribly sorry. Go ahead: please. I want you to. Please."
"It's all right, honey. Forget it." He'd been that route before. Often in the past, to please him, she had tried to pretend she didn't mind-but there was no mistaking the soul-shaking aversion she felt. He knew she couldn't help it; she simply froze completely. There was nothing medically or physically wrong. That was why she was in psycho-therapy; they'd both hoped it would prove a cure.
She was crying. "I'm such a failure, John. Such a miserable failure. I try so hard; it's not that I don't love you ... like tonight, I thought sure everything would be fine ... and then...."
"Don't cry, honey." He kissed her gently. "Listen, you have done better. We got further tonight than we ever did before."
She touched his face. "We did, didn't we? Oh, honey, you really had me hot there ... I loved it...."
"Hotter than a three dollar pistol. Maybe next time...."
She-turned her face away. "Next time ... I hope so."
"All right, now. Cover up and go to sleep. How would you like a cup of hot cocoa? You're still shaking ; it'll relax you."
She nodded gratefully. He went to the kitchen and warmed two cups.
"You go to sleep," he said when he came back. I'm going into the study for a bit and look over the files of this new case we just got into the office."
It was one in the morning before he began to yawn. He pushed the papers away from him.
There was nothing in his review of the case to even suggest the tremendous impact it was to have on his life.
CHAPTER THREE
He left the office early to drive Rosemary and Walter to the airport. Carole went along, kissed them both fondly, admonished them to keep warm when they went out in the evening, and to take their vitamins.
Rosemary threw her arms around him and squeezed him hard; to his surprise there was the glistening of tears in her eyes. He kissed her. "Have a good time, honey, and have some fun for yourself. There's a lot to see and do in New York, and you haven't had a real vacation for a long time."
"I don't want to leave you," she whispered.
"You'll be back before you know it. And wish you weren't. Run along, darling; St. Gilliam will still be here when you return."
"I guess so." She laughed, and dabbed at her eves. "I don't know why I get so weepy at the idea of being away from you for a few days. Anyway, I bought some marvelous sirloins at the butcher's today: Carole will get dinner for you tonight. Including Turkish coffee, as only she can make it."
"You both babv me too much. But I like it." He shook hands with Walter, and they walked as far as the gate. He watched, Carole beside him, as they walked up the ramp into the plane.
Carole said, half to herself, "She's still a little girl in so many ways."
"Most women are little girls in so many ways," he said. The plane's motors coughed and roared. It taxied out to the main runway, then seemed to lift its skirts and leap into the air.
John said, as he started the car, "I've got to go back to the office for a couple of hours. Where can I drop you?"
"At your house. I feel an irrepressible impulse to bake a cake."
"An impulse like that should be irrepressible." Whatever that meant ... For some unaccountable reason, he was a little annoyed with himself; angry and unsettled. Because Rosemary was away from St. Gilliam for a few days? Of course not. Something he couldn't define-drawing him. Forget it.
"It's awfully kind of you to bother with dinner for me."
"Not at all. Consider the alternative! It's you who are doing me the favor. I'm such a baby when it comes to being alone."
He dropped her off, then drove back to the office.
Cap had a stranger with him. "This is Bob Harper. John. He's an investigator working with Bancroft & Suydam, the attorneys' we're representing in that will case."
Harper shook hands. "Glad to meet you, Carmody. Have you got any leads at your end on this Bacalle thing? Cap says you were studying the file last night."
"We've got a long way to go before we can give you a definite answer," John said. "This Bacalle isn't an American, is he?"
"European. Came over here in 1953. Naturalized 1959. Before coming here, he seems to have wandered around quite a bit. Egypt, South Africa, Madagascar-something to do with imports and exports-Spain for a year. Then Canada. Mostly living on the ragged edge. But if there was anything shady in his deals, we couldn't find it. At least he never got caught."
"What about his record in the U. S.?"
"Nothing wrong. Started as a shoe salesman, wholesale, for a Canadian company. Traveling. We checked the company. He was an average producer, good enough to make a living, but not great. We have a record of his earnings. But that's about all. He doesn't seem to have made friends, opened any charge accounts, made any major purchases. Except a used car. Nine hundred dollars. For making his calls."
"Wives? Children?"
"Couple of places where he lived, he had a woman who called herself Mrs. Bacalle. In fact, he probably had several. All real dolls. Unless it was the same one with different wigs. Or different sprays. No record of marriage or divorce. But that doesn't mean there wasn't any. You can always find them."
"But he was educated in Europe? That's important, because European handwriting differs from ours."
"Oh he was educated over there, all right. Good schools. We hear he got a degree from some university in Switzerland."
"What about Mrs. Bannister?"
"What about her?"
"Where was she educated?"
"Oh. Well, she was educated in Europe, too. France and England. Her old man had money at one time, and lost it during the depression."
"Damn!"
"That's bad?"
"It's not good. Those signatures are damned good as it is; the fact that both parties follow a similar writing system will make it even tougher."
"We'll need a lot of exemplars. Checks that Mrs. Bannister signed. Letters. Christmas cards. Documents such as notarized deeds, leases and so on. Writing that we know for sure is hers."
"No problem there," Harper said. "We can get you all the specimens you want."
"Good. Now, what about Bacalle?"
"Nothing. Practically nothing. His signature off the drivers license record. A few other signatures here and there. Nothing recent."
"Not enough. There's got to be more specimens around somewhere."
"Well, there aren't. Anything we can find, is all typed. He's a good typist, by the way. Works mostly off an SCM 250, electric portable, when he writes anything, which isn't much."
"He's got an office?"
"Sure. Probably full of specimens. If a guy could get in there-" Harper was suddenly interested in cleaning his fingernails with a broken toothpick. "I kinda suggested to Mr. Suydam there might be ways of doing that...."
"And he stopped you right there. That goes double for me. I don't want you bringing in any specimens you didn't get legitimately.".
Harper shrugged. "All I can do is try the best I can. You make the rules; I'll play 'em."
John nodded. "Good enough. For your information, if there was any hint that specimens were gotten illegally, I'd be subject to cross-examination by the other side as to where I got them-and without a perfect answer, I'd be ruined professionally. And I've got too many years, and too much hard work and money in this to lose it over a piece of phony evidence."
"Gotcha."
"Okay; let's take a look at those checks you mentioned...."
It was nine o'clock before he remembered Carole was waiting dinner for him. He snatched the phone and dialed his number. "Carole? John. Look, I'm tied up at the office, and it'll probably be a couple more hours before I get away. Why don't you have your dinner and trot along home? And by the way of a-tonement, let me take you to dinner tomorrow night? Okay?"
"Okay. Don't worry about a thing, John."
He returned to the two men and their study of the Bannister documents. It was two in the morning before they finally stored their papers in the office safe and locked up.
"I might come in late tomorrow," he told Cap. "It's been a long day." Cap nodded as John got in his car and drove home.
There was a light in the living room.
Carole was curled up in the easy chair, asleep. The book that, had fallen from her hand lay on the floor. Her soft blonde hair was loose for once, turn-hled around her shoulders and partly covering her face. Legs drawn up under her, one shoe off. She looked terribly young and extremely vulnerable. A curious thought crossed his mind: she must have looked like that when Walter married her 12 years ago. Actually not much older than Rosemary, who was almost 13 at the time....
Carole awoke as he moved.
"Hey," he said gently. "You were supposed to go home hours ago."
"Was I? Well, I thought it might be nicer to stay and see if you liked the cake. Devils food, with chocolate frosting. Did you have dinner?"
"We had some sent in. But a piece of real devils food, with a glass of milk-Though I'd better take you home first."
"I'll get home all right. My car's in your garage. I drove over this afternoon before we went to the airport, remember?"
"That's right. In that case, I'll shower and have some cake in bed. See you tomorrow for dinner, right?"
She smiled faintly. "Right."
Yawning, he headed for the bathroom.
Warm needles of water eased the fatigue from his body, relaxed him and melted away the tensions that had been building since early morning. He let the problem of the Bannister papers slide from his mind, and his empty longing for Rosemary, and the fleeting thought of Marlene....
He was completely unprepared for what happened next. There was no warning; unless you counted the brief, distorted shadow on the glass shower door.
It opened--and Carole, naked, stepped in.
"Move over," she said. "And hand me the soap."
"Carole! What the hell is this?"
"Your wife," she said, "told me to take care of you. And that, darling, is exactly what I propose to do."
"Now, Carole-" What the blazes does a guy do in a situation like that? Whatever one does, John wasn't thinking quite clearly. He was discovering at first hand that Carole was an exceptionally attractive woman. The promising figure he'd suspected even in the shapeless things she usually wore, was all there-in ample measure. Lovely, cream-smooth shoulders and full, magnificent breasts, moving slowly from side to side and coming closer toward him ... slim waist and flat belly and richly rounded hips and thighs, undulating invitingly. A hundred and twenty pounds of high-explosive sex.
She reached over and turned off the water. "Towel me, baby."
He toweled. "You've got to go. Walter ... Rosemary...."
"I'm dry enough." She pulled the towel away and dropped it. "Walter and Rosemary are hundreds of miles away, darling, and you are a very virile man, as you're beginning to prove. And I am a very passionate woman."
His voice was thick. "Carole, I'm no prude, but-"
She touched him for the first time, closing her hands on his hips and drawing her body to him. Rolling her hips slowly and hungrily against his. "I know all about you, John. More than you think. And about Rosemary."
He was still fighting the rising tide of lust, though he knew Carole was well aware of it. There was delight in her hoarse, excited laughter as her still-wet body moved slickly against his. "You're woman-starved, John. But you won't be any more. Let's get out of this damned shower."
He followed her, rage mingling with the powerful surge of his body's need. He didn't want to want her. This was different, somehow, from that impetuous little roll in the sack with Marlene. Yet he couldn't keep his eyes off Carole. She was breath-takingly beautiful. How had she managed, all these years, to look so innocently inconspicuous? Clothes sure made the difference; you never really knew what a woman looked like until she took them off....
She turned to face him. "I'm not bad, am I, John?"
He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He took three steps to where she stood, breathing hard, his face bloodless, his mouth half-opened. A savagery he'd never known before was bubbling and seething in him. A sinister urge to whip this woman to an unendurable pitch of excitement and desire ... his hands settled on her hips and slipped around to clutch the satin-smooth buttocks. He moved her in circles against him.
Her nails dug at his thighs. Her lips were against his ear; he felt her trembling. You've got a devil in you. It's never been out before, has it, John? Not really. But you'll see. I'll bring him out, screaming with lust."
He believed her. He had never felt like this before. It was all physical; he felt no tenderness. Nothing but the hard, burning lump in his guts. He grunted, "You'll do some screaming yourself before the night is over."
"Yes! Oh, yes! Make me scream. Make me beg. Don't hold anything back. Whatever you've dreamed of doing with a woman, John, do with me!"
He ran his hands up her smooth, warm back and tangled his fingers in the lustrous halo of her hair. He pulled her mouth to his and crushed hard, meeting her darting tongue with his.
She moved her feet apart and bent slightly at the knees. He let one hand slide down and a-round her rump and under, to caress the soft flesh; she drew a sharp, ecstatic breath. Whatever he'd dreamed of doing, she'd said-and the thought added fire to fire. He lifted his mouth from hers, and lowered his head to her breast. It was full and firm and he felt the nipple leap and harden under his lips. He nibbled and tongued and felt her twist in response. Her hands were as busy as his; he heard her deep sigh of excitement as she found deep, throbbing flesh.
He pushed her down on the bed, across it, so that here body lay writhing on the dark coverlet and her legs bent over the edge, feet spread wide and flat on the floor. She moaned, eyes wide and staring and she bit her lip in an agony of passion. "Now, John, now; oh, baby, baby, now...."
He knelt between her legs and mouthed the smooth inner thigh while she convulsed and moaned. Her whole body was exquisitely sensitive; anywhere he touched her brought shivers and hoarse groans. "Please, darling, now ... I'm going out of my mind...." She shivered, writhing as he found still more sensitive nerves.
Finally he rose and came over her and she thrust eagerly up to meet the force of his demand. A low, shivering moan came from her.
"Now," he grunted, "let's see how you can really twist."
Laughing, almost sobbing, she showed him. He had never known-never imagined-anything like it. She was amazingly lithe and adroit; her passion-lashed movements matched his frenzied force.
He felt as if every nerve and muscle in his body gathered and tightened and shivered in readiness-and then the full charge of the storm in him broke, spending in soul-shaking waves upon waves, pounding and dashing him to the brink of unconsciousness. In the midst of the roar, he knew she climaxed, crying and convulsing powerfully, and then, before the spasm completely died away, she climaxed again....
For half an hour, spent and exhausted, they lay naked together on the bed. But his powers of lust, once awakened, were only briefly quieted. Lashed by the undercurrent of his peculiar anger, he wanted to make her beg and cry and again surrender abjectly. His hand reached toward her and closed on her intimately. She turned her head toward him, eyes half-lidded, a faint smile quirking the corner of her mouth. "Lover," she sighed, "I've never been so completely ravished."
He rolled over and began once more his exploitation of her body. Within moments, her breath was coming harshly. He spoke. "Get a chair."
She understood instantly. With a small laugh, she sprang up, got a low dressing table chair and placed it near the bed. He sat on the edge and drew her between his legs, roughly mouthing her breasts and belly. She sank to her knees on the rug, her tongue busy on his chest. Then, slowly, without the need of direction from him, she moved her mouth and fingers over his flesh.
The tides of passion rose in him as she continued her expert arts. He fastened his fingers on her white shoulders, digging his fingers hard into her flesh, knowing she'd show telltale bruises. Caught up in her own frenzy, she moaned.
Finally she lifted her head, laughing, her face flushed and eyes alight. "You're so terribly, terribly virile, John! Oh, honey, from now on, any time you want. Just snap your fingers easy, and I'll be naked in your bed with my legs apart."
"Listen," he muttered. "Tonight's one thing.
Tomorrow's another. This can't go on, and you know it."
"Whatever you say, lover." Smiling, she straddled his legs, her toes on the rug, body slightly raised. Then, slowly, she lowered herself, gasping until their bodies were fused and burning into each other. She began a slow, deliberate grind while he stroked her back and thighs and her rolling, jerking hips. He groaned with pleasure as she quivered and squeezed muscles he didn't know existed. She herself was enjoying transports of pleasure, head rolling voluptuously, eyes closed, mouth twisted sensuously.
He slid his hand between their bodies to enfold her breasts; he could feel her response to each squeeze, each manipulation of the nipples. She rose slightly on her toes, then sank back again, wriggling in frenzy. Her whimpers rose. His own groans were deep and heavy as his breathing. "Now . .!" he said.
Her laugh was quick and sharp; she redoubled her writhings and contortions, her convulsive movements sent thrill after thrill through his nerves. He moved his hands down under her buttocks, guiding their wild jerkings as the storm-forces, already at peak, exploded him into a sea of unbelievable sensation. Crying out, he half rose, carrying her with him. Their cries mingled. They were two primitive organisms, stripped of all society's restraints, caught in the grip of uninhibited lust.
He sank back, sweating, breath whistling through his teeth. Carole's arms were still tight about him. Her face rested on his shoulder; she was still twitching, still uttering small, incoherent sounds-sighs and laughs and broken words.
Her hands moved over him; she turned her face to kiss along the hard rim of his jawbone. "John, baby," she whispered, "I dreamed you were a fantastic lover-and you're even more than I dreamed."
His physical being still glowed but his mind was in turmoil. This had been an experience like nothing else he'd ever known; this woman had somehow reached deep inside him and touched an unknown spring. A wildness, a passion he hadn't suspected lay within him and roared out to meet her own mad desires.
Involuntarily he shivered. "It's almost morning," he said gruffly. "Let's get some sleep."
When he awoke it was almost noon.
And Carole was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
The phone rang as he was swallowing a cup of coffee.
"John? Where you been? I've phoned every hour since nine this morning and no answer."
"Hi. Cap. I must have really been pounding my ear."
"Yeah; well, you had a long day yesterday."
And a long night too, John thought, with a wry grin. "What's up, Cap?"
"Plenty. Judge McAuliffe in the Superior Court at Glenbrook has been on the horn. We've got to get over there right away. Something came to the surface in a routine probate case and he's got a suspicion there's something very much wrong."
"Be on the sidewalk in front of the building in ten minutes, and I'll pick you up."
He was there in nine minutes, and Cap was waiting. "The Judge is calling the case back at 2:00 o'clock, and wants to see us before he does so. Can we make it to Glenbrook in time?"
"We can if you don't mind a few thrills," John said.
Cap grinned. "I don't mind-but I wish I had taken a siren with me when I left the force."
"Fill me in, podner."
"There was this dentist, Malcolm Tracy, living in Glenbrook. Bachelor, about 68, retired. Health not too good. Had a heart attack about three years ago, and another lighter one a year back. He'd done okey in real estate and could afford to live well off the income, which he was doing. Also to have a kind of combination housekeeper-nurse. Alice Franklin. A divorcee about half his age."
"The plot thickens."
"You're ahead of me. But not much. Well, Alice lived in, and what the two of them did with their evenings is nobody's business but theirs. If anything. So one afternoon Alice comes home from shopping and finds Tracy on his bed with a hunting knife in his heart. There's a note on the bureau saying this was the best way for him."
"Sounds legitimate so far."
"So said the coroner. Tracy's doctor confirmed he'd been ailing and it was one of those cases where he might have lived another 10 years, or he might have dropped dead tomorrow. And Alice reported he'd been depressed and drinking more than he should, despite doctor's orders."
"He left a will?"
"Right. Holographic. Brief and to the point. All his property, real and personal, to his devoted housekeeper Alice. Dated, signed, and all in his own handwriting, as required by the law of his state."
"So the relatives are a bit suspicious."
"No they're not. There aren't any relatives. Tracy didn't have anyone. And nobody's contesting. It's just a plain, common, routine probate case. The petition has been presented by a perfectly reputable attorney, Armand Casperson, representing Alice."
"Then why are we busting our necks to get to Glenbrook?"
"Judge McAuliffe says he feels uncomfortable about the will and wants us to take a look. Completely off the record, and on his own responsibility."
"That's pretty unusual. What makes him feel uncomfortable?"
"That's what we're going to find out. McAuliffe's young, smart, and will probably make it to the Supreme Court one of these days. I don't know him personally, but from what I hear, we need more like him."
"Well, we're almost there, and the mystery will start to unravel....
Judge McAuliffe shook hands with both, and waved them to chairs in his chambers. "I'm very grateful to you for coming," he said. "As I indicated to Mr. Emerson on the phone this morning, I'm a little disturbed about this will. The language strikes me as being a bit strange. I'd like to show it to you." He handed them a sheet of paper. "See what you think of it."
John read: I am leaving to my devoted housekeeper Alice Franklin all my real and personel property. Dated May 18, 1965. Malcolm Tracy, D.D.S.
"That phrase. I am leaving' is a little peculiar." John said. "Usually a man would say, 'I leave.' But what strikes me as even more peculiar is the spelling of 'personel.' As a dentist, Tracy would be reasonably well educated. Well enough, anyway, not to misspell it, as it appears here. On the other hand, it might just be a slip of the hand or thought."
"Especially so," Judge McAuliffe said, "when you know the will was written the same day as his suicide."
"Perhaps even after his suicide?" John asked.
"Perhaps. This Mrs. Franklin isn't stupid. Young, not unattractive in a coarse kind of way. A song-writer. She's actually published a few things. Country music, I understand."
"She could have come home, found Tracy dead, and figured as long as there were no relatives; and the State would get it all anyway, she might as well have it. And so she wrote his will for him before calling the police."
"I think," the Judge said, "that's a very fair summation of my own thinking. Understand, I'm not committed to that viewpoint. I merely consider it a possibility. Can I leave it to you gentlemen to look into this, and report to me as soon as possible? I'll continue this probate hearing until tomorrow at ten, but I can't set it beyond that without it looking unusual. You understand my position."
John nodded. "We'll do what we can, Judge."
They worked fast, and at the beginning, luck was with them. They had brought portable equipment with them and were able to compare quickly with the dentists' known handwriting.
"Forged, all right," John said to Cap. "And a pretty poor forgery at that. But now we've got to connect it up with Mrs. Franklin's writing to prove she did it. Not that it's necessary, because as long as anyone forged the will, she isn't going to get the estate."
"No, but this judge isn't a guy to be satisfied with half-way measures. He wants to know the whole story. Now here's what I've found out. This woman has a publisher in Nashville. Starbright Publishers. Guy named Henry Starr is the owner. I talked to him on the phone. He's got some of her original manuscripts in his office-and some of them she did right there, on the spot, so we've got evidence they're really hers. There's a plane out of here in 45 minutes. You can get in, see Starr this evening, get the manuscripts and any other information you can, and fly back in the morning in time for court."
"I'm on my way," John said. "Phone for a reservation for me at the Nashville Manor."
He was at the airport with 12 minutes to spare. He put in a person-to-person call to Rosemary in New York; she wasn't in.
He phoned Carole. "I've got to go out of town overnight. If Rosemary phones and doesn't know where I am, she may worry. She'll certainly phone you. Will you tell her?"
"Of course, John."
Damn it, he could feel his pulses starting to boom just at the sound of her soft, silky voice. "Where will you be?"
"The Nashville Manor, Nashville. I'll be busy till about nine. She can call after that. Or I'll try to reach her."
"I'll tell her, John."
"Thanks." He hung up, forcing himself to blot out the memory of those educated hips, of their bodies' mad lashing, of the unholy, soul-shaking pleasure he'd had in her....
As the plane headed south, he tried to lose himself in the coroner's report he'd taken along in his briefcase. But somehow the powerful roar of the jets matched the silent tumult inside him.
It was not a comfortable journey.
Henry Starr was short, fat, and affable.
"It's very kind of you to stay this late at'your office to help me, Mr. Starr," John told him.
"Not at all, suh," the publisher said heartily. "Will you join me in a curative sip of some of our fine Southern bourbon?"
"Happy to ... your health, Mr. Starr."
"Now ah found a couple of lyrics our lady actually wrote here in the office, and a couple of others she mailed in. Three we published. Not great, but we make a few dollahs on them, and she got royalties of a few hundred on each. 'Course you nevah know when one is going to break out and make a nice little bundle."
He handed the papers to John, who examined them briefly and nodded. "Mr. Starr, isn't it a little unusual for a song-writer to work in your office?"
"Well, kinda. We had a music composer once, he was real good at makin' up tunes, but he couldn't read nor write music. So he'd come in, and plunk around for a while on his geetar, and when he thought he had it, he'd call one of my people here, and they'd sit down and write it for him."
"What was Mrs. Franklin's reason?" Starr chortled. "A man-what else? Leastways, you could call him that. Kid about 22-a banjo player works in a night club here. Guess he must be 10, 15 years younger'n she is, but she's gone plumb daffy over him. Spent all her royalties money and maybe more, buying him a car and sports jackets and stuff like that. And he's a nothin'-a real nothin', Mr. Carmody. Long hair and soulful eyes and plays the banjo and this woman is absolutely nuts about him. So she's been coming here to see him every so often and stays a few days, and when she ain't listenin' to him at the club or sleep-in' with him, she's up here workin'. Says she can't work by herself without people around. That's the whole story."
"How much has she made with you altogether, on these three songs?"
"Bout $1400. Plus $200 I advanced on her next song. But she ain't turned in nothin' worthwhile yet, and I don't know when she will."
"Thanks, Mr. Starr."
"That's okay. You got any more questions, give me a ring at home. I'll be there all evening."
"Thanks again. I'm going back directly to my hotel now and make some tests that'll take me an hour, or hour and a half before I get dinner. If I don't call you within two hours, I won't call at all."
He shook hands and walked to the parking lot.
Actually his work didn't take him as long as he expected. Alice Franklin was less than a skillful forger. The evidence was plain.
He locked it in his attache case and went downstairs to dinner. Afterwards, he took a short walk. Nashville was jumping with country music, but this wasn't his cup of tea. John was a cool jazz man himself.
He stopped in the lobby and went to a phone booth. New York was two hours later, and Rosemary had just come in.
"Hello, darling! I'm so glad you called! Dad and I just saw 'Funny Girl.' I laughed till my sides hurt! Are you all right? Is Carole taking good care of you?"
"Yes; sure." Depending on your viewpoint. "But not today. I'm in Nashville. On a case for Judge McAuliffe. I'm going back early in the morning."
They chatted a few minutes more, and then rang off.
He was aware of perfume, light and heady, the moment he walked into his room.
She was standing at the window looking out at the night. And she was wearing a hip-length, black lace-trimmed pegnoir so sheer that it seemed scarcely more than a shadow across her cream-white body. And high-heeled white bedroom slippers. And that, it was plain, was all.
She turned at the sound of his entry. Smiling sensuously. "Hello, lover. Surprised?"
He tried to reply, but the answer froze in his tightened throat. The pegnoir, open in front, concealed absolutely nothing.
"Do you like it, baby? I spent all day shopping for it. You've no idea how hard it is to buy super-sexy lingerie. But this isn't bad. Don't you think so?"
He found his voice. "It's probably illegal."
"Probably. But so exciting on my skin!" With her eyes half-closed, she ran her hands voluptuously over her full breasts and slender flanks and flaring hips.
Drawn almost hypnotically, he came over close to her, the urge growing in him to seize and ravage that soft, warm, receptive flesh. She was breathing hard as she reached up to unknot his tie and her delicate cheecks were flushed.
"I've been here half an hour waiting for you, and getting hotter for you every moment." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she helped him peel coat and shirt and pants. "Let me take down your shorts...." She skinned them down his legs and then ran her hands over his flesh, rising again with eyes narrowing.
"You're out of your mind," he said hoarsely. "Don't you realize how dangerous-"
"Out of my mind-yes! Over you, John. When I think of what you do to me, I go all to pieces. And all I do is think about you with me. How to excite and inflame you!"
He took her face in his hands and mouth to hers, found her tongue. Her body moved in; he could feel the hardening little nipples as her breasts pressed hard against him, hips rubbing rhythmically. He shifted his mouth to the side of her neck. Then, sliding back the filmy pegnoir to bare her shoulder, he savored the sweet warm flesh first on one side, and then on the other. And then, lower still, to taste the base of her throat.
"Take it off," she gasped. "Strip me naked. Use me, lover, as women are made to be used."
He needed no urging. Passion, like a blast furnace, was roaring in him. He tore the flimsy garment from her and dropped it at their feet, exposing her completely to his hungry gaze. Then, laughing suddenly, he lifted her from the floor and stood her on a chair. Turning her slowly, he kissed and mouthed and nibbled and bit the tender flesh of her buttocks and hips and thighs and belly while she squealed and gasped and held her rolling head with both hands in an agony of desire. "John! John...!"
Her hips twisted as he kept at her, her whimpers became more urgent. "Yes! Bite my legs where they're whitest and softest. Bruise me, baby, so I can lie naked on my bed any time and see the marks and think how you put them there."
Finally she jumped down. "Now it's your turn, John. You get up there and let me work you over!"
"Crazy!" He leaped up and she began on him. For a long time she ranged over his body, toying, feeling, playing. Lust rose, pounding unmercifully. His loins felt swollen and aching.
Carole paused directly in front of him, eyes glowing. "Magnificant!" she said. "Lover, I've got an idea for a special treat." Lifting a breast in each hand, she moved in close to him, enfolding him and squeezing them together.
The sensation was infinitely voluptuous. He groaned as she rolled the full, fleshy mounds a-round. He bore it as long as he could, then pushed her away. She walked to the bed, still wearing her white, high heeled slippers, and took something from the bedside table drawer. She looked up at him, and her beauty inflammed him still more, beauty that bore the marks of their love-making. Bruised lips, tumbled blonde hair, eyes blue-lidded and dark with passion.
"Use this tonight," she whispered.
He glanced at the rubber circlet she'd placed in his hand. "These knobs are too hard," he said. "They'll tear you apart."
"I know." She moved against him, caressing him intimately with her body. "But then what exquisite pleasure!"
Lust burned more wickedly in his gut. His lip curled in a tight smile. She kicked her legs high in the air as he laid her on the bed, and her fingers clawed at the spread.
"I don't want to damage you," he said. "You've used this before?"
"A long time ago." She was writhing even before he touched her. "It won't damage me too much. Just don't let me scream too loud. We don't want the police breaking in to interrupt us!"
He adjusted the circlet. On him, it looked formidable. He saw that she eyed it with mingled fear, dread, and desire.
He came over her; she was shivering violently. He mouthed her tossing, pulsing breasts and handled her until she was moaning and begging with her lips, and arms, and squirming, tossing body.
And then he placed a hand firmly across her mouth. Her eyes stared up at him, wide and pleading, and tiny droplets of sweat stood out on her forehead.
He thrust forward slowly, aware of the resistance. She stiffened and her fingers clawed painfully at his back. Her eyes squeezed shut in agony, and a deep moan came from her throat despite his hand over her mouth.
He moved cautiously, and with each move, she moaned with pain. And then her moaning changed in tone, and the expression of her eyes was different. He took his hand away. Her mouth was slack, her eyes glazed; she looked like a woman transfixed. "Oh, lover!" her voice was hoarse with lust, "oh lover, I'm going to explode like I never did before ... oh, I am, I am...!" He had never been with a woman who climaxed as wildly as she did then.
She flung her legs, wrapping them around him, squeezing frantically. He rose, lifting her so only her shoulders still touched the bed. His own release came with tremendous power as her hips twitched and circled with amazing speed. His cry mingled with her blubbery wail-a strange, primitive wail that touched his own darkest passions. Her face contorted; he could not tell if it was unendurable pleasure or insufferable pain. Tears ran down her cheeks. She bit her lip while her head rolled back.
Slowly their frenzy subsided. Their lashing, sweating, straining bodies stilled. Carole fell back, completely exhausted, still whimpering a little, still gasping. "Never in all my life," she murmured. "Never like this before...."
She lay there, blonde head on the pillow, staring at him with her dark, luminous eyes. Unsmiling. As if in awe.
"What's wrong?"
"Listen, John," Her hands slipped up his arms and gripped his shoulders. Her voice was low and urgent. "John, we're a pair. There aren't many real pairs. We can open pleasures for each other that most people don't even dream of."
"We did pretty well tonight."
"Tonight was only a sample. John, when I told you I was a passionate woman, that was an understatement. Something else that no one else knows about me: I've been thoroughly trained in every facet of love and sex. There's nothing I don't know, or won't do for a man who gets to me the way you do."
"You, the sweet, efficient little housewife?"
"I play the role well, don't I? And to answer your unasked question, I was never a call girl. And I'm not a nymphomaniac. Because they don't get full satisfaction from their love-making. I do. Intense, marvelous, beautiful satisfaction! As you know."
"I've never seen anything like it."
She bit his chin, laughing. "Baby," she said softly, "you haven't seen anything yet."
"You're forgetting who we are. To be truthful, I did myself."
"I'll work it out." Her eyelids, heavy with fatigue, drooped. "Turn out the light, lover, and go to sleep. We can't play any more tonight; I'm starting to hurt too much."
CHAPTER FIVE
They caught an early-morning plane. There were only a few other passengers, and John took a seat at the rear where they wouldn't be noticed if by wild chance there happened to be someone a-board who knew them.
Carole was wearing a grey, boxy little suit with a high ruffle at her throat and with her glasses and severely-combed hair looked like anyone's prim and pretty English teacher.
To John, knowing what was concealed under the protective coloration, knowing how her full breasts must be straining under the lace and sheer nylon bra and her rounded rump was squeezed into those gossamer panties, the outfit was aphrodaisical.
As they ate breakfast he whispered, "If the airline knew what was in my mind, they'd handcuff me to the seat. Any minute, without a word from me, my hand's going to start up your leg."
Her head was back against the cushion. Her eyes moved sideways to his lap. "Don't you dare touch me, you rotten sex fiend. Not unless you want me to rape you right there in the aisle."
He grinned. "If that isn't an invitation to touch, I don't think I've ever heard one. Can I have a rain-check?"
She drew her breath deeply, so that he could see her breasts rise even under the loose jacket she wore. "Any time, any place, any way. You don't need an invitation. You don't even need to ask. Just take me."
His pulses started a drum-beat of desire, even though he knew their interlude would be over in a couple of days, when Walter and Rosemary returned. No use bringing that up. Not when they still had a couple of days left....
"Listen, Carole, something you said last night-and if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. None of my business anyway. About not being a call girl. I never thought you were. But I know you married Walter when you were around 20. And before that, you lived with your parents who were certainly as respectable and middle-class as a couple can get-"
" So where did I get so proficient ... that's what you want to know?"
"Yes-and for Pete's sake, cover your knees; I want you so bad I can taste you."
She closed her eyes for a quick moment and shivered at the thought. Then reluctantly pulled her skirt down an inch. She looked down at the billows of sun-topped clouds, then back at John. "I didn't live with my parents quite all my girlhood, darling. When I was 17, I ran away and lived for six months with the most lascivious Frenchman ever imported. He was more than twice my age-around 40. I think. I'd been with a few boys before him. but he was something else! It wasn't enough for him to enjoy me several times a day. He thought it was his mission in life to teach me everything he knew-and there wasn't much he didn't know. He made me strip and practice constantly. Hip and pelvis exercises. And exercises to build up and firm up my breasts. I still do some of them."
"It shows," he said.
"Thank you! And he taught me other things he'd learned in Syria and Egypt and Paris. Things a woman can do to make herself more tempting, more tantalizing. How to rouse a man until he's crazy with desire, until he'd claw his way barehanded through steel and concrete to get at her."
"He had one hell of a proficient student."
"He did. Besides, I adored him. I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. I could hardly wait for him to get back to our flat nights so I could enjoy driving him mad with lust! Between my practicing, and our lovemaking mornings and evenings, I hardly ever put my clothes on except to go to the supermarket."
"That guy should have started a school."
"John, he'd have gone broke. Even if they didn't run him out of town. In the first place, the average American girl will tease and run a little, to get a man interested in her. They play a little social game, and after a while she 'surrenders' as the saying goes, and lets him into her pants. Maybe it takes a few days or weeks, maybe only a few hours. The idea's the same. So then she's done all she's supposed to do: she's given him her fair white body, and maybe she wiggles a little, and very often she enjoys it. But practically never does she do anything to make it really interesting for him. Your highest priced playgirls do it, and your geisha, and your joy-girls of Europe and the Near East. But Americans think it's some kind of mortal sin to lust strongly or be lusted after."
"I'll buy that. What's the second place you were leading up to?"
"Oh, that's the American male. He's got the nutty idea that women are supposed to be pure, and if they feel anything, let alone act sexy with him, they're not good wife-material. Crazy, isn't it?"
"It is to my notion."
"You're not an average American male." She looked out of the window; the world outside was white. They were dropping altitude and going through the cloud bank. In another 10 minutes they'd be touching down at St. Gilliam.
Reflectively Carole said, "He used to tell me I'd be very grateful to him one day, that with what I'd learned from him, and with my face and figure, and hot belly, I could get and keep any man happy as long as I wanted. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite worked out that way. Not yet."
"He must have been crazy. Why didn't he marry you, keep you himself?"
"He couldn't. He was making hardly anything in his job, whatever that was. And he needed money-a lot of money-desperately for some deal he was trying to put over. So he had to sell me."
"Sell you? Peddle you, you mean?"
"Oh no; to a man from Damascus who was traveling here with two of his wives, and a man who passed as his chaffeur. He paid $5,000 for me, as a concubine."
"You're putting me on. Nobody buys and sells women like that."
She smiled crookedly. "All I know is, I was bought and sold. And that's when I really learned about sexual depravity. Maybe I'll tell you about it some time-as a bedtime tale."
The plane trundled to a halt. The passengers were disembarking, facing forward. For the moment, they were concealed from everyone.
John leaned forward to get the handbag under her seat. She gripped his arm and thrust it deep under her skirt. His hand felt nylon, and then bare flesh, and beyond that, the nylon of her skin-tight panties. "Squeeze me," she whispered hoarsely. "I wish I'd thought to leave them off. But squeeze me anyway. It'll keep me hot and wanting you al! day."
He did. She arched back against the seat, eyes closed, biting her lip. She gasped softly as he manipulated her; then, with an obvious effort, pushed his arm away. "Let's get out fast," she said.
Going up the court-house steps at 9:30, he thought she wasn't the only one who'd be hot and wanting all day. But surely she realized as well as he that their little interlude was limited to another 48 hours at most. They probably shouldn't have gone this far, but what the hell, as long as they'd tangled once, what difference did another tango or two make?
He walked down the corridor and rapped on the door of Judge McAuliffe's chambers. The judge himself opened to his knock. "Thanks very much for phoning me from the airport," he said. "What you said sounded so interesting I've asked Mrs. Franklin and Mr. Casperson, her attorney, to join us here."
John acknowledged the introductions to the two. He'd met Casperson before, but the attorney had evidently forgotten him. Mrs. Franklin nodded disinterestedly; she was thirtyish, not unattractive in a blowzy way and carried a pair that he estimated at about 40-D. A type that might well appeal for a while to a kid of 19....
Judge McAuliffe said, "This proceeding is a it irregular, but I've asked Mr. Carmody to give us the benefit of his experience in a phase of this will case that has puzzled me somewhat. I hope, Mr. Casperson, you'll go along with us for a few moments."
"Of course, Judge." He could hardly do otherwise.
"Go ahead, Mr. Carmody." John pulled papers from his attache case. "I have here some original manuscripts written by Mrs. Franklin that I obtained from the Starr Publishing Company. This is an affidavit signed by Mr. Starr, to the effect that he personally saw Mrs. Franklin write them, and can testify to this if necessary."
Casperson's look of puzzlement grew. "Judge, I really don't see-"
The judge frowned. "Irregular, to be sure. But please go along, Mr. Casperson. I'm sure you'll be intensely interested."
"With these manuscripts as a starting point, I was able to make a valid comparison with the document introduced here as Dr. Tracy's last will and testament."
"Mr. Carmody," the judge explained, "is a highly qualified expert on questioned documents."
Casperson's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He was beginning to get the picture, John knew. The woman was suspicious, but not yet alarmed.
"I also compared with the known signatures and writings of Dr. Tracy. On the basis of my study, I am compelled to report that Dr. Tracy did not write this supposed will."
"The hell he didn't!" Alice Franklin screamed. Her amazing breasts bounced enormously as she pointed at John and swung toward her attorney. "Who's this phony, anyway? What's he doing, coming in here and trying to rob me of my estate?"
"Just a moment, Mrs. Franklin." The attorney glared at her, then turned to John. "Do I understand you to say that this will is forged?"
"Exactly."
"Forged by whom?"
"By Mrs. Franklin."
"It's a lie! A dirty, stinking lie!"
Casperson looked at the judge, who nodded slowly. He sighed; a fat probate fee was going out the window. "Under the circumstances, your Honor, I must ask leave of the court to withdraw from this case. I'm sorry, Mrs. Franklin; I can no longer represent you as your counsel."
"Your request is granted, Mr. Casperson," the judge said. "However, there is a bit more to be heard here. Continue, please, Mr. Carmody."
In his driest, school-master tone, John continued, "In addition to my study of the will, I also examined the suicide note that was found in the room with Dr .Tracy's body. It is my conclusion that the suicide note was also written by Mrs. Franklin, and not by Dr. Tracy."
She half-rose, gasping as if for air, and her hands made curious clawing motions in front of her. Her face was contorted with fear and frustration. "You lying son-of-a-bitch! Isn't it enough you're robbing me of my estate? What else you trying to do to me?"
"Mrs. Franklin," the judge said grimly, "you are entitled to be reminded that you need say nothing that will tend to incriminate you."
"Especially, Mrs. Franklin, since the coroner's report shows the alcohol content of Dr. Tracy's blood to be 4.2. Meaning he was far too drunk to have written those notes. And not only that, far too drunk to have held and plunged that knife into his own heart!"
She hissed with fear and rage, "He was dead when I came in. Just like I said. Suicide!"
"Murder, Mrs. Franklin. You were desperate. You'd already spent your earnings from your songs on that boy in Nashville and you hadn't any more. He was getting tired of you, and the only way you could hold him was with more and more presents, and gifts. When you went into Tracy's room he was on the bed all right-not dead, but dead drunk. It was a perfect opportunity. You got his hunting knife and plunged it into his heart. Then, before you wrote those faked papers, you got some specimens of his actual writing, and practiced for a while, duplicating his handwriting."
"Lies, lies!" She had her face buried in her hands.
"The fact is, Mrs. Franklin, we found the sheets of paper you practiced on."
Her head jerked up and a look of wild triumph lighted her heavy features. "Now I know you're lying!" she screamed. "I burned every last-" Shocked realization came to her. She slumped down, clasping her forehead and rocking from side to side. "Oh no! Oh no! What have I said? What'll happen to me now?"
The judge pressed a button; a matron and bailiff came in and led the woman out, still sobbing and cursing and praying.
"Rotten business," the judge muttered. "She's a murderess, but you can't help feeling sorry for the poor bitch just the same. Passion, avarice, greed, love, sex, stupidity; all of these mixed up.
There but for the grace of God, and so forth. Makes you wonder what any of us would do under provocation like hers. Don't quote me, but I wonder if there shouldn't be a special plea of insanity for the passion of a woman past the flush of youth, for a younger man."
Casperson said, "I'm grateful to you for letting me withdraw, Judge. I'd no idea what this was leading to. Like most probate lawyers, I know absolutely nothing about criminal law or crime."
"That's certainly not to your discredit, Mr. Casperson. Unfortunately, hardly 10% of our lawyers ever handle criminal cases, and I daresay only I% handle enough bf them to become truly experienced." He smiled thinly. "I suspect all our nerves have been a little frayed by this; will you gentlemen join me in a little tonic?"
He brought out a bottle of bourbon and poured three generous glasses. They drank appreciatively. John said, "What do you think will happen to her?"
"If she keeps her mouth shut on the advice of counsel," the judge said, "and doesn't confess, I doubt if the State can make the murder charge stick. According to my information, only Tracy's fingerprints were on the knife hilt. She must have wiped it, then closed his hand over it. Of course the inference is strong, but that isn't proof. The forgery charge is something else. That's an easy case, with a one to ten year penalty, and I suspect the judge trying it would give her closer to ten than to one. That might be justice. Whatever justice is...."
CHAPTER SIX
John returned to the office and spent the afternoon with Cap Emerson, patiently making photographic blow-ups of the letters in Mrs. Bannister's will. They did the same with Louis Bacalle's few signatures. Then they compared, letter for letter.
"Too damned bad we don't have more of Louis' writing," Cap grumbled.
"We're lucky at that," John said. "Louis Ba-calle; Mrs. Lloyd Bannister. Same initials. Six letters that are the same in each name. But not a single point of similarity."
"You wouldn't expect much," Cap said. "Not when the guy was imitating her signature. He must have practiced a long time. This is no tracing. And no amateurish drawing. The guy kept trying until he became expert."
"Or else is innocent as the new-born babe. Why not? Just because we're on the side against him doesn't make him guilty. The relatives are just hoping hard."
"I know, I know. It's just that I've got a feeling. And not because of our fee, either."
"Your feelings are usually pretty good. But here we've got nothing to operate on. Not unless we get some more samples. Somehow, I've got a strange urge to meet this mysterious character."
Cap lifted an eyebrow. "Why not? He's an investment counsellor. Put on your good suit, go see him, and say you want to know what to do with the Seawater Mining Company stock your Aunt Emmaline left you."
"Mmm. His office is in Chicago, according to the investigator's report. Of course I'll have to clear it with Mr. Suydam. But I think he'll okay it." He picked up the phone. But Mr. Suydam, his secretary said, had gone for the day and wouldn't be back until tomorrow noon.
Cap said, "The day's shot anyway. Why don't you knock off and check tomorrow?"
John nodded, surprised that it was already seven o'clock. Twenty minutes later he drove in the driveway of his home. The shades were drawn, but he could tell there were lights on inside. Carole! The thought of her started the burning in his guts again. The night was theirs. And he had plans for her. He wanted to see her eyes widen in shock and horror and fascination and passion as he unfolded them to her....
He unlocked the door and walked in. She was in the kitchen, and there were some good, meat-and-potato odors coming from the oven. A deep chocolate cake-was it the one she'd made the other night?-was on the sideboard. Her face was flushed and pretty from her work over the stove, and she was wearing a simple housedress with flaring skirt and an artfully low neckline.
"Hello, darling," she said, and made a quick adjustment of the gas heat. "Dinner will be ready for you in about fifteen minutes." She came over and slipped warm, bare arms around his neck. "I'm ready for you now...."
Their mouths locked, tongues darting, bodies moving-artfully against each other. Carole pulled back her head, reached back, and unzipped her frock to the waist. "Slip my dress down," she said, and laughed wantonly. "You'll see why in a second."
He slipped it down to her hips. All she wore above her waist was a bra. No ordinary bra. Each side had an aperture at the apex, three inch openings delicately edged with lace. And through each opening peeped a pink, throbbing nipple. "I thought you'd like this way of welcoming you home," Carole said. "I would have met you naked at the door, but you might have unappreciative neighbors!"
"I'll have you naked soon enough," he said, lowering his mouth to one of the tempting displays. She gave a soft "ah!" as his tongue flickered on her tender flesh and his hands moved familiarly around her. Her body moved sinuously, but her breast remained firm against his mouth,.
"Other side, baby," she breathed, and as her writhings increased, "I could burn a lot of dinners on your account."
He stopped for a moment, reluctantly. "Turn it off," he said. "We can eat later."
"It won't be any good warmed over," she said, making no move to break away.
"This is better." Mouth still busy, he slid the dress below the rounding of her hips; it pooled at her feet. He toyed with her panties, slipping his hands inside to enjoy the pleasure of her soft flanks and hard little buttocks.
Suddenly he rolled them halfway down her legs, exposing her to more intimate caresses. Her breath was hard, deep and sounded painful. "All right," she gasped, "to hell with the dinner. Turn it off before it burns, and let's go to the bedroom."
He grinned, and forced her to cry out her longing.
As he let her go, the sound of a car stopping came from outside, and a headlight threw shadow-bars across her as the beam shone briefly through the Venetian blind.
"A taxi! He swore viciously. "Who the blazes?"
Carole was frantically pulling herself together; she was adjusting the dress on her shoulders and smoothing back her hair. He looked through the blind; a man and woman were silhouetted darkly.
"It's Rosemary and Walter!"
Carole said something ugly and unintelligible. His own reaction was a stifled ferocity. He glanced at her again, the flames of lust still roaring in him. Had she not, white-faced, shrunk away, he would have torn off her clothes and ravished her on the spot, oblivious to the presence of their spouses.
He managed to control himself in the moments it took him to get to the door and fumble with the knob.
"Surprise!" Rosemary cried. "We got through with the bank more quickly than we expected-and decided to come straight home!"
He kissed her and took her bag. "Nice to have you back-but I thought you'd have a hard time leaving a holiday in the big city."
"I missed you," she said in a low voice.
Carole came forward, gracious, calm, self-possessed. "How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "And you're in time for dinner, too!" She gave Walter a wifely peck on the cheek, and said reproachfully, "You look as if you had a marvelous time!"
John poured drinks; through some culinary legerdemain, Carole turned two dinners into four without visible effort.
They chattered noisily enough through their meal, and Carole finished with small cups of Turkish coffee, thick, hot and sweet. Rosemary shook her head in mock dismay. "I've tried, but I can't get it to come out the way you do, Carole."
Carole shrugged deprecatingly. "A little art I picked up during my life in a harem," she said, and everyone laughed. Including John, who laughed a trifle mechanically. Carole and Walter left early.
Rosemary put her arms around John's neck, and her head on his shoulder, and yawned extravagantly. "We had the world's dullest flight home," she said. "The only plane we could get out of Cleveland for hours was an old DC-4. A couple of ducks flying backwards passed us as if we were standing still."
He put Carole out of his mind and almost out of his still-quivering body. He said-and meant it, "It's good to have you home."
She made sleepy noises against his chest. "Put me to bed, darling, won't you?"
He adjusted the shower to just the right temperature, then returned and undressed his wife quickly and efficiently, putting a terrycloth robe over her shoulders. "Can you manage the shower by yourself?"
She nodded sleepily and disappeared through the door.
He sat on his bed and wearily pulled off one shoe and then the other. His body ached down to the very bones. The interruption with Carole had almost torn him apart physically; now here was more temptation without fulfillment. He shucked his shorts and was ready to slide into bed when Rosemary emerged, fresh, smelling faintly of perfumed lotions and powder. No robe. Or anything.
She came over to him. "You've no idea how long it seemed, being away. A lifetime. But good for me. I feel new again."
He nodded, his pounding need too strong. Don't tease, he thought. Can't you see what you're doing to me? Aloud he said huskily, "You look great."
She said, meaningfully, "So do you." Then hurriedly, "John, we've spent nights away from each other before. But this was different. The distance, I suppose. And more than a night. Dad and I would go to a show or nightclub, and I'd think what a wonderful time I was having-and then back to the hotel and cry myself to sleep."
With one arm he drew her, unprotesting, to him. "You're fabulous," he said. "You're the most fabulous woman I've ever known."
She tried to speak lightly, though her voice was emotion-choked. "You men are all alike. Just because I'm not wearing a Mother Hubbard-"
"We only think of one thing," he said huskily. "What do women think of?"
She closed her eyes as his hands roamed her, caressing, squeezing, kneading her body. "If there's anything else, I can't remember what it is," she said.
He kissed her passionately; his need had returned a hundredfold. Whatever happened now, he had to have her. Hot, cold, scared, ready, unready, he was going to take her. He couldn't stop now if he wanted to....
She didn't try. Shyly, but effectively, she encouraged his passionate aggression. She was different; she seemed closer, more womanly, more his.
He had her on the bed, panting and squirming. "I'm not going to freeze this time," she said. "I love you, John, and I'm not going to freeze. Not this...."
She shook for a moment, and he thought she'd failed again. But she didn't. For the first time she didn't react with terror and revulsion. He moved gently. "It's all right!" she whispered. "I told you . ... I told you ... I said I wouldn't freeze ... John, darling ... for the first time...."
"Yes, darling...." he moved faster, harder. Her breath came a little faster, but there was no real response; no enveloping, mounting storm of passion. His own nervous system had taken too much lately; another time he might have continued much longer. But he was caught up in the rising flood and carried away ... he heard his own strangling cry above the blood-red pounding within him.
She lay quietly as they kissed and caressed. "I'm so happy, John," she said.
"You didn't climax, though."
"It felt kind of good."
"That's not enough."
"That's a lot-considering how it's been until now. And don't forget what the man said. Or maybe it was his wife. If at first you don't succeed-" : .
He kissed her happily. "That's a promise. Honey, we're on our way. This is the turning point. I'm sure of it." . V '
"And I'll keep it that way."
It didn't occur to him until he was half a-sleep-and then he promptly forgot about it-that it was a rather strange remark, considering what he'd said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He left Rosemary sleeping-she'd always been a heavy sleeper-and went to the office.
There was a series of routine problems that demanded his attention. A check had been presented to a bank after a man died, but dated a week before. Had it actually been written on the supposed date, or was someone trying Jo swindle a few unearned bucks?
An anonymous, obscene letter, written to a company's chief bookkeeper-a middle aged, single woman-on a typewriter. He identified the typewriter tentatively as one of the early Royal electrics; then went to his files for confirmation. His files contained samples of practically every model and make of typewriter since they'd been making them, including a number of toy machines. He quickly confirmed that the anonymous note had been done on a Royal 1954. The same type of machine the bookkeeper herself used at her office.
He worked for a time with his low-power microscope, comparing with samples of all the office machines he'd taken after hours when there was no one around but the owner, who had retained him. He smiled finally; it was the bookkeeper's machine, all right. That didn't prove she'd necessarily written it to herself, but the odds were pretty good she had. It wouldn't be the first time a frustrated person had used that means of directing attention to himself.
The phone rang; it was Rosemary. "Darling, I just wanted to tell you how happy I am-about being home-and about last night."
"Me too," he said. "We're going to really wake up and start enjoying our life together now. It was a big step, your not freezing-and wait until you start really reacting-I'll bet I won't be able to keep up with you!"
"My big, strong, virile husband can keep up with anyone-so long as it's me! I'll be thinking about you all day. Lewdly."
"That's the best way. I'll be home early." She laughed and hung up. He returned to his work, a glow of satisfaction deep inside him. As much as he loved his beautiful, warm-seeming wife, her frigidity had just about ruined him. And with Carole around, so hot, so willing, so freely available, he could very well .have gone off the deep end for her. A fantastic woman.
At noon Cap called from the Sheriff's office; he'd been going over their checks to prepare for court in several cases. "There's one with a long series of checks," he told John. "Some paymaster-guy named Dorell-has been payroll padding. For years, it seems. He makes out checks to guys who never worked for the firm at all. He'd keep them, endorse the fictitious names, and cash them. Looks like it'll go $75,000, at least. I'll be on this the rest of the afternoon. Anything new on the Bannister case?"
"Nothing. I'll call Suydan after lunch and see. what he says about me making a visit to our pigeon."
"Okay. You can reach me here, extension 29, if you need me for anything."
"Right, Cap. See you in the morning."
He was beginning to get hungry. About time to run across the street to Sam's for a dish of his beef-and-kidney pie.
He opened the lab door and started to cross the small entrance-waiting room. He stopped.
Carole sat there, in one of her nondescript gray suits and horn -rimmed glasses. She smiled diffidently, shyly. "I was downtown shopping, and wondered if you would mind taking your poor, starving step-mother-in-law to lunch?"
"An honor seldom bestowed on me," he said. It was just about impossible to realize that this demure-school-teacherish little blonde was the same sleek, sexually-adept woman who'd writhed and screamed, naked in his arms, almost out of her mind with passion and lust.
He took her, not to Sam's, but to the Paradise Room of the St. Gilliam Hotel. The maitre d', smiling professionally, found them a quiet table in a corner of the dark walnut room, behind the potted palms.
Carole said, "I really wanted your advice. A kind of legal matter. You know a lot about law, don't you, John?"
"I took two years of law school, preparing for my present work. Mostly criminal, but if it's something simple, maybe I can help. Or at least tell you where to get help."
"It's simple," she assured him. "At least I think so. I've got some shares of stock I want to sell. I'm so stupid about such things, I just don't know how to go about it." She rummaged in her purse and brought out a sheaf of folded bank note paper and handed it to him.
He opened it, and whistled silently. "Syrian-American Oil," he said. "Isn't this the company that got the concession, years ago, to drill along the coast of the Mediterranean?"
"And did very well. Their shares are listed at 55 now."
"Which makes this little bundle worth quite a few thousand dollars. I see from the date on it you've had it a long time; it's issued in your maiden name, as a matter-of-fact."
"Will that make it difficult to sell?"
"No. Your broker can handle it. If you don't have one, I'll call mine, Hank Simmons. He'll take care of this for you. But why have you suddenly decided to sell?"
"I decided I wanted the cash in the bank, where I could get it quickly if I wanted it." She tucked the stock back in her purse.. "Call your, man; I'll go see him this afternoon."
"Do you have any other stock you want to sell?"
"This is all I've ever owned. I've never bought a share in my life. This was a going-away gift from my man from Damascus."
"Oh, him-the guy with the extra wives."" He'd almost forgotten that wild story about her. being sold to him by the Frenchman. But the stock, was real enough. "He was pretty generous."
"He was loaded. I doubt if the stock cost him much. Probably part of some pay-off or, other, lie was supposed to be a pretty big wheel in the Midd ." East. But this wasn't all he gave me. There was" some jewelry, too. I sold it and bought clothes, The' kind of wardrobe I needed to meet men like Wal ter."
She laughed lightly, without humor. "Sexual depravity has its points, but every girl who ever breathed has this built-in craving for a real husband and home, and a complement of socially-acceptable children. There's not much future in a harem, especially when the wives hate and loathe you with unimaginable fury."
"I still have a little difficulty imagining this character going around in his tarboosh or bur-noose, or whatever those draperies are, with an assortment of veiled women," laughed John.
She took off her glasses and laid them beside her plate. "My dear, you're imagining up the wrong tree. The only thing foreign about his appeara was a well-trimmed beard and a rather dark complexion. He wore London tweeds and smoked a pipe, and spoke better English than most Americans."
"And the wives?"
"Ravishing women. One-his senior wife-had jet black hair, green eyes, and skin lighter than mine. And a figure that men drooled over. The other one was even more beautiful-a Circassian-from an area noted for their lovely women. She had soft brown hair with a touch of red in it, soft brown eyes, and a streak of cruelty in her that would make your blood run cold, if you ever knew."
"No veils?" .
"Of course not. Those broads had the most gorgeous Parisian clothes you've ever seen. They used to go to Paris on a shopping tour every year. Originals by the world's leading fashion designers. Even Kubek the chauffeur-that's what he was supposed to be, anyway-had his uniforms made in Paris. Oh no, this character had the best suites the finest hotels, and no one thought anything at all about a wealthy Middle Easterner traveling with his wife, his secretary, his chauffer-and his wife's maid. Meaning me."
"Whom he bought from this Frenchman."
"Exactly. With very little warning. He just told me one day he needed money, and would have to do something that pained him deeply, but it might turn out well for both of us. And that night he came back with Nazim and Kubek. Nazim looked at me and said $5000 was too much. My lover said he would see that I was truly magnificient, and ordered me to strip. I'd never been completely nude with any man except him, and I nearly died of shame with those other two staring at me like that. Nazim stared a long time. He poked me a bit with his cane. Finally he said to Kubek, 'Give him the money and bring the girl.' And that's how I happened to join the club."
"You didn't have to. You could have run away. He couldn't have held you."
"Perhaps not. But I had no money; not even a dime for a phone call. And practically no clothes. Besides, Nazim wasn't bad looking, and I was curious about the whole set-up. Though I did miss my Frenchman."
"And I suppose you haven't seen him since."
"As a matter-of-fact, I have-quite recently. He got in touch with me and I met him, and he wanted to go to bed with me. But I didn't. He'd gotten fat and ugly and I just couldn't get interested."
"Past lovers, they tell me, should stay in the past. They're often disappointing in later years.
How was Nazim as a lover?"
"Completely self-centered, extremely sensual, and spoiled beyond belief. Imagine a man who's had his pick of the most beautiful and experienced women from the time he was 10! Women whom, for love, money, ambition, or fear, would do anything at all for his pleasure. To give him a new thrill-which he always demanded-a woman had to really extend herself and her imagination. That was my assignment-to entertain him."
"Did you-successfully?"
"You might call it that. He had some terribly unusual ways of amusing himself with me. For instance, he decided I should learn some of the erotic dances of the Middle East, with a few twists and shakes from other parts of the world. My teacher was his number one wife, who, as I've said, hated me furiously. She knew her erotic dances, I'll give her that. He'd get some of his kicks by handing her a whip and telling her to give me a lesson, while he watched. The instant I made even the slighest mistake-"
Carole closed her eyes and shuddered, as if still feeling the lash on her bare body. "Well, if he was sufficiently amused and excited, he'd take me then. Or he might order her and I to make love. Or he'd bring in his other wife. And maybe Kubek. It got pretty involved after a while."
Despite himself, John was stirred. It was wrong, it was depraved, it was unbelievably wicked. But his imagination was stirred by the idea of one man with so much money and power that he could indulge his sexual impulses under any circumstances any way and any time he chose.
"How did you finally get away?"
"He had to go back to Europe. He couldn't take me; how do you get a sex-slave through customs, do you suppose? So he gave me some money, and the jewels, and the stock and said I'd been a very delightful diversion-for an American-and he turned me loose."
"But you were living with your parents when you met Walter."
"Of course. I went home. I'd been gone almost a year. I told them I'd been working at the Five and Ten in Cleveland, and living at the YWCA. They believed me. They had to; they were parents."
"They never even checked up?"
"They were afraid to; they preferred to believe my story." ."
"And Walter?"....
"Knew nothing. He may even have thought I was a virgin. Though he never asked-and I never told him. His wife had been killed not long before, as you know, and Rosemary was 13. The fact is, he married me more to provide a home for her, than because he wanted a woman for herself."
"Don't be bitter. Of course he wanted you for yourself."
"I'm beyond bitterness. Do you know that from the first, he was drinking every night? During the day, he was fine. Still is. But after dinner, after Rosemary had done her schoolwork and gone to bed, he'd start with his bottle. And when he'd finished the bottle, he'd fall into bed and sleep. And the few times he didn't, and made love to me instead, weren't awfully satisfactory. For either of us. Is used to be a pint; now it's almost double that."
"But you stuck it out all this time. You didn't have to. You could have left; found someone else."
"I felt I had responsibilities, John. I'd made a bargain; I owed it to Walter to do my best. And I'd undertaken the job of raising his child. I didn't do too bad a job with her. Besides, it's an effort to break up your home, when there isn't any outside influence, like another man, and you do have a comfortable life, charge accounts, your own car, few restrictions, and a certain amount of community standing. But lately, I've been feeling a little different about it all."
The waiter brought their check.
"How different?"
"That I've fulfilled my responsibilities; that anything I may have owed Walter or Rosemary is paid, and that now I owe myself something."
He nodded. "You always did seem to put everything else first. I wondered about that. Not only Walter and Rosemary, but all your community activities. Never being the front one, but sqmehow always doing the important work. Always in the background."
"Ther-apy. Substituting one kind of activity for another. If it exhausted me enough, I could sleep."
He should have known; he did the same thing himself. Though perhaps those grim days-and nights-were over now, with Rosemary suddenly thawing. He laid a bill on the table; Carole ross, and he followed.
"It's a lovely afternoon for shopping," she said. And as they walked out of the lobby into the sunshine, "How's your big case coming along?"
"There's a lot of work to do on it yet before we have the answers."
"John, if you don't mind me asking-what kind of a fee do you get on cases like that?"
"Well, this one's exceptional. With a fortune involved. We'd probably be justified in asking for $10,000. Maybe more."
"That doesn't seem like a great deal with so much money at stake. After all, the whole thing depends on your decision, doesn't it? If you say the will is forged, the heirs get an extra $2 million. If you say it's real, they lose it."
He shrugged. "That's the way it is."
"Well, you know your business best. John, thank you so much for the lunch-and for listening so indulgently to my girlish confessions."
He watched her walk away. And wondered for a fleeting moment if she'd been wearing that bra with the lace-edged openings.
And then he wondered how she'd known about the Bannister case. Probably from Rosemary; he didn't recall mentioning it to her. He didn't even recall discussing it in any detail with Rosemary....
But one thing he'd better do right away was get on the phone to Suydam. He hurried back to his office and placed the call.
"Bart Suydam here. Hello, Carmody; what's up?"
"Cap Emerson and I have been discussing this Bacalle fellow. I thought it might be instructive to get into his office on a reasonable pretext and just take a look around. Nothing that would embarrass the case-just a friendly visit."
"Maybe. What did you have in mind?"
John outlined his plan.
Suydam gruffed. "Can't do any harm. All right, come to Chicago and see me at my office. I'll have everything fixed up for you. Then you can go see Bacalle. We know he's in town, because we've had a 24-hour a day tail on him."
"How about bugs or a tap on his phone?"
"Of course not! You know as well as I that bugs and taps are illegal!"
John laughed to himself. "Okay, Mr. Suydam. See you at your office."
He returned to his work, but his thoughts were of Rosemary. Coming out of the shower last night. Into his arms. Sweet, loving, damply warm and so infinitely thrilling to his sense. He wanted to go home right then ... slip off her clothes to reveal her breath-taking beauty-
There was too much work demanding his immediate attention. He phoned the florist and ordered a dozen red roses sent to her at home. The woman he spoke to asked, "Would you like me to put a message on the card?"
"I would," he said. "But I doubt if you'd write it."
It was almost time to leave when an attorney he knew came in to discuss a case. They spent an hour going over the details.
He got away finally. But when he drove up to the house, there were no lights on. And his box of roses were unopened at the front door. He went, inside. There was a note on the kitchen table.
"Darling," it read, "I'm over at Carole's. Dad had a fall, and she's in a panic about possible internal injuries. We've sent for the doctor. Phone me when you get home."
He phoned and Rosemary answered. "How is he?" John asked. "Shouldn't I come over?"
"Oh, no," she said. "The doctor just left. Dad's all right. Not even bruised. But Carole's been almost hysterical. I don't understand that; she's usually so calm and competent about everything. I'd better stay here a while until she snaps out of it."
"Didn't the doctor give her a tranquillizer'""
"She has some, but she won't take any. She'll be all right in a while, but I don't want to leave her alone just yet."
"Blast it! I was looking forward to a quiet .evening by ourselves."
"So was I. But I can't leave Carole in the state she's in. And Dad's in a sort of shock. Listen, darling, there are pork chops in the refrigerator, and potato salad, and a chocolate mousse in the freezer. Terribly caloric, but awfully good. You go ahead and eat."
"What about you?"
"I'll have a bite over here."
He tried not to sound like a small boy cheated of a prized holiday. "All right, honey. If you need anything, or want me to do anything, give me a ring."
"Thanks, darling." She made a kissing sound over the phone. "I miss you too."
He broiled his chops and ate his dinner and looked at television.
At 11:30 the phone rang. It was Rosemary. Carole was still upset; she thought the doctor might have overlooked some injury; she was afraid if she went to sleep Walter might need her and she wouldn't know. "I promised to stay here tonight and we'd take him to a hospital in the morning if he didn't seem all right."
"But why should she-"
"You know how women are. Actually, I'm sure Dad's perfectly all right and there isn't a thing to worry about."
Her voice, he thought, sounded curiously strained. She was just tired, he told himself as he went back to the late news round-up before going to bed.
Maybe it had something to do with Carole's uncharacteristic panic. That might have upset Rosemary more than she would admit.
Lying there in the dark, strange patterns of thought seemed to be coiling and furling darkly in his mind. Vague, troublesome patterns. With here and there a gossamer-thin thread going nowhere, yet seeming to need union with other unrelated threads. Moving snakily of themselves, as if seeking still other threads that weren't there....
He was a long time getting to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next moring was Saturday, beautiful and sunny.
Instead of phoning Rosemary at Carole's, he started the car and drove over.
To his surprise, Walter was in the garden, in his shorts, dusting his begonias. He parked and walked over. "Hi, Walter. Feeling all right this morning?"
"Hello, John. Yes, just fine."
"Nothing broken, I suppose."
"No, no, nothing at all," he said, with all the heartiness of a man who didn't really know what he was talking about.
"Your fall, I mean."
"Oh yes; why, it wasn't anything. You know, another week and these begonias will be blooming. Beautiful color. All kinds."
John realized Walter had only the vaguest recollection, if any, of his tumble. He must have gotten drunk earlier than usual. "Girls inside?"
"Girls? Sure, they're inside. They're supposed to be getting breakfast. Taking enough time about it. They get to talking about clothes, or hairdos, or whatever it is women are aways gabbing about."
He went into the house. Walter, he thought, was finally beginning to show signs of his alcoholism. But a fifth a day! It was a wonder he'd kept up as long as he had. There was no one in the living room or kitchen. "Hello!" he called. "Anyone home?"
He started up the stairs-theirs was an older, two story house-when he heard a sound above. It was Carole, coming down. She wore a long white dressing gown pulled tightly around her hips, and her silvery blonde hair was in unaccustomed disarray. Her face lighted up. "Oh! John! How nice that you came over. You're just in time for breakfast."
"Sounds great. Rosemary around?"
"In my bedroom." She turned and trotted up flinging the words over her shoulder, "I'll call her."
He went downstairs. Carole joined him a moment later. "She'll be right down. She's putting on her face. The pancake batter's in the refrigerator, and it'll take only a few minutes to scramble the eggs. You like wheat toast, don't you?"
"That's fine."
"You're sure there isn't something else you'd like?" She opened the dressing robe quickly, revealing herself completely nude. "Such as...?"
He said in a low voice, "Don't forget we're surrounded."
She laughed, and re-wrapped the robe around her. "You sure left me in awful condition last night! I was so hot my zipper melted. I even tried to get Walter interested. He was so socked, he tried to get away from me and stumbled. He hit the floor hard, and scared hell out of me. That's when I phoned Rosemary. How did you make out? Did you get some from her?"
He flushed angrily. "Let's leave Rosemary out of this!"
She smiled. "Anything you want, lover."
His impulse was to slap her smiling face; replace the mockery with a hurt, petulant look. He didn't. And, as he told himself later, probably wouldn't have. Even if Rosemary hadn't appeared just then.
"Good morning, John." He noticed, to his surprise, that she was unusually pale. And her eyes were slightly reddened, as if she hadn't slept well.
"Hello, honey. Did you have a bad night?"
He thought she gave a slight start. "Bad night? Oh, not too bad. I was wakeful, keeping an ear out for any sound from Dad's room. But he slept like a baby."
"That's usually the way. The cause of it all gets a good night's sleep, and everyone else lies awake and worries. Listen, I hear a rumor of hot cakes. Why don't you two get cracking? I'm starved."
Within a few minutes breakfast was on the table. Walter came in and made bumbling, mealtime noises in his genial way. Carole was bright and cheerful during the meal; Walter the typical, good-natured high-level executive. Rosemary was a little quiet; though of course she had never been very self-assertive around her father and stepmother.
The hot cakes were just right, the bacon lean and crisp, the orange-juice fresh and cold, the scrambled eggs light and fluffy. A woman of many talents, that Carole. His anger at her faded away. Rosemary was adequate in the kitchen; probably better than most: But the truth was, she couldn't touch Carole as a homemaker. He refused to let his mind wander to any other areas of competence.
"Rosemary says you're off to Chicago Sunday night," Carole said as they toyed with their third cups of coffee.
John nodded. "Sunday night or Monday morning. I can catch the 7:25 and still get in with time to spare. I don't have a definite appointment."
Walter's intellect seemed to catch on and operate for a moment. "How long will you be gone, John?"
"Hard to say. I don't know just when I'll bs able to catch the man I want to see. Couple of days, I should think. At least."
"Ought to be getting out there myself one of these days," Walter said. "Our firm, just bought a germanium-refining plant there. Completely automated. Three technicians run the whole thing. Diversification, you know."
Carole shook her head admiringly. "Walter is so clever. You can't begin to imagine all the scientific and administrative things he has to cope with."
Walter beamed.
John and Rosemary left soon after that.
She exclaimed over the roses. He had put them in a vase in the living room. "They're completely lovely, John!"
"Because you're lovely."
She had put her face for a moment against the cool fragrance of the flowers, and he didn't see her expression. When she turned again to face him, he was aware again of her drawn, tired look.
"Listen," he said. "You're beat. Why don't you take a couple of aspirin to relax, and hit the sack for a few hours? I've got to take the car in anyway for a lube job and a look at the spark plugs, and pick up my gray suit at the cleaners. Anything you want from town?"
"I shopped yesterday. I think I'll take your advice, Doctor. Beddy-bye sounds good." She yawned in anticipation, and tried a weak joke: "Fathers shouldn't be allowed!"
"Easy there; the dad you knock may be your own."
She smiled and went to their bedroom.
The spark plugs had gotten pretty fouled; the carburator needed adjustment. And the points were worn enough to need replacement. It was four that afternoon before he got home again. Rosemary was still sleeping, he discovered as he peered in quietly.
But she must have heard a sound, for she stirred and murmured, "John?"
"Right. Honey, you must really have been pooped; you've slept a good six hours." He moved in and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked as cozy and soft as a kitten, there under the blankets. He drew them back gently. "I wish you'd burn all your nightgowns," he said. "They offend your beauty."
She looked-not exactly displeased-but uncomfortable. "That's a rather sweet thing to say, John. But ... I think I'll keep them."
"If I can peel one off you occasionally."
"Well-maybe occasionally."
"Like how about now?" He reached over and exposed a generous area of her shoulder.
"Please, not now."
"When this hour is gone, it'll never return. What we don't do now, we can never do. Something else, maybe, but not this. That's philosophy, I think."
"I suppose you're right, but I'm still tired."
"Remember last night?"
"What you, you mean?"
Her startled reaction threw him for a moment. "I didn't mean last night, of course. The night before last. When we celebrated your home-coming. Appropriately, I might say."
She flushed and pulled the nightgown yoke back over her shoulder. Her eyelids lowered. "Of course I remember. If you're referring to the indecent way you seduced me...."
"Okay, now I'll do it in a decent way. If there is any."
"You ought to see a doctor. You're much too amorous."
"It's your fault. You make me want you seven times a day." He leaned over, seeking her mouth. "Constantly. You know that, don't you?"
"You make me feel awful when you talk like that"'
"You should feel good. Proud."
"Well, I don't. Not always. Sometimes, maybe." She was beginning to get angry. "Why do you keep after me when you know I don't want you to?"
He too felt the sting of anger. "Because if I waited until you just happened to be in the mood, it would take so long we'd both regain our virginity."
"If you weren't so coarse and pushy, maybe I would be in the mood more often."
"Okay." He rose. No use continuing the quarrel. No use reminding her that even when she was in the mood, she was a lousy lay. And then he was immediately sorry. After all, she couldn't help it. She did try. "Forget it, baby."
He left her burrowing wide-eyed in the bedclothes. Damn it, it wasn't exactly being disloyal; he sure wished she could be a little more like Carole ... that bit with the dressing robe today; that hot little flurry the other night, just before they were interrupted ... there was a woman who could give a man plenty to think about. And do....
On Sunday, Rosemary seemed a lot more amiable. More of her bright, warm self. She'd been real bushed, he thought; no wonder she was a lit-le sharp. He decided it might be worth while to be around tonight; he could go to Chicago in the morning.
His desire for her had grown unbearably. Maybe it was the prospect of complete fulfillment almost in their grasp. Or maybe it was those uninhibited little sessions with Carole. There was nothing like some to make a man want a lot more.
He felt he had it made when she herself suggested brandies in the living room after dinner. It was something they seldom indulged in; cocktails before, perhaps, but a period of luxurious indolence after their evening meal just wasn't their usual custom.
She was wearing a discreet enough dress, simple and form-fitting, and not at all extreme-but to John, it was extremely provocative. She sat on the chesterfield, long, lovely legs propped up on the leather ottoman in front of her. She sipped her brandy and talked about the roses she would plant in the patio next spring. He came over and sat on the ottoman near her.
"Brandy causes a strange impulse in me," he said. "I have an uncontrollable compulsion to admire your instep." He lifted and kissed the graceful arch of her foot. "Much like kissing the hand of a particularly beautiful woman," he said.
"And even more gallant. You are a romantic, John."
He kissed her leg a bit higher, and she made no protest. Then carefully and gently, he worked his way still higher, along the inner side of her sweetly curving calf. "John! What are you doing?"
"Merely saluting the loveliness of your foot."
"That's a hell of a lot more than my foot you've got there!"
"Why, so it is," he said in mock surprise. "I must have gotten lost."
"Not past the knee, baby! That's off the map."
He was already past, and his mouth had found bare flesh above her nylons. She began to twist a little and whisper small protests. "John, that's taking unfair advantage...."
The telephone shrilled. He cursed. "Let it ring," he growled.
"It might be important!" She pulled away, jumped up and answered it. Fragments of conversation came to him. "Had to change my regular appointment to 10:30 ... Geraldine is fine, but I think Evelyn does mine too severely, and then she has to spray it practically stiff ... yes, the lemon rinse is fine...." and so on for another 20 minutes of woman-talk.
Rosemary returned finally. "That was Carole. She canceled her appointment with the hairdresser for tomorrow."
"That so? Big deal. And now she was out of the mood. Damn the telephone company, anyway. "Let's go to bed. I've got to get up early tomorrow."
"You go to bed if you want. I want to watch television for a while."
"There's a lot more can go on right here than on television," he murmured, but if she heard, she gave no sign.
He went into the bedroom; rummaged around packing his bag and laying out his suit for the morning. After half an hour, he still heard the glassy-eyed monster crunching its decibels in the living room. He undressed and slid into bed.
He had thought he might cat-nap until Rosemary came to bed, but he was too wakeful. It wasn't until 11:30 that the hall door eased open carefully and she slipped in.
"Hi," he said. "What did you see worth sitting up for?"
"I thought you were asleep. It was an old old movie-Frederick March doing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And Miriam Hopkins. Mr. Hyde was a gas."
"I'll bet. Hey, do you want to be a doll and get me another small nip of that brandy? And have one yourself?"
"Drinking in bed now?" She shrugged, left, and returned in a few moments with a glass. "I don't want any myself."
"Well, cheers."
While she was showering, he changed over into her bed. She came out in a while, in her white terrycloth. "Hey, what's this, as if I couldn't guess?"
"I spilled a couple of drops of brandy, and thought you might take me in until they dried."
"Good try, but I'm tired. I've got a headache from the television. I think the tube needs adjustment or something."
"Take an aspirin and you'll be okay. And just think how much good a little nocturnal calesthen-ics will do you."
"I'll manage without them. Go on, John, don't be difficult. Get back in your own bed."
"Later."
"All right, I'll sleep in your bed. Brantly-soaked though it may be."
She slipped off the robe and he saw that she was wearing her peach-colored nightgown that added warmth and color to her delicate ivory skin. His urge to take her supple young body in his arms grew stronger. As she got into bed, he swung out and over her. "If you're brave enough to face the brandy, I am too."
He threw off the hampering bedclothes and pulled down the straps of her gown. "Baby, those two mouthfuls look lovelier and juicier every time I see them."
"Let me go, John. You're making my headache worse."
"Your headache's not down here." He managed to keep his hold on one, despite her efforts to push him away. With his free hand he pulled up the hem of her gown and gripped the bare flesh of her thigh. She struggled. "Aw, honey, I'm leaving tomorrow-be gone maybe a week. That's too long."
"I don't think it is," she flared suddenly. "I'm sick and tired of hearing about your needs."
The unexpected attack took him completely by surprise. "Sick and tired? Is that how you feel a-bout me? Have I ever complained? Ever been anything but patient with you? How many guys do you think would be as patient?"
"You don't have to complain in words. Not out loud. Going around looking grim-as if you were suffering beyond anyone's ability to even imagine! Trying to make me feel like some kind of louse! No, you don't complain! Not much!"
"And even if I did-which I don't admit-don't you think I have a right? What kind of a marriage is this? Once a year, maybe, I get you, and it's like raping a vestal virgin! You 'freeze'. But you'll be noble and endure me anyway. Big deal!"
"I despise you!"
"Listen!" The words blurted out without conscious thought. "You got another guy on the side? Is that why you can't stand me?"
"How dare you! How dare you say a thing like that!"
"Well, you sure as hell been acting like it!" Not that he believed it; it was one of those things said in anger.
She flung herself over, and face against the pillow, began to cry. Wailing, like a child. "Go away! Let me alone! Damn it, let me alone!"
Cold settled on him, like a dark, icy fog drifting in and closing around and into and through him.
"All right," he said. "I'll do just that. I'll let you alone. Just like you asked for."
He got up and began to dress. Rosemary continued her crying. He put on his jacket and picked up the suitcase he'd already packed.
Rosemary sat up. Her crying stopped. "John, where are you going?"
He was too angry, too rigid, too internally-pent to reply. He moved to the door.
"John!" There was a note of alarm in her voice now. "When will you be back?"
He paused, and groped for control, and was finally able to speak. His voice sounded cracked and empty.
"I don't know when," he said. "Or if-"
He drove to the airport. There were no through planes to Chicago any more that night. But if he didn't mind going a couple of hundred miles out of his way, he could get a DC-3 feeder line into St. Louis, and make a through connection there. He didn't mind. Anything to get moving; to get away from St. Gilliam. And Rosemary. At least until his rage settled and he could think again.
He would have a 30 minute wait before the DC-3 came in. With the restlessness of a cat, he paced the waiting room. It was almost 1:00 A.M. and there were only two people there. A man and a woman. The man, a fat beatnik type, was slouched down, asleep.
The woman was pasty-faced and plain. She was young, though; her slacks were tight and her sweater tighter, and as she read her magazine, she seemed to constantly be changing her position to show her big, jutting breasts to the best advantage. She was studiously unaware of John.
And he, at first, was genuinely unaware of her. But his brooding stare kept coming back to those bouncy-looking breasts. And shifting, restless body. The curious thought came to him that if he were merely to catch her eye and gesture with his head, she would pick up her bag, leave the sleeping man, and come with him.
He glanced at the clock. Five minutes more. He walked to the phone and deposited a dime. He dialed Carole's house.
Anywhere, any time, any way, she'd said....
Carole answered.
"Carole? John. I'll be at the Morrison in Chicago. Meet me there."
He heard her soft intake of breath. "All right," she said.
CHAPTER NINE
Suydam was fat around the waist with heavy jowls and chin and small blue eyes set in dark sockets. A big man. with iron gray hair, and an impression of power. And a bully, John thought, when he thought he could get away with it.
Suydam cleared his throat. He cleared his throat every time he started to speak-as if waiting for his audience to be quiet and listen.
"We know that Mrs. Bannister had a woman friend-also somewhat elderly, name of Emmaline Wilson. We know Mrs. Wilson never met Bacalle, nor did her son, Armand, a man who'd be about your age now. Armand is actually living and working in Buffalo, New York. He's a supervisor in the gas and electric company there. Here's a dossier on him; I advise you to study and memorize it."
John took the papers, nodding. He might not like Suydam, but one thing you could say for him, he was thorough. "It's not likely Bacalle would have heard anything but generalities about the boy, and even less likely that he'd remember. But I'll have this information cold before I go in."
"Grumph. Yes. Well, here's the stock. It's in a corporation called Old Homestead Truck and Trailer Manufacturing. Small company, mostl. family-owned, that was pretty active in manufacturing back in the 1920's. Now follow me carefully, because this may be important in case you're asked any questions. Along about 1927, Old Homestead got smart. They sold their plant, lock, stock and barrel to Durant Motors. No merger, no stock. Cash. They took the money and bought farm land in California. On the outskirts of San Jose, which has since expanded about five times and the farming land is now very valuable homes and shopping centers. The name is now Old Homestead Properties, but of course the change of name doesn't affect the value of this bundle of stock we have here."
"How much is this stock worth?"
"About twenty-seven hundred dollars.. You can't put an exact price on over-the-counter stuff that's hardly ever traded. But that's a fair estimate. Now as you'll see, we arranged-never mind how-to have it back-dated five years, and endorsed to Armand Wilson. That's you. It was a present from your mother Emmaline, who bought it back in 1931. From the name, and the age, and the fact they haven't issued dividends, you think it might be worthless."
"And if Bacalle says it's worthless, we'll have a good idea he's a crook. On the other hand-"
"Grumph. We don't care if he's a crook or the most honest man in the world. We want a sample of his handwriting that you can base an analysis on.
"I'll do what I can. Now here's what I want you to do-" and John proceeded to outline his primary plan of action to the lawyer.
He sat in his room at the hotel and waited. One-thirty, two o'clock. The phone rang.
"Suydam here. The secretary was damned late getting out to lunch. Anyway, the private eye just phoned that she went out. He says as a general thing, she never gets back in under an hour. More nearly an hour and a half."
"I'll get right on it." He phoned Bacalle's number. "Yes?" A deep, foreign-sounding voice. "Mr. Bacalle?"
"Speaking."
"This is Armand Wilson. I've never met you, but my mother, Emmaline Wilson, was a great friend of Mrs. Bannister's."
"Ah, yes. I have heard Mrs. Bannister speak often of your mother. And sometimes of you. What can I do for you, Mr. Wilson?"
"Well, I knew you were Mrs. Bannister's financial counsellor, and I haven't got anything like her kind of money, but I thought you could let me know about some stock I have. Could I drop over and see you?"
Fifteen minutes later he sat in Bacalle's office.
The man himself was fat, bald, dark complected. An obscene beast, John thought; the face sensual. But there was a saving grace; Bacalle's dark eyes flashed with humor and intelligence. He spoke with a trace of accent.
"This stock, Mr. Wilson, that you think so worthless. I have good news for you. It is not worthless at all. True, it is no longer listed on the exchanges under the name of Old Homestead Truck. It appears to have undergone, how do you say, metamorphosis-change. Now the company is in real estate. It grows in value. But it does not like to make the dividends. And no one can force this, because almost all stock is family owned, and all are rich."
"Can you give me an idea of what it's worth?"
Bacalle shrugged. "That is hard to say as of this moment. I would have to check with various brokers. But at a guess, at least $2500. Maybe a little more. Observe me, Mr. Wilson, I say that is a guess, and I could be off as much as three or four hundred dollars either way."
"You think I should keep it?"
Again the shrug. "Why not? You are a young man. This stock will grow in value. It has already doubled and redoubled. It can redouble again. In twenty years, perhaps."
John said, "A couple of thousand would do me more good now than twice as much in twenty years. How do I go about selling it?"
"Go to any stock broker. He will sell it for you."
John tried to look uncomfortable. "It sounds awfully involved to me. I hate to get messed up with brokers. Mr. Bacalle, would you be interested in buying this stock? You say its worth at least $2500. I'd be glad to get $2000 for it, if I could have the money right away."
Bacalle glanced at him keenly. "You need money so badly? A broker would need only a few days at most to sell this for you. Why throw away $500 for so little time?"
John hung his head. "The fact is, Mr. Bacalle, I'm pretty desperate. I've gotten behind with our bills. The bank is foreclosing on our home, and I need the money to save it."
"Ah. Well then, you have a problem. I wish to be scrupulous, Mr. Wilson. I wish you to understand all the facts. I do not know the exact value of this. It may be as high as $3,000. Certainly no more. And certainly no less than, possibly, $2200. Yet you wish to sell to me for $2,000, to save a few days time. On that basis, I will give you $2,000 cash immediately. Agreed?"
"Agreed. But it doesn't have to be cash. Your check is all right." A check would have his handwriting.
Bacalle looked at him shrewdly. "No doubt, Mr. Wilson." He went to an adjoining room; John heard the squeak of a heavy steel door. A moment later Bacalle came back, stuffing bills into an envelope. "This way you have the money in your hands without delay, and I do not have to bother with bookkeeping entries."
John cursed silently; he had been counting on a check to provide the handwriting he needed. His mind raced.
"That's okay. But you see, I'm not much used to business matters like this. I'd like a receipt for the stock."
Bacalle chuckled. "Of business, you are now learning fast. And the first lesson is, that when two businessmen make a deal that is private between themselves, and each makes benefit, the payment is with cash in small bills-and one does not necessarily keep records. For many reasons. Is it understood?"
Checkmated neatly, John could only nod agreement. "Yeah. Well, thanks, Mr. Bacalle."
The fat man smiled and bowed slightly, almost mockingly. "It has been my pleasure, Mr. Wilson, to have been of some small service to you."
John walked down the street a block before turning into a building lobby and finding a telephone. He dialed Suydam's office. "I blew it," he told the lawyer. "That guy is just too damned smart." He explained what happened.
"You think he suspected why you were there?"
"Hard to say. I doubt it. I think he's just naturally cagey. And it cost you $700 to find out."
Suydam grumphed. "The estate can afford it. What do you suggest now?"
"What do you suggest now?"
"If only he'd given you a check-"
"Wait a minute! I've got an idea. He's got to go to the bank sometime to make a deposit or make a draw. Or send his secretary. Have your man tail him, find out which bank, and get the bank to let your investigator make photostats of the checks going through."
"You've got something there, Carmody. Stand by until we do it. Stay at that hotel until I call you. We might even arrange for you to go right into the bank to make the examination; I may have influence enough to swing it."
"Okay. If I go out at all, I'll leave word at the desk where I can be reached. Otherwise I'll have meals sent in. Along with half a dozen books. I'll catch up on my reading."
Suydam wasn't amused. He was not the amiable type. "All right, Carmody, do whatever you want, only just be around when I need you."
It was almost four thirty. Past banking hours. No chance of a call any more today. He could return to his hotel, take a nap, shower, have dinner, and maybe take in a movie. Maybe. Unless-
His body. began to throb. He hailed a cab. "The Morrison."
Even outside in the hall, before he put his key into the lock of his room, he could sense the electric atmosphere.
She was wearing the same light, provocative perfume she'd worn before, but a different costume. If you could call it that.
Carole was laying on the bed, arms folded a-bove her head. One leg bent upward slightly at the knee; the other straight. Blonde hair tumbled loose on the pillow. She had on black mesh stockings and red satin shoes. A red satin band circled the stocking tops at her thighs, and she wore a similar red satin band around her throat. Between the bands was only gleaming, curving flesh.
She said nothing aloud; nor did he. Only her eyes, smiling erotically, promising, beseeching. Angelic face; incredibly wanton body.
His lip curled as he dropped his jacket where he stood, and followed it quickly with his shirt and the rest of his clothes. Her eyes widened and she released a small, excited moan.
A demon, a dark cloud, was filling John's brain. A few conscious thoughts bubbled and floated in the seething lava of his mind. Anything, any way, she'd promised. Well, tonight she'd keep that promise. In spades. He grinned; it was not a pleasant grin. What he would do with her tonight would be recorded in Hell for eternity!
She moved one mesh-clad leg slowly, enticingly, and reached up toward him. He took her wrist and pulled her to her feet. She stood a little apart from him, displaying the practiced flexibility of her amazing body. His grin widened as he watched her flutter rump muscles gently but rapidly, roll, and thrust her hips in eager anticipation of passion's-sting. She laid the palm of her hand on his chest, and moved it slowly down, along his belly, to close finally and hold him.
She shivered ecstatically. "You scare me."
"You stare too soon."
"Now you're scaring me even more." But her hand's on his body remained firm. She sighed as he gripped her full, pointed breasts, and began manipulating them. "Oh, John!" The words came out like a sigh. "You make me feel so defenselessly feminine. And I love it."
He did more things to her that she loved. Her taut body touched and strained and writhed against him. Her hands caressed and squeezed the muscles of his back and legs. Her loose mouth moved on his; he tongued and nibbled and heard her breath intake sharply. Her head rolled back, eyes half closed. He explored soft, moist flesh. He felt the tremor that ran through her at his touch.
She was glassy-eyed and panting. "Lover, let's get on the bed."
He squeezed her low and intimately; she uttered a small scream. "Forget the bed." He told her his idea. She laughed excitedly.
"It sounds deliriously indecent. I like it." She flung her arms around him once more and kissed him wildly. "I couldn't resist you if I wanted to. I'll do anything for you, lover. Anything! And love doing it."
He stretched out on the rug, face up.
Carole stood over him, feet wide apart, and he wrapped a hand around each of her ankles. Uncontrollable laughter bubbled deep in her throat. While he looked up at her, face hot and flushed with desire, she began a slow, weaving, bucking, twisting descent. Her disciplined stomach and abdominal muscles quivered. Lower and lower....
They were within an inch of touching when she rose a little, teasingly. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, knees spread, provoking him.
He twisted his grip against her ankles, causing her to change her position, moving forward onto her knees. He could reach her hips now, and he held them still while he thrust upward.
Her cry was of shocked delight. She moved her body down, sighing ecstatically. He started her hips moving again and she took up the rhythm enthusiastically, sighing, moaning, gasping with each movement. Ripples of keen sensation were flowing through him. He thrust strongly upwards and saw how her belly muscles convulsed with the voluptuous sensation he created. She was far gone, the sweet, innocent face contorted with a wild excess of passion, head rolling, mouth loose and gasping. Her body glistened with sweat as she strained and twisted.
He pulled her forward, as the pressures of lust increased. Their swollen, excited tissues could stand no more! Waves of pleasure engulfed them, lifted them, shook their bodies and muscles and bones and kept them at a screaming, straining, thrashing peak for long, wild moments.
And finally-almost mercifully, their reaction was so intense-the waves subsided. Gradually, lowering them once more to the sands of the earth, washing them once more, and still once more, and then departing to chuckle among themselves enjoying a delicious secret.
Their sweat-slick bodies were still finally. Carole still lay exhausted on his chest. Her fingers still worked in his hair, as if trying to find one more wave and bring it back.
She sighed. "Happy?"
"For the moment."
She understood his meaning at once. "For as long as you want. Tonight, tomorrow, forever...."
"There's only now. This moment. All the rest is either the dead past or the unborn tomorrow."
"The past may be dead, but we can make of the tomorrows anything we want. I've been thinking-"
"Don't think," he said harshly. "It goes nowhere."
"Then feel! You're a strong, unusually virile man. There aren't many women like me who can match your virility. Feel how it would be if I were always with you, to anticipate and satisfy your every desire. To excite and inflame you, and gladly yield to your raging lust." She cupped and kissed his mouth. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You do rage so, John. The way your eyes burn when you look at me-as if you can't wait another moment to ravish me."
She was right; passion for passion and lust for lust, they were a pair. "How do you think we'd live? We couldn't stay in St. Gilliam; I work in a profession almost as conservative as the ministry. I'd get no more cases. And if we went away, it'll be no better. It would take years to re-establish somewhere else. And document examination is all I know. I wouldn't even make a good grocery clerk."
She wriggled her naked body comfortably against his and sighed contentedly. "How much did you say you were getting as a fee in that will case of yours?"
"About ten thousand," he said, "but of course half belongs to Cap-"
"Peanuts," Carole said. "If you're thinking-"
She laughed. "What I'm thinking will keep. I'm hungry-and no wonder! Look at the time!"
They untangled and rose from the rug, stretching cramped muscles. "Going out takes too long," John said. "I'll have room service send in dinner."
He phoned the order down. Carole said, "I'd better put on a robe."
"No." He gripped her arm hard. She winced but made no effort to pull away. "Go into the bathroom when the waiter comes. I don't want to see or think about a stitch on you for the rest of the night. I won't have your beauty diluted. "
"Ah, John, that compliment alone would make me your adoring slave forever!"
He pulled her to him. They were still locked together when the knock came at the door. She scampered to the bathroom with a little cry, creamy buttocks gleaming above her mesh-stockinged, splendid legs.
John grinned, slipped on his own robe and went to the door.
"Come in," he told the waiter.
They devoured the food, and with their eyes, devoured each other. She paused in the middle of her roast beef, rare. "You know something? Kinsey didn't interview the right women. He says they don't get much thrill from seeing a nude man. Well, I've got news for him. I do!"
He laughed. "I think he was talking about pictures. Not the live, breathing article."
"Pictures, or live. I want a picture of you, John. Nude and lusting for me. I'd carry it in my bra, and the feel of it there would make me hot."
"I'd prefer to make you hot in person."
"So would I. But between times."
"No pictures, no letters, no notes. One small slip, Carole, and we're ruined. You know that."
She smiled her secret smile. "Your picture would be perfectly safe in my bra, darling. No one'll ever get in it but you."
"Just the same-"
"You could have one of me, too. Very lewd."
"Forget it." He leaned over and fastened his mouth on one breast. Her fork thudded to the floor. Her hands caressed his neck and back, digging harder as he tongued the hardening nipple. He let her go finally.
She laughed shakily. "Let's end every argument like that."
They finished their meal and moved away from the table to sip their Benedictines. John trickled some down his body and Carole, laughing, followed the trail with her mouth. It took quite a while. Then he did the same with her drink, tasting liquor and warm flesh eager for his lips.
John's desire had been mounting-a dark and somber passion. Here was a woman, beautiful, passionate, eager, and very, very skilled in the most secret and obscure depravities. Any pleasure, however bizzare, that a woman's body was capable of giving, was his for a snap of his fingers. The thought thundered and reverberated in his mind. Deep inside him, born of his long frustration but heavily obscured by his strong sense of duty and loyalty, evil, twisted desires were crawling and clawing.
"Now," he said, "I want something special of you."
Her delicately beautiful face became alive with anticipation. She made a mock-salaam. "Adored master, master of my body and soul, your most fantastic dream shall become reality for you."
"Tell me some of the fantastic dreams available."
She came into his arms and moved one of his hands down her body. "Handle me there, while I tell you," she whispered. "It drives me crazy."
He handled her while she gasped and shivered in his arms. "Do you," she whispered at last, "dream of some special position?" I brought photographs of them all in my bag."
"We'll look at them later. What else?"
"Perhaps the Grecian practice?"
"Go on." He probed, making her wriggle.
"Sometimes a man likes his woman spread-eagled and tied to a bed or against a wall. I've brought ropes."
"Go on."
Her voice was low and thick with lust. "Maybe you'd take pleasure in beating me. For some, it's terribly exciting."
"For you?"
"Oh yes. I've brought a whip."
"What else?"
"Men have strange desires; would you like me to beat you?"
"No."
"I hate to leave your arms, but there's something I want to show you." She went to the dressing table, opened a drawer, and came back with a rubber object in her hands. "You know what this is; there's a certain resemblance. Maybe you'd like to watch me use it-or maybe you'd like to use it on me. I'd like that better." She moved back into his arms. "Keep on with what you were doing," she said. "Or, I could use it on you."
"We might play with it sometime," he said.
She rubbed her cheek on his. "Would you care to swing? I know where to call to get a girl-very lovely. Or a man."
"Let's keep this party private."
"Choose, lover. Any way you want me."
"There's one way you haven't mentioned. Maybe you haven't heard about it. Not many have."
She stared at him for a long minute. He thought she paled a little. "You're right," she said. "There's one way I haven't mentioned. It was invented by fiends in hell."
"That's what I want."
The color flooded back into her face, and she said nothing. He thought she would refuse. He was wrong.
Smiling crookedly, and gripping one breast firmly in each hand, she gave herself to the unspeakable rites he had demanded....
Her muffled screams and cries, her moans of pain and her sighs of pleasure continued until almost dawn. The sheets were damp with the sweat of their frantic, straining bodies.
John's senses came back from the blackness that had come over him just after their last orgiastic climax. Carole was face down, and motionless across the bed. One leg still wore its black mesh stocking; the other was bare. He couldn't remember stripping it off. The thought came to him that she might have died. He laid a hand on her thigh; it felt damply cool. He moved it higher and jabbed a finger into softer flesh. She moaned and moved.
He pulled the covers over them both, and fell off into a deep and dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
The telephone shrilled, awakening him. Cursing, he reached for the instrument and noticed from the travel alarm that it was already noon.
"Yes?"
"Carmody? Suydam here. Grumph. Well, your hunch paid off. We found the bank. Farmers and Cattleman's National. Trailed the girl. Now you stay there. I'll phone you the moment I've arranged for inspection. Stay right where you are."
John, one hand on Carole's firm, round haunch said earnestly, "I will, Mr. Suydam." He dropped the phone back on the cradle.
Carole turned to him and opened one eye cautiously. "I half expected to see some kind of horned, hairy monster in bed with me this morning. My God, John-what a night! You had me absolutely berserk. I must have passed out there toward the end. I don't know what ever got into me!"
"Yes you do."
"All right; I do. And what may get into me again before very long."
He turned and bore down avidly on her already swollen mouth. He flung back the bedclothes and devoured once more her bruised, aching body. She began to whimper. Expertly, each incited the other.
Even while his passion rose, one level of his mind thought coolly, apart from the storm of emotion, apart from the call of her avid, flailing body, her frenzied clawing and caressing, her hot mouthing and biting, the incoherent cries and words of passion beaten out of her by the savage lust of her fantastic need. Here was a woman who could and would and had satisfied his deepest cravings.
A woman who, in the last few hours, had gone with him into Hell and come back and was ready to go with him again, wherever he might choose to take her. No phony modesty, no neurotic waverings, no screwball notions about "morality" and what was "respectable" and what wasn't ... as if there was some governing board of angels to say this kind of intercourse is permissible, but that kind isn't....
She was pulling and tugging at him now, laughing, gasping, pleading. "Now, John; please ... , don't torment me any longer ... you're driving me insane, lover ... oh please ... now, now, now!"
He felt a heady wave of mastery. He was in full control, and he reveled in his power. Why did he have to give her up? She was his, completely, for the asking. No need even to ask; only to take....
Quiet and professional though his life had been, he was actually a grossly virile, strongly physical man. He knew, without egotism, that he could handle this mad little sexpot, keep her pushing to meet his demands, and using all her amazing artistry to keep him fired with lust and desire. She had said-and it was true-they were a pair. Why not? Carole was everything any man could ask.
"John, you brute, you fiend, how can you torture me so?"
"All right, baby." He grinned crookedly. "Here it is."
She yelped ecstatically at his movement. Her muscles convulsed and her hips twitched with delicious sensation. "Oh, it's Heaven ... oh, how wonderful...!"
Without warning, he pulled back, away from her.
Her cry was hoarse with passion. "Come back! Oh, John! Oh, lover! Come back! Please! I'll do anything, anything. Beat me, crush me, devour me-but come back"
He came back and stayed with her as molten fire flowed and burned into their bones. Three times her body twisted and arched as if stretched by wires; three times the thick, choking cries were torn from her depths before they both lay still. Still except for their harsh, labored breathing....
And within moments new desires, more diabolical than he had yet satisfied, were forming in his mind. But he would have to wait. He would have to take her away someplace, far away, where her cries and shrieks wouldn't be heard. Or would be ignored. For what he had in mind, even these solid old wall weren't soundproof enough....
"You're fantastic," she murmured. "For what you do to me, I'd crawl on my knees over broken glass across a continent."
"You're an indecent, lecherous, lustful woman," he said. "And I intend to keep you that way."
She smiled, and raised her leg to caress his cheek with her inner thigh. "And I'll give you every cooperation," she said.
He phoned Suydam late that afternoon. "Any luck on the inspection of Bacalle's checks?"
"It's hardly a matter of luck, Carmody. I happen to know the president of that bank personally, and as soon as I can contact him, we're in. At the moment, he's on his way back from Washington, and is expected first thing tomorrow morning. Stick around."
John, one hand playing over Carole's bare warm flank said, "It'll be a pleasure, Mr. Suydam."
She touched a nipple to his lips as he hung up. "That means another night."
"Get dressed," he said. "We'll get out of here, and have dinner somewhere."
"I'd just as soon have something sent in."
"The air will do us good."
"I'll be ready in five minutes."
He dressed quickly-he'd shaved earlier-and went down to the lobby for a newspaper. His thoughts turned to the problem of Bacalle. Strange there should be so little of the man's personal history. Nothing wrong with the little they had found. A woman or two or three along the line, but even then, the last "Mrs. Bacalle," if she wasn't for real, was over three years ago. Whatever he'd been doing lately must be one-night appearances.
He passed the bank of phone booths, and thought of calling Rosemary, and then thought, to hell with it. She knew where he was; let her call him....
He returned to the room. Carole was ready. Her blonde hair was tastefully arranged in soft waves. Three strands of pearls circuled the ivory-white column of her throat. She wore an emerald-green satin cocktail dress, demure enough at neck and hem, but just tight enough to suggest the voluptuousness of her figure. With the short mink stole flung over one shoulder, she looked exactly like the typical young executive's pretty little wife going to an evening of cocktails, dinner and dancing.
"How do I look?" she asked.
"You look great," he said. "In clothes, too."
"The dress is new."
"Beautiful."
"There's nothing at all under it. Except a garter belt.' She looked up at him from under lowered lashes. "I wanted you to have something to think about during dinner."
"You're getting to me," he admitted as they left the room and walked toward the elevator.
She smiled demurely-the perfect executive's wife, and said in a low voice, "I've been working hard enough at it."
"Don't stop." The note of urgency surprised even him. "Don't let down."
"Never," she said. "Not as long as we can be together."
When the doorman had called a cab, and they were driving cross town he asked, "How long will that be? You know the problem."
"There's an answer," she said. "A perfectly splendid answer. You don't know it yet. But I do."-
"Keep talking."
"There are little islands," she said dreamily, "islands in the Bahamas. Whole strings of them. Isolated, but not really far out by boat or small plane. You can rent one, with a house. And servants if you like. Or lease or buy. With no one else around. John, we could have one, and lie' naked in the sun and you'd find out what a woman like me can really do for her man. With no one around for a dozen miles."
"You make it sound irresistible." He voiced the words thickly; there was a powerful pulse throbbing in his veins at the thought she'd invoked. "But at the moment, it's slightly impractical. That would cost more money than ever either of us are likely to have."
The cab stopped. John paid the driver and they went inside. It was a quietly elegant bar he'd remembered from an earlier visit, and he ordered a daquiri for Carole and scotch on the rocks for himself.
"Money," she said, sipping her drink, "isn't the problem,"
"What is?"
"You. If you want me, you can have me. There are no conditions, no terms. You don't have to make any promises, or sign any contracts, or swear undying love. I don't want social prestige, or fancy clothes, or a marriage license." Her voice dropped lower and she leaned toward him. "I just want you. You and your terrible, consuming lust!"
"But what?" he demanded. "Why isn't money the problem? Why is it me?"
She smiled at him over her glass, and lifted one shoulder, and he remembered that under that demure green satin she was stark naked. "The money," he persisted. "I've got to do something for it, don't I? Isn't that what you're saying?"
"Do something? My sexy, handsome, heart-stopping darling, you do absolutely nothing. That's the literal truth. You needn't do a single thing-and you'll have all the money we'll ever need for the rest of our long, lecherous lives."
"There's got to be more."
"There's no more. But I'm not ready to tell you the simple details just yet. Soon. Wait. The time is coming. Meanwhile, may I have another daquiri?"
And that was all he could get out of her.
They dined, and he marveled at her aplomb; her cool, princess-like bearing, her demure laughter and gentle, careful manners. If he hadn't had such personal, intimate knowledge, he'd never have believed what a hellion she was in bed.
It was different when they danced.
She moved graceful, lightly; their cheeks touched only occasionally. He held her hand and one arm was around her loosely and discreetly. But that was enough.
He whispered, "This is no occupation for a red-blooded man and woman. If we're going to dance, let's do it so we can hold each other properly."
Her glance was hot and humid. "I was just going to suggest the same thing myself."
"Then let's get back to the hotel."
She drew a deep sigh and he could see, for an instant, the faint impression of her rising nipples outlined against the emerald-green satin. "Lover, you're so devastatingly physical," she murmured as they turned to go.
The taxi trip back seemed to take forever. He was strongly aroused again, to the point of pain. Carole was relaxed against the seat, seemingly at ease and composed. But her eyes, seeking his, betrayed her. She was aching, too.
They stopped at the desk. There was no mail. The clerk, obsequious, and eying Carole appreciatively, said, "I hope you had a nice dinner, Mrs. Carmody."
"Thank you; it was very nice."
The elevators were jammed. "Blasted convention," John muttered. "Always slow up the service."
"Don't be so impatient, dear," she cooed, wife-like. "I'm sure the management is doing the best it can."
They crowded into an elevator, finally, and made it to their door. John's hand wasn't quite steady as he opened it.
As he re-locked it from the inside, he heard the faint zzizzing of a zipper.
He turned to Carole. Her face was white and strained; her eyes dark and burning with passion. Her gleaming shoulders had already twisted free of the green satin.
"Hurry," she gasped. "Get me out of this damned dress!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Through the long, passion-wracked hours of the night, John and Carole used almost every device she'd brought in her traveling case. A wierd Arabian instrument, two centuries old, as dangerous as it was erotic, occupied them for several hours. And there was an outrageous little tool from Vienna that had made John laugh uproariously, and toward morning had given them both prolonged and curious pleasure.
They were interrupted briefly only twice. A drunk had knocked on the door, thinking he'd located another party. And at 3:00 A.M. the assistant manager phoned to say sounds like people in pain had been heard, and he wondered if everything was all right, or could he summon assistance? John assured him everything was all right. After that he pressed his hand across her mouth at the moments of her outbursts. She hated that. "I want to yell," she protested. "You turn me on so strong, I've got to scream and twist and go crazy."
"Maybe we do need an island," he said.
"You know it," she said, her wet, red mouth returning to his.
The phone rang at 10:00 A.M, just as he was thinking about breakfast. "That'll be that blasted Suydam," he growled as he reached for the instrument.
It wasn't Suydam; it was Rosemary. "I was worried about you," Rosemary said. "You didn't phone or anything. Are you all right?"
"Sure," he said. "You?"
"All right, I guess. I miss you, John. Will you be home soon?"
"It's hard to say." He glanced at Carole, laughing at him silently, and doing a provocative bump and grind routine. "This case has me tied up. There are a lot of problems. I'm waiting to hear from the attorney about it now."
"John?"
"Yes, Rosemary?"
"About-my problem. Darling. I'm going to work harder than ever at it. It's just that it's more complicated than you think. Even Dr. Hammersmith doesn't know what I'm facing. Not all of it. Please, John, be patient a while longer; I'll be the kind of woman you want. You'll see."
"Sure, You'll be fine." Someday. Whenever that was. Another year, another ten years? Never? Forget what he had here in this room, this unbelievable ecstasy, for Rosemary's someday, maybe? Maybe some men could. Maybe he could....
Carole had picked up the Viennese tool and was pantomiming its use, smiling sensuously and invitingly. And even now, he was as insatiable as she.
Rosemary continued, "Let me know when you're coming home, won't you? I want to plan a real celebration."
"Okay."
"I've been having dinner with Dad these evenings. Carole's back with her mother for a few days; she's been ailing. Nothing serious, I guess."
He glanced at Carole, doing anything but nursing an ailing mother, and doing it extremely provocatively. "Well, I guess she'll be home before your Dad misses her too much."
A moment or two more of talk, and they rang off.
He rose, the thunder beginning again in his veins. She turned her back to him as he approached, and her back too was an eye-filling spectacle.
"All right," she said in response to his unasked question. "I don't owe her any more than I owe any other woman who can't keep her man happy between her legs. If you want to know, it's the other way around. I devoted my life to her for seven years. And did a good job, too. And to a man who only married me to have a mother for her. Who only wanted me around for that, and to see that he had an early dinner so he could get to his bottle right away. And to keep his house and impress his business associates and friends. But not because he wanted a woman with a little fire in her guts."
"You've got a point."
"I kept my obligations. Raised his daughter, kept his home. And in case you're wondering, never another man. Don't I owe something to myself now V While I'm still young? Haven't I a right to a man who can pleasure me? To give myself to him-for what he gives me? This is my body. Mine! I can keep it, or sell it, or give it away!" She paused for a moment, breathless.
Then she turned back to John. A small smile lifted her lips. "Well, I chose to give my body to you. And man, what you've been doing with it!"
He would have started doing more, but the phone rang again. "Yes?"
"Grummph. Well, it's all set." There was a note of triumph in Suydam's voice. "Come on down to the bank right away and we'll get this wrapped up."
"I'll be right there. Meet you in the lobby."
"Deal."
John hung up. "I've got to go out. You catch a nap for yourself and think about the wild things we'll do when I get back."
"They'll have to be wild if we haven't done them already."
"There's nothing wrong with repeating once in a while."
She threw herself into his arms and covered his face and chest with passionate kisses. "Ah, what a lover you are! What rapture you've given me! You've made me your slave for life!"
He detached her and started dressing. She watched every move. "I might go out for a bit to do a little shopping."
"All right," he said. "I've no idea when I'll be back, but if there's any big delay I'll phone."
Suydam was in the lobby of the bank, as he promised. He had a smug, satisfied look on his jowly face. "Now," he said. "We'll see his writing, and get this damned thing wrapped up."
"Let's hope he wrote the body of the checks as well as the signatures too. More signatures alone will help, but they aren't enough."
"He did the whole things," Suydam said confidently. "A man doesn't type a check and then take it out of the machine and sign it. Not for just a few. A whole lot of them, maybe. But we know Bacalle only writes a few every month."
An official came from the executive offices. "Will you come this way, gentlemen?"
They followed him. Suydam shook hands with a thin, elderly man with a worried look. "Here, gentlemen, are the checks you wanted to see. You understand this is very irregular, and will keep it extremely confidential?"
Suydam reassured him. "Mr. Bixby, I very much appreciate your confidence."
Bixby handed him an envelope; he handed it to John.
John opened it, and stared at the top check. Then he riffled quickly through the other half dozen.
Tiny beads of sweat stood out on Suydam's forehead. "Well?" he demanded. "You've got 'em now. Are you going to be able to give us an opinion on the authenticity?"
Baffled, John shook his head. "Unfortunately," he said, "these checks weren't signed by Louis Bacalle."
"What? They're on his account; they must be signed by him!"
"They're signed by Marguerite Dumont, whom I understand is his secretary."
"That's right." Suydam snapped his fingers. "The signature card! He must have signed a signature card when he opened the account!"
Bixby said, "I'll have it brought in."
But the signature card was of no help either. The account had merely been opened in the name of Louis Bacalle and Associates by Marguerite.
"Do you allow accounts to be opened that way as a usual practice?" Suydam demanded.
"It's not usual, but we allow it. In fact, we could hardly stop it," the worried-looking man said.
"Many people have businesses in names other than their own-the Smith Company might in fact be owned by Mr. Jones. He can sign the checks, or authorize anyone else to do so. So a firm called Louis Bacalle & Associates can be signed for by Mr. Bacalle himself, if there is such a person, or anyone who opens an account in that name." Suydam swore loud and thoroughly. "Well, Carmody, what do we do now?"
"I don't know. If your investigators haven't been able to come up with any authenticated handwriting, I don't know how I can."
"Well, is there some other way?" John shrugged. "Is there anything in your files I haven't seen? Any letters, any deeds, any kind of written junk at all?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Let's go back to my office and take a look."
There was quite a little material, as Suydam had been Mrs. Bannister's attorney during her life. A legal matter involving a lease of a building. The old lady's signature appeared there; Bacalle wasn't involved at all. Some letters from her to Suydam regarding the advisability of buying certain lake-, side property. All handwritten on her regular printed letterhead.
There was other correspondence over a period of time. "About two years ago," John said, "her stationary changed. She must have run out and reordered. See here; this was an Eaton 25% rag; correspondence after that was Western King 25% rag. Same quality of paper, but different makers. Also the printing of her name here at the top is slightly different."
"Does that help us?"
"Not by itself. It's just one fact. Let's keep looking."
There was another item, and for a moment he thought he had something. It was a typed list of securities Bacalle had recommended at one time to his client, dated at least a year ago. "You've checked that list with other securities counsellors and brokers; they say it's pretty good."
"What about this envelope, addressed to Louis Bacalle?"
"We got that from Louis himself. It was the envelope he received the will in. About a month before she died. She knew she was dying-the doctors confirm that. So she wrote the will naming him as half beneficiary, and mailed it to him with a note telling him to keep it safely. You've seen photostats of the note."
"Yes. Now let me see the original. And also the original will." When Suydam brought the documents, John examined them carefully, gently opening the folds to see which way they creased.
"Anything?"
"No. I just wanted to make sure the will and the letter actually came in this envelope. This is monarch size; rather unusual for an envelope. Ordinary size paper has to be folded peculiarly to fit. Here, however, the folds seem to be consistent. Of course I could subject this to microscopic and ultraviolet examination to study the paper fibers in more detail. But I don't think we'd find any more."
"The envelope." Suydam said, "is consistent with other envelopes in Mrs. Bannister's home. We checked that. The paper too."
"You've been very methodical all through this, Mr. Suydam." He studied further, commiting the appearance of the envelope to memory, as he did all significant documents in a case. "Western King, rag content, matching the stationery. Her name and address printed in dark blue ink, upper left hand corner. Bacalle's name and address handwritten, ink. A commemorative stamp, and a postmark showing mailing from St. Gilliam, with the date and other portions of the postmark smudged and indecipherable....Tell me, Mr. Suydam-"
The phone buzzed. Suydam snatched it from it's cradle, his face reddening. "Didn't I tell you I was busy and-oh. Put him on, then. Yes; what is it? Yes ... he did, did he? You let him ... you don't know where he went? Blast it, what kind of an investigator are you anyway? Yes ... oh. Well, keep in touch and let me know when he gets back."
He dropped the phone back. "Bacalle slipped out of his office a while ago. There's a way through the basement of the building, and up through the back alley. We didn't cover it because it would have taken another man, and we didn't think it worth while. Now what do you make of that?"
"He's wise that you're watching him, for one thing. And also he wanted to meet someone or do something he didn't want you to know about. Now that's very, very interesting."
"But it doesn't help us."
"Maybe not. The crime of forgery is usually a solitary crime. You don't call in other people to help you. You do it yourself. By tracing, if you're an amateur. Or by using an authentic signature on a blank piece of paper. Or by altering a genuine document-like chemically eradicating someone else's name, and inserting your own. This is easy to detect-the chemical leaves a residue. And it's seldom possible to match the inks. Also, if the document is typed, there's probably a carbon copy a-round somewhere.
"If Bacalle wrote the will-and I still stress that if very strongly,-he did it by practicing her writing and duplicating it in longhand. If he did, it was a good job. He practiced for weeks. He even had to think like she did; that kind of aristocratic, formal style she has. Conservative and restrained. Which he could do. This Bacalle is an extremely shrewd man. Intelligent, imaginative. And with two million dollars at stake, he's not one to take chances."
"All right, all right. Can you give me a yes or no answer to one thing: did Mrs. Bannister write that will?"
"Mr. Suydam, there's more work to be done. But I'll tell you this much on the basis of my examination this far. She did not write it."
"Aha!"
"But that's not going to help in your suit. You're a lawyer; I'm not. But I've sat through a lot of will cases. You've got to pin them down. If you go to trial on this, you'll call me to testify. You'll ask if its my opinion whether Mrs. Bannister wrote the will. I'll say she didn't. Fine. Then what do you do? Ask who did write it? I'd have to say I didn't know. Ask if Bacalle wrote it? Again I don't know. If I have to give those answers, you're dead with the jury. On the other hand, if you don't ask who wrote it, the other side will pick it up, and you'll be in worse trouble. They're not stupid. They'll argue, that if this will was forged, somebody forged it-and why don't we say the claimant did? Because we can't! Because-they'll say-we know he didn't. How do you answer that?"
Suydam pounded a heavy fist against his desk. "We can't, damn it. You're right, Carmody. We've got to prove he did it, or that he's got a shady past, or that he lied somewhere along the line."
John rose. "I'll develop what we have, and try to think of something. Meanwhile, I suggest you keep your investigators on him. I'd sure like to know what he was up to when he slipped out of that office building today ... not that it could possibly have any connection with the forgery. And yet...."
"One thing," Suydam said. "Is it possible someone else forged the will, setting Bacalle up as the heir?"
"It's possible. But very improbable. He has no wife, no close friends who would benefit ... wait a minute. What about his secretary? Marguerite Du-mont, the girl who signs his checks? You think they may have something going?"
Suydam shook his head. "The investigators never saw them together after working hours. He went home every night to his apartment, she to hers."
"It might not mean a thing, but I'll check her signatures against the will. It's possible she might have done the job for him."
"All right. Let me know as soon as you have any idea."
He walked. Crossing busy intersections, glancing unseeingly into store windows. Carole. Her beauty, her avid sensuality, her amazing proficiency, her complete and utter surrender to him ... this was something not one man in a thousand ever found. He had her. For tonight. Possibly for tomorrow. But after that, what? If they went through the breaking-up-family bit, there'd be a scandal that would ruin him professionally. If they ran off, he couldn't support her decently. If they stayed and carried on a discreet affair-that was no good. Getting to her only occasionally, secretively, always in danger of discovery. No good at all. His need for her now was gargantuan and still growing. Despite two frenzied nights and most of two days, he was still insatiable. He ached for her right now.
That island she had mentioned; the money that could be his. He'd been inclined to think she was just blowing off steam. But she wasn't the type. He had the feeling she knew exactly what she was talking about, and when she got ready, she'd lay out a complete and logical plan. But what it might be, what it might entail, he had no idea. All he understood was that a lot of money could be his for doing nothing. And that was as improbable a deal as he'd ever heard in his life!
Then there was Rosemary. What about her? He'd been in love with her; he wasn't sure if he was now. And he was rather sure he wouldn't be if Carole weren't in the picture and they went on as they were now. He no longer believed her problem, as she called it, would ever improve.
Maybe with another man, it would. Maybe there was something about him, about his personality, about his technique that turned her off. And though their relationship had always seemed to be excellent, maybe there was some subtle interplay between her and Carole. Actually, it seemed to him sometimes that Rosemary was a bit subdued and quiet when the step-mother was around. Not always. Sometimes. Probably didn't mean anything-but if he and Carole were both out of her life, it might be a good thing for her.
Or bad. How the hell did he know?
He stopped and bought a bottle of perfume for Carol. She'd want him to apply it, he knew. And not just behind her ears. The idea started a pleasurable train of thoughts.
He returned to the hotel. Carole wasn't there. She'd said she might go shopping, and it was only four o'clock. He knew women didn't really get into the swing of shopping until about 10 minutes of six, when the stores were scheduled to close.
He took his brief case and instrument case, and started to work on the question of Marguerite Dumont's signatures.
It was almost seven before Carole came in.
She was flushed and smiling, wearing a simple black afternoon dress and green wool jacket, and carrying a few small packages. "Lingerie," she said. "The most provocative in Chicago."
"I like your thinking." He moved in to kiss her.
She stopped him. "From now on, I want no casual kisses, ever. None of those husband-and-wife pecks. When you kiss me, start undressing me. Every time."
He grinned, and moved toward her.
She stopped him again. "We've got some business to talk over. Shall we get to it now-or later?"
"Will it keep?"
"Yes."
"Then later."
She closed her eyes and lifted smiling lips to his. They were warm and moist and mobile, and her tongue started tiny hot ripples coursing through his nerves. He slipped off her jacket and found the zipper at the back of her dress. It fell easily to her hips; he slipped it down so it fell to her feet. She stepped out of it, shivering at his touch on her bare flesh. The black lace garter-belt was next; he rolled her nylons down and off with her shoes.
"It's such a thrill," she murmured, "the feel of my clothes coming off in your hands."
He slid the sheer panties down slowly, following with his kisses down the smoothly tapered columns of her legs.
She unhooked the bra herself, and he pulled it off her shoulders, releasing the full, mobile mounds of her breasts. She squealed happily as his lips closed over them, first one, then the other. "That's the way to kiss me," she murmured.
Within a few moments she was tearing at his clothes. "Now I want to kiss you," she murmured harshly. It was, he had to agree, a much superior method of welcoming a lover home.
He set a chair in front of the full length mirror on the closet door. He sat down, and she straddled his lap, feet on the floor, facing the mirror.
Slowly he forced her back toward him. She rose slightly, adjusting to him and lowering her hips against him. The sensation electrified her. Her body arched, and her abdominal muscles flexed convulsively. Her head rolled back over his shoulder while his hands played with her breasts and all over her quivering, naked body.
"Look at me, John! I look so wanton, so abandoned! I am, too. I feel it. A shameless, lusting broad." She rotated her hips. "Ooh! I didn't know my belly twitched like that when you-aah! You did it again. Oh! Yes, lover; yes ... like that...."
Her gasps and cries increased while her phrases became more incoherent. Every movement of her body was intimately exposed to the view of both of them; the sight stimulated them to more intense efforts.
They dallied for half an hour before the final paroxym, when he gripped her breasts tightly and with back and gluteal muscles set her to twisting and grinding in a fury of pent-up passion. His hand over her mouth stopped most of her outcry, but his own deep groan was unrestricted. Their movements continued, more slowly, for long moments after the blinding climax had subsided. She leaned back against him, sighing with contentment, murmuring endearments as his hands still roamed unhampered all over her body, thighs and legs. "I don't think any woman in the world has ever been as thoroughly ravished as I these past three days," she said. "Or has enjoyed it more."
His laugh came from deep inside him. "You deserved it. Everything you got. Or will get. You uncaged the abominable beast in me, and you'll never get him back in his cage again. You ought to be frightened."
She swung one leg over his, and turned on his lap to slip her arms around his waist. "I am. But fascinated, too. There is a beast in you. Dangerous. Brutal. But oh, what a temptation to tease him, and rouse him, until he's roaring wild-and I'm helpless and unable to escape." Her voice dropped. "I don't want to escape...."
"Maybe you won't. Maybe I won't let you. Maybe I can't."
Her lips, half-opened, were near his; her eyes, half-closed, shone with inner fire. "Of course you can't. You're no average clod. You know that if you took a thousand women to bed, you'd never find another sex-partner like me."
He grinned. "I don't question that for a moment. You're fantastic."
She pressed her lips to his. "You'll never know how fantastic I can really be until we get away somewhere. Far away. With all the time in the world. And no limits on what we can do."
"All right; tell me how."
"First let me get indecently comfortable." She straddled him again, this time facing him. "I miss the mirror, but this feel pretty lascivious, too."
"It is. Talk."
"You remember I told you about my falling into the hands of a French sex-fiend?"
"To whom I should feel indebted."
"You should. I'd probably be just another fair-to-average lay if it hadn't been for him."
"So let's get over the girlish confessions."
"I didn't tell you his name, did I?"
"Not that I recall."
"You'd recall if I had."
"Someone I know?"
"In a manner of speaking. His name, my fabulous hunk of virility, was Louis Bacalle."
"What?"
"Louis Bacalle, but that's no reason for taking your hand off my breast."
"Excuse me, but it was something of a shock."
"That's better; you know, men miss something, not having breasts to be fondled. Though they would look awfully funny."
"We'll just leave the distribution of anatomy the way it is, and get on with Louis. This is really something that needs explaining."
"It's really very simple. I told you he looked me up not too long ago, and he'd gotten fat and ugly. Well, Louis is more than a lecher, he's a very smart man. He didn't look me up just on the chance of getting into my panties again. He knew I knew you, and that you were one of the top three authorities in North America on questioned documents. I didn't know that myself, until he told me."
"Sounds like he'd been doing his homework, all right."
"Something at which he was very thorough,' she said demurely, and then whispered,' "but for real fire and passion, he couldn't hold a candle to you."
"Had he already forged the will when you met him?"
"He was only practicing. He'd studied art when he was young, and recently he studied everything published on forgery, and its detection. Everything in the American Journal of Criminology, and Albert Osborn and others on document detection. That man didn't miss a thing."
"I found that out pretty fast!"
"You know when you re angry, your mouth gets a perfectly fascinating little droop at one side? Promise to get angry at me sometime, will you, John?"
"I've got a funny feeling that's going to be soon."
"No, darling, that funny feeling is just your arousal again."
"So what did this crook tell you?"
"Oh, all the little things he did to make sure there'd be no slip-up. Like getting the right kind of paper from her home. And getting a lot of samples of her handwriting, not just one. And the kind of pen and ink Mrs. Bannister always used. And checking each word he intended to use to make sure it wasn't her habit to misspell any of them. That was pretty smart, wasn't it, John?"
"Professional, all right."
"He went even further than that, darling. He made sure there were no specimens of his own handwriting around that you could get to compare with the writing of the Bannister will."
"I figured he was too inconspicuous to be innocent."
She wriggled her belly against him. "Exactly. I saw him again just after Mrs. Bannister died and the forgery had been done. He'd just learned you had been brought into the case. Or were going to be-I don't think even you knew it then. It seems Suydam had a sweet but man-hungry little secretary and Louis got to her ... Anyway, that got him worrying. He knew if you were in the case against him, he was in trouble."
He gripped her warm arms savagely. "How much is he offering?"
She twisted with pain, but an odd little smile played over her lips. "You're hurting me, lover."
"I'll hurt you a lot more if you don't answer me." He squeezed harder; the cords of her neck stood out as her head arched back. "John! Please! I was going to tell you."
He let her go. She rubbed her arms where angry red blotches already showed on the white flesh. "You don't realize how terribly strong you are."
"How much?"
"Half a million dollars."
"Half a million?"
"Two hundred and fifty thousand for you; two hundred and fifty thousand for me. Do you realize how much that is, John? Do you realize what we could do with it?"
He couldn't find words. That there'd be a bribe offered, he took for granted. But half a million dollars! More than he could earn in a lifetime....
Carole's lips were close to his ear. Her body moved against his seductively. Promising a still incompletely explored treasure chest of fleshy pleasures. "John, he told me we could invest that money in American and foreign securities and have an income every year of $30,000-without spending a dime of our principal."
His voice was so thick as to be unrecognizable. "I know that."
"We really could have that fsland, John. And live in luxury. Anything we wanted. I'd entertain you in ways you haven't even imagined. I'd even bring you fresh young girls, sometimes, for variety. And train them myself for you."
He sweated, licking his dry lips. "I can't perjure myself."
"Baby, you don't have to. Just stop where you are. He knows where that is. He knows you looked at his bank checks today-and what you found."
"How do you know he knows that?"
She laughed delightedly. "I had cocktails with him this afternoon. Right after he slipped by the investigator that'd been watching him."
"The sneaky son of a bitch! And of course the girl in Suydam's office has been tipping him off to every move!"
"Right. Incidentally, don't bother your head about dating her. Louis says she looks cute, but strictly no talent." She gave him a talented wiggle for emphasis.
"If they go to trial, I'd have to testify the old lady's will was a phony."
"He knows that. But he also knows you've got to prove he forged it.-and right now, you can't."
"If he's offering that kind of money, there's something somewhere he knows about-something he's afraid I'll turn up."
"Maybe."
"What guarantee have you he'll pay anything when he gets the two million?"
"He'll pay. Because, darling, I happen to have a letter he wrote me some mbnths ago. In his very own handwriting. A page and a half. Mostly obscene. With that letter, you could prove he was the forger, couldn't you?"
"Yes. You could do that any time. Even after the probate was completed, and he had the money."
"That's what I thought. Do most men have this hairy a chest?"
A cold calmness had taken the place of his sweating anguish. "Did Louis remember about the letter-or did you bring it up?"
She busied herself nibbling at the hollow of his throat for a moment before replying. "It's possible I mentioned it first."
"You're incredible."
"A half million is an awful lot of money."
"They might not go to trial." He was trying to think calmly and rationally. It was all so easy ... it shouldn't be that easy. Yet it was-and his keenly-probing mind could find no flaw. "They might settle-give Louis half what he seems entitled to, just to get rid of him."
She brushed his lips with hers. "I thought of that. Any settlement down to a million, we still get our half. Anything less than a million, we get one third. We'll still have our island."
"It's wrong."
"Is it really? Maybe it's illegal. What we've been doing for three days is illegal. But is it wrong? Some rotten, no-good relatives get less money than they expected. But they're still getting a fortune.
And the man who built the fortune gets what he really deserves. We get a beautiful, sexy cut in it."
"It's still wrong. Bacalle was paid for his services." But the argument sounded weak, even to him.
"You don't have to decide right now. Think about it later. Forget Bacalle for now. Forget everything for now."
Voice sharp with strain, he said, "Make me."
She sighed deeply as his hand slid down her body to grip her haunches and move her closer to him. "My beautiful, thrilling, virile lover, nothing could give me more intense pleasure."
With a confidently voluptuous smile, she began the awakening of his body. Her knowing hands and mouth drew response from every sensitive nerve. With her superb beauty, her infinite artistry and her bizzare devices, she reached deep inside him, his need for her shivering inside his very bones.
He stirred strongly, and she redoubled her efforts, lashing him and herself to inhuman peaks of frenzy. Technique, tenderness, restraint forgotten. Faces contorted. The features of devils in hell.
The storm-forces of the primeval male and female roaring together in darkness and fury to find and ravish each other.
He knew only that he had dropped with her, tightly entangled, to the floor. In the blinding, shattering jungle of passion, he heard only their cries and groans, and those were of animals, trapped and in despair.
He had never fastened more savagely, more cruelly to her flesh; she had never surrendered herself more completely, more wantonly....
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was cool that noon, but John Carmody sweated as he walked along Randolph Street and struggled with his conscience.
True, he had done all he could do for Suydam. He could turn in a perfectly honest report and the attorney would know his case was lost, and probably settle with Bacalle. He didn't have to lie; he didn't have to swear falsely. Carole was right a-bout that. He tried to convince himself under those circumstances, the money from Bacalle wasn't a bribe, but a gift-a gratuity.
Was there something about the case he'd overlooked? Did Bacalle's case have a weakness that he hadn't yet fathomed? He reviewed each fact and facet carefully in his mind. No. Everything tested out.
Of course if he could get his hands on the letter Bacalle had written Carole, he could break it wide open. But in the first place, she had it in a safe deposit box, and in the second, it was strictly her business. He had no right to demand it of her. Not that she'd give it to him anyway.
The temptation was fantastic. A half million dollars-and Carole. Beautiful, accomplished in every facet of sex, not merely willing, but eager. With'lusts, tastes, and capacities to match his own. Almost.
His lip twisted slightly; around midnight she'd gotten all she could stand. They'd been on their feet, and he'd been using the antique Arabian in-circlet. The impact on her had been devastating. Her shadow-circled eyes were glazed and staring. Her mouth opened but no sound came. Not even with the violent tremor that shook her body and contorted her face.
Her head sunk forward, and slowly she began to slip toward the rug. Her finger-nails drew long scratches down his back as she dropped to her knees, still clutching him.
He lifted her and put her into bed. She stirred and sighed. A faint smile flickered. She whispered, "I guess I forgot to take my vitamins today."
She'd slept, curling up in his arms, until morning.
Well, it was a jackpot anyone would sell his soul for. And the price to him was much, much less. He had only to go back to the hotel, tell Carole it was all right, and in a month or two the money and the girl would be his.
He started to walk back, hardly noticing the shops and stores he passed. A restaurant, a travel agency, a coin and stamp shop....
Stamps!
The idea came to him with a profound shock. He had checked paper, ink, optical refraction, fibers, everything else. But not the stamp. Hell, who ever checks stamps? Nobody. It was just something he hadn't done. Because there wasn't one chance in a million that particular angle would develop into anything.
He'd better forget it.
Everyone else would. And if he made a move in that direction, the whole beautiful prize could vanish just like that.
But now he would never be sure. His corruption, he realized suddenly, would be complete. Now he would be taking money knowing he was holding back a piece of information-no matter how trivial. Well, what did it matter? No one would ever know.
But he would know.
Know that his professional integrity was eroded and rotten. His personal integrity was something else. All right, he'd gratified his passions with another man's wife. He'd betrayed his own wife. He'd destroyed a relationship, whatever it might have been, between a step-mother and child. And he had violated so many sections of the Penal Code in that hotel room that he'd go to jail for several life-times if they ever found out.
How much further could corruption go?
Tired suddenly, he returned to the hotel.
Carole was still in bed. She opened her eyes sleepily. "I must have dozed off again after you left," she said. "I'm sore! Do you want to see where you bruised me?"
"No." Even the thought of her naked, supple body started the slow fires burning in him; he had to keep his mind clear; he had to enforce his decision intelligently.
"Later, then. When you're bruising me again. Always mark me, John, so that when you're not a-round I can touch them and feel them and remember how you put them there. Do you think of me, John, when you're away-of what we do to each other?"
"There's something I've got to know," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "What would you do-I mean really do to be with me all th time?"
She smiled sensuously. "Cheat, steal, lie!"
"Work? Do without?" The smile faded a little, "Without what?"
"Without a half million dollars."
"Don't be a fool, John,"
"I could scrape up a few thousand cash. We could go South, into Mexico. Live there. Maybe could teach at one of their universities. Science Criminology. We could get by."
"I'm getting by now. I wouldn't call it living. It takes real money to live."
"We'd have enough. And each other. As we've proved in the past few days, that's a hell of a lot
"It's the future I'm thinking of."
"I could pull back these covers and give you reminder of the present."
"Not now. I want to think."
"Don't. You can think too much. I did. Let m just do what I must, and then we'll pick up and get out of here."
"Just what have you found out that's changing your mind?"
"My mind was never really made up. And I haven't found anything yet. There's just a chance-a very slight chance-that I can prove Louis forged that will."
"Can't you forget it? A very slight chance-why take it? Take me!" She flung back the covers, exposing herself as she'd been last night. "Take me, John!"
"I've got to do this. To be able to live with myself." His eyes roamed her avidly. "I want you. To satisfy everything in my guts, I've got to have you."
"Not without the money."
"The price has become too high."
"I'm not going to give up everything and go to Mexico and an uncertain future with you. Ten years ago I might have. Not now. Which leaves me only two alternatives." She rose and began to walk around the room.
The beauty of her walk, the movement of her body added to his agony. "What alternatives?"
She turned to him, breasts trembling. "If you win; if Louis loses, I'll go back to St. Gilliam and Walter-poor dear Mother is better now-and pick up where I left off. I won't like it-but I can make do." She laughed a little, peculiarly. "Yes, there are some compensations in St. Gilliam."
An odd chill touched him. "Like what?"
She hugged herself, smiling. "Among them, knowing you're right near by, burning and aching and hungering for me. For what only I can give you. And once in a while, darling, once in a great while-to keep you that way-I'll give you some."
"Maybe." She turned to the mirror and began a minute examination of her body. "Then maybe I won't keep you waiting quite so long. It'll depend on my mood."
"That's if Louis loses. What if I'm wrong-and he wins?"
"If Louis wins?" She picked up a brush and began brushing her hair. "If Louis wins, he'll have two million dollars. In that case, I'll take Louis. He wants me, you know."
"Louis? Fat? Ugly? Old?"
"Not too old. And with all that money, I can learn to overlook his fatness and ugliness. Don't forget, he's no amateur lover. He taught me most of what I know."
"He taught you well, I'll say that for him."
"He told me yesterday, that of the hundreds of girls he's had, I was by far the best. Oh yes, Louis can be very charming and very exciting. Even now."
"Two million dollars," John said bitterly, "carries a lot of charm and excitement."
She laid down the brush and walked over to where he stood, and looked into his eyes. "Just the same, I'd rather have you. I'll settle for Louis if I have to, or for Walter if I must-but it's you I really want in my arms every morning and every night."
"Then let's go away."
"Only with the money."
"I can't."
"Then we've got to break it up."
"I know that."
"But before we do-" He reached for her, caught her around the waist.
"No! My mind's made up, John."
"So's mine. But that needn't keep us from one more bounce on the springs."
She fought him furiously. Laughing, he crushed her resistance, and with a sob she surrendered to his maleness and his driving need. They took a long time.
She was still whimpering and gasping in the afterglow when he left her and picked up the telephone.
"Mr. Suydam? I may have something. I'll be right over."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He stopped at the public library on his way to Suydam's office and looked up a reference.
Then he went to see the lawyer.
"Get your secretary out of here for a half hour, and don't let her get a smell of what we're talking about," he said. Suydam's hairy eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he sent the girl on an errand to City Hall.
"I want the date of Mrs. Bannister's death," John said.
Without looking at his file, Suydam responded, "April 20, this year."
"What was the date that Bacalle got the will through the mail?"
"Two weeks before she died, April 6th.
"How do you know?"
"He said so."
"Is he pinned down to that date?
"In his petition for letters of administration, he swore under oath that was the date."
"That'll help, but we might be able to do better."
"Such as?"
"Take his deposition. I assume the procedure in your local courts is much the same as everywhere else."
"If there are differences, they're only slight. We can bring a person involved in a lawsuit into a special hearing before the trial. And in the presence of a commissioner, we swear him to tell the truth, and then question him on any points that are pertinent to the case. The questions and answers are taken down by a reporter and transcribed."
"And after they're transcribed, the person questioned may check to see if the transcription is accurate?"
"That's right. So what's your plan, Carmody?"
"Take Bacalle's deposition. His attorney will be present. So I want you to start your questioning 'way off the point. When did he first meet Mrs. Bannister? How did they get acquainted? What did he do for her? How often did he come to see her? Or she him? Did he advise her on anything besides investments and securities?"
"His attorney will object."
"Let him. You point out you have a right to establish those points since they may establish undue influence of him over her, in the making of the will."
"That's true. Then what?"
"Then, without making too much of a point of it, try to imply that Mrs. Bannister handed him the will. He'll have to insist he received it in the mail, since he's already committed on that score. Then you've got to nail him. Imply the date is wrong. Ask him what he did the day before, and the day after. Make him tell you what fixes that date of April 6 in his memory. Don't leave him any out on the basis of mistake or he didn't remember. Got it?"
"Yeah. But I still don't see?"
"You will. I'll show you exactly what I have up my sleeve when we go in to take the deposition. And make it as soon as possible."
"Three days is the best I can do. That okay?"
"It'll have to be. That's the 28th."
"Right. I'll confirm the time to you."
John rose. "See you then."
He delayed going back to the hotel as long as possible.
When he did finally, Carole was gone. No note. Nothing.
Except a small box like an aspirin tin on the dressing table. In it, a studded rubber circlet.
And how she'd reacted to that!
He could still feel her lovely legs clasped and trembling around him, her body responding first with pain, and then the real pleasure; still hear her gasping, moaning, crying in her ecstasy....
He dialed room service. "Send up a fifth of scotch," he said.
He stayed a little more than half drunk until the evening of the 27th.
There was no one in the small hearing room but Bacalle, his attorney, a George Frye. the stenographer, the Commissioner, Suydam and John.
Suydam had listened to John's strategy first with skepticism, then with admiration. He'd begun questioning Bacalle easily, seemingly ineptly. Frye listened and watched quietly alert.
"Now, Mr. Bacalle, in the 20 years you'd been handling Mrs. Bannister's financial affairs, did she ever discuss with you matters other than financial?"
"But of course. Many other matters."
"Give some examples."
"Well, she wished to buy a car. Not the most expensive, not the Rolls or the Aston Martin. She thought the Cadillac, or the Continental, or perhaps the Chrysler. We discussed them; I suggested the Continental."
"What else?"
Bacalle shrugged. "She liked to make voyages and trips to Europe, to Asia. I have travelled somewhat extensively; I made suggestions to her."
"Were your visits ever social as well as business?"
"Certainly. I often attended parties which she gave, and I was sometimes among the week-end guests she entertained at her home."
"So your relationship was one of friendship as well as business."
"It started as business, and then became one of great friendship as well. Mrs. Bannister was a very kind woman. She was very appreciative of what I had done for her, and told me so often. And I admired and respected her in return."
"And this friendship continued through her illness, right up to the time she handed you her holographic will on April 6th?"
"Your pardon, Mr. Suydam. The date is correct, but she did not hand me the will. Our friendship did continue until that date, yes; in fact it continued until the day she died."
"That was the 19th."
"No, no. On the 19th, and on the 18th as well, Mrs. Bannister was in a coma; we knew of course her illness was fatal, and she would not last much longer. She died on the 20th, at 7 o'clock in the evening."
"Mr. Bacalle, how do you fix the date of the 20th so firmly?"
He shrugged again. "How does one fix a date of importance? By the calendar, I suppose. The 20th was a Saturday; she was buried next day, a Sunday."
"Well, all right. Coming back to April 6th, when you received the will. How do you fix that date?"
"Oh, that is very simple. I had been in British Columbia looking at some mining properties for a client. I returned home by plane the morning of April 6th. The will came in the afternoon mail."
"You're sure of that?"
"Very sure."
"It couldn't have been the next day, say the afternoon of the 7th?"
"Impossible. It happened that during my absence an emergency came up, and I had to leave again for New York the next morning, the 7th."
"You can confirm these dates-your arrival and departure both?"
"Easily. I have the airline stubs with the dates. I keep all such stubs and tickets for income tax purposes. They are in my files at the office; I did not anticipate you would want to see them. But they are available. From them you can confirm I was here in town on the 6th, and only on the sixth."
"Yes. Well now, calling your attention to these documents; this is the will you received from Mrs. Bannister through the mail on the 6th of April?"
"That is right."
"And this is the envelope in which it came?"
"Yes."
"How do you know this is the envelope?"
"It is the kind of stationery she always used; it has her name printed in the corner; it is addressed to me in her handwriting. This is the one I had and gave you with the will when it was questioned."
"This stamp was on it when you received it?"
"Yes."
"With the cancellation somewhat smudged, but showing the St. Gilliam postmark?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what kind of a stamp this is, Mr. Bacalle?"
"It is a stamp of the United States; a commemorative stamp. I do not know much about such things."
"Apparently not. Because, Mr. Bacalle, this particular commemorative stamp wasn't put on sale in U.S. post offices until April 24th-four days after Mrs. Bannister died-48 days after you received this envelope! Now tell us. Mr. Bacalle-if you can-how you managed to receive an envelope bearing a stamp that wasn't available on April 6th?"
Bacalle's face turned darker. He said nothing, staring at Suydam. Then at John. And in the look he turned on John was the purest of venom.
"I suggest, Mr. Bacalle," Suydam continued relentlessly, "that you had actually forged this will some time before, and to give it that one touch of artistry, to make it look better, you mailed it yourself to yourself, probably after Mrs. Bannister died. It was easy to smudge the heavy ink to obliterate the date. But you overlooked the fact that the stamp you'd bought hadn't been issued on the date you have now sworn you received it...."
While the attorneys argued excitedly, Bacalle was able to snarl at John, "The girl and the money they weren't enough for you, eh?"
"The money," John said, "had a bad smell to it. And the girl, Bacalle, needs a bit more training."
Bacalle said no more, but his baleful hate shone glitteringly in his eyes.
Suydam was elated.
The two of them stopped at a hotel bar on the way back.
"I've got to hand it to you, Carmody; you really set that pigeon up. What a joke! Everything else perfect, and he didn't know the kind of stamp he was using!"
"You haven't won a judgment yet," John pointed out. "Though I think you've won the major battle. He could be brassy enough, despite this testimony, to go before a jury. And given a goofy enough jury, win."
Suydam brushed the danger aside. "Possible, but the odds are a 100 to I against him. No, I talked to Frye there; he's raising all kinds of technical objections and so on, but it doesn't mean anything. Told me he'd be disposed to suggest some reasonable settlement to his client. Meaning anything he can get now, is gravy."
"Mrs. Bannister did leave him $50,000 in her original will."
"Yes-and as a matter-of-fact, that's the will that we'll now probate. And the funny thing is, there's no way we can avoid paying him that $50,000. Though what the hell, let him have it, and let's get the damned case out of the way."
"From what I hear," John said drily, "your clients aren't the most generous people in the world."
"With what they're getting, $50,000 is peanuts. You know something, Carmody? Those relatives are plain stupid. I mean, plain nothings. They don't really know how much a million dollars is. They'll probably think $50,000 is maybe half a million. I'll have my hands full explaining it's only l|20th-the same relationship as a nickle has to a dollar."
John rose, dropped a bill on the table for the drinks. "I've got to get going," he said. Though where, or why, he had no real idea.
They walked to the sidewalk.
"Well, as I say, you did a fine job, Carmody. Send your bill along, for your services. We'll hold still for a pretty stiff fee."
"It'll be stiff, all right," John said. And thinking of what it had cost him, a bitter wave surged through him. "And if there's one peep from you about paying it, I'll come back here and knock every one of your damned teeth down your throat!"
He turned and walked off, leaving the most astonished attorney in the whole County of Cook staring after him....
If he'd accomplished anything at all, he thought, staring at the lights of towns spangling the darkness below, it was cheating Carole of Louis. The Frenchman had lost. She'd stay home with Walter, who at least had a nice home, some social position, and a good income.
And in the back of his mind, the constant drum-beat: once in a while-once in a great while-she'd give him some. Once in a great while, the jets roared, could become once in a while. And once in a while could become often. Often. Often....
For how could she help herself? He thought of how his hands, his lips, his body had stirred her passions, and set them to boiling; how her sensitive body had arched and shaken. She couldn't write all that off as a casual encounter. She'd be thinking, too....
But she'd been so confident, so sure of herself ... it didn't add up. Some factor in the equation was missing. A puzzle-with some of the pieces gone.
Except that he couldn't see himself as his father-in-law's secret betrayer. What had happened was one thing. To plan deception for the future, another. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it did. It was a decision he'd have to make.
And having made it, could he carry it out? He wasn't too sure. There was more to Carole's decision than he could figure. Something strange. He groped for the word, and it came to him.
Sinister.
She had played it real cool. Knowing how Bacalle was sweating out the results of his plot. He might have been adept, he might have been confident. But the long wait was rough on an imaginative man. Wondering if and where and when he'd made a mistake ... Let him worry enough, and he'd offer plenty to be sure he didn't lose everything. Plus a possible ten years for forgery. She'd waited. And when the time seemed right, made the contact.
John would have liked to know whether it was Bacalle who made the first overtures-or Carole. And he would have liked to know whether it had been before or after she'd stepped into the shower with him that first time and slipped her bare, wet arms around him, and taunted him with her wet breasts.
Certainly it must have been before that episode in Chicago when she offered-and he'd taken-every devious and secret pleasure the most lascivious mind could imagine. And there could have been more. It was only that some small, almost extinct streak of honor in him kept him from that final infamous bargain.
There was a hell of a lot he didn't know, he decided. And what's more, would be a lot better off not knowing ... The sound of the jets changed as the thrust began to reverse. He though of her as she'd been through those fantastic days, her green eyes smiling-drunk with pleasure, her honey-red mouth and her mobile, curving hips, promising, inviting, luring. Daring him to conceive any lust her body would not satisfy....
All right, she was bad medicine.
She was a calculating bitch.
The only trouble was, his hunger for her right at this moment was like a red hot chunk of iron in his belly.
The hedge, he thought as he drove up to his house, needed trimming. The garden was a mess, and the patio needed work. To hell with it!
Rosemary was in the living room. With Carole. And two cups of coffee between them. His wife jumped up. "Oh, darling! Why didn't you let me know you were coming?" She ran into his arms.
"I didn't know myself just when I'd be getting here," he said.
Carole said, "It's wonderful to see you again, John. Did you have a good trip?"
"Good enough." Over Rosemary's shoulder, he saw Carole carelessly lift her skirt to adjust her stocking. Smoke-grey nylon filled with very shapely leg. She took her time about it, knowing he saw, knowing his acute torment.
"Tell me all about it," Rosemary said. "Carole, don't you think he looks great?"
"Definitely." She let the skirt drop back to her knees.
"How's your mother?" he asked her.
"Much better."
"You look as if you haven't slept for a week."
Carole's laugh was light, only just touched with irony. "As a matter-of-fact, I didn't sleep for a week! Poor Mother was very restless."
"I'll bet you're tired." Rosemary was suddenly very wifely. "You need a drink. In fact, we'll all have a drink to your homecoming."
A drink to his homecoming was the last thing he wanted. But he accepted the scotch his wife poured in silence. "Cheers," he said. Carole drank hers without comment, her grey-green eyes, ringed with the dark smudge of their excesses, studied him somberly. He knew she was thinking the same thoughts he was-the whisper of nylon as his hands caressed those magnificent legs, the rising, hardening of her nipples under his lips....
And not all of it was taunting; she was hurting some too.
It was too much.
He said, "You'd better go, Carole. There's something Rosemary and I have to talk about."
She rose quickly. "Of course. I should have realized; you've been away a long time."
There was the usual flutter of goodbyes. Then she was gone.
Rosemary leaned against the door, a bright smile on her face. Too bright. "Well!" she said gaily. "It's good to have you home."
He shook his head, trying to find the words.
"I'm not staying, Rosemary." It was hard. Damned hard. "I'm going to leave you."
She looked stunned. As if he'd hit her. She whispered, "Please don't ... I've been trying, John ... you know that...."
"Let's quit kidding ourselves. Nothing's going to change. Though it's by no means all your fault, Rosemary. Mine. Much of it mine...."
Ho took a room at the club; it would do until he could figure out what to do; make some provisions for the future. He couldn't stay in St. Gilliam; that was certain. Not with Carole around. Seeing her, remembering the hundred arts of her body, her avid response to his rawest urges, that curious little twist of her hips just before her final cry. Too much.
Sometimes, she'd said. Keeping him dangling, burning, hoping, despairing. To hell with that. At least she wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing him suffer....
He arranged with Cap to continue the business and turn his share over to Rosemary. Maybe he would go south to Mexico ... the check for the Bacalle job had come through quickly and without a word of complaint; he kept part of it as a stake.
A week had passed; the ticket to Guadalajara was in his pocket. Everything packed except one light suit he'd left at Rosemary's. He didn't want to see her again; it would only make things harder. But chances were she'd be out-over at her father's, most likely.
He stopped; that damned hedge was really something. It was dusk, and there were no lights on in the house. Good. He entered with his key; he'd leave it on the coffee table as he went out.
A strange prickle started in the back of his neck; an awareness of something odd; something he'd noticed before but never as acutely. He moved silently. Toward their bedroom, where his suit must be.
He paused at the door. Sounds. Unmistakeable sounds. A slow flush of anger started to seethe in him. A woman's helpless, orgiastic moaning ... a sharp, pleasure-gasp.
Rosemary?
The frozen, the untouchable?
Had she been having an affair all this time?
He opened the door firmly, quietly.
His anger grew-and with it, final understanding. At last he knew the answer to the riddle. To Rosemary. To Carole....
Two naked, gleaming figures were tangled, flailing and twisting on the bed. Both smooth, ivory-white, groaning, oblivious yet to his presence. Squealing, gasping, shuddering in a fury of lust....
Carole and Rosemary!
There were compensations, she'd said, in St. Gilliam ... He hadn't guessed they lay in the body of her own step-daughter-his wife. This was how Carole had satisfied her terrible sex urges; she'd probably started with Rosemary when she was still hardly more than a child ... and kept at her ever since! Oh yes, she'd rather have a man-but if she couldn't have one readily, she'd take Rosemary!
He switched on the light. "Maybe this'll help," he said.
There were screams and a wild flurry of untangling on the bed.
He was shaking with rage; killing rage; he'd never known the urge to smash, destroy, revenge like this before. The astonishing thing was how his brain remained clear, his voice so calm. "So this was how you managed to remain so innocent and blame less all these years, How you stayed the sweet, virtuous little housewife. Why you never got involved with another man! Oh, you told me the truth, all right! You just neglected to mention that all the time you had another woman!"
Even then, Carole lost little of her insouciance. Caught naked and red-handed, she leaned on one elbow, curving her legs and radiated sex appeal with her loosely tumbled blonde hair, and twitching hips. "Clever of me, wasn't it? I never lied once."
He glanced at Rosemary. She lay on the tumbled bed as if she'd been tossed there naked and couldn't move. The back of her hand against her mouth. Eyes wide with terror. Shaking. Petrified....
"No, you never lied. Your whole life was a lie! And you corrupted everything and everyone around you. I should have guessed. That night I had you so hot, and Walter and Rosemary interrupted us-and you got her to come over because of Walter's 'fail'-a fall he couldn't even remember the next day! And neither of you dressed when I came over next morning at almost noon!"
Carole's laugh, he thought, was the most obscene sound he'd ever heard, "What a night that was! You'd had us both warmed up, if you'll remember. First me, then Rosemary. I don't know when I ever enjoyed my little darling more! You made us into tigers; I didn't let her get a moment's sleep all night."
He said slowly, his voice low and trembling, "Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"
She licked her blood red lips, eyes intent on him, and glittering strangely. Breasts rising and falling with inner emotion. "I know. You're going to beat me. You're going to lay your belt across my shoulders and back and butt until they're crisscrossed with welts, and when I've screamed myself bloody and you've flogged me almost insensible, you're going to rape me."
"To hell with giving you what you want," he snarled. He grabbed her arm and jerked her upright. With a shove, he sent her flying toward the bedroom door; with another, down the hall. He caught her again, pushed her toward the front door, and opened it.
Then, with a well-placed kick on her bare rump, he sent her sprawling out into the almost-dark garden.
And locked the door behind her.
He ignored her pounding; ignored her guarded cry, "John, I'm stark naked! You can't leave me out here like this! John! John!"
He went into the bedroom; his rage still boiling in him.
Rosemary was lying where he'd left her, her terror so abject she hadn't been able to move. Fingers trembling before her face, she said, "Please, John ... please ... be merciful...."
The shock, the numbness was still on him. He stared at her.
"For the love you once had for me-I beg you-kill me quickly. Not-not like she said you would-the hours of agony...."
The door chimes rang-again and again. Carole. His chest ached with a crushing restriction. A blackness surrounded him, seemed to touch his senses. Rosemary. Rosemary ... something about killing her ... words that had no meaning.
The chimes. Carole pounding on the door. Very funny. She couldn't go, and she couldn't stay. He'd laugh when he could manage to control his breath again....
"She made me ... from the very beginning....
I hated it at first. John, believe me; there was nothing I could do. She said if I ever told my father, he'd surely kill me. And she'd show me how he'd do it. And smile, while I was crying with pain...."
Shaking his head to clear it, he gathered up Cardie's clothes, her shoes, her stockings....
"When I married you, she frightened me even more. She said any man would go berserk, knowing what I'd been-what I was. I couldn't even tell Dr. Hammersmith...."
He walked down the hall to the front door. The pounding had become weaker. He opened it. Carole stood there, half crouched, face distorted with crying, humiliated, pitilessly exposed....
He shoved the clothes at her and slammed the door in her face.
The gesture seemed to trigger a release within him. The blackness receded. The rage slipped slowly, reluctantly, back into the darker recesses of his mind. The constriction left his chest and he could breathe again.
If Rosemary looked pale before, now she was absolutely ghost-white. She was standing by the bed, one knee bent slightly forward, head bowed a little, hands hanging at her sides. "Don't torture me by waiting any more. I told you the truth, John. Every word was the truth. Kill me now-but don't do all those other things ... first...." What the hell are you talking about?" he said.
Rosemary didn't answer. She slumped forward in a complete faint.
By the time Dr. Hammersmith arrived and gave her a tranquilizer and heard the whole story, she was pretty well convinced John's designs on her weren't lethal.
"With a vicious woman like that holding on to you, it's no wonder you' froze," the doctor said. "If only you'd told us!"
Rosemary, huddled under the covers, said weakly, "I believed her! I'd been hearing the same thing for years-over and over! I didn't always believe her. Not when I saw how good and kind John was. And I could forget-almost-when he was making love to me. But always, at the last moment, I'd think of her-and freeze."
"It's a near-miracle," Hammersmith said to John, "that she could stand to have you make love to her at all. I'm surprised she could even let you touch her." He added, "With that cunning, scheming bitch out of her life, I think it'll be no time at all before you'll have the most loving, responsive little wife you ever imagined!"
As the doctor left, Rosemary, a little more color in her face, managed a wink at John. And whispered, "Maybe sooner than he thinks!"
Much later that night, her warm, tingling body pressed lovingly against him, she sighed contentedly, happily, the sigh of a woman who has been man-loved, thoroughly, completely, enthusiastically. "When I think of the joy you've just given me, John, with all those empty, wasted years, I could just scream."
"You did," he said, his hands moving pleasurably over his wife's deliciously-curving flesh. "You will. Often."
Her slim, firm arms encircled him, her lips, her body sought him, lovingly and hungrily, "Promise?"
