Darlene Damita stood in the doorway, her svelte, firm figure outlined unnecessarily through a sheer white set of baby dolls. Unnecessarily, because the man facing her could see right through the translucent nylon anyway - see every bit of peach hued flesh and pink tipped mound, every seductive curve that even now moved rapturously against him with the goodnight kiss.
"I see you tomorrow, my darling," she breathed in his ear with just a trace of South American accent.
She pushed against the aging man's tall body again, then grimaced-in disgust when her head was on the shoulder, her repulsed expression out of his view.
"I...I have an appointment tomorrow night... business," he twitched nervously, the wrinkled lines of his sixty year old face casting grotesque little shadows over the sallow cheeks, "But... let me buy you a present... something to show my appreciation for this wonderful evening."
"No... no, my darling, I loved every minute of it," Darlene Damita protested, a puckish smile on her clear-lined features, as she pushed back the long black hair to reveal dark, upswept lashes and full, sensuous lips.
"I'm not a fool, you know?" the man smiled slightly, casting a quick glance down the long hallway of the apartment building, "A girl like you can't go out with an old codger like me for nothing. Here... buy something with this... and remember it's from me."
The man peeled off five twenties and pressed them into her hand, slipping his other arm around the slim waist to bring her closer again. He was satisfied now, even a bit weak. But the pulsating contact made him feel young once more.
"You think I do something like this for money?" Darlene asked, a look of deep hurt settling into the sophisticated face as she rubbed the palm of his hand sensuously with her fingers, "I like you, Mr. Fremont. And if I like somebody, I do anything for them."
"My God, Darlene!" the old man shuddered, pulling her body closer, "I'll...I'll break the appointment tomorrow... I'll..."
"Call me first. All right, my sweet?" she posed with a provocative twist of her long body, the full legs swaying in a denuded dance of subtle eroticism.
"Tomorrow, Darlene. Good... night," he blew a kiss on departing.
The distinguished gentleman whistled contentedly as he walked toward the elevator. He felt much more like an elated young college boy after his first boudoir conquest, rather than the Chief Counsel for the Congressional Committee on Wagering Legislation and Control - Lester E. Fremont.
Darlene Damita stamped her slippered feet on the floor! She cursed loudly and obscenely at the top of her husky voice! She spat toward the bedroom! Kicked over a stool at her dim-lit, mirrored bar! Raised a Pernod bottle to heave it at the glass!
Then suddenly, Darlene Damita, 131 pounds of pure sex rounded out at 38-24-38 in a five foot five frame, began to laugh with uproarious self amusement. She yanked off the top of the baby dolls, tossing them across a table. She paraded in front of the big mirror at the bar, eking narcissistic pleasure in observing the youthfully jouncy undulation of her projecting anatomy.
"You fool! You goddam stinking old man fool!" she mouthed out in a hysterical laugh to the vacant room, still twisting and contorting, "You like this, don't you... didn't you, you old fool?"
Still laughing, Darlene grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the shelf and filled a fruit juice glass with it, tossing off a hefty toast to her own ability and attributes as she continued to look in the glass.
"Johnny baby! We did it, baby!" she called out to the four walls in a spasm of sudden delight, dropping the glass to the floor and racing to the telephone.
Darlene became determined, more serious now, dialing the seven digits of Johnny DeFranco's private number, groping through the telephone table drawer for a gold tipped cigarette and smudging it with deep red lipstick when she pressed it to her lips.
"I got him, Johnny! I got him!" she announced excitably over the phone, bubbing joyously over the quick conquest, "He's a beast. I hate him. He makes me want to throw up on the floor he's so filthy. But we got pictures, Johnny. Twelve pictures at least. Just like my sweetheart wants."
FIFTEEN minutes later, at 1:30 a.m., Johnny DeFranco drove his sleek Mercedes into the all-night garage of the swank Connecticut Avenue apartment building.
"Hey, Willy!" he yelled out like a man used to quick service, standing by his car and tapping his foot impatiently.
Johnny DeFranco looked both handsome and menacing as he stood there stolidly in the icy windswept driveway. Raw January gusts blew his trenchcoat collar up against his face, buffeting the set, square jawed features. With a casualness that denied the wind was there, Johnny pulled out a comb and smoothed back the curly black hair into a semblance of order. He appeared a steadfast, clean-cut young man in his mid-thirties. But a closer inspection would reveal his real youth -a 29 year old with that ageless type of robust manhood. Johnny's appearance was little different now than when he first tasted the delights of maturity at eighteen, would probably be much the same when he was fifty.
"Yas suh?" Willy, the slouch faced Negro attendant finally acknowledged, emerging from the bowels of the cavernous underground garage, where Johnny correctly surmised he was cuddled up in somebody's Cadillac with one of his sepia beauties, "I comin', Missa DeFranky."
"Don't park it," Johnny directed firmly, tossing him the keys wrapped in two single bills, "And by God, be somewhere close when I come back. This won't take long."
"Yassuh," he smiled brightly at the sight of the cash, rolling his big eyes joyously, "You an' Miss D'eeta goin' out t'night, huh?"
"Get back to your broad," Johnny half-sneered, looking at the man chidingly, "And zip your fly next time you come up."
"Ha ha," Willy laughed at his own expense, unabashed as he complied, "Dam if folks don' fuhgit them things sometime. Jus' like when Miss D'eeta got outta the cah las' summer wif no skirt on. Ha ha."
"Go to hell!" Johnny shot at him, turning toward the elevator.
Johnny unbuttoned his coat and fished for a cigarette, the handsome face set in a deliberative pose. He had waited a long time to get Lester E. Fremont in his clutches. And now it was done. The big Congressional Crime committee was carefully stacked with some of the most incorruptible souls in Congress. But Chief Counsel Fremont, administration party big-wig with more influence than the actual blue-nose congressmen on the committee, was another story. Johnny had caught the spark in his eyes at the Paris Boheme Club one night, observing shrewdly the unmistakable arousement caused by Honey Newgott's palpitating peeling act. Lester E. Fremont was a lecher.
The automatic elevator halted at the eighth floor and Johnny flicked his ashes with unconcern along the plush carpeted hallway. It had all been so easy after that night, he mused to himself, proud of the native shrewdness which had transformed a former mail clerk and bellhop into Washington's most corrupting and vicious blackmailer. He had sent Darlene Damita out to make the snare. Not that Honey Newgott, the redheaded stripper who tantalized Fremont so, was not available. But because Fremont was too hep for a silly, fun loving wanton like Honey. Although Darlene was cursed with an eccentric temper like a tempestuous hellion, she could always be depended upon to master her emotions at work.
Johnny tapped on the door to apartment 824 with his $2800 diamond ring. He recalled how smoothly the deal had worked, just like every Johnny De-Franco operation. Darlene had followed Fremont away from the night club that evening in her own car. Then bang! She hit the lawyer's car gently from the rear. With a neat show of leg, a friendly smile, as they got out to inspect the nominal damage, the mission was begun. And now, three days later, it was neatly wrapped up.
"Sugar babeeee!" Darlene bubbled with wild enthusiasm, throwing her naked arms around Johnny's big shoulders and kissing him wetly down to his shirt collar, "We make big whoopee tonight! I get the old fathead all booze up an' he was crazy... upside down an' inside out. Oh, babeee we get such good pictures tonight. He got to do anything for you."
Darlene stood back in her brazen nakedness while Johnny closed the door. She wore nothing now, even the brief remnants of the baby doll were gone.
"Later," Johnny announced succinctly, rebuffing her body tease and pursed lips, "Let's get the film over to Ben first."
"Then you take me to Raul's Club... then we make love, huh?" she asked, picking up her slip and panties from the disheveled bed while Johnny walked to the dresser, "It's nearly two o'clock, my sweet. Raul's is the only place open now. But I feel like crazy fun all night."
"You deserve it, I guess," Johnny allowed with a sardonic smile, about the nearest he ever got to the real thing.
While Darlene busied herself with perfume spray and clothing, Johnny took down the huge mirror that hung behind her cologne laden dresser across from the bed. Setting the mirror along the wall, he removed a box apparatus with two lenses from the wall behind. Flower and petal design on the wallpaper showed clearly through the reversed looking glass now -it was a diachronic mirror, the one-way variety.
"You trip the cameras as soon as you came in here with the guy?" Johnny asked, all businesslike as he unhooked the top of the box and wound the two knobs simultaneously.
"Everything like you said," Darlene answered with a warm smile, walking up to him in a sheer net bra and stockinged underpinnings, "It's okay, huh?"
"We'll have to wait until Ben develops it," Johnny answered, taking out two spools of film and pocketing them, "Come on, Darlene. Get dressed if you're going with me."
"Oh, Johnny, you are so mean, and I love it," she quivered ecstatically at his unconcern, moving against him with a feeling she wanted reciprocated.
"Later, baby," he snarled, running his fingers over the crest of the flimsy bra and laughing at her responsive surge of heavy breathing.
The black Mercedes gunned out the wide, apartment lined boulevard that is Washington's swank Connecticut Avenue, a clear road ahead this time of night.
"You hadda wake up Ben?" Darlene asked, snuggling close to Johnny as he slowed to pass a police cruiser.
"Yeah... I woke him up," Johnny laughed, signaling for a right turn when they reached the row of high rise apartments near Kindle Drive, "So what if I wake up the bugger? Before he went to jail for selling dirty pictures he was lucky to make six... seven grand a year."
"He makes big money on this, I bet," Darlene enthused, puzzling as Johnny turned onto Illingham Street, "How much I make this time?"
"Good gosh, baby, the corpse isn't even dry, and the undertaker's got to put in a bid yet," Johnny analogized, pushing away her clinging arm as he slowed down, "Micko Zlacko should pay plenty for those little photos. But I got to contact him first. I can't proposition without the goods. And I can't hit the mark until I get a proposition. Right now, I'd guess there's a good three grand apiece for you and Ben."
"Why you drive through here now?" Darlene asked, frowning as Johnny cruised slowly through a big parking lot, "Every time we go anywhere, you gotta look for a new mark. You ain't gonna find nobody here tonight. It's Monday. No big wheel gets laid on Monday."
"Fremont did," Johnny smirked, observing each license plate in the Arvo Towers parking lot, "It's the best night in the world for a married cat to sneak out. Nobody suspects."
Johnny continued the slow cruise down each line of parked vehicles. The Arvo Towers was a monstrous complex of four 12 story buildings, with over 1500 apartments. It was not an extremely expensive place like the buildings closer to town, but served adequately as living and play quarters for the more party loving element of Washington's greatest commodity- the Government Girl.
Those like Johnny, who had studied the situation with a cynical eye, estimated that over half of the visitor's cars on any given night at the Arvo Towers belonged to married men. And while the bulk of these philanderers held little interest for Johnny DeFranco, there was sometimes among them a prominent lawmaker or politician, and occasionally an out of town millionaire.
"Say, that's a hot looking Caddie over there!" Darlene observed, craning her neck to see the big DeVille parked back in the shadows.
"Good girl, Darlene," Johnny praised her, swinging around, "I nearly missed it."
"Oh well," she shrugged, getting closer as Johnny pulled over by the dark blue hardtop, "It's prob'ly mortgaged up to here by some dope's trying to make himself a big deal with a girl. I think..."
"Bingo!" Johnny let out jubilantly when he caught the low number tag from a Midwestern state, "It's Congressman Wittlmaier's buggy. He's had the same tag ever since he became senior man from his state."
"What's he do?" Darlene asked naively, wishing Johnny would take more interest in her, "He a big deal? He gonna make you a million bucks or something?"
"He'll help, baby," Johnny enthused, reaching into his glove compartment for a copy of the Congressional Register, "This bird's top man on the Rocketry subcommittee, I think. They've got the..."
"Kiss me, lover. Kiss me hard," Darlene broke in, breathing heavier, showing how demanding she could be when disappointed, "You gotta wait for this guy here. Okay, you make love to me now."
"Easy, baby," Johnny edged away, nipping through the booklet.
"Put that goddam thing away, and make me!" Darlene yelled, squirming in the seat as she probed and groped brazenly at Johnny, "Throw it away! I wanna get laid! I wanna get laid now!"
"You go home...right now!" Johnny corrected firmly, grabbing both her excited hands at the wrists to push them back, "I'll get you a cab up the A venue... and you go home! Understand?"
"You big swine! I make all that goddam mush with the old goat! I make big money for you, Johnny!" she began screaming, fighting back at his pushes, "Fifteen men I go to bed with for you last year... fifteen men you take all those naked pictures with me! Goddam you love me now! You gotta love me now!"
"You're a whore, Darlene," Johnny cursed, the handsome sneer curling his tight lips, smashing his hand across her right cheek, backhanding the left, "This is work, you crazy broad. I can't plot a mark with your bitching and sulking around me. Get out! Get out an walk up to the goddam Avenue!"
"No... no, Johnny!" she screamed fearfully, fright welling up in her big bright eyes, "No... I get raped out here by myself. Three women get rape last week...only one block from here. There was a man on the corner when we drive in. For God's sake, Johnny... don't-"
"You rape easy, baby," he scoffed, pushing across the protests to open the door, then shoving her screaming out of the car.
"No... no, Johnny! No...!" her voice trailed off as he gunned the car in the direction of the nearest building.
CHAPTER TWO - THE IMPATIENT STRIPPER
A pair of elevators was conveniently located just inside the back entrance to Arvo Towers Number Four. This was the entrance to the sub-basement actually, the terraced grounds sloping up two stories to the front of the modernistic building. But Johnny often mused that it was built this way on purpose, to provide wayward husbands a means to slip in and out of the young girls apartments with little risk.
Johnny positioned himself inside a janitor's closet across from the elevators, leaving a crack just wide enough to see the indicator above each door. As the elevators would start a trip, he made a note of the floor or origin, a system he had used with success previously in trapping a mark.
It was 3:20 a.m. when a start from 12th floor ended with the stentorian sounds of a familiar voice when the carriage neared the basement. Congressman Paul Montague Wittlmaier was telling someone about the important vote to be taken this month on the billion dollar rocket contract. But Johnny was already familiar with this aspect of Wittlmaier's vital role in the nation's defense. And something kept buzzing through his head about there being two different companies vying for it.
"I'll try to make it tomorrow, Maria," the authoritative tones resonated through the hallway as the elevator door opened.
"I'll fix some steak if you're hungry," a fascinatingly low keyed voice with an undertone of sensual charm addressed the Congressman.
Wittlmaier stood with his back to Johnny, the long mane of pure white hair combed back to sleek perfection and contrasting sharply with the black overcoat he wore. Johnny couldn't see the girl who had ridden down with him for a prolonged goodnight. He only knew she was there from the voice. And the fact that Wittlemaier's arms were stretched out in front of him in what must be a farewell embrace.
Then it happened!
Just as Wittlmaier moved away, and in the instant before the automatic doors were fully closed, Johnny got a fleeting glimpse of the girl. She was a young blonde of about twenty in a loose brunch coat. There was no artificiality, no painted highlights to the radiant face, only the natural resplendence of healthy, vitalic beauty and life. There was nothing sexy about the fashionable, quilted, light blue brunch coat, but even its loose fit left little doubt as to the voluptuous containment. The top jutted out angularly over a youthfully firm shelf of fully developed bosom, dropping down straight from the tipped crest to a position right below the knees. The slippered feet were small and well formed, the half visible calves so perfectly shaped they telegraphed a mental picture of pulchritudinous curves for what went with them, to even the most sterile imagination.
But Johnny DeFranco's visions were far from impotent as he waited there in the closet for a full minute after the cage ascended. Just one look at this girl, whoever she was, introduced a new experience into his already girl-glutted life. The slim, soft nose and facial lines, framed by the pert, bubble hair style of golden blonde, was embossed in his memory.
Quickly now, Johnny bounded from the closet, stepped inside the vacant cage and pressed the button for the twelfth floor. His confidence began to falter. Could she be the Congressman's daughter?... a granddaughter?... a niece?... the daughter of a friend?
Johnny lit a cigarette as he stepped cautiously out on the twelfth floor, glancing to each side. Men Wittlmaier's age didn't kiss their nieces like that at 3:30 in the morning...or their friend's wives or daughters. And he remembered now... Wittlmaier had no daughter, only a grown son. Neither were there any grandchildren, Paul Jr. being one of Washington's most eligible bachelors.
Johnny stalked confidently down the hallway now, listening briefly by each door. He had hit the real big time with this one: Paul Montague Wittlmaier, revered senior Congressman on the Military Rocketry Subcommittee, had a love nest at the Arvo Towers with a near nymphet of a gorgeous blonde.
Taking out his notebook, Johnny quickly penciled the names and numbers on the apartment doors, marking an X by the ones with a trace of noise. These were the girls he would try first, using the same trial and error telephone method which had worked so well before.
At 3:35, Johnny De Franco closed his notepad and left the building. The perpetual half-sneer curled his lip a little higher, a subconscious expression of his contempt for people who were so indiscreet with their public trust. The curl then smoothed out again, and the face became the same stoic symbol of intriguingly handsome impassivity it usually maintained. Inwardly, Johnny was recalling the girl again -the honey blonde with the bubble cut and supple body, whose name he didn't know -whose name was somewhere among the 23 feminine callings he had copied down in the little book.
Tooling his powerful Mercedes out into the Avenue again, Johnny shrugged off the feeling. Women were a dime a dozen to him, always had been. And he was sleepy now after this very long and productive day.
"Son of a bitch!" Johnny swore angrily, tossing off his coat when he walked in the bedroom of his apartment at 4:00 a.m.
"Hi, sexy..." the sultry voice of cabaret stripper Honey Newgott flowed from between her full, heavily painted lips.
That was all Honey said, but all she needed to say. For six years now all 137 pounds of this voluptuously formed girl had been trained in the arts of pleasing men's visions, exciting their rabid imaginations. There was no subtlety of vicarious sex from the most emotion-arousing whisper to the height of erotic undulation and orgasmic body grind, which Honey Newgott had not mastered. And now she was lying in Johnny's bed stark naked, her firmly curved figure curled in a wildly suggestive succubic form, the torso barely moving in a subtly teasing rhythm.
Honey shifted her position just slightly, allowing Johnny the full front view of her magnificently proportioned 39-22-37 body, stretching out every pulsating inch of her flawlessly smooth 5 foot 7 frame, and emitting a low heaving moan through the full lips.
"What the hell are you trying to do? Prove you're a real redhead?" Johnny asked sarcastically, tossing his overcoat over her. "And how the devil did you get in here?"
"Don't get mad, Johneeeee," she cooed at him, pouting the sexy lips as she grabbed for a huge teddy bear beside her, "Willy and I just had to come see you... about something real important."
"I asked who let you in?" Johnny raged, grabbing the stuffed toy and flinging it through the bathroom door.
"Johnny! Johnny! You hurt Willy! You hurt my sweet little Willy!" Honey cried out, jumping from under his coat and trotting barefoot across the rug.
"Who let you in?" Johnny riled up madder, blocking her way.
"I... I used an old key I had... remember?" she posed, trying to grapple past him, her jouncing breasts bouncing against him in a fretful fury.
"I had the lock changed three months ago," he let her know, pushing at the firm fleshed stomach and ducking into the bathroom, "I told you to keep away from here unless you got a damn good mark for me."
"But I do... I do, Johnny," she protested, looking on with wide-eyed, frightful dismay when he picked up Willy, "I know we're through, Johnny. You've got Darlene... and... that's that. I just want...."
"I know what you want, Angeline Ptrovsky," he called the Chicago garbageman's daughter by the real name she hated, "But I want to know who let you in here? Tell me!"
"No... no, Johnny!" she screamed, trying to push her jiggling anatomy past him, "My God... don't do that to Willy!"
Johnny had thrown the big teddy bear, the distraught and mixed-up girl's backtrack to juvenile security, into the shower stall. His hand was poised on the hot water handle.
"Who let you in, Angeline Ptrovsky?" he growled, grabbing the creamy smooth neck to hold her back, "You tell me or Willy gets a hot bath!"
"The... the boy at the desk, Johnny," Honey admitted tearfully, dropping to her knees as Johnny eased the pressure and let her go, "But... please don't hurt him. He... he's just a kid. I... he knew who I was. He'd seen... the show. He..."
"So you give him a free feel, a private peek at the famous Newgott privates... and he's all hot to commit murder for you," Johnny surmised correctly, pulling open the shower curtain, "You get just about anything you want with that body of yours, don't you?"
"I... I been trying to call you all day, Johnny," she started to explain, a pitiful look of relieved admiration on the sophisticated face as she retrieved her beloved Willy, "I got a deal for you. He took me out last night... General Renshaw from the Pentagon. He's real crazy for me, Johnny. I let him have me last night and he'll be back for more..."
"How many pictures you get?" Johnny snapped the question, his business interest taking over as he handed Honey a cigarette and led the way back into his bedroom, "This Renshaw's only a Brigather, but he's on the Quartermaster Purchasing Board. Maybe we can corner the market on toilet paper or GI jock straps."
"It was in the car," Honey admitted sheepishly, smiling gratefully for the cigarette, "...but tomorrow I can get him in the apartment. The camera's still there. I remember how to use it, Johnny. I know..."
"In the car?" Johnny yelled incredulously, yanking back the sheet and pulling it over Honey's nakedness when she lay down again, "You got a piece of brass from the Pentagon and laid him in the car? What a stupid kook you are, baby. You got three thousand bucks worth of the most precision photographic equipment money can buy in your bedroom, and you waste a lay on the guy in his buggy. You think this is high school making out or something? This is money, baby! Money!"
"I'm sorry, Johnny," Honey pouted once more, caressing Willy needfully, "But give me some credit too, huh? I knew this guy's type. If he hadn't connected last night, he would have given up. It's never the real thing in a car...it's like a sample- you give an alky a shot of whiskey he goes for the whole bottle."
"Okay. Okay," Johnny was reasonable, walking toward his living room, "Get the pictures tomorrow night and we can talk business. But get some clothes on and beat it now. I got two big deals going and I need sleep."
"Sure, Johnny," she answered immediately, then added coyly, "Can... can I have a nightcap, Johnny? One for the road?"
"One for the road," Johnny agreed resignedly, pouring out a double of his cheapest blend, then asking in a friendlier tone, "How's the gang at the Paris Boheme? You still got top bill... or did they import some real Parisienne to give you competition?"
"You should come by and see...for old times sake," she invited nostalgically, recalling the good times they had weathered, the security she had found, then lost when Darlene Damita came along, "I got a new routine now, 'Madame Pompadour's Bath'. Mitzy, the little blonde from the chorus, she undresses me and scrubs my back... right on the stage."
"I saw the same bit in Paris when I was in the frigging Army," Johnny passed it off, bringing in the drinks to the bedroom, "Every Lesbian in town'll be after you now."
"They already are," Honey laughed, pulling on panty briefs no larger than the last G-string from her act, "Some tourist woman from Arizona offered me three hundred last week."
"How was it?" Johnny leered, loosening his tie as he lay back on the bed.
"I'm saving it for a French girl," she sick-joked back at him, pulling a dark nylon up a long concave calf and straightening out a shapely knee, "Or maybe I figgered to make the same loot taking on three guys at a C-note apiece. Anyhow, I told her I had a date."
"I'll give you five hundred for some good shots of Renshaw," Johnny offered, knocking Willy off the bed as he reached for his drink on the night table. "That should make up for it."
"Five hundred?" she retorted disappointedly, picking up Willy and positioning him in a chair, "Sure... that's fine for one go from a character like him...just one bloody go, like the British whores say. But not for pictures, Johnny. This guy buys silverware, lumber, pots and pans, toilets... pro kits...by the millions. He's good for fifteen or twenty grand. I'll take two of them."
"Two thousand for some Pentagon has-been?" Johnny shot the question at her angrily, "He might not even bring in a dime. If I line up some suppliers for a kick-back, the bastard may get transferred. Or maybe there's a watchdog group over him. A Brigather at the Pentagon's got about as much authority as a PFC in a regular outfit."
"One thousand, Johnny. Please...I need the money," Honey begged, perching on the bed beside him, still nude from the waist up.
"Why the hell can't you be a freebie, Honey.. I found a good one tonight...a real trap with free bait," Johnny told her with a smirk, amused by the pleading gestures of poverty which seemed so inconsistent with the mouth wateringly fantastic breasts swaying pointedly in front of him.
"You're nuts, Johnny. A gal can't work for... for nothing," she protested, then noticing he didn't object to her closeness, leaned down further, "...not even just for... for love..."
Honey undulated her body up on the bed like a writhing reptile, placing a kiss on Johnny's chest where his shirt lay open. Johnny tensed a moment, fighting an impulse to pour his iced drink right down her naked back. But there was a spark of memory, a searing, burning, unquenchable recall of the fervent body kisses Honey could bestow so unashamed, the wild unalloyment she could put into the love act, without the intense fierceness of overindulgence of Darlene.
"Undress me," Johnny ordered, setting his glass down on the night table, "And then do the dance I like... you know the one."
Honey needed no more persuasion. This was the way Johnny liked it. The way she knew he would never quite forget, no matter how many other women survived the eternity after their six months together. With her deft touch of subtle amusement, she began the operation - her trained fingers working ever so carefully and tantalizingly in the act of undressing her man.
The telephone rang!
"Ignore it," Johnny ordered, not missing a motion.
Standing up now, clothed only in the black briefs and a single stocking gartered to the little belt at her waist, Honey began the waving body paroxysms that men often spent their entire expense account for the privilege of viewing each night. It began with the stance and excitably erotic pose of a carnival cooch dancer, except there wasn't a tent show in the world boasting a body like Honey's. Statuesque and erect, the beauteously tall redhead clapped both hands together behind her neck. The fabulous curves oscillated in flowing waves from the breasts down, the tempo rising until one could almost hear the beat of accompanying music.
The phone blared through again.
Honey ignored it, prancing around the bed, twisting and turning her quivering body, the legs all the more shapely with the high heels she had put on. Then, with her mouth open in a hungry pant, the breathing heaving the jutting breasts in a wild sway that blurred into two little red circles, she unclasped the long fingers and smoothed them teasingly down the supple sides of her long body. When they reached the briefs, the hands went underneath, peeling them down while she stooped, without missing a single beat of the harmonious movement.
"Forget it," Johnny clipped when the phone rang again.
Honey stood up again, repeating the smoothing of the tapering hands down her sides, crossing them over at the pelvis to run across the firmly chubby front of her full thighs, writhing in ecstatic throes.
"Not yet, baby," Johnny said with unusual casuality, the impassive voice and face the only evidence of his stoic imperturbability.
"Damn you, Johnny... I... I can't stand it...ohhhhhh!" Honey moaned in palpitating gusts of huskiness, her body unable to keep a steady rhythm, yielding to the wildly erratic beat of unleashed lust.
The phone continued its paced intrusion.
Honey dropped to the floor, moaning, rolling over, clenching her fists until the knuckles whitened. The look on Johnny's face began to change. The leery sneer twitched and contorted, his breathing was heavier. He rose up on an elbow to look down at the feverish form as it jumped and twisted in spasms of passion.
"Now... Honey," he tried vainly to keep his voice steady.
"Ohhhhh, Johneeeee...!" she squealed in open mouthed rapture, climbing on the bed in a delirious throe of sexual abandon.
The telephone stopped ringing.
AT 10:40 in the morning, light streamed in beams through the slats of the Venetian blinds. A loud knock rumbled impatiently at Johnny's front door. He yawned and stretched his arms out wide, the left hand falling on a soft, cushy, pile substance.
"Get that goddam toy out of here!" Johnny cursed loudly, pushing Willy brutally from his caressed position, huddled next to Honey's naked body, "Get that teddy bear and your clothes and go through the kitchen!"
"Willy, my precious darling... ohh," Honey moaned half asleep, groping across the bed, then opening her eyes, "Johnny! Wha... what happened? Where.."
"Out... quick!" Johnny angered, pushing her over on top of Willy, then grabbing his pajamas out of the closet, "There's somebody at the door. If it's Darlene she'll clobber us both!"
CHAPTER THREE - THE TRAP WITH FREE BAIT
"Wake ya up, Buddy?" Ben Lipper queried through his two day beard as he shrugged his big shoulders which were covered with an old Army field jacket.
"It's you...oh!" Johnny exclaimed with both relief and surprise, "Come on in."
"Got the pitchers all fixed up for us, Buddy," Ben sniffed with the half cold he always had, "All twelve of 'em come out real good."
Photographer Ben Lipper ambled into the room, tossing a thick manila envelope on Johnny's desk, then heading for the bar to toss down a double Rye. Johnny had worked with Ben almost three years now -ever since he realized he had to have a good professional photographer in this business. With the help of a friend in the police, Johnny had come up with Ben -one conviction for pornographic picture selling eight years before, and his legitimate business had gone to pot. This was the talent Johnny needed. And Ben was hungry for money.
"You hang onto the negatives," Johnny directed, taking a smaller envelope from the large folder and pulling out a set of 8 x 10 enlargements, "Say... this is great! Darlene should be in the movies."
"When do I get a turn? Huh, Johnny?" Ben leaned over the desk to light his boss's cigarette, "You been promisin' me a crack at it fer six months now. Just once, Johnny. Huh?"
"Later," Johnny sloughed him off, cigarette dangling from his mouth as he angled the picture and cocked his head. "Hey...hey, this one could really fix old Fremont's career. What do the judges call it..., 'unnatural acts'? Ha ha!"
"I don't care whut they call it," Ben shot back, fishing for one of his own cigarettes and plopping down in the overstuffed chair, "I'll go any way with that babe, Johnny. How you think it hits me, huh? I fix up the cameras, develop all the pitchers of her sprawled out in the sack with ever guy in town. I'm human, Buddy. I want some too."
"Later."
"That's whut ya said about Honey, Johnny!" Ben angered, pulling the unlit cigarette from his mouth and getting up, "You was knockin' that broad fer over a year an' never let me get none. You said 'later' that time too. Ain't we partners, Buddy?"
"We split the green stuff, Ben," Johnny logicalized lackadaisically, pocketing a small black envelope from the big manila, "What the hell, you're married anyway. Can't that little frau you picked up over in Germany give you the straight stuff anymore?"
"Elfrieda's a goddam pig," Ben grunted, twisting in the chair and finally lighting his smoke, "She wanted a one-way ticket to the States an' a flock o' kids. Well...she's got both now."
"Hand me the phone book," Johnny smiled at Ben's predicament, holding out his hand, "I've gotta plot some free bait... gotta find her first."
"New set-up?" Ben brightened.
"A frebie," Johnny smirked pridefully, pulling out his little book, "Another chick at the Arvo Towers... only this one's latched onto something real big...Congressman Paul Montague Wittlmaier."
"Son of a bitch!" Ben whistled, aping one of Johnny's favorite expressions, "The Rocketry Committee! That's big stuff."
"Subcommittee," Johnny corrected, running his finger along a row of names in the phone book, "And one of the twenty-three gals on this list is our free bait. I'll get the numbers here then find which one."
"They'll be at work now," Ben conjectured, picking up one of the photographs and eyeing it jealously, "Man! Jus' gimme some o' that Darlene's stuff an' I'll be happy."
"You're right," Johnny said, closing the phone book.
"Ya mean it? I can have 'er?" Ben stood up in a joyful daze.
"I mean you're right that the free bait won't be home," Johnny cleared it up, gazing abstractly out the window, "Funny thing about that Arvo Towers...real respectable place. The girls all gotta have jobs. No kept women allowed... unless they can sweat out eight hours a day in the office to keep up appearance."
"I'll have to rig a new box, Johnny," Ben got down to business thoughts, "When you gonna plant it?"
"Tomorrow for sure," Johnny answered, then quickly began to look over the pictures Ben was still gawking at, "How about these? Micko Zlacko's the boy to contact. That Crime Committee of Fremont's really roasting him. You know Zlacko?"
"Heard of 'im," Ben allowed, rubbing his stubbly chin, "They say he's holed up in a ninety buck suite over to the Shoarmont while them hearins is goin' up to the Hill. Even got his private harem with him like that King Saud. Cheez, I'd like to bang one o' them dolls."
"I'll talk to you later," Johnny said, letting Ben know he was cutting the visit off, "I'll try these broads after supper. That's a good time. If she's bedding with Wittlmaier again tonight, he won't be there that early. Congress won't be out until late. Goodbye, Ben."
"Yeah... okay. Goo'bye, Johnny," Ben shrugged with a hangdog look, pocketing the negatives, "You... uh, gimme a call on the new plant, huh?"
"Sure, Ben. Goodbye," Johnny finalized it.
At 6:15 Johnny began his phone calls.
"Hello, dear. Sorry I won't be able to make it tonight," he deepened his voice to imitate the sonorous mellifluousness of Congressman Wittlmaier's familiar bass tone.
"What the hell? You nuts er somethin'?" a wheezy G-girl's voice rasped back at him.
"This is Paul, dear," Johnny kept up the masquerade with hurt inflection, "I've got a cold today. Guess that's why you didn't recognize me."
"Paul's balls...," the girl at the other end sarcasted, "You got the wrong chick, fella."
Some were like this, others, the more lonesome type, welcomed the sound of an unknown and promising male at the other end of the line...
"Hello, dear. Sorry I can't make it tonight. Committee meeting and all that," Johnny varied his approach.
"Sweetie pie, y'all jus' come ovuh any time y'all-gets through with that ol' meetin'," a syrupy southern belle saccharinated the phone lines, "Ah got a nice little ol' bottle o' buhbon jus' a waitin' fo' yo' sweet lips... ah'm a waitin' fo' 'em too, sugah."
"You know who this is, don't you?" Johnny queried doubtfully.
"Honey babeee, ah don' rahtly cayuh who y'all is," she responded sweetly, "With a nice sexy voice like y'all got, you can come ovah heah an' sip on my buhbon any time."
"Slut!" Johnny mouthed, banging down the phone.
He lit a cigarette, eased back in his swivel chair and perused the list of names. Nine more to go... no, ten actually. There had been one try with no answer. Next on the list was a Miss Maria Karlson.
"Hello," the girl answered with a keen naturalness, so different from the affected paraphrasing the others had used.
"This is Paul," Johnny identified his disguise immediately, an inner intuitiveness telling him he'd hit pay dirt, recognizing the voice that seemed to go with the blonde in the elevator, "I won't be able to make it tonight. Lot of work to clear up."
"You don't sound like yourself," the observation came with a bubbly friendliness, and Johnny pictured her stretched out comfortably and carefree on a couch, "You must have made one of those filibustering speeches today. You sound real hoarse." o
"This is Maria Thompson, isn't it?" he questioned shrewdly, "I...I mean I thought this was Maria Thompson... but I'm not sure now..."
"Nope, wrong number, Mister," she replied disappointedly, still friendly but not intimate or interested, "I thought you were... a guy I was expecting to call. Better luck next time."
When the phone clicked off Johnny had a strange feeling of regret rather than the triumph he anticipated. He knew this was the girl from the moment she answered the phone. And her voice continued to play havoc with his imagination-the tonal quality, the slight suggestion of intimacy, the carefree warmness. Professional actresses worked years to perfect the qualities. But Maria Karlson, who looked barely out of her teens, had it naturally.
Johnny lit another cigarette while the miniscule butt of his other still burned in the ashtray. He walked over to his bar and mixed a stiff bourbon and ginger, returning to his desk with a pensive look. The name, Maria Karlson, wheeled through his active mind. The very sound of it went so aptly with the girl he had seen so briefly the night before.
The Congressional clipping file in front of him, the folder he had removed from his information file, told the promise of the trap with free bait. Johnny shuffled through them now and swilled thoughtfully from his iced drink. There were two firms vying for the billion dollar Q-27 Rocket contract-Luxotronic Aeronautics, the big manufacturer and top contender, and Millytronics Rockitronics, an underdog but competent producer. The Washington scuttlebutt was clear though in its surmises: Millytronics didn't really stand a chance. Luxitronic had been in the business too long, had the necessary contacts around Washington for a shoe-in on voting day.
This was the perfect set-up, Johnny smiled to himself. If he could sway the subcommittee vote through Wittlmaier, and get the billion dollar bid for Millytronics, he could name his own price. Even if he asked for only one-one hundredth of one percent, his cut would be over a hundred thousand dollars. This was the big money Johnny had hoped to find all these years. This was his due, Johnny theorized. In any profession time and continued success spelled fatter remuneration. And Johnny was just as proud of his blackmailing, as a good lawyer of the legal profession, or a physician of medicine.
The door buzzer interrupted these delusionary visions of grandeur.
Johnny scowled and stuffed his papers into a desk drawer, then walked to the door.
"You are a lousy fathead!" Darlene Damita spewed out in vociferous purple, balling her little fists with intense anger, "All night long you don't answer damn telephone. I drive by here five-thirty. I know you be in. Your car she's outside. Goddam you, Johnny, why you don't answer me. I call you now too...last twenty minutes your line she's buzz-buzz busy."
"Take it easy, sexy," Johnny admonished with a smile, noting the new tight, low-cut dress, "I'm working on the frebie from last night...and your deal with Mr. Fremont..."
"You been with another woman, Johnny?" she accused furiously, throwing back the long black hair with a fiery swish of her head, "I know you, Johnny. You got that look like a sick sheep in a meadow. You know I don't like it. If it's business... okay, I take it. But goddam you, Johnny. You fall in love with another girl... I kill you both!" Darlene accented her threat with tensed fists and a vicious tightening of the big red lips. Her dark eyes dilated demonstratively, the lids closing ominously, her whole face expressing portentous sincerity.
Then... as suddenly as it began, her mood changed.
"Okay, baby. You make me right now... prove you never have no other girl up here to love you," she smiled possessively at Johnny, tossing her imitation mink on the floor and lazing on the couch, "You gimme what I want so bad last night I tear two good dresses into little pieces after I get home! Come on! Come on! Give it to me!"
"You're perverted!" Johnny admonished with a derisive grin, walking to the bar, ignoring Darlene's position on the couch with the tight skirt worked hip-high, "If you were so all fired hot pantsie last night, why didn't you call Ben? He'd fix you up good."
"You lousy fathead!" she cried out, knocking a lamp off the table behind her with a back wave of her arm, "You think I wanna play in a damn gutter 'cause Ben gets his cookies when he makes them pictures of me? I play with you, Johnny... with anybody, for money we gotta make. But when I want it, I only want it from you, Johnny. Come on... make me!"
"Have a drink," Johnny offered coldly, "You'll feel better in..."
"Use it for an enema!" Darlene screeched, knocking the glass out of his hand and tearing open her blouse.
"Okay... okay, baby,...," Johnny relented, remembering the last time she had nearly wrecked his apartment.
Darlene gobbled up Johnny in a sweeping, searing, tongue prodding embrace as soon as he sat down by her. She pulled him close, working his chest sideways against her braless bosom.
"Let me get undressed, baby," Johnny tried to pull away.
"No! No! No!" she screamed, pushing his hands down to her naked legs thrashing around the end of the couch, "Damn you, Johnny! I want it now! Now! Now! Ohhh... crazy, Johnny! Hurt me, you bastard! Hurt me crazy!"
"You bitch... you horny... horny little bitch!"
"Gimme cigarette, Johnny," Darlene asked calmly, an hour later, stretched out relaxed next to Johnny.
"They're at the bar. You get 'em," he responded sleepily, rolling over on his back, "I'm too damned tired to move."
"I still mean what I say, Johnny...I kill that woman you with last night if I find her," Darlene renewed her threat, getting off the bed and turning to face him, not as spirited but just as ominous, "You fall for other girl, and I go right to the cops. I hang myself good and I turn this crazy town upside down...but I take you with me, Johnny."
"Mmmmmm-hmmmm," Johnny grunted with outward unconcern, but cringing just a little inside.
"Either that or I kill you, Johnny," she added, walking away with a naked swish, "I kill one man in Cuba... that's why I leave."
With his eyes half closed, Johnny watched the blurred sight of the nude thighs and calves pumping away from him. The vision turned from the lustfully erotic creature to a kind of man eating animal. That's what Darlene was, he shuddered at the idea- a tigress, a female leopard in human form, a beautiful animal, but deadlier than any man made mechanism of human destruction.
CHAPTER FOUR - SETTING THE TRAP
Ben Lipper tooled his clumsy old sedan out Connecticut Avenue at 40 miles an hour. Johnny sat next to him tapping a cigarette lighter impatiently on his knee. It was 10:15 the next morning, and this was the direction to Maria Karlson's apartment. In the trunk of the old car were two suitcases filled with camera equipment, timing devices and an odd assortment of carpenter's and plasterer's tools.
"I'm set to see Zlacko's lawyer tonight about the Fremont Crime Committee set-up...Take it slower," Johnny gave out in an admixture of thought, keeping a lookout through the right side mirror.
"The big man himself ain't comin', huh?" Ben queried, a wet-lipped cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"I don't know," Johnny replied, puzzled himself, "I tried to get Zlacko on the phone, but the desk said his mouthpiece took all his calls. Then I called the lawyer... and the whole thing was a breeze. He said, 'we'll drop by to see you tonight. Maybe he means Zlacko too."
"They prob'ly figger you got a deal fer 'em," Ben opined, frowning as a blue Dodge kept crowding him from behind, "The boys in the gamblin' business is pretty smart. They hear Johnny DeFranco's tryin' to see..."
"Watch out, Ben! It's Doc Wheeler!" Johnny yelled, ducking down.
The blue Dodge had pulled beside them now, and a wizened, gray haired man held out a revolver in a shaking hand. Ben looked quickly to his right. He was in the center of three forward lanes doing well over the limit. A truck just ahead pulled into the center lane.
"Here we-go... hang on!" Ben advised, gunning the big vehicle and swerving to the right.
Johnny grabbed under the dashboard to steady himself. The car lurched, the tires squealed. A convertible in the right lane was almost on top of them. But the driver slammed on his brakes, cursed, and honked incessantly to vent his wrath.
They were safe now. The truck in the center lane was between them and the blue Dodge. Ben turned abruptly right onto Kindle and took the curving bridge road through the park at fifty.
"That son of a bitch is like an elephant," Johnny swore, sitting up straight and fumbling in the glove compartment, "What kind of rot gut are you carrying today? I need a drink."
"Bourbon," Ben answered, slowing down for the curves, "I thought it looked like Doc Wheeler's car, but we haven't tangled with him in months."
"That stinking slob," Johnny muttered, lowering the bottle from his lips, "I'd just as soon he go blab to the cops as keep gunning for me like this."
"He knows it too," Ben theorized, craning his neck to find the most direct route to the Arvo Towers, "...that's why he does it. B'sides, he kin still practice medicine now...after a fashion. He takes you to the cops an' gets all that slush in the papers, he won't have nothin' left."
"Turn left here, and we'll go up the back way," Johnny directed with nervous concern, still thinking of Dr. Bordon Wheeler.
Three times before, the politically and professionally ruined former Party Committeeman from nearby Montfort County, had tried unsuccessfully to take Johnny's life. It had been nearly a year since the respected physician had refused to go along with Johnny's demand to back the syndicate's candidate. And when he remained adamant, Johnny had no choice but to do what every blackmailer dreads - make good his threat of exposure.
And now after a three month lapse, Dr. Wheeler had again taken up his personal terror campaign against Johnny.
"This lock's a cinch," Ben commented, skeletoning his way through the threshold to apartment 1234 at Arvo Towers Number Four.
"You scout the bedroom. I want to have a look in here," Johnny told him, scanning the hallway cautiously before closing the door.
The living room was a tasteful combination of temporary and modern, dressed up with arty but inexpensive pictures from a Georgetown Gallery. But nowhere could Johnny find a picture of the fabulous young blonde, there wasn't even a high school annual around.
"Got it!" Ben announced triumphantly from the bedroom, then appeared in the doorway, "Bring the other bag in an' let's get busy, Buddy."
"Sure thing, Ben," Johnny snapped out of his questing mood, grabbing the heavy suitcase, "What's the set-up?"
"That pitcher's perfect," Ben told him, pointing over the top of the tufty covered Hollywood bed.
Above the big double bed was an oil of a soulful eyed shepherd boy holding a staff alongside of his singularly unhappy face. A chest-on-chest and a chair finished up the furnishings. The mirror and dresser were in the adjoining powder room separating the bath.
"Behind the picture?" Johnny frowned, looking around at the three bare walls, "And in back of the bed too? It won't work."
"Sure it will," Ben shrugged with a smile, pulling out the bed, "Eyes are made to see through and that boy's got two good ones... watch the ashes."
"Yeah, sure," Johnny shook his head self chastisingly, opening up the suitcase and taking out an ashtray, "You want the line to the hall?"
"Righto, Buddy," Ben said agreeably, unhooking the picture and placing it on the bed, "Straight out the molding on the back wall."
The two men pitched diligently to the task at hand -two expert craftsmen with a challenge to be mastered in record time and with utmost efficiency. Each point rehearsed beforehand and perfected through experience, they worked in perfect harmony, with the daring and skill of master spies.
Ben replaced the picture, made small dots on the wall by each corner, then took measurements with a protractor and compass. Using the sharp tip of his soldering iron, he burned minute holes through the pupils of the shepherd boy's eyes, pulling the iron up to give them an oblong shape vertically.
Johnny meanwhile, working with a thin edged screwdriver, deftly removed the small strip of moulding against the baseboard, all the way along the back wall from the bed to end of the room next to the hall outside. Sighting the spot with a piece of string Ben dropped from the picture position's center, he drilled a hole through into the wall's hollowness, from a spot where the replaced moulding would cover it.
Ben opened a second tool box in his suitcase and took out a larger brace and bit, hammer, small tooth saw, and a canvas catch-cloth which he laid on the floor beneath his work.
"Turn on the radio over there," he asked Johnny, starting a hole into the plaster at the edge of a concentric rectangle within the picture area behind the bed, "Might's well kill some o' this noise."
Johnny tuned in the bedside radio to the rock 'n' roll station in Arlington, while Ben worked on the four holes. This accomplished, Ben pushed the saw through the first one and cut around all four sides. The sheet rock rectangle fell out and he carefully folded it in a piece of brown wrapping paper and put it in his suitcase.
A light tapping noise came from the front door!
The two men froze in their tracks!
"Miss Karlson. Miss Karlson," a muffled voice called.
"Somebody heard the radio," Ben whispered, a terrified nervousness in his voice, "What if it's the damn landlady?"
"Did you chain the door?"
"Yeah."
"She'll go away," Johnny smirked, "If it's the resident manager, she's probably used to gals entertaining in the daytime. If she opens the door and sees the chain...so what? She'll think Miss Karlson's off today and wants privacy with her date."
After a long wait, Ben stooped down to his suitcase and pulled out a box shaped object wrapped in a black cloth. It was a special enclosure for a pair of cameras with winding gears and timers operated electronically. Ben checked each one carefully, then deposited a roll of high speed film in one, infra red film in the other.
"You can fish for the switch line now," he told Johnny, dropping a cord down through the wall as he positioned the box snugly into its hole.
Johnny sat on the floor and inserted a long wire hook through the slot he had made in the baseboard.
"Son of a bitch... thought I had it then!" he cursed frustratedly after the eighth try.
Ben pulled a chair directly under the light fixture now, ignoring Johnny's anxious comments, and took off his shoes. He stood on the upholstered seat, deftly removed the bowl fixture around the double bulbs in the ceiling and placed it on the bed.
"Hand me the pull-through," Ben requested, unscrewing the socket and sticking his little finger in the conduit space, "This one's gonna be a bitcheroo."
Johnny slammed down his tool angrily, ready to burst forward profanely. But he checked himself. This was work, the highly demanding technical skill for which he was totally dependent upon Ben. He could boss Ben around, tell him to go to hell, taunt him with his choice conquest of women... any other time. But during these few hours a month they were on this phase of a job, Ben was unquestionably the boss. Without Ben and his technical know-how, his meticulous attention to detailed perfection, Johnny's ideas would be only impotent dreams.
"Here you go," he said, handing Ben the end of a coil of stiff wire, "You want the socket and bulb too?"
"Later," Ben snapped, smiling inwardly at this treasured moment in which he could tell Johnny...
Johnny threw at him every time he asked for a session with one of his girls.
The skilled technician pushed the special made tip of wire through the conduit and began the long, tedious, threading operation. This project was necessary as back-up insurance for the camera plant. With no control over either party, they could never be sure there would be any lights on while the indiscretion took place. Thus Ben had devised the infra red set-up, assuring that even in total darkness they would at least get a reasonably good picture. The separate circuit he was now installing, would by-pass the light switch, and leave the infrared bulb burning constantly. With cameras trained on the bed, the geared mechanisms would click off a shot, rewind, and keep repeating the operation every five minutes after it was turned on.
"Son of a bitch!" Johnny blew again, banging the hook on the floor and lighting a cigarette, "I'll never hook this goddam wire."
"Jus' a minute. I'll give ya a hand," Ben offered abstractly, taking the face plate off the wall switch, "I lucked into a direct conduit here."
Ben smiled when he saw the tip of the wire he had fed through from the ceiling fixture, then pulled it out.
"I got it! I got it!" Johnny yelled jubilantly, yanking his cord through the small hole by the floor, "We're in business now, Ben!"
"Lead it to the outside like we done in that apartment in Chevy Chase las' month," Ben continued to supervise, standing back on the chair, "Soon's I get this socket in an' splice 'er up by the switch, we kin give it a dry run."
While Ben finished the installation of the infrared bulb, Johnny ran his wire from the cameras along the exposed baseboard where he had removed the molding. Reaching the wall, he brought the brace and bit into play again, using a ratchet attachment to bore flush with the floor, and a foot long bit. This too was a tedious aspect of the work, since there was nearly always a two-by-four bracing the sheetrock layers between the bedroom and hall - solid wood and rock for six to nine inches.
"We'll check it now," Ben proclaimed with an air of satisfaction, wiping his prints from the wall, replacing the chair and going over to close the blinds and draw the drapes.
"How's she read?" Johnny asked.
"Hundred percent," Ben announced with pride, holding his infra-red meter toward the bed, "Touch your wires there so I can check the gears."
Johnny made contact between the two naked wires at the end of his cord. Ben, his ear pressed close to the box mechanism in the wall, smiled contentedly.
"Works like a charm," Ben commented, turning a small knob and resetting the apparatus, "I'll go outside. You keep boring."
"Son of a bitch!" John groaned, positioning himself again in the cramped corner and ratcheting through the wall.
In the empty hallway outside, Ben dropped a dime on the plush carpet, to have it ready to pretend he was searching for in case someone came by. Then, slipping a screwdriver from beneath his jacket sleeve, he gently pried loose the length of strip moulding by the point he had paced off to match the footage inside the apartment.
The elevator door opened!
Ben shoved the molding back with his foot, keeping it jammed against the wall while he stooped to retrieve the dime.
"Good morning," a matronly form in old high button shoes greeted.
"Mornin', ma'm," Ben smiled his neighborly best, easing up from the floor, "Sure is hard t'fin' a ten cent piece on this here rug...."
"Do you live in one of these apartments?" the woman asked, the vigor of authority in her voice.
"Uh...well, no, ma'm," Ben stuttered uneasily, fearful this was the nosy landlady who had knocked earlier, "I jus'...well, I wuz visitin' a frien'...young lady I useta know in... in Atlanta."
"Are you married?" the question came out as primly self righteous as the woman's looks.
"No... no... ma'm," Ben twitched in horror, as much from the question as the molding pushing against his foot where Johnny was boring through.
"That's the trouble in this building," she shook her head.
"Well...uh...," Ben tensed, jamming his hand with the wedding ring into his pocket.
Perspiration rolled off the extra-legal cameraman's forehead. He jerked his foot uneasily-the bit had come right through the molding and penetrated the side of his shoe.
"Why aren't you married? You should be," the woman commented.
"Jus'...never met the right girl...I guess!" Ben nearly yelled when the pain hit, then moved his shoe up so the bit contacted his heel.
"Well, it's a cinch you're not the right kind of man," the woman shook her head again.
"What... what you mean, ma'm?" Ben gulped hard with the question, still scared and confused.
"The right kind of man to sell bronzed baby shoes to," she explained, holding up her sample case that Ben thought was an oversized purse, "I can't do any good in this building with all you single people around."
Ben smiled broadly with relief at the woman, and exhaled easily. The woman returned it, then strode back disappointedly to the elevator.
"Son of a bitch," he mumbled a curse, trying to free his foot.
The bit was half way through the heel.
"Got the trigger set?" Johnny asked a few minutes later, coming outside the apartment with both suitcases.
"All set, Buddy. Got 'er cleaned up?"
"All set," Johnny repeated with an OK high sign, looking down at the repaired molding, "All we have to do now is catch Wittlmaier when he's here, and trigger the set-up from down there."
"Goddam bronzed baby shoes," Ben muttered.
"Huh?" Johnny puzzled, ringing the elevator bell.
CHAPTER FIVE - THE MEETING
Johnny stood in front of his mirror and straightened the deep red bow tie, moving his neck around to position the collar just right. After Ben had dropped him off, he had spent the better part of an hour at the barber's - shave, shampoo, haircut with singe, facial massage, the whole works. Now it was the hour the "Big man's" lawyer had designated. And Johnny was dressed in his best dark blue suit, his white shirt set off with a crimson tie which made it look like a cross between business attire and a formal dress outfit.
He would never admit to being nervous at a time like this, only impatient. A feeling he rationalized by believing that every minute of his time was so valuable it was a shame to waste a precious second of it.
"Son of a bitch!" he swore to himself when the phone rang just as he was about to down a quick double bourbon, "Hello...Johnny here."
"Where you been hiding all day, sweet man?" the unmistakable voice of Honey Newgott came over the line.
"I'm busy, Honey," he shot at her tersely, gulping down the bourbon, "Call me tomorrow."
"Just wanted to let you know I muffed the date with the General last night," she slipped in the purpose of her call, "But I thought you might drop by the club later and..."
"Put the brass on ice for awhile, okay?" he suggested, then jumped as his door buzzer sounded. "Goodbye. See you later."
Johnny swallowed hard and checked himself in the mirror once again as he passed the bar.
The buzzer sounded again. A knock followed it. Johnny grabbed at the bourbon bottle and took a hefty swig. He cleared his throat, holding a hand up to muffle the sound. And then strode to the door, opening it with a swift, decisive movement.
"Mr. DeFranco?" a suave voice questioned, coming from a short, stocky man with graying brown hair.
"Yes, I'm Johnny DeFranco," he answered firmly, only his tense grip on the knob revealing anxiety. "You're Epimadou?"
"Diogenes Epimadou," the man introduced himself, handing Johnny a card.
"Come in," Johnny invited, eyeing the custom tailored brown suit he wore with covetous admiration. "You...you by yourself?"
"This is George, Mr. DeFranco... George Washington," the lawyer revealed, as a slim, well dressed, young Negro stepped into view, "Mr. Washington is... handles security for my client. I'm sure you won't mind if he takes a look inside."
Johnny nodded assent, observing both curiously and a little confused, as the erect Negro entered the room with the springy agility of an athlete, his right hand stuffed inside a double breasted jacket ominously. George checked the closets, under the bed, behind the doors.
George Washington then faced Johnny questioningly but said nothing. He was asking Johnny if he was from the south, if he would object to being personally searched by him. But the silent question was only momentary, and Johnny held up both arms to facilitate the frisk.
The security hood patted his suit from top to bottom, then checked up inside his sleeves and trousers. He nodded at Johnny with a strangely lingering smile, then turned to the lawyer with an affirmative nod.
"Thank you, George," Epimadou expressed his compliments, as he opened the door to the hallway and motioned outside.
Johnny tensed. Was he being taken for a ride? Had he made a mistake somewhere along the line? Or was Micko Zlacko always this careful?
The answer to his quandary came immediately. The short, squat, grotesquely ugly figure of Micko Zlacko appeared in the doorway. He was a bulbous creature, fully six inches shorter than the little lawyer. His flaccid face wore a permanent scowl, and the cheeks were two blobs of wrinkled gristle that wobbled when he moved. Two smaller sacks, darker in color, hung from beneath tiny beads of eyes. The top of his head was shiny bald and white, compared to the deep bronze on his bulging face. Except for the toupee he usually wore, there was no doubt that this was organized gambling's Mr. Big.
"May I present Mr. Micko Zlacko," Epimadou announced with pride, stretching to get one of his arms around the hulking shoulders of his client, "And with him is Miss Olivia..."
"Oh, hell, you Greek lover of young boys," a high pitched voice giggled stupidly, "Everybody just calls me little Tipsy. Don't give out with that classy name Micko uses in sassiety. It ain't my real one anyway..."
"Shut up!" were the first words Micko spoke.
A fiercely painted young bleached blonde strutted into the room. She wore a pout at Micko's remark, but there was nothing distorted about the body she had. Tipsy wore one of those brashly decollete dresses with spangled ornamentation reminiscent of the twenties, which were now in vogue again. There was so much exposed cleavage that it left no doubt that the girl had no brassiere and needed none. The dress came to about mid-knee and provided a delightful view of slightly heavy but outstandingly well shaped calves as she swished into the room. The clinging quality of the silky material showed the shapeliness to extend to venus rounded thighs that filled out and up to firmly smooth buttocks.
"How do you do?" Johnny smiled warmly at the hussy, then turned immediately to Micko and extended his hand.
"This ain't no tea party, kid. Sit down and listen to Diogenes," Zlacko ordered curtly, easing his flab onto the couch.
"You'd like a drink, of course," Johnny flustered, indicating chairs for the other two.
"Of course not!" Zlacko cut him down again, jerking the blonde onto his lap and breaking out in a bizarre laugh.
"I gotta have just one little drink," Tipsy insisted, fondling the zipper on Micko's trousers with brazen obscenity, "Just a little one, please... it's been ten minutes since we left that nice bar."
"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!" Micko gave out with a coarse, guttural guffaw, "Sure... have a drink, you hot little whore. Keep you juiced up and you stay hot. Ha ha! Ha ha ha!"
"Warm tomato juice with a double of Scotch... mixed," Tipsy announced calmly, obviously awaiting some kind of incredulous reaction.
"And you gentlemen?" Johnny questioned, refusing to bat an eye, "You'll have something now, won't you?"
"When Micko wants something he'll ask for it!" the gambler stated, his snarl showing a row of yellowed teeth.
"Yeah...sure," Johnny agreed sheepishly, walking to the kitchen for a can of unrefrigerated tomato juice.
"From the course of your conversation, Mr. De-Franco," Epimadou opened the business when Johnny returned with the warm drink, "We assume you have some information or contacts which might lead to an easing of my client's misrepresentation before the Congressional, vote mad clowns who clutter the halls of this nation's ordinarily austere chambers of lawmaking. These men, viciously and without mercy, have attacked the reputation of Micko Zlacko, a solid American citizen who came to this country penniless, and through arduous toil and native ability, now owns a chain of highly successful restaurants. Thus, knowing in our hearts that these ridiculous chargings of being a gambling czar are pure untruths, we feel certain no permanent judgement will ever be realized by these mock tribunals. However..."
George stood immobile in the shadows behind a corner lamp, his thin lips expressionless, strong alert eyes constantly searching the room.
Micko Zlacko slouched on the couch, his eyes half closed, a half smile playing across his snarled, purplish lips.
Tipsy, feeling the hairs on the big man's chest by running her eager fingers under his shirt-front, probably caused his smile. The sexpot blonde would stop occasionally to plant an open mouthed kiss on his face or neck, then push her body back and forth against him with a whining moan. Then, when Micko refused to respond, the loud giggle would rent the air and Epimadou was forced to talk over it.
Johnny, a highball in his right hand, an intense look on his young face, sat opposite the lawyer.
"...however," Epimadou went on, his tone rigidly businesslike, "...we are open to any suggestions which might spare us the ordeal and expense Mr. Zlacko is forced to endure at these viciously contrived hearings. What suggestions do you have, Mr. DeFranco?"
"The best kind I know," Johnny answered candidly, reaching into his pocket and producing a small, black envelope, "Take a look at these."
The lawyer jerked back unexpectedly when Johnny tossed him the packet. Micko gave out with a throaty chuckle. And Tipsy giggled so loud that Micko shoved her off his lap.
"Excellent! Excellent!" Epimadou broke into a rave of admiration, leaning over to show the pictures to his client, "I think this should do the trick nicely."
"Cra-a-zy!" Tipsy burst out, grabbing one of the small pictures. "Upside down and merry-go-round too! They make me hot, honey. Whatcha gonna do about it?"
"Drop dead!" Micko lashed out, smashing at the side of her face with his hand.
Tipsy fell to the floor whimpering. Johnny noticed her tiny hands gripping at her mouth, as if she were scared to death of crying out at the pain which must have seared across her reddening face.
"This Fremont ain't a goddam Senator er nothing," Micko scowled, holding up a picture of the Committee Counsel in bed with Darlene, "He's a only a goddam lawyer like you."
"He's the whole show," Epimadou explained the man's potency, still highly impressed by the damning pictures, "The entire Committee's stacked with do-nothing publicity seekers. Fremont's the real brain."
"Okay," Micko agreed gruffly, holding up one finger as a signal.
"We'll give you a thousand dollars... cash," Epimadou offered Johnny, straightening up the photos.
"What?" Johnny cried unbelievably, reaching for his pictures.
"Ooooohh, baby! Make me crazy like the guy in the picture," Tipsy babbled drunkenly, trying to crawl on Micko's lap, "I'll take it any way you give it, baby. Come on... Owwwww!"
Micko slammed her to the floor again with a belt from his left hand. As before, Tipsy whimpered in convulsively silent sobs, just lying on the floor with her dress half up.
"She's a nympho... ha ha ha!" Micko jeered crazily, the yellowed teeth showing all their decayed deformity, "Crazy little nympho...but good to have around when you need it. Ha ha! Ha ha ha!"
"Those pictures cost six grand to get," Johnny cut in, champing restlessly at the ridiculous offer they had made, too excited to notice the sexily gartered stockings and lacy underthings the sobbing Tipsy was showing, "You're nuts to offer me a thousand for those. I got camera expenses, a photographer to pay, the gal to cut in...and you offer me a lousy grand to..."
Johnny stopped suddenly when he felt the snub nosed revolver pressing into his cheek. The long silent George Washington, his face still emotionless, had withdrawn from the shadows to serve his master.
"We're paying one thousand for them," Epimadou stated resolutely, pocketing the pictures as he pulled out a roll of bills.
"Take it, kid...or forget about life real quick," Micko stated with executive unconcern, reaching to rub Tipsy's naked thighs.
"I don't think you have a choice, Mr. DeFranco," Epimadou added with pointed realism.
"Be my guest," Johnny tried to outsnarl Micko, smiling to himself.
"Let's go," the Mick ordered, pinching Tipsy crudely on her buttocks and digging in his long fingernails.
George Washington remained by Johnny's side, the gun still touching his face, until the others had reached the door.
"One thing I forgot to mention," Johnny stopped them.
"Yeah?" Micko responded with an overconfident smirk.
"Those pictures are what we call 'special darkroom prints'."
"So?" Micko queried.
"Once they've been exposed to light... they'll fade out in an hour."
"You young bastard!" Epimadou reacted, coming back into the room.
George raised the gun angrily, ready to bring it down on Johnny's skull.
"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!" Micko roared in the most re sounding fit of laughter he had yet displayed.
George stopped his action.
Tipsy stood by the door with a questioning look.
Epimadou appeared puzzled.
"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!" Micko bellowed again, the chubby cheeks and bags under his eyes dancing jerkily, "You're a smart kid...damn smart kid. I betcha don't have no other copies here neither."
"My partner's got the negatives," Johnny stated, standing up and shooting a menacing look at the confused George, "... and we never see a customer together."
"Say... that's good business... smart business," Micko gave out with an admirable tap on Johnny's shoulder as he walked to face him, "You got brains and guts, kid. How much you want for 'em?"
"Fifty thou... thousand dollars," Johnny cursed to himself for flubbing it, knowing this showed uncertainty.
"We'll give you five thousand," Epimadou leaped to the advantage.
"Shut up!" Micko yelled, tweaking Tipsy playfully on her ungirdled rear as he talked, "You two ack like a tourist an' a Arizona Indian. The price I pay is twenty five grand."
"I'll...take it," Johnny gulped his assent.
"Ha ha! Ha ha ha!" Micko belted out his crude laugh again, this time giving Tipsy's nether anatomy a firm slap, "Now... when do we get the pictures, kid?"
"I'll make the pitch," Johnny announced, his confidence returning, "Tell me what you want, and I'll do it. That's the way I work."
"You're working for us now, Mr. DeFranco," Epimadou rationalized, pushing Johnny back in his chair to regain initiative, "We tell you..."
"What's the deal kid?" Micko squelched his lawyer, impressed with Johnny's ability, "Spell out the deal for us, kid?"
"I've handled a lot of these things and I know how to do it," Johnny started, gesturing excitedly as he went into his explanation proudly, "Fremont is realistic. He knows when he has to give in, knows when there's no out. This kind of scandal could ruin him. With a kid in the Military Academy and a girl at that fancy college up East-he couldn't take it. All I have to do is meet him privately, show him the pictures... the same kind of prints I showed you."
"It's very true...yes," Epimadou commented thoughtfully, "But he's such a dedicated fighter. Do you think he could really afford to go as far as exonerating my client completely... drop all this..."
"He'll drop it or drop dead...Ha ha! Ha ha ha!" Micko busted out with his guffaw, pinching Tipsy so hard this time she jumped up from the couch where she had resettled, "Tender stuff, huh? Ha ha! Ha ha ha!"
"I know how to handle him," Johnny radiated confidence now, "A smart lawyer in his position can find plenty of good reasons to drop the investigation - lack of evidence, indications the probe might backfire..."
"Let the kid handle it," Micko broke in impatiently, getting up and sharing a menacing look between the lawyer and Johnny, "He knows how to take care of these things...he knows what'll happen if he don't."
"Yes sir," Johnny answered, getting the message, "And... I'll keep in touch with you on it."
"You have my office number," Epimadou reminded, following the big man to the door, "If I'm not in, answering service will inform you where I may be reached."
"Call me direct, kid... drop by fer a visit," Micko added, shoving a reluctant Tipsy out the door, "This mouthpiece don't have to be the exclusive go-between."
"Do you like daisy ch...," Tipsy tried to ask a question, but was stopped by a resounding slap across her giggling mouth.
"I'll kill you some day, you little tramp!" Micko threatened.
George Washington, the last to depart, looked around at Johnny just before he closed the door. His thin face seemed to relax for a moment, the tensed lips easing into a curiously elusive smile, the eyes lighting up. The stoniness returned after he made a sweep of Johnny from head to toe. He said nothing during the entire time.
"Nice," he finally broke the silence in a hollow voice as impassive as his enigmatic face, then closed the door.
A pencil sliding up and down between his slim fingers, Johnny sat quietly and thoughtfully at his $890. desk that a designer had assured him was an exact copy of a local bank president's. He was lost in meditative delusions of importance over this latest coup. Twenty-five thousand was a lot of money, the most he had ever earned on a single deal.
And then slowly, his fertilely cunning mind wandered on to even bigger accomplishments-Congressman Wittlmaier and the blonde beauty - Maria Karlson. What would a company give to be assured of getting a billion dollar rocket contract? Something like this could make the Fremont blackmail and Zlacko's $25,000 look like a kid's allowance.
And Maria?
As much as Johnny had seen of the oftimes incongruously seamy side of Washington meanderings, he had a strangely vicarious infatuation for this girl he had viewed for only a fleeting moment, heard speak but a few words. Try as he would, he could not forget her. Nor could he picture her in a compromising position with the aging Congressman.
This is stupid, Johnny wrangled with his feelings. Here was the most cynical guy in town trying to fathom a paragon of virtue from a little blonde tramp who sleeps with a politico. It was silly. But Johnny was still restless, uneasy. Something was out of place, not only in his visions, but something real, something here and now.
The stereo! That's what was missing. Johnny always had the stereo playing in the background, had a specially made, reversible four hour tape of music conducive to productive thought and planning.
Johnny started up from his desk to go across the room and turn it on. Then he stopped, remembering the remote control switches Ben had installed at his desk. With the box-like apparatus, he could control lighting, the TV, HiFi, stereo, or even his regular record player.
Johnny studied the row of buttons on the panel built into his drawer. "S" was for stereo. Simple as that.
He pressed the button.
Whoom! Bam! Shhhumm! Crash!
It was the end of the world!
A tremendously ear-splitting concussant blast rent the opposite side of the room. Johnny ducked under his desk with the intuitive speed he had learned in the army, covering his face with both arms.
The wall plaster, in bits and pieces, fragments of wood and radio tubes, window glass, books -showered through the room. A geyser of hot water from a burst pipe shot through the mound of debris. The entire wall to the adjoining bedroom was shorn away, the bed itself upended and spewing out cotton padding from the fractured mattress.
A slow dribble of blood oozed painfully from Johnny's forehead where a sliver of glass had penetrated.
CHAPTER SIX - THE BANG AND THE BITE
"I hope you thank God for small favors," Lieutenant Walter Connors of the bomb squad commented, looking over the remote control gadget in Johnny's desk, "If you'd been over there to turn on that thing we'd be picking up pieces of you out of this mess."
"Yeah... it's a damn... damn miracle I didn't get it," Johnny agreed shakily, appearing dazed as he sat down in the one chair remaining, a small bandage on his forehead, "I... like I said, I guess they got the wrong apartment."
"Oh, come off it, DeFranco," the detective growled, standing up to face Johnny, "You've got more enemies than you know what to do with. Oh... your record's clean at Headquarters all right, but we know what you do. You're a pimp for high priced whores. Who did it, Johnny? What girl didn't get her right cut? Who'd you overcharge?"
"It's a mistake. Bound to be a mistake," Johnny insisted, combing back his hair for the tenth time and still trembling.
The detective was off on John's vocation, but he had no doubt that whatever this young man did was well outside the bounds of the law-no visible means of support, $230. a month apartment, $180. suits, $6,000. foreign car, no debts... but no credit rating either.
"Whoever did this job took too damn much trouble to muff it," Connors judged, leaning against the front of Johnny's desk, "There was close to ten pounds of TNT in that box. Now...who did it, DeFranco?"
"You said yourself I got a clean record, Lieutenant," Johnny reminded him, his confidence returning with a trace of defensive anger, "... so don't go around accusing me of being a pimp unless you can prove it. Is there a law against being a playboy with a rich father? Sure... I hang out with the cabaret and B-girls... so what?"
"Your father died in the alky ward at St. Elizabeth's three years ago and your mother's living with a truck driver in St. Louis," Connors stated bitingly, referring to a black notepad, "I've got your whole life history here, DeFranco."
"All right! So I got a rich uncle...an anonymous benefactor!" Johnny shouted, getting up from his chair, "It's none of your goddam business where I get it. I got no record... not even a traffic ticket."
"From mail clerk to Army PFC to bellhop at the Shoarmont," Connors rattled off, pushing Johnny back in the chair, "... then three months after you get fired from the hotel, you're spending C-notes like they were ten cent tips, Don't tell me some philanthropist has set up a young punk like you so you can lead a Sultan's life."
"Get out!" Johnny yelled, moving up from his chair again, "Get out or I'll call the Police Commissioner!"
"I've been threatened with worse than that, De-Franco," Connors blithely shrugged it off, pocketing his notebook calmly, "But if I stick with this case, I'll work night and day to find out everything there is to know about you. I'll get your bonber... but I'll get you too. I've seen your breed before. You get your kicks out of taking hard working, unsuspecting people for their dough... suckers you call 'em. Well, I get my cookies from putting bums like you in jail."
A smile broadened Johnny's face when Connors closed his door. So the cops had him pegged as a pimp. This was news... actually good news in spite of its degrading aspects. It might be distasteful to be thought of as a simple panderer, but it was also quite safe. None of Johnny's girls ever asked a guy for money.
The telephone interrupted.
"Johnny here," he answered.
"I tripped the cameras, Buddy," Ben Lipper's familiar voice greeted him sleepily, "Wittlmaier come up 'bout ten-fifteen an' I give 'em a half hour to hit the sack. That gives us one pitcher ever' five minutes for the next three hours. If he don't climb that little babe by then... well, he just ain't gonna do it."
"Pick me up at nine-thirty in the morning," Johnny told Ben with a satisfied smile, "We'll go clean it up then.
Johnny didn't lose the self-satisfied smirk while he prepared to bed down on the couch, the only sleeping space spared from the bomb blast. But when he turned the lights off and tried to sleep, two disquieting thoughts prevent it. If Doc Wheeler really wanted him out of the way, and he obviously did, he would be trying again. And Johnny was alone in his defense. And it had to be defensive too, because with Doc Wheeler, Johnny's aggressiveness was spent, he had no weapon to fight with. He couldn't even go to the police for protection, any more than he could ruin his whole operation by telling them the Doc was responsible for tonight's explosion. Johnny DeFranco would just have to be damned careful-check the car every time he got in, check his apartment each time he entered, watch furtively in all directions when he was in the street or a public place.
The second disturbing thought seemed silly and inconsequential by comparison. He was angry with Ben. He tried to shake the feeling away, but he was mad with Ben because of the way he referred to Maria Karlson, calling her "that little babe" and remarking about Wittlmaier "climbing her". It was a crazy thing for Johnny DeFranco to give a damn about... Johnny DeFranco, who considered anything in skirts between 18 and 40 just so much playground for a man, just so many pounds of toys to be entertained by then chucked aside.
But it did concern Johnny. That's what troubled him.
The fears of the previous day were almost gone as Johnny worked diligently with Ben to erase every trace of their set-up in apartment 1234 at Arvo Towers Number 4.
"The plaster's dry," Johnny informed Ben, who was pulling the extra wires back through the conduit, "Green with a spot of yellow ought to match it up pretty well."
"Yeller an' white both," Ben judged, getting off the chair to take a close squint at the wall's color, then smoothing his rough hands over the area where they had re-inserted the beaverboard rectangle and adhered it with quick-dry plaster, "This here's darker where she got the pitcher hung. Blend it out to where the color fades."
"You said Wittlmaier was here until three-thirty?" Johnny asked.
"Yeah," Ben acknowledged with a yawn as the two went back to work. "He come outta here lookin' like a limp dishrag."
"Looks... looks like we really got something, huh?" Johnny asked rhetorically but uneasily, "I'll... I'll bet a case of bourbon we got plenty."
"No bet," Ben averred lethargically, rolling up the wire and putting it in the suitcase, "You never made a bad guess yet in this business."
"It's like a sixth sense, Ben," Johnny smiled at the respect for his judgment, then rattled on, "... like a chef who never has to measure his ingredients. I worked at that fancy Shoarmont Hotel for a year before I ever saw a real wheel shacking with a broad. Hell... there was plenty going on. But who were they? Out of town business boys with some government cutie they'd picked up in a bar. They wouldn't be worth the risk... shake 'em down for fifty, a hundred, and that's it. But when I spotted Congressmen Dolta in the room with that dancer from the Melody Hour Club, it was different. I knew who he was, I knew he had a wife and kids, and the paper was full of stuff about his vote being the one that could make the difference on the Anti-Trust action Wilfaxt Steel was fighting. It was a natural..."
"Come on, Johnny. You finish the paintin' an' we kin go," Ben hurried him along, having heard the story a dozen times, "I wanna get a glimmer at this blonde stuff you think is so hot."
Johnny tensed at the way Ben continued to refer to Maria Karlson. He wanted to see the pictures too. But at the same time he was afraid to see them, actually fearful they would turn out to be too good - the blonde beauty with the enrapturing smile making love with the lecherous old politician. Johnny denied there was any explanation for the way he felt, kept trying to deny there was any reason he should care what Ben said about the girl - any more than he was bothered by his assistant's constant references to Darlene.
"Man! These are terrific!" Ben whistled vulgarly, holding the film strip against his darkroom light.
Johnny edged up closer to the dripping negative roll. Maria Karlson's blonde hair was a jet black, her skin varying shades of darkness. But even reverse polarity could not hide the beauty, the expression, the gracefully flowing lines of her flawlessly youthful body.
"Wittlmaier'll crap when he sees these, Buddy," Ben's leering smile showed dimly by the little red bulb, "Him bein' a church deacon an' his son workin' for that 'sistent cab'net appointment... he'll do anything for ya. Hey... look at him here. He's really givin' that little babe..."
"Shut up!" Johnny growled, stepping back in the shadows, "Just get me some prints of that son of a bitch!"
"What... whatsa matter, Buddy?" Ben puzzled over Johnny's suddenly erratic behaviour, "Look... this is no differ'nt frum the other jobs. Wittlmaier ain't got..."
"I... I didn't want Elfrieda to hear... that's all," Johnny made up, turning around to light a cigarette, "I know you trust your wife, but no sense in calling out the names so loud."
"Oh...," Ben replied, hanging up the film strip to dry, "Well, you kin turn on the light now."
"I... uh, wanna use your phone, Ben."
"Sure, Buddy. You know where it is."
Johnny went to Ben's old work desk in the cluttered living room, avoiding the always curious eyes of Ben's three kids who glanced at him questioningly from their perches by the TV.
"Out to play," Ben ordered, closing his darkroom door, "We gotta do some business."
"Put your coats on," Elfrieda Lipper caught the trio at the door, 'We got terrible cold wintertime this years."
"Beat it, Schazi," Ben frowned, calling her by the dubious term of endearment he'd learned at the bar in Munich where he met her, "We got some 'portant stuff to'do."
"You keep that damn money come in," she told him, shaking a finger as her monstrous breasts jiggled with repulsive bounce in the faded print dress, "But don' let me catch you make crazy passion over them pitchers no more. You got a wife for that stuff."
"Awww, go on, Schazi," Ben waved her off with a disgusted frown, "Whatchoo want? Two... three more kids?"
"You got lotta talk," she accused, thumping into the kitchen, "You work one hour then get soused up fer a goddam week."
"Never fall in love with a whore," Ben advised philosophically, pouring a water glass half full of Rye, "They spen' all their life pleasin' guys... until they get married."
Ben slouched on a grease splotched sofa in his dirty work apron and guzzled the drink neat. Johnny found the number he'd been seeking and picked up the phone.
"Mr. River, please. Johnny DeFranco calling," he said into the mouthpiece, then cupped it with his hand, "We're in luck, Ben. Lyman Rivers is the lobbyist for Millytronic here. He's the same guy I sold the deal to on Hyber Construction last year for the new bridge."
"Hit 'em good, Buddy," Ben commented, looking at a cartoon on the TV.
"Hello, Mr. Rivers," Johnny smiled his telephonic greeting, "Oh, I'm fine. And you?... Say, I've got Millytronic in the bag for this rocket deal. How's that sound?... Ten in the morning? Fine. I'll be there."
"I hope Doc Wheeler don't get no more happy ideas 'fore you cinch this deal," Ben observed wryly, straining to get up from his slouch and going after another drink, "You better watch out for that..."
"He doesn't bother me a goddam bit!" Johnny barked angrily, thumbing through the phone book again, "Now, come on, Ben. Get me some prints made... one set of the special ones, one regular. I'm going to see Maria Karlson tonight... see if I can't work her in with us."
"Are you crazy, good Buddy?" Ben asked in amazement, letting a wet butt drop from his mouth and grinding it into the rug, "Jeez, Johnny, we got us some free bait here. Wittlmaier'll pay off without cuttin' her in. She's only the bait. We done it b'fore with Gen'ral Dirkson an' his sec'atary. You never cut her in. This babe's got a..."
"I'm playing it safe, Ben," Johnny rationalized, controlling his anger to make up a story for Ben, "What if we hit the Congressman good but the bait talks? We got to be careful, Ben. This way I figure to feel out the girl... see what she's like... maybe con her over to our side."
But... what if the old guy's there with her? How you gonna meet the quiff? Whatchoo gonna say to 'er?"
"Just leave that to your old buddy," Johnny smiled, picking up the phone again and ignoring Ben's remarks, "Today's Friday, an it's even odds Wittlmaier's playing it close to home. Here's where we find out. You... you don't think this girl's really in love with the old coot?"
"Jeez, Buddy, you sure got all the angles," Ben shook his head admiringly, then stopped, "But you sure play it close sometimes. Naw... she ain't in love with 'im. She's playin' 'im for somethin' too..."
"Good afternoon," Johnny addressed the phone, holding up a cautioning hand to Ben as the Wittlmaier butler answered, "This is Mr. Roberts over at the White House. I was wondering if the Congressman is in now?... Oh? Well, I wasn't sure whether I'd catch him at the office this late on Friday... Oh? Going to the farm this weekend. Well, I'll catch him Monday. Nothing important. Thank you."
"Son of a bitch!" Ben gave a low whistle as Johnny cleared his throat, "Jeez, I wish I had your nerve."
"Haha," Johnny laughed, closing the phone book, "Nothing to it, Ben. They got three hundred people working in the White House. They call Congressmen every day in the week. How does the butler know who it is? 'Sorry, sir,' he says politely, 'But the Congressman is joining the Madam and Paul Junior for a weekend at Rolling Acres early this afternoon.' What a set-up, Ben! Maria's all alone... just waiting to meet Johnny DeFranco."
"Yeah?" Ben smiled his dirty leer, "'less she's rollin' in the hay with some other boy tonight."
"Damn it, Ben...!" Johnny tried to check himself, "... damn it, Ben... I told Darlene I'd see her tonight."
"Fix me up, huh?" Ben brightened, running over to Johnny and lowering his voice so it wouldn't carry to the kitchen, "Come on, Johnny. You can fix me up, huh? I... I'll do the whole set-up on the Fremont guy for nothin', Johnny. You won't have to pay me nothin' on it. Come on... please, Johnny."
"Okay, Ben," Johnny relented real easily, a twisted smile crossin his face, "I told her I'd be by at nine. You go on over then and take my place. Tell her... I had to go see a prospect tonight. Knock three times, hold it, then twice more-just like I do. Tell her I said to treat you good."
"Gosh... Oh hell, thanks, Johnny! Thanks a million!" Ben bubbled, slapping Johnny continuously on the shoulder, then looking down at his disheveled self, scratching his round fingers across a whiskered face, "I'll... I'll shave... get cleaned up real good... tell the frau I've got to see some big shot with you. Oh, gee... thanks Johnny! Thanks a million!"
"You're welcome, Buddy. You're plenty welcome," Johnny gave him palsy assurance, amused by Ben's childish glee, his own thoughts confidently beyond the threshold of a young bonde's apartment at the Arvo Towers.
CHAPTER SEVEN - THE BREATHLESS BLACKMAILER
At nine o'clock, a scrubbed, showered and shaved Ben Lipper gulped nervously and knocked on the door to Darlene Damita's swank Connecticut Avenue apartment, dressed in his one and only suit.
At this same moment, in Arvo Towers Number Four, a confident and relaxed Johnny DeFranco lifted the knocker on apartment 1234. His entire approach had been meticulously figured out: He was looking for a Miss Karlson from New York. Was this the same girl? No? Then, could he please use the telephone to check on the address. Once inside, Johnny was certain the rest would be easy.
But he was completely unprepared for what happened next!
When the door opened in response to his knock, Johnny was literally unable to speak, unable to comprehend, unable to do much of anything except gaze and gawk in the same way Ben Lipper would react upon seeing a beautiful young woman naked.
Only Maria Karlson wasn't naked... not exactly.
The bubble coiffed blonde hair, in all its natural golden highlight, radiated up and out in a sassy French pouf from her sparklingly refreshing face. Johnny saw the face only in passing though. His eyes were far more intent, far more mesmerized by the soft look of bare flesh that flowed and curved so smoothly beneath the sheerest peignoir he had ever looked right through.
Two firm breasts stood brazenly erect, pushing out at the gossamer covering until the mesh hung down with as much intrigue as the thick clothed brunch coat did that night in the elevator. The legs were long and shapely, adding an illusion of height to Maria's sumptuously carved five foot three frame. And she had the left knee bent at a cocky angle to match her provocative stance.
She also wore a slim, red panty brief.
"Hi!" she smiled saucily, a pensive red glow to the full, sensuous lips, "Don't just stand there. Come in."
"Su... sure...," Johnny complied, at a total loss for words.
"Let's see now," Maria said thoughtfully, the tip of her tongue pressing down the lower lip, "You're not the type for Scotch... surely not one of those terribly modern Vodka and God knows what drinkers. Bourbon! That's it... you're the bourbon type."
"Double... no chaser," Johnny replied, trying to regain his unabashed composure, yet unable to keep his eyes off the girl's beauty.
Maria indicated a chair, then looked over her soft shoulders at Johnny as she began a naturally seductive walk to the bar. The view was fantastic, affording a full sweep of the fabulously near nude body, the full thighs working like docile pistons against the rounded buttocks, the tempting sway of hips and back in harmonious counter-balance. The shape of the long legs was made even more palatable by a pair of high heeled, tufted slippers.
"I wondered when you'd show up," she let out casually, in that same intimacy of tone Johnny couldn't forget.
"You...you what?" he asked, his mind running confused, watching fixedly while she performed the operation of mixing herself a Martini, "I... I haven't introduced myself yet. I might be... the Fuller Brush Man."
"Uh-uh," she negated, curling her lips into a smile and leaning across the bar with a direct stare which Johnny found disquieting, "Number one -you don't have a sample case. Number two -he was by here last week. Number three-your voice is far too similar to the man's which tried to imitate Paul Wittlmaier on the telephone Wednesday night."
Johnny dared not try to speak. He knew it would come out all garbled and fluffed, only expose the insecurity and fear that was gripping him. He matched Maria's stare to hide his feelings, and tried to reason, logic it out. Either this girl was the smartest, sharpest female he had ever met, or Wittlmaier was on to him. If it was the first supposition, he was ahead of the game... maybe. But if Wittlmaier did know..."
"Cat got your tongue, dear?" Maria cooed out the question, a triumphant twinkle in her expressive blue eyes as she continued to stare at Johnny with the disarming smile, "It was all really very simple... why I was waiting for you tonight, I mean. You're a pretty smart guy. I realized this after you telephoned the other night. Well... I'm pretty sharp too, my friend. And it just made sense that you'd be able to find out the first night Paul wouldn't be here."
Maria finished with the drinks and stepped from behind the bar. The front view, approaching Johnny in her deliberately seductive gait, holding herself back in a suggestively succubine position, brought on another bewildering admixture of emotion. The girl was a modern day Delilah, a temptress who could eke out the most violently virific feeling in a man. But compounded with this most basic urge welling up in him, Johnny was distraught still over his complete nakedness of thought. It was a curiously discomforting trade this girl had managed-stripping herself to the physical nudity Johnny clamored for, but at the same time exposing his own innermost tricks and ruses to her view.
"I'm puzzled," Maria admitted with amazing frankness, perching next to the silent Johnny on her long sofa and handing him the double bourbon, "Are you some kind of blackmailer? Or is this just the way you seduce women? I'm not rich you know? A GS-Three with no dependents does well to bring home fifty a week."
"What's your game?" Johnny could only propose a counter-question.
"I don't really have one, dear. I don't guess you mind if I call you dear?" Maria began a fast paced monologue with slight affectation, perturbed by Johnny's enigmatic silence, expecting more reaction but getting only a question in return, "... I rather like to call men 'dear'. In fact I rather like men. But I learned a long time ago that a nice girl just can't go around with every man she likes. A nice girl is rather like a whore really. Only she's smarter. Instead of a trinket here, a dollar there, she works for something more stable. I suppose marriage is at the top of the list, but... well, a girl has to live..."
Johnny took his double neat while she talked, and began to relax. He could tell Maria was nervous now, tell she was talking out of near panic. He felt easier and more relaxed. Maria was smart and clever all right. But she wasn't part of a trap to expose him.
"And what did you get from Wittlmaier... besides the apartment?" Johnny questioned, looking over the tastefully but not expensively furnished apartment, then back to the talkative blonde.
"The first thing a girl needs to get started," she answered, her own smile returning, blinking the big eyes as she looked at Johnny, "... a job. I'm a typically frustrated small town girl who came to Washington for glamour, romance, adventure...the whole works. But the first thing is to get a job."
"You work for Wittlmaier?" Johnny asked, walking to the bar for a refill.
"Heavens no! Nothing that direct," she replied, continuing to speak with her little affectation, "I'm a typist over at the Pentagon. But the waiting list was so long when I first got to town, I decided to go see my Congressman."
"Wittlmaier?" Johnny mused the query, pouring bourbon.
"Precisely," Maria smiled, walking over to the bar with a slinky, sultry twist, holding out her empty cocktail glass, "There's some more of my Martini in the shaker there... It was about the simplest thing I've ever done, really. Paul was so sweet about it all. Said he remembered my father from back in Star-land Falls, babbled on about appreciating his vote and stuff... Which was a damn lie because both father and mother are opposition party members."
"But he got you the job?"
"Precisely," she sparkled again, nodding graciously for the refill, "He got me the job and insisted I take this nice little apartment, which he just happened to have some spare furniture for."
"And in return, he got..."
"Precisely," she cut him off, slinking back to the couch, "I needed a job, I needed a place to live. He needed to feel young again. Oh, I realize these modern ideas of mine are completely taboo in Starland Falls. That's why I wanted to get away. Not that I had it bad, you understand, but I was the daughter of one of those unacceptable in-betweens of our class-conscious small towns. Dad's the largest plumbing contractor in the county, but all the bluebloods remember are the days when he used to track mud in their kitchens at eight-five cents an hour to fix the plugged up sink."
"Figured out my game yet?" Johnny asked, giving her a sly, beguiling look that took in the full sweep of Maria's young body.
"Not exactly," she replied, pulling the shapely legs up on the couch and moving closer, dropping her voice, "I don't think you'd have to pull a trick like this just to get a girl."
Johnny's heavier breathing wasn't from fear now. The tantalizingly full breasts were brushing against his shirt where he had loosened the single breasted sport jacket. Her warm breath blew against his sensitive ear as she talked in an almost panting whisper. The legs of full Venus voluptuousness were curled up next to him, knees against his body, thighs plopped so comfortably and enticingly right beside him, their naked beauty revealed where the nylon mesh was worked aside.
"I'm not trying to blackmail you," Johnny managed to say.
"Oh...," Maria responded with a surmising rise of her head, toying with the lapel on Johnny's coat, "I guess it's Paul you're after... but why come to me? I'm no shakedown artist. You discovered our little affair... see him."
"I want to know who's side you're on?" Johnny tried to make it sound rational, disappointed when she pulled away from him to get her drink, "Even if he comes through for me, you could blow it."
"I'll deny it if it ever gets to the scandal stage," Maria shrugged realistically, staying her distance still, "I'll say he was just a nice old man helping out a constituent's daughter."
"Simple as that, huh?" Johnny smirked, pulling the black envelope from his pocket, "I guess you'll say this was trick photography... composites of when you used to pose in the nude for girlie magazines and pictures of Wittlmaier in the men's locker room."
Maria, maintaining a look of disinterest, pulled the prints from the envelope. Immediately, the lackadaisical pose dropped. The young blonde tensed, gripped tightly at the pictures and ground her teeth together. The radiant face turned a pasty white.
"The Milan Shepherd Boy!" she shrieked, throwing the pictures on the coffee table and dashing toward the bedroom, "Paul said his eyes looked awful funny last night. But how? How...?"
Maria yanked the picture from the wall but could detect nothing unusual save the small slits burned in the eyes.
"You... you had a camera behind it! Of all the filthy, dirty, rotten things...," she blared bitingly, throwing it on the bed, "I could... could put you in jail for breaking in my apartment. The police would... would..."
Maria halted her tirade when she came back in the living room and saw the confident look on Johnny's face. Of course she could call the police. But Johnny had the negatives, and with them the power to ruin Wittlmaier and make a public tramp of herself.
"More Martini?" Johnny questioned, a smile glowering from his face as he sauntered to the bar, "Good for your nerves."
"Go... go to hell!" Maria screamed, doubling up on the couch in a convulsive sob.
Johnny poured the last of her Martini in the cocktail glass and walked over to the crumpled form, which somehow looked so helpless now despite the overtly seductive clothing. The fabulous body itself was more a shape to be pitied than made over.
But Johnny DeFranco never gave in, never succumbed to female weaknesses. And while he wished to now for some reason he couldn't comprehend, he denied the opportunity.
"Well?" he sounded angry with the question, setting his drink on the coffee table, "Are we in business... or are you going to Wittlmaier with this crying jag of yours?"
"I... I never told Paul about your phone call," Maria sobbed, trying to control herself as she looked up, "I thought... well, I thought you might be interesting. I wanted to meet a new man. I'm not the kind of girl who can really love an old guy like Paul. I... I need a young man. I thought maybe..."
"We're in business then," Johnny announced candidly, putting his hand under her chin, "A girl like you can make out real well in this game. That paycheck you get now'll look like a tip to the doorman."
"You've got me all wrong, dear... whatever your name is," she gulped out with a look of helpless exasperation, "I... don't even know what your name is... but I never make out with a guy just to be mean. If I go to bed with somebody it's because I love them... or I'm grateful..."
"That lets me out, eh?" Johnny probed, pulling her almost limp form up to him as he sat on the couch, "You never do anything for pure pleasure... just for kicks? That's the way to really enjoy it, honey. No responsibilities, no involvement, no lives to get messed up with foolish emotions. Just enjoy yourself."
"I didn't say how much I had to love them," she smiled up at Johnny, warming her body to his touch and cuddling closer, "You can love somebody just a little... and, well... enjoy love with them. I'm certainly not really in love with Paul. Oh... he's a nice man... very nice and considerate. And it's not the father image either. That's what you were thinking, wasn't it?"
"It figures."
"Paul's sixty-three," she retorted, propping up on an elbow now and in brighter spirits, "... but he can love like a guy you age. I fell in love... really in love, with a guy like you once. He was married and had four kids. But I was a stupid kid then too."
"And you broke up... and what's why you came to Washington... and that's the story of your life," Johnny capsuled it, fishing for a pair of cigarettes, "Okay, baby, the tears and young girl bit are over. Are we in business?"
Johnny hated himself for the brutal statement as soon as Maria closed her eyes and retreated into her shell. She was tense again, clutched at his leg to keep from sobbing, then looked up once more.
"I wouldn't go to bed with you! And I'm not in business with you!" she flipped out with an arrogance to match Johnny's, sitting up on the couch, "I've got a job and a nice apartment... why do I need you?"
"You want an answer?" Johnny smirked.
"Yes... you... you blackmailer...!" she mouthed at him angrily, too upset to grasp his intent.
"I'll show you why you need me!" Johnny told her hotly, pulling back the nylon peignoir and kissing her neck and shoulders, "You... you need me for this, baby... you need a man who..."
"Stop it! Stop it!" Maria screamed, pulling away and trying to flail out at him with her delicate arms.
"Hard... hard to get, huh?" Johnny mumbled out of breath, savoring the choice view of actively rounded hips and thigh tops when he ripped off the red briefs.
With her free left hand, Maria reached back for the cocktail glass. But suddenly she stopped. The way Johnny was kissing her erected breasts, the firm but agile way his hands probed Her sensitive body, was too much. She did need him, Maria realized... wanted him terribly.
"That's better, baby," Johnny relaxed his grip, letting the supple body lay back naked on the couch.
Maria changed her mind in the unguarded moment, snapping her body to the side, catching the floor as she rolled off, twirling over three times across the rug, then righting herself and jumping up.
"What the...?" Johnny blurted, pushing himself up and pursuing.
He fell to the floor with an abruptly unceremonious thud, his slipped down trousers wrapping around his fast legs and tripping him. Maria stood behind the bar, her breath coming out in heaves.
"Son of a bitch!" Johnny swore, seeing the blood come through a rip in his shirt sleeve where his arm had skidded against the edge of the glass topped coffee table.
"I'll help you... if you promise... to stop it," Maria offered, concerned with the sight of blood.
"I'll manage," Johnny clipped tartly, working his arm back and forth to check for a break, "It's not bad."
Johnny fastened his clothes back together and got up. The cut had left a gouge over an inch long and pained him searingly when the cloth of his shirt rubbed against it. But he wouldn't give in to visible grimacing. His endurance against such weakness was the only test of virility remaining for Johnny.
"Wait!" Maria called out, running from behind the bar and taking hold of his arm gently, "I... I changed my mind. I'll..."
"You picked a helluva time for that," Johnny snarled, forcing back a grimace from the pain as he yanked his arm back, "I guess you think I'm in the mood to jump right in bed... forgive and forget."
"No... no, not that," she insisted, standing against him again, "... about the business. I'm ready...I'll talk about helping you with Paul... you'll do it anyway. I might as well be on the winning side."
"Uh-huhhh...," Johnny voiced, a smile creeping into his lips, "Decided to come around to Johnny DeFranco's way of thinking."
"I was tired of that Pentagon grind, Johnny," she confessed easily, her arms going around his waist, "... Johnny? That's your name, isn't it? Sounds nice... so much nicer than all those old free feeling Colonels and Generals at the Pentagon... Johnny."
"Got a band aid?" Johnny queried, weakening to her pitch.
"You'll need more than that," Maria observed, guiding him to the couch, "Sit down, dear. I'll get the bandages."
SOMETHING had changed about Johnny De-Franco. He could feel it clearly as he rode down the elevator half an hour later. There was no definitive form to this new sensation, but it was there - elating him on the one hand, deflating him on the other. He had gained a partner, lost a bid for the boudoir. He was angry about the latter... but the wrath seemed more bent against himself than the girl who had so steadfastly refused his advances yet admitted she wanted them. She was teasing him, eluding... playing with Johnny DeFranco as if he were some young GI she had picked up in a bar.
Johnny brushed against an arm-locked couple as pushed through the swinging glass doors to the parking lot. Outside, laughing groups were emerging from cars, heading for their dates' apartment to finish off the young evening in more intimate surroundings. Others egressed from the building, many with fifths and holiday decanters clutched in their hands, jumping from party to party or heading out for the clubs. It wasn't even midnight yet, and here was Johnny DeFranco heading for home already.
"Ouch!" he let out with a wince when he twisted the key in his car door and it moved around the wound in his right arm.
"Whatsa matter? She don't give you no push-push tonight?" Darlene Damita blasted out accusingly from the front seat.
"What the hell?" Johnny jumped back as Darlene swung out with her purse and unleashed a purple barrage of language.
CHAPTER EIGHT - THE BRIDGE AND THE BANKROLL
"I kill you, Johnny... I kill that bitch upstairs too!" Darlene shrieked, reaching into her purse as he slammed the door shut and remained outside, "You tell that dirty bum Ben Lipper come make love to me tonight! You dirty bastard! I kill you!"
"You want to get us both arrested," Johnny said it casually, his usual way of countering Darlene's outbursts, then stared her straight in the face, "I told Ben to tell you I was out on business... and to buy you a drink or something. That's all."
Johnny stood against the car door, both hands gripping the window sill. His cold eyes tried to match Darlene's blazing fury. She moved toward him quickly, her hand coming out of the purse.
Johnny saw the glint of light reflecting off the steel blade!
But he wasn't quite fast enough. The small knife swept out toward his stomach and he jumped back. It tore through his coat sleeve, ripping off the bandage and reopening his cut. He fell to the ground in throbbing pain, doubled over in a roll on the pavement, then stood up.
Darlene stepped out of the car, still clutching the knife. Another car turned into the lane, bathing her face with its headlights. She dropped the knife, and for the first time saw the trickle of blood from Johnny's arm as it splatted on the cement from his dripping hand.
"I... I don't kill you this time," she spluttered, leaving the weapon the ground and going to him, "I make a... what's that? You cut already there?"
"I fell... it was an accident," Johnny told her, grimacing as he pulled off his jacket.
"Here... here, I fix it on again," Darlene became protective and helpful momentarily, reworking and tightening the bandage, "You fin' another girl who like to fight, I bet. Ahhh, but she don't kill you for love, Johnny. I kill you, Johnny. One more time you go with a girl for love... and I kill you both!"
"Goddammit!" he yelled, in an admixture of pain and anger as Darlene taped down the bandage, "Do I get mad when somebody like Fremont looks you up and down like a crazy animal. This babe up here is going to help us make a million dollars. She's got a..."
"You got that look, Johnny," Darlene cut in, helping him back on with the coat, "I know what that look it means... One year ago you get that look for me when you dump over Honey Newgott. But look, Johnny... I don't let you throw me over. I kill you first!"
"Get in the goddam car," Johnny sneered, opening the door, "Let's get the hell out of here. I'll take you to Raul's club after I change clothes. Okay?"
"Not okay this time, Johnny," Darlene grabbed his hand before he switched the ignition, "Tell me, Johnny... how many times you make love to this girl tonight? Once... twice?"
"This was really business tonight, baby," Johnny smiled, warming to Darlene, whom he knew wouldn't refuse him tonight, "You won't believe it of course, but I never even touched the girl."
"You lie! You lie!" she broke into sudden rage again, bringing out the knife and laying the sharp blade against the back of his leg, "Tell me! Tell me truth... or I cut off your goddam leg!"
"I said you wouldn't believe it," Johnny was stoically calm, leaning back against the seat and fixing her with a carnal stare which usually got results, "I told you we'd go to the apartment right now. You know what we'll do before we ever get to Raul's. You know I'll..."
"Prove it to me now!" she demanded venomously, keeping the knife poised, but hiking up her skirt with the free hand.
"Hey... hey! Wait a minute," Johnny protested her frenetic insistence with a bemused grin, "We can't do..."
"You take me now, Johnny!" she screamed the demand, struggling out of her panties and propping a foot on the steering wheel as she leaned back against the door, "You tell me you don't make love to this girl... you prove it now! You can do it now... I believe it. You can't do it... then you lie!"
"We'll get arrested. We can't..."
"Take me Johnny! Take me or I kill you!" she ranted, her right hand gripping the knife, the rest of her heated body already in the contorting throes of passion.
Johnny started to perspire again. He had felt in control of this erratically erotic girl until now. And the reason he objected was not that he didn't want to make love to Darlene, but simply what he had stated -cops were always roaming these apartment areas at night.
"I'm hot, baby," Darlene groaned at him twisting and writhing her half nude torso on the car seat, pushing up her naked pelvis in beckoning undulation, "Now or never... Johnny! Johnny, make me quick... quick... quick!"
The knife was still in her right hand, reflections dancing off it in the same tempo of her excited body's thrusts and parries. Johnny edged forward, at first intent on relieving her of the knife. But the pain jabbed at his arm again, weakening his inborn aggressivity.
Just a few minutes, he figured... and he could satisfy Darlene's doubts. And he had to admit she looked inviting, just lying there in an unbridled fever of passion. There was something very basic, primitively obscene about it -the kind of thing which could whet the atavistically amoral imagination of nearly any virile young man.
Darlene continued to snake her denuded pelvic treasures in and out toward Johnny. His own hypersensitive emotions became transfixed by the rhythmic abandon it wantoned up inside. This, his excited mind rationalized, was what he too needed, what he demanded to prove himself still a real man.
The firm thighs moved up as he readied. Darlene threw back her head at the first turgid incursion of her torquing body, dropped the knife and wrapped her arms and right leg about Johnny in a love-locked vice.
A bright beam of light hit Johnny square in the face!
"Hey, fella! You think this parkin' lot's a whore house?" a gruff voice spilled over the intense carnal rapture, tearing desire to shreds and clapping a cloud of disappointment over the moment.
"Who the sh...?" Johnny started to vent his wrath, then saw the blue coat and badge.
"I gotcha dead to rights, fella," the cop proclaimed, unholstering his gun and yanking the door open, "You're a fuggin' up that gal to beat all hell. Yer unner 'rest fer commitin' a..."
"Got a robbery on Sixteenth and Decker!" Another voice cut in from the idling cruiser behind, "Let's go!"
"Hell's bells!" the officer with the flashlight objected, turning away from Johnny, "I got these kids dead to right, Sam. They're pluggin' at it buck nekkid frum their stummicks down. Let me..,"
"It's our number, Bill. They called our number," the other cop argued, holding open the door, "First degree's a felony. All you got's a misdemeanor. Let's go!"
"Wait a second," Johnny stopped the policeman, scrambling down on the floor to get his wallet, "Here's a late Christmas present. Forget about the damn license number... okay?"
"What the hell you think..." was as far as the officer went with his self righteous protest, "Uhh... yeah. Okay, fella. I got another call nohow."
What the cop had expected to be a five or ten turned out to be a hundred dollar bill. And he hadn't really planned to take them in anyway. It was just one method a crooked patrolman had devised for getting the names and phone numbers of girls who would hardly be in a position to refuse him later.
"Get your damn clothes back on!" Johnny ordered, heading the car out toward Connecticut Avenue while buckling his belt, "It's like broad daylight along here with these new lights."
"Uh-uh," she shot back, leaning back against the door, "I like it this way, Johnny. Makes me think what you gonna do to me."
"Some guy on our left'll get his eyes full when we stop for the light up here," Johnny commented with a shrug.
"So what?" Darlene grinned vulgarly, "It gives him hot pants for somebody else."
Johnny pulled into the left lane and veered toward the Calvert Street Bridge. It was darker along this route than the heavily trafficked Connecticut Avenue.
"Now, Johnny!" Darlene startled him with a shriek, slamming her foot on the brake pedal and pushing Johnny's out of the way.
"You... you crazy bitch!" Johnny yelled, trying to kick her foot away.
Darlene took advantage of his flustered surprise to grab the ignition key and twist it out of the lock. They were stopped by the curb in the middle of the high Calvert Street Bridge, Washington's favorite suicide spot.
"Give me the key, you crazy fool!" Johnny demanded, grappling for the purse.
"I cut your hand off, Johnny!" Darlene threatened with the knife, pulling her skirt down and off with the free hand, "You gonna make me right here... right now..."
"You're a goddam idiot!" Johnny swore, sweating profusely as he glanced front and back at the disinterested traffic that whizzed by.
"Take me now... or I run out to the bridge rail!" she demanded, working her torrid body in heaving thrusts again.
"The cops'll really get us here," Johnny protested, edging closer, "Anybody could see us...report us... it's crazy!"
"They stop a lot quicker when I run out by bridge rail like a naked crazy woman!" Darlene laughed wildly, grabbing at Johnny's belt, "You take me now... you got a good chance. I run out there, they pick you up for sure."
"We... we'll be at the apartment in five minutes, Darlene," Johnny tried to reason pleadingly, "There, we can do any..."
"I want it now, Johnny! I want you now, Johnny!" she shrieked, grabbing his neck and pulling him down to her half bared breasts, "I wanna do it now, Johnny. Like when we was on back row at movies... Johnneeee! Ohhhh..". baby!"
Ten minutes later it was all over, Darlene's gamble won. Two couples had walked by on the bridge -one giggling and holding hands, oblivious to all else, the other giggling only after they had peered into the car and gone on their merry way. Not a single car slowed down with even a curious look. Nobody would ever think of making love in the middle of the Calvert Street Bridge. As long as there were people in the car, everyone assumed it was a breakdown with a mechanic on the way.
"Mr. Rivers is expecting you," the sharp brunette receptionist intoned with businesslike friendliness when Johnny walked into the plush office at the Worthmann Building.
A frosted door from the hallway bore the legend: "Lyman Rivers, Manufacturer's Representative". Below this were the insignia and names of Wilfaxt Steel, Millytronics Rockitronics, and several more of the bluest blue chip clients a Washington Lobbyist could hope for.
Johnny walked through the first inner office, returning the smiles of the pert receptionists and secretaries with a handsome grin. Once inside the outer chamber of Rivers' sanctum, a graying but groomed woman of middle age rose from her seat with a formal nod. This was Patricia Scottfeld, the Lobbyist's super-competent private secretary. The girls outside were for show and routine tuping, as well as an occasional date with a well heeled client. But this was where the brains wheeled and came up with the real ideas which kept Rivers in a six figure Income Tax bracket.
"Hi there, Johnny," Lyman Rivers beamed from behind his simple but expensive hand tooled desk, getting up and extending a hand, intuitively pushing his Public Relations grin.
"Long time no see," Johnny said with flippant familiarity, feeling greatly important about the deluxe reception, "I've got a real live one for you this time."
"So I gathered from what you said on the phone," Rivers commented enthusiastically, indicating a seat then sitting down, a perfect image of the shrewd business dynamo, "Bring us a couple of Bourbons, Miss Scottfeld... and your notebook. Johnny's got something big for us."
"No notes. Lyman," Johnny waxed with a chummy frown, then explained, "This is... well, very private stuff I got for you today."
"Miss Scottfeld and I are the essence of discretion, Johnny," Rivers insisted with casual confidence, smoothing back his full crop of dark brown hair, running a finger over his virile mustache, "Nothing goes on here that she doesn't know about."
"But... this is pretty delicate stuff, Lyman," Johnny showed his infrequent respect for a woman, "I've got... well, the pictures."
"Miss Scottfeld isn't exactly a woman, Johnny, Rivers laughed briefly at the inference, winking at his smiling secretary and confidante, "What I mean is... there's nothing too delicate for Miss Scottfeld. She's more like a machine than a human being-a perfectly tuned, precision masterpiece of executive ability."
"Okay," Johnny gave in with a reserved look of doubt, "I'll give it to you straight. Millytronics will play hell getting that billion buck rocket deal. Right?"
"I couldn't agree to that, Johnny," Rivers took up decorously for his client, "They're a top notch outfit, manned with the best..."
"Cut out the Public Relations crap!" Johnny blasted, throwing a pardoning glance toward Miss Scottfeld, who was wearing an amused grin, "I read the damn papers. Luxotronic Aeronautics has got it wrapped up. But a wheel on the subcommittee like Paul Wittlmaier could change it. And I've got Wittlmaier wrapped up. Take a look at these."
Johnny flipped the black envelope across Rivers' desk and sat back silently. The professional lobbyist opened it with casual aplomb, and shuffled through the prints, holding one of them under his desk lamp for closer appraisal.
"They're the real thing all right," he allowed, passing them across to his secretary, "How much do you want for them?"
"I do the job on Wittlmaier?" Johnny asked.
"Of course. You don't think I could be mixed up with anything like that?" Rivers gave a smug chuckle that didn't set too well with Johnny's ego, "You realize this is a long shot... Millytronics stands a fine chance of getting the contract anyway. I'd say twelve thousand cash would constitute a fair payment for your effort."
"Go to hell!" Johnny exploded, reaching for the prints Miss Scottfeld held, and looking terribly disappointed when she merely stuffed them back in the envelope and handed it over, "That... that contract for building the Q-twenty seven is worth a billion bucks. And you want to buy it for twelve grand?"
"Take it or leave it," Rivers held out his hands, "I've got a budget for this thing. That's it."
"I'll take a percentage," Johnny said with a snap of his fingers, facing Rivers squarely, "One tenth of one per-cent."
"That's impossible. It's over a million dollars," he stated flatly.
"One hundredth of one per-cent!" Johnny snapped back, his calculating mind fast at work, "That's only a little over..."
"Too much," Rivers cut in.
"A hundred grand even then," Johnny proclaimed, banging his fist on the desk as he shaved off the odd hundreds.
Miss Scottfeld's head was like a spectator's at a fast paced tennis match. Each man was a skillful artist in his own field, and the repartee was swift and decisive with each bid and offer.
"One hundred thousand with a guarantee," River wrapped it up.
"No contract, no payoff?"
"No contract, no payoff," the lobbyist corroborated, leaning back in his chair.
"Sold!" Johnny agreed, slamming his fist on the desk, "Put it in writing."
"Make out a 'for services rendered' agreement," the suave lobbyist directed his secretary, thinking productively as he gestured with his hands and gazed up at the ceiling, "Drop the penalty clause and make it a simple contingency settlement basis. Have Miss Orth notarize it."
"Hey!" Johnny objected, looking helplessly at Miss Scottfeld's shorthand notes, "Nobody else in on this deal. Maybe you trust this Miss... Miss Orth, but..."
"Johnny lad," Rivers smiled in a paternal chide, getting up and slapping Johnny on the shoulder, "You are an expert technician... in your particular field. But you're a goddam child when it comes to business practices. The contract will assure you of the money if Millytronics gets the bid... no details of our deal. Now... get the hell out and fix that vote as soon as you sign this!"
"Yes sir!" Johnny snapped, an inward feeling of inferiority gripping him, but showing only his adept earnestness to do the job efficiently.
"And, Johnny..."
"Yeah?"
"You better make sure they get it," Rivers added ominously, his voice drained of its warmth and cordiality, "I deal with people who have been known to do a phase of work even more extra-legal than yours. I'd hate to have to call them in."
"You mean a... a kil..."
"Goodbye, Johnny," Rivers beamed affectedly again, opening his door, "I have another appointment right now. You can sign the paper in Miss Scottfeld's office."
CHAPTER NINE - PITCH FOR THE HUNDRED GRAND
A high fence cut off the view of the frozen, windswept Maryland countryside to the right of the highway. Winter grass began to replace the desolately icey mud, And up ahead an arched entrance-way identified the sumptuously serene grounds as "Rolling Acres". No trespassing and Private Property signs were situated at intervals along the white-washed pickets. Through a large clump of winter naked trees, the colonial mansion stood erect and straight, the heavy roof over the two story high front porch held up by massive white columns.
Disregarding the warnings, Johnny unlatched the gate and drove up to the circular driveway fronting the big house. He walked up the flagstone path, his city eyes gaping at the red capped statuette of a Negro serving boy planted at the side.
A nattily dressed young man in riding togs hurried down the steps of the house to greet him.
"This is private property, sir," he bleated with effeminate officiousness, sniffing snobbishly to determine if the intruder was emitting some forbidden odor.
"I've got to see Congressman Wittlmaier," Johnny blunted back candidly, showing distaste for the pansy mannered youth, "It's about..."
"The Congressman has no appointments when he's at Rolling Acres," the young man proclaimed in an obnoxious lisp, shaking his head, "I'm his Appointment Secretary and I'm sure you aren't expected... and I don't even think we know you."
"I don't know you either," Johnny retorted, sneering as he grabbed the lapels of the aide's riding jacket, "But if you tell you boss I'm here to see him about the plumbing business back home in his district, I think he'll agree to see me."
"My gawd!" the fruity one exclaimed, shaking abhorrently at the rough treatment, "You act like a positive bully, sir. And you accent doesn't sound a thing like it's from our part of the country."
"Give him the message," Johnny growled, releasing the jacket.
"But... but, the plumbing business?" he questioned, mouthing the word distastefully as he brushed at his clothes, "The Congressman doesn't have a thing to do with that. Oh! It's about a government construction job... the new Post Office Building in Drackett City. Why didn't you say so?"
"It's about the plumbing business back home and the Arvo Towers Apartments here," Johnny announced, crowding the aide again, "It doesn't make sense to you, but it will to him."
"Good heavens, you are the mysterious one," the natty man declared with a swish, backing away, "Yes, of course. I'll tell the Congressman. But I don't promise you an audience. We're all readying ourselves for a bit of hunt practice, and the horses are..."
"Get up, boy. You're at the post," Johnny cut him off with track paraphrases, grabbing his shoulders and heading him toward the house, "I'll wait five minutes. If you don't trot back with my answer by then... I'll gallop right into that fancy paddock you got there."
Johnny lit a cigarette and paced impatiently up and down the length of the long porch. His five minute threat produced better results than he had anticipated though, and the little man returned with a disquieting smile in less than two minutes.
"He'll see you in the study right away," the secretary announced, indicating the way, "And... uhh, you can tell me in advance a little more about your business. You see, I keep a record of all..."
"You said this was private property, didn't you?"
"Yes... but..."
"Well, this is private business. Strictly personal Get lost!" Johnny clarified it bluntly to the frowning aide.
"In here, young man," the stentorianly distinctive voice of Paul Montague Wittlmaier came from a doorway Johnny was about to pass, "That'll be all, Sid. You go ahead and ride with Paul Junior and Tilly."
"Yes sir," Sid lisped disappointedly.
"Just what the devil is this all about?" Wittlmaier questioned authoritatively after closing the door.
The white maned congressman stood facing Johnny, his legs slightly apart, anger burning in his alert eyes. But behind the fierce facade, there was an unmistakable trace of uneasiness. He had grasped Johnny's message easily enough, but his thoughts ran more to the idea of having been discovered by an irate brother or boyfriend, unfortunate situations he had tangled with before.
"Let's take a walk outside," Johnny suggested firmly, his keen eyes probing the cluttered study, "You might have this place bugged."
"Look here, young man," Wittlmaier blustered, holding Johnny back, spewing saliva recklessly in his flustered anger, "You've had the nerve, the uncommon, uncivilized gall to come out to my private farm where I'm enjoying a weekend with my family. You've come out here with some obvious intent of lecturing me about your sister... or girlfriend's simple friendship with her duly elected representative, and..."
Wittlmaier's face matched the white hair when he saw the pictures!
"Simple friendship?" Johnny questioned, holding them right up to his face.
"Good lord! Oh... my God! No! No!" the congressman became near hysterical with disbelief.
The picture Johnny had chosen for the clincher was the real shocker of the set-the distinguished lawmaker hunched in a grotesquely naked and obscene position over the delectably nude blonde. "You... it's... Good Lord, no!" he babbled the words with amplified incoherence.
Wittlmaier slumped his robust form into a wing-back chair and covered his pallid face. The stern look of authority, the rigid jowls and firm ruddy cheeks, were suddenly flaccid and drained of color. The powerful legislator was precipitately sapped of his dynamism and talent for provocative speech.
"Let's take a walk. We can talk better outside," Johnny again suggested, feeling only contempt for the man's weakness, "I won't talk in here."
"What... whatever you say," Wittlmaier agreed in an emasculated whine, staring at Johnny in a detached daze.
"... and that's the deal I want you to work for Millytronics," Johnny finished up his pitch, standing by a big elm tree as Wittlmaier sat stoop shouldered on the bench built around it.
The congressman shuddered at the frigid blasts of raw wind which came and went in erratic puffs. He pulled the folded turtleneck up tight around his throat and buttoned his riding jacket at the top. Throughout Johnny's recitation, he had stared fixedly at the young blackmailer, blinking his watering eyes occasionally as if trying to awake from some terrible nightmare. And now, convinced finally that the situation would not just go away, the aging Congressman looked up directly at Johnny.
"When I was a small boy," Wittlmaier spoke with a hesitant choke in his deep voice, returned now to its masculine resonance, "I was very unhappy because nobody liked me. I... I had a personality problem. But in college, I made up my mind to direct all my efforts, all my energies, to eradicate this emotional deficiency. I..."
"My heart bleeds for you," Johnny snarled cruelly, refusing to be swayed by the dramatic impact of the famous Wittlmaier technique, "And so you became a politician to prove people like you. The votes you get... the nice things they say... they're your fuel of life. I've read the books on psychology. They bore the hell out of me. My fuel of life is money, Mr. Wittlmaier. Save your speech for somebody else. I'll be satisfied with the long green."
"I often wonder where we go wrong," the politician mused on with serious concern, using both hands to smooth back the long mane of white hair, "You and I were probably very much alike... until a certain point in life. Something in me, forced me in the direction of service and devotion to right.. something inexplicably and intangibly elusive. Yet it was one small thing that chose the directions which our burning desires would take.
"Can it, will you?" Johnny asked, squirming uneasily as he spotted the distant figures approaching on horseback.
"No... this is important, young man. I've wondered about it so many times," Wittlmaier refused to let up, droning on with an intensity that troubled Johnny, "What little quirk of fate, what minor circumstance over which we have no control, channeled my energies this way? What turned yours in the opposite direction? A word, a friend, a like, a dislike... something we've both forgotten now, might well have made our positions today reverse. I could be the..."
"Balls!" Johnny lost his restraint with determined ferocity, "Let's cut out the devotion to duty, integrity and public service crap. You're not so damned goody-goody, Mr. Congressman. This Honest John illusion you've created can get all blown to hell if that picture of you and Maria gets in the right hands. You never..."
"I know, I know, I know," Wittlmaier shuddered with resigned exasperation, "You've told me what you'd do, and I believe it. I understand your type, Johnny. That's what I was trying to explain. We're very much alike. Only..."
"What about the vote I asked for?" Johnny in-cursed.
"I'll have to try," Wittlmaier expressed solemnly, dropping his head into his hands again, a pitifully beaten man, "Millytronics is a good firm, you understand? Why... if I thought for a minute this bit of chicanery would jeopardize the defense stature of the United States... I'd suffer the consequences-drag my whole family through the guttery morass of your evil. I would have no other choice. But as it stands there's merely a difference of price and time. The country is..."
"Quit waving the flag!"
"There is one slight problem, young man," Wittlmaier stated, looking uncomfortably toward the approaching trio on horseback.
"What?"
"I can't guarantee that Millytronics will get it...
Johnny flinched at this. Wittlmaier stuffed both hand in his pockets and stared at his adversary.
"You'll do it or else...," Johnny threatened, disturbed and confused at this sudden introduction of doubt, "The day Luxotronic gets that contract is the day you go down in a blaze of burning cow dung."
"Young and obstreperous... think everything can be accomplished by sheer force, don't you?" Wittlmaier posed observantly, wearily looking Johnny straight in the eye, "Let me explain a simple problem in mathematics: There are eleven men in the subcommittee. As it stands now, we are lined up nine to two in favor of Luxotronic. Two of my committee colleagues are quite in my debt politically. I can swing their votes, and I can go over myself to Millytronics. You add it up."
"Six to five for Luxotronic," Johnny performed instant arithmetic, throwing his cigarette to the ground, "You mean there's not another member you can get to change his vote?"
"That's right, my boy," the lawmaker declared, slapping his thighs and grimacing perturbedly, "Congressman Turlinghausen is out definitely. He's as honest, scrupulous, incorruptible and unreachable a man as you'll ever come up against. The rest are all opposition members."
A mounted steed galloped up to the sombre duo.
"We missed you terribly on the ride, dear," Tilly Wittlmaier butted in, her attractively graying hair bouncing around under a riding hat as she jumped off the horse, "Why don't you tog up your friend and join us around the second quarter?"
"Well, dear...," Wittlmaier flubbed around.
"I don't ride," Johnny stated with a surly firmness that chilled her bubbling charm.
"We.... uh, this is terribly important committee business, darling," Wittlmaier told her, smiling graciously as he helped her back on the animal, "Have Sid take you around again."
"Of course, dear," she relented, looking worriedly at the sallowness of his ordinarily healthy complexion, "I'll tell-tell Martha to have dinner at eight. Will... your friend be dining with us?"
"I don't think..."
"Appointment back in Washington," Johnny cut in with a burlesque of official urgency, "Thank you just the same, Mrs. Wittlmaier."
"I don't want you to meet them," Wittlmaier remarked firmly to Johnny as his wife trotted her horse away, "They have no part of this-or you."
"Forget it," Johnny shrugged, then mouthed a vicious threat as the congressman sat down, "But you get that vote... or I won't forget."
"I'll need help," Wittlmaier stated thoughtfully, an idea germinating as he gazed at the departing riders, "There's a new man on the subcommittee, a malleable sort of youth, still in his twenties...just won an election out West."
"Can you get his vote?"
"No...," Wittlmaier answered with reserve, then turned to look right at Johnny, "But I think you can."
"Oh?" Johnny responded, lighting another cigarette and pulling up his coat collar against the wind, "Does he have a girl friend staked out in the Arvo Towers too?"
"Not hardly," the congressman replied, reaching into his pocket, "But I think this picture of him will show you what I mean. This was in the EXPRESS this morning. I tore it out to show Maria. See?"
Johnny took the clipping from the congressman's hands, still trembling from the traumatic shock of the last half hour. "Due Here Next Week," was the caption over the photograph of 28 year old Philip Toler, recently elected to Congress from the west coast. Toler was a good looking young man, tall with sandy hair and a good build. But it was his wife, a very young, very beautiful blonde, who interested Johnny. Only the side of her face was visible as she bussed the young Congressman at train-side, but the resemblance to Maria Karlson was amazing.
"If you'll read the text below it," Wittier advised, leaning tiredly back against the big tree, "You'll see that the lovely Mrs. Toler is expecting a baby next month and plans to stay home until it's over."
"You're in the wrong business," Johnny smiled at Wittlmaier with new admiration, "Maybe that... that quirk of fate you were talking about should have been reversed. New man in Congress, all alone in Washington, pregnant wife three thousand miles away. What a set-up when a pretty blonde just like the home fireplace comes along."
"You'll have to be clever about it," Wittlmaier warned, a pained expression of self-condemnation creasing his wrinkled face, "He'll be physically susceptible, but mentally on guard. I'll leave the details up to you-that's your specialty I take it."
"It's a deal, sir," Johnny couldn't help but show his respect, "Except - I'll need some help from you too."
"What... what can I do? That's your department," Wittlmaier objected nervously, wanting to forget the whole thing.
"Congressman Philip Toler will hardly be the type guy who picks up a gal in a bar," Johnny reasoned, his shrewdness working overtime, "So you, sir, will have to come up with a way to get Maria invited to one of your congressional social affairs to meet him."
"But I can't..."
"This is that quirk of fate-that one thing forcing you to think my way, Congressman," Johnny paraphrased the man's own words, "You'll come up with something. I'll check with you Monday. Good day, sir."
"Well - the private appointment is over I see," Sid lisped arrogantly, meeting Johnny at the side of the house as he walked to his car, "Of course you realize that Mr. Wittlmaier will tell me all about it. I know simply everything involving his constituents -if you really are a constituent."
"I thought they kept all you pansies in the State Department," Johnny snapped at the surprised aide, "What happened to you? You date a girl and get bounced from the club?"
"You-you terribly vulgar creature you...!"
Sid gobbled out infuriatedly, stomping his foot on the ground, "You are an awful person, sir. I could... could just kill you!"
"I guess you could at that," Johnny laughed, then mimicking the affected lisp, added, "But it would just take months, and months, and months."
JOHNNY'S mirthful mood changed to concern while he tooled his big Mercedes back through the sleepy villages and along the icy highways. The set-up for young Congressman Toler had promise. But there was always the chance it might not work.
Lyman Rivers wouldn't like that-wouldn't like it at all. And then too there was an uncomfortable feeling in Johnny about Maria Karlson having an affair with the good looking Toler. He didn't like the idea - didn't like it a bit.
CHAPTER TEN - THE DEBUTANTE AND THE DIPSO
Johnny finished mixing his drink behind Maria's bar and started to walk back to the couch. But the view was too good from here.
He watched with fixed fascination through the ajar bedroom door, while Marie raised the sheer blue slip to her gossamer pantied hips and fastened dark stockings to a slimline garter belt. A tantalizing expanse of firm, creamy nakedness contrasted teasingly between the blue briefs and the top of sepia toned nylons.
Maria caught Johnny's rapt gaze and returned it with a seductively flirtatious smile, noting his eyes dart from the well filled hosiery to the sumptuous breasts that heaved so delectably in the custom fitted half bra, She straightened up now, adjusting the bra and twirling the half slip around her midriff until it centered.
"See something you like?" she teased the query, letting the tip of her suggestive tongue rest questioningly on the bottom lip.
"Damn!" Johnny shook his head, spellbound at the half dressed beauty when she opened the door and entered the living room, "Now I know why men rape gals. Here, I fixed a drink for you. Now-lesson number one -change that damn bra."
"Huh?" Maria puzzled, taking the drink and pulling down at the haltered half cover, "Just a fraction of an inch and I'm all out of this one. I can't go to a congressional cocktail party with any less."
"But you're not trying to seduce the Armed Forces, baby," Johnny smiled, his fingers moving excitedly at the sight of the pink tipped mounds in front of him, "This is the kind of thing we have to play real cool-be smart about it."
"You're the expert, I suppose," Maria hmphd at him with a shrug, glancing down at herself and giving her torso a brazen twist, "I don't think they look all that indecent."
"I know men and I know what they expect," Johnny said, trying to be businesslike, "I spent six hundred bucks on these new duds for you, and it's got to be right. You're supposed to be a delicately innocent little debutante from Wittlmaier's district, the daughter of an influential constituent. You don't go to a party half naked!"
"But how can I..."
"Shut up and listen!" Johnny ordered, striding after her back to the bedroom and giving a Pygmalion lecture, "That bra comes later -when the final pitch it set-up. This time you wear the little net job -you'll be dancing with him if all goes well, and he can fell a helluva lot more through that mesh than he can that padded uplifter you've got on. Tonight's the subtle approach, nothing forward, nothing out of line. You just play it real sweet and innocent -dance with him close, let him rub you up from top to toe-but make it look naive."
"And what about this freak Wittlmaier lined up to take me," Maria asked, turning toward the mirror to switch bras, "What if he wants to cozy up real warm?"
"Hah hah!" Johnny laughed out loud, then gave an excited whistle at the view in the mirror, "There's only one thing you've got to watch out for with Sid."
"What's that?" she asked, turning to face him in the gauzy bra.
"Be sure he doesn't get to Toler first."
"You idiot," she laughed pleasantly, pulling the dress over her head, "You don't think the young congressman goes for boys too? Here...zip me up, dear."
"Damn, honey!" Johnny exclaimed admiringly, "You'd be competition for anyone in that outfit."
The dress was an off-shoulder, charcoal color, with flaked gray and a puffy, fur trim around the lowered collar. It was fashionably tight, not a vulgar glove fit, but the custom tailoring had not missed a curve or sinuous undulation of Maria's fantastic-body. When she walked across the room, Johnny noticed how it highlighted the innate shapeliness of her legs. Unlike so many unfortunate women in the knee revealing styles of the time, Maria's calves were shaped to perfection, rounding out to a delicate curve that apexed in just enough at the knee.
She leaned over and clapped her palm behind the left calf, smoothing the nylons up to the top.
"Come here a minute," Johnny beckoned her to the living room with him, "I'll show you what I mean."
Quickly, he nicked on the record player and nipped the lamp down to where it served only as a dim luminescence for the big room. He took Maria's hand and pulled her close until the tightly clothed body yielded against him with a naked feeling.
"Not... not quite so close," he advised with a self-disappointing frown, "... not when you're dancing with Toler, I mean."
"But I'm not dancing with Toler now... darling," she responded with a breathy sigh, nibbling at Johnny's ear lobe.
"Remember... you're in Washington because of a thwarted love affair back home," Johnny chattered out last minute reminders, unnerved as much by Maria's nearness as the natural anxiety on the eve of such an important undertaking, "Don't... push your body into him. Just let it relax... kind of go limp against him. Dance smoothly... glide around easy... but don't dance too well. You're just the simple small town girl in the big city. Rich but hicky. Remember?"
"Am I, Johnny?" she whispered in his ear, letting her plush pelvis rotate wantonly against him and running a little finger around inside his ear, "Kiss... me, Johnny."
"Ohhh, Maria.... baby."
Johnny pulled her tighter against him, pushing the soft mounds of netted breast yieldingly against his thin shirt His breathing came out heavy when he met her excited, open lips that beckoned him intimately with a fervent mobile tongue. He eased away just enough to slip his hand down the open neck dress. Maria responded by convexing her body and moving against him, then drawing in her diaphragm to facilitate his desirous access. Johnny's manly passion began to unleash with a turgid surge. He was kissing her bare neck and arms. His hands, controlled and steered by sensate eruption, followed the back of the dress to the stockinged legs, pulling up from behind the knees to the smooth, plush naked thighs and then...
Johnny's immediate world suddenly collapsed!
"We're business partners, remember?"
Maria stated it with cold, impassioned firmness, her body switching to an insensate rigidity, and easing away from him.
"You goddam little...,"
There was a knock at the door!
Johnny shut up and withdrew his hand that was ready to strike out venomously at the beautiful face. This was business and it meant a hundred thousand dollars. Or it could be the end of a beautiful world filled with everything Johnny liked-if it failed. Maria's teasing would have to go unpunished just as Johnny's desires had to remain unfulfilled.
"Get in the bedroom!" Maria whispered urgently, taking command as she adjusted her dress and grabbed a lipstick from her bag, "And don't worry about my performance, dear. I'll play it real cool."
"You bitch! You... lousy bitch!" Johnny swore under his breath, but he didn't really mean it.
AT the very moment Maria Karlson was putting on her coy and demure act for young Congressman Philip Toler, Johnny entered the front door of the Paris Boheme Cabaret in Georgetown. His sharp eyes scanned the irregular rows of tables. It was difficult to make out faces clearly in the darkened establishment, and all eyes except Johnny's, even those of the jaded Maitre d', were glued hypnotically to the torrid exhibition of ecdysiasm being displayed by star performer Honey Newgott.
Among the mesmerized stares taking in the plush redhead's contorting body, was Lester E. Fremont. Settled in a corner booth near the rear of the club, and directly by the dance floor where Honey was taking off what remained of her scanty attire, the Gambling Committee Chief Counsel was taking in every lithe line and rippling shimmy of the sought after body. The cagey counsel had been more than willing to accept Johnny's invitation to meet at the Paris Boheme. He had seen Honey Newgott perform before, and relished the excuse to view it again.
"Like the show?" Johnny broke into the man's voyeuristic meanderings.
"Fabulous! Fabulous body!" he muttered in an abstract shudder of delight. "Like a Grecian goddess... like one of the oversexed maids of Lesbos on her nightly prowl for consummate... Who the devil are you?"
Fremont's question came with a start, his feverishly red face turning bland. But the purplish veins stayed puckered out offering mute evidence of the man's state of hyper-eroticism, a condition so compelling he had muttered two sentences before realizing what he was doing.
"I'm DeFranco," Johnny filled him in, rendering a quick handshake, "We can talk later. Go ahead and enjoy the act."
"Yes-yes," Fremont muttered, looking back at the floor.
Johnny was amused by the dream world intense-ness of the old lecher's rapture, and felt proud of his part in exploiting this basic failing in the aging attorney. He had never seen Fremont up this close. On TV, as he blasted out questions at underworld witnesses with inquisitional demand, Fremont was a picture of dynamic, forthright goodness, a model held up to the youth of America as the prototypically crusading prosecutor. But there was no righteous display of indignation at the base carnality exhibited in Honey's law skirting passion skit.
Alone on the red spotlighted dance floor, Honey Newgott, the mountainous breasts tipped only with bits of adhered sequins, a wisp of G-string covering the other brief muff of erogeneity, was down on her knees. The upper symbols swayed side by side in a tossing tease as she twisted her supple torso back and forth, then round and round. The house band built up the musical tempo to match the twisting, turning, writhing climax. On Honey's lustfully exciting face, the pangs of incensed desire contorted and squeezed the beautiful features into agonizing grimaces of begged-for response. The cymbals clashed, the bongo drums and bass continued their steady, unrelenting rhythm, the string man himself appearing on the verge of mental onanism.
Honey's long red hair suddenly flipped in front of her face. Her hands, which had been flailing wildly side and front in discordant harmony with the rest of her passion racked body, grabbed the underside of her full thighs. The heaving body stiffened with the last clash of music.
Honey Newgott sprawled limp on the dance floor, and the lights went out.
"Good Lord...!" Fremont verbally ejaculated in a frenetic pant, turning to face Johnny as the lights came on to reveal a vacant floor, "That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen here. How... how do they get by with it?"
"The vice boys are making a raid in Northeast tonight," Johnny explained with prideful knowledgability, "Tomorrow's strip will be the old stuff."
"Oh... yes, of course... the gambling place on ninety-third street," Fremont mumbled, his flushed features returning slowly to their normal pallor, "... well, Mr. DeFranco. What bit of news do you have for me? Something about the Crime Investigation, I believe you said on the phone?"
"Oh... I though I might fix you up with Honey Newgott," Johnny smiled pleasantly at the eager reaction which came instantly from Fremont, then hardened vengefully as he flipped the set of pictures across the table, "- but I really thought you preferred brunettes - like Darlene Damita."
Johnny was still upset about the way Maria had worked her tease on him earlier. And while there was no association between the young blonde and the aging counsel, the opportunity was there for Johnny to vent his pent up wrath on another individual. He showed no mercy in the hard, piercing, young eyes at the expression of stark fear that struck out Fremont's look of anticipation at the mention of Honey.
The veined face reddened again, the slim, hunched shoulders snapped erect like the spine of a frightened cat. Then a curious smile returned, playing across thin pallid lips, the shoulders eased and relaxed, slumping forward again.
"Damn decent of you, young man," Fremont managed after a nervous clearing of his throat and control over the spastic twitch in his left cheek, "I understand now-you've discovered some godawful plot to ruin me. Some fiendish blackmailer could have caused a terrible scandal with these faked pictures. And now you've recovered them. I... I want you to know how very much I appreciate this... your getting these vile things from him. I'll reimburse you quite well, of course..."
"Cut the crap and listen to me!" Johnny let him have it straight, leaning over to deliver his pitch with menacing ferocity, "The pictures aren't fake, and you know it. You can keep your damn money. I want the subpoena for Micko Zlacko's reappearance cancelled! I want the contempt charges dropped! I want all inquiry into Zlacko's activities halted!"
"Good... good Lord, man!" Fremont sputtered, the wavering fear returning, "You... you can't mean that. It's impossible to..."
"If you don't...," Johnny raised his voice, then quieted to an ominous whisper when the lawyer closed his mouth, "I'll send copies of those pictures to your wife, your daughter, your son, and every member of the Committee..."
"I'm a human being, DeFranco," Fremont surged back briefly to the offensive, glaring at Johnny as he balled his gnarled fists angrily, "My wife knows I'm no saint. The Committee members understand weaknesses of the flesh. And no newspaper would dare print..."
"Your son's an Upperclassman at the Military Academy...," Johnny reminded him threateningly, "Of course, he might understand about male weaknesses too. But when his classmates, the Commandant, his instructors... when they get copies of the pictures, how will your son feel?"
"But you wouldn't..."
"And that daughter of yours in Elm Haven College," Johnny went on with grimfaced ruthlessness, his eyes piercing relentlessly at the quivering man's face, "That's a pretty strict little place there. The Headmistress will be surprised when she gets her copies. And then what about Sally Bilson, your daughter's roommate? Her old man's a prude from way back... big wheel in the Bar Association, and.."
Johnny's unalloyed malevolence was cutting into Fremont like a serrated knife, gouging at his usually indomitable spirit and bringing his long career of respected counsel and legislative adviser crumbling down like an amplified blast from Joshua's trumpet. And Johnny kept staring at the old man's bloodshot eyes, glorying in his vilification and its degrading result on this public scion of righteousness.
Fremont's fists kept balling, then releasing shakily. His whole tumultuous body became a tower of adrenaline, his agile mind, tensile and wrought from this cascade of doom, exploded into sudden violence!
The lawyer grabbed the steak knife at the setting before him, and lunged out at Johnny!
The sharp tip and jagged edge tore through his coat!
But the coat was hanging loose as Johnny leaned over the table. It had been a full five inches from his body.
Gritting his teeth, Johnny grabbed both of the man's wrists in an iron grip, twisting the hand which grasped the knife until it dropped to the table with an inert thud.
"Easy, Fremont...," Johnny intoned quietly, noticing a waiter had spotted the fracas, "You kill me and you're a dead man... understand? I've got twelve sets of these pictures in stamped and addressed envelopes. Anything happens to me and my partner'll see they get in the mail tonight!"
Fremont's arms relaxed hopelessly and Johnny let go. The pitiful man broke into a tearful sob, dropping his head on the table. Johnny breathed easier as the waiter approached.
"Something wrong, sir?" he inquired with a proper bow, "There's a doctor in the club tonight. Perhaps I should..."
"It's okay, Michel," Johnny assured him, leaning back in his chair, "My friend just got a terrible shock. Lost a fortune on the stock market today. He'll be okay. Bring us a couple of bourbons... double."
"Yes sir... right away," the efficient Michel responded, taking care to remove both steak knives from the table.
"Well! Is this the effect I have on the customers?" Honey Newgott husked through the grim silence like a nude woman walking into a convention, "I've seen men drop to their knees before, but not on the table. Who's your friend, Johnny?"
"Have a seat, baby," Johnny winked, motioning to the side of the table where Fremont had his head buried in crossed arms, "You're just what a man needs after losing a million bucks on the market."
"Oh... you mean he had a million to lose?" Honey asked with growing intrigue, letting her V-neck sectional dress gape open as she scooted into the booth "Tell me, darling... whatever your name is... do I look like a million?"
Fremont's body stiffened at the contact of her hips as Honey sidled next to him. He raised his head and looked from Johnny to the lustrously seductive redhead at his left. The wizened eyes were drawn tightly, the thin cracked lips moved in a palsied jerk, the creased brow drew down tight to the eyes. And when he spoke, the mellifluous voice had given way to a croaking whine grotesqued by a doomsday quality undertone.
"You're a monster, Miss Newgott. You're the ruination of mankind, the blot which erases man's creativity and incentive. Your vile display of flesh, beckoning and pulling at man's fleshly weakness, is the damnation of progress. You grow from a small girl with pretty pigtails and beguilingly innocent smiles, into a calculating monster of desire with the one goal in life of weakening the physically strong, corrupting the honesty and verity of men..."
Honey's made up face became immersed in a confused frown. The insult was clear enough, but the 9th grade educated stripper was at a complete loss to comprehend the reason for this sudden maledictive oratory against her and her sex. She had seen men angered at her before, but this had an undertone of unhinged bitterness, a subtly piercing jab, that all the foul mouthed longshoremen in the world could not emulate with a voluminous tirade of four letter words.
"Hey... this guy's off his nut," she stuttered defensively, getting out of the seat, "Take this bastard home, Johnny. I... I never seen a guy like that..."
"He's just upset," Johnny winked at Honey in amusement, then looked back to Fremont, "Well... how about it, old fellow? Are we in business?"
Fremont had quieted now and merely stared glassily back and forth between Honey and Johnny.
"You give me no choice... do you, Mr. DeFranco," he spoke more sanely now with a tired resignation, his wrath spent, "If... if I don't commit suicide before tomorrow... yes, we're in business."
"Suicide only solves it for you," Johnny advised sagely, lighting a cigarette and motioning Honey to take the seat Fremont was leaving, "The wife and kids, remember? They've got a long life to live. If you love them... you'll let them live it in peace."
"You mean you'd...," Fremont tried to ask in disbelief, hysteria returning to crack his shaky voice, "If I killed myself, you'd still..."
"Dead or alive, those pictures go out," Johnny shut the last gate of mercy in his disturbed and tormented face, "... unless the citation is dropped, the subpoena withdrawn, and the investigation stopped! Do I make myself clear?"
Fremont merely nodded an assent. He was a beaten, defeated man. His head tottered meekly and hung despondently as he walked to the checkroom.
"What a creep!" Honey exclaimed with an invigorated laugh, refreshed by the depressing man's departure, and sliding in across from Johnny, "Remember that General I told you 'bout from the Pentagon? Well, last night I got him to bed, Johnny. I switched on the camera too. Oughta be a lot o' swell pictures..."
"Forget him," Johnny sloughed, smiling to himself at the resounding coup he had just completed.
"But look, baby, this is big stuff," Honey protested, resting her big bosom on the tabletop and leaning toward Johnny to show it off, "And... and he taught me something new too."
"Yeah?" Johnny questioned disinterestedly.
"Sure did," she related, a fresh sparkle in her oversexed eyes, a flirty twist of the mammoth breasts, "It's crazy, Johnny. Real wild. He learned it in India. You'll love it, baby. The gal sits on top of.."
"Oh... shut up!" Johnny growled, opening his wallet to pay the tab, "I've got to see a man about twenty five thousand bucks. Here... pay the bill and have a Zombie on me."
"You're in a helluva mood!" the redhead showed her temper, swishing out of the booth, "I was gonna turn down a two hundred dollar date for you... but I'll be damned if I will..."
"Show him how they do it in India," Johnny called after her sarcastically.
"Park it!" Johnny shot authoritatively to the doorman at the swank Shoarmont Hotel, recalling only in passing the days when he was a smalltime bellhop on those very same grounds making two bits tips.
The Shoarmont was a luxuriantly sprawling hostelry spreading over three acres of sloping green landscape that overlooked the winding Rock Creek and the undulating parkway that followed it from Lincoln Memorial to the Maryland suburbs.
"Johnny boy!" the Bell Captain said enthusiastically, then clapped his hand over his mouth, lowering to a whisper, "Gee, kid, I got so excited seein' ya I forgot this place was dignified."
"Micko Zlacko?" Johnny questioned curtly, unresponsive to the old buddy approach, "What's he got? Presidential Suite?"
"Off limits, friend," the supervisor warned, holding up his hand, "The big man is strictly a incognito guest."
"Okay... I'll call him up," Johnny shrugged, turning toward the house phone bank, "I'm working for him."
"Really?" the Bell Captain puzzled with wide-eyed astonishment, "Well... you was right the first time... the Presidential. But..."
"Have a bottle of good booze on me," Johnny cut him off, flipping out a five dollar bill, "Thanks."
"Huh?"
Johnny whisked off to the elevator without even a return glance at his former cohort. In three days time he had almost fulfilled his mission for Micko Zlacko, the gambling kingpin of the country. This was not time to go sentimental or maudlin. Johnny was on top, going even higher.
The door to the posh Presidential Suite was opened by a movie type butler, complete down to cutaway tails. He said nothing at first, just studied Johnny with cautious eyes. He was a tall, erect man, properly poised and fastidious. But a tired look, blinking eyes revealing loss of sleep, revealed he was human too.
"Yes?" he intoned imperiously.
"Johnny DeFranco to see Mr. Zlacko."
"You name is familiar to me, Mr. DeFranco," the Jeeves type informed Johnny trippingly, "But Mr. Zlacko was taken quite ill yesterday with an attack of ptomaine poisoning. We expect him out of the hospital tomorrow. Perhaps I could give him a..."
"Don' go 'way, Misser," a lushed but cozy voice oozed through from the background.
Tipsy, Micko's little blonde nympho-dipso, emerged into the light of the foyer in a set of transparent baby dolls showing every bit of her short and full blown sexiness to perfection. The firm rounded legs were bare from the elasticized briefs down. The gossamer top hung over the jutting shelf of breast like a waterfall, hardened rosiness indenting the sheer fabric at two fascinating tips. The slim waist concaved in pleasing silhouette. And the painted lips struck an arousing contrast with the yellow cascade of bleached hair that hung down over an almost bare left shoulder.
"My goodness!" the ruby lips parted to express in a sensate quiver, "You're just what a poor li'l ol' nymphomaniac needs on a cold night like this."
CHAPTER ELEVEN - MICKO CANCELS A CONTRACT
"I... think I'd better come back when Micko's here," Johnny observed warily, then grinned as his eyes did a full sweep of Tipsy's pleasingly pert body.
"I'll tell him you called, sir," the butler announced in a note of relieved finality.
"Don't close the door, Limpy," Tipsy chided the butler, slapping his hand and twisting to put the breastworks into motion, "Mr. DeFranco is going to be my guest. Aren't you, Johnny?"
"I don't believe...," Johnny started, eyeing the butler with suspicion.
"Don't worry about Limpy here," Tipsy said with a shriek chuckle, "I got him t'take care o' my li'l ol' jazzy thing las' night. He won't say a word about us. Willya, Limpy?"
"Please, mademoiselle," the red faced servant pleaded with a combination of embarrassment and fear, "Mr. DeFranco may..."
"Like I said, baby," she interrupted, grabbing Johnny's arm and shutting the door, "Limpy here got wore out with it las' night. Ha ha! That's when I named 'im Limpy. Two li'l ol' jazzes an' he's too pooped to pop."
"Please, Miss Tipsy," Limpy shuddered, "Discretion is..."
"An' he's so dam ol' fashion too," she went on, doing an abandoned pirouette which swirled the sheer tops to her bare breasts, "I bet you're not ol' fashion, Johnny. Limpy jus', made me hot for the real thing las' night. I wanted a go out an' rape a Frenchman. Say! Is it true what they say about Frenchmen? Do they really..."
"Uhh-ah-hemmm," the butler cleared his throat loudly, his proper poise even more rigid than usual, "I shall retire to my quarters now. And... I trust, Mr. DeFranco, that my extreme discretion will be subject to reciprocity."
"Check," Johnny affirmed candidly, taking in the regal furnishings of the expensive suite and eyeing the bar through the living room door, "I'll join you in a drink, honey."
"A drink?" Tipsy screeched, stamping her bare foot on the thick carpet, "Don't tell me a young guy like you has to get loaded before he can take on a broad. Look! Look, baby! Nice hot stuff. All for you. Upside down, around the world, French ba..."
Johnny grabbed the prancing, palpitating wanton and pulled her to him. He ripped off the baby doll tops, pressing the naked breasts against his shirt.
Tipsy moaned, then cried out in an orgasmic spasm when his hand roamed her pelvic apex. She struggled frantically to loosen Johnny's clothes, then lapsed into lassitudinous delight at the manly sight.
Concern over Micko Zlacko was a bygone thing now. This was the kind of woman Johnny needed - all unbridled, unalloyed passion, no holds barred - a conscienceless love child on a depraved rampage. The body was not lithe and springy like Darlene's... or like Johnny imagined Maria's would be in similar circumstances. But any lack of sinuousness was adequately recompensed by the free motioning and positioning, the ultimate carnal abandon Tipsy represented.
"On top of the bar, baby...," she cajoled, hanging a leg over each side and throwing her arms back.
"In my lap, sugar," she coaxed, "... like we was in a movies."
"While we're dancing... yoweee, baby... you're like my cousin back in Milwaukee..."
The long blondeness, though it came from a bottle, reminded Johnny of Maria. The perversity, the debased demands of debauchery and orgasm, was reminiscent of Darlene. And the huge rounded breasts were much like Honey's.
But doubt pulled at Johnny too. This was purely unadulterated physical passion, unleashed in all its basicness. Here was a shameless, young, terrifically formed plaything. Was this what Johnny De-Franco really wanted?
"Let's watch TV... Ha ha! Come on, crazy boy," she urged, looking over her shoulder and laughing as she squatted on hands and knees.
But Johnny was no superman. All things, good or bad, had to end. With an exhausted sigh, he plopped his worn body onto the old provincial couch and breathed heavy.
"Weakling," Tipsy accused, standing up straddle legged in front of Johnny, "Micko's nearly fifty but he can go more than you when he's on a kick. Come on, baby. Once more, then we quit. Come on, baby. I'm still charged. Put out li'l ol' Tipsy's crazy fire. Please..."
Tipsy worked her pelvis round and round in a slow horizontal twist, pushing herself out at him with each rotation. In her fiery face there was a burning hunger, a pain racked expression of smoldering must. The big breasts were almost still, the legs moved only slightly. But the pelvis turned and turned, picking up speed now, and going faster and faster. Tipsy's breathing was heavy and erratic. She began to moan and babble obscenities in a discordant whine.
"I'll... take a shower," Johnny volunteered, his spent passion recouping mentally by the exhibition, "Maybe... that'll help."
"Sure... baby... wheeeee!" she screamed in a climactic fit of temporary relief, "We'll both get clean, baby. I wash you and you wash me. Crazeee! Then we take that trip, huh?"
The pelting spray of tepidly regulated water felt good to Johnny. Coupled with the massaging back scrubbing Tipsy was rendering, and the sight of her cleansed nakedness, the feel of her wet body against him, Johnny's revivification was quick. He reached back and felt the plush texture of her jouncy buttocks, turned to meet her quickened response.
"In the shower, baby! Ooooh! Cool, daddy! This is crazeee! the gamin Tipsy gave verbal vent to the new variation, dropping the brush and rag to the tile bottom of the shower stall.
A door opened!
The shower curtain was jerked back!
All motion, every sensual surge of emotion, stopped cold!
Micko Zlacko, an impaling stare of barefaced hate radiating from his ugly features, stood glaring at them. Their naked bodies seemed pierced to the bone by the rancorous glare from his glaze-fired eyes.
But no one spoke. No one made a sound. No one moved.
Zlacko stood there, bearing down on Johnny and Tipsy with a soul searing stare that chilled and killed their senses, making speech or movement virtually impossible. George Washington, a vicious smile studding his impassioned face, held back the curtain.
"Get dressed!" Micko spoke the words with clipped rigidity, tossing Johnny a towel.
"Mick... I... I...," Tipsy tried to speak, gulping in air as her frozen body trembled like an iceberg breaking up.
"Shut up!" Micko ordered, his growling words bouncing against the tiled walls with damning portent, "You stay here!"
Micko nodded to George, who followed Johnny out, closing the door,
Johnny refused to expose his rabid fear to the slim, cat-like body-guard who trailed him into the bedroom. An amused smile continued to play on the tall Negro's smooth, effeminate lips. And he stared at Johnny in that same hintingly homosexual gaze he had displayed in his apartment that night. Johnny refused to look away, tried to stare down the corporal fix of the enigmatically frightening eyes.
Johnny pulled on his shorts, trying to probe George's facial expression for some change, some infinitesimal look of disappointment. He started to put on his trousers, then suddenly stopped! Johnny's whole body shook uncontrollably at the horror of what he heard.
"No! No! Owwwwww! God... Noooo!" Tipsy's searing scream rent through the bathroom door.
A slashing, thudding, indescribably terrible series of sounds pounded more at Johnny's nerves than his ears. The screams and yells pierced madly through the suite, accompanied by barely coherent pleas of protest and blood curdling shrieks of mortal pain, reminding Johnny of the time he saw a woman cut to pieces when run over by a streetcar. The memory came back with terrible vividness - the sight of the wheels tri-secting the body, the quivering twitches of a piece of leg lying in the street, the blood and muscle squished into the track channels and rivulating downhill.
"Huh-huh. Hee-huh," George squealed with low-key, ghoulish laughter, big pearly teeth lighting up the usually impassioned face, "Nice... nice."
Johnny's horror stricken body shook more.
"Huh huh! Hee huh!" the laughter came louder in a base bass growl.
An abrupt realization came to Johnny as the insensate George almost doubled over with maniac amusement. George was no homosexual. He had only been intrigued with Johnny before as a potential murder victim. The man was a homicidal psychopath, one who took gleeful delight in the process of torture killing. When he had said "nice" to Johnny that night, his thought were of killing him, being given the okay by Zlacko to fulfill his mortuous mania on Johnny DeFranco.
The shrieks from the bathroom faded to whimpers, the whimpers to light thrashes against the walls and door.
And then there was silence.
Johnny fidgeted helplessly with his tie, unable to perform the intricate hand and fingerwork in his anxious state.
"Huh... awwwww," George drooped limply into a disappointed heap against the wall, a crazed grin barely discernible on the taut lips, but his breathing as relaxed as a man just finished with sexual climax, "Nex'...time, Micko let's me do it. Huh. Huh. Nex' time I get a close charge... nex' time..."
George rubbed his back against the wall as he mumbled, and stared glassily up to the ceiling.
"Get rid of it!" Micko sliced off his babble as he emerged from the bathroom.
The gambling czar's blue serge suit was splotched with blood. On his luminescently white nylon shirt, the red blotches hued an off-red crimson. The short, pudgy, ugly man stood there a moment glaring at Johnny, then hunched back his stocky shoulders as George helped him off with the coat.
"Burn 'em," Micko directed, throwing his shirt into a heap on the bed, "And get rid of the knife too. I left it in her right tit."
"Huh huh! Huh hee!" George's crazed response came out as he bundled up the bloodied clothes, "I take her to that sandpit in Virginia, huh? Where we put ol' Rocko las'..."
"Wait'll the blood dries!" Micko barked at him irritably, holding back his arms while George helped him into a robe, "And bring me a wet towel. I still got some gook on my hands."
While this grisly exchange transpired, Johnny stood by immobilely petrified. His anxious feat was heightened as much by the sadistic killing of the little blonde nympho as it was over concern for himself. And when Micko turned to face him again, Johnny was too mortally terrified even to cringe.
"Come on, Johnny. Let's have a drink," Micko smiled at him with a sudden spurt of inexplicable warmness, gripping his shoulder and leading him to the bar, "This kinda business always gets me upset. Mos' times George handles it. But that goddam little Tipsy was buggin' me too much pers'nally."
"A... a drink?" Johnny puzzled, certain he was being fattened for the kill.
"Sure... why not?" Micko shrugged, pouring two stiff glasses of bonded bourbon, "Your contrac' with me don't have no hands off clause. But Tipsey was livin' high by me fer one reason... one reason alone. She broke the deal... I canceled the contract. Simple... huh, kid?"
CHAPTER TWELVE - THE SCARE OF SUCCESS
Johnny needed desperately to talk to someone! A sick nausea filled his stomach, a jabbing pain jarred inside his confused cranium. Three straight doubles of bourbon had done little to knock out the morbid terror of this evening.
"Hey... look where ya drivin' ya stoopid jerk!" Johnny slammed on his brakes half way through the red light, cursing his abstract meanderings, lack of attention to his driving. He had to talk to somebody. The pounding in his head wouldn't let him stay still, forced him to do something, say something.
It was 1 AM when his black Mercedes swooped down through the underpass at DuPont Circle and approached K Street. A turn to the right and he could be at Ben's apartment in five minutes. But what could he say to easygoing, unsensitive, husband and father Ben Lipper? What could the shady photographer offer him in the way of solace?
A left turn and he could go to Darlene's. She would be glad to see him. She'd grasp at the opportunity to play mother-confessor and console him. But Johnny had never visualized or wanted the tempestuous Darlene in this role. It would be humiliating, cowardly, unmanly to let her see him like this.
Honey Newgott? She would be home within a half hour, offer him a drink, proffer him her shapely body in any way he desired. But the only part of that proposition which seemed attractive to Johnny was the drink, and he could get that anywhere. Then too, Honey would only laugh at his concern, refuse to view it as anything but fantasy.
But now that Johnny was face to face with the awful baseness, the depths to which crime could delve, his own twisted standards began to waver.
To Johnny, blackmail was a simple thing, a crime which had been good to him financially and egotistically. It was sage and secure. He felt a mastery of it, a keen aptitude in determining how far to go with a person, knowing the limits of his victims monetarily and psychologically with a mystical kind of sixth sense.
The ugliness of murder still gripped him as he turned the car left around Farragut Square. The rumblings in his stomach, the pile driving pounds in his head, wouldn't let up.
There was only one person Johnny DeFranco really wanted to see, the one person to whom he felt spiritually close enough to talk out the problem. She would understand it. And, even though she demanded their relationship remain on a platonic basis, Johnny felt intuitively there was something deeper. He needed her now as an understanding companion, a helpmate, not as a dominated victim of his sexual aggressiveness.
There was no answer at the door to Apartment 1234.
Johnny cursed to himself, then returned to his car, consuming six and a half cigarettes before Sid's green Cadillac pulled into the parking lot and the pansied congressional aide escorted Maria upstairs.
Two more cigarettes and Sid came out of the building and drove away. The tobacco taste was flat and unpalatable in Johnny's mouth, but it helped to keep him from going crazy with teeming anxiety.
"Hi, partner!" Maria greeted Johnny with fresh exuberance when she opened the door, bubbling gaily as she preceded him into her living room, "I've had a bucket of Champagne tonight, but I could stand a real weak bourbon with you. I saw your car downstairs... figured you'd be up to hear the report. And have I got news: Partner, I connected tonight. Oh, it won't be easy, but I think we're in. I've interested him..."
"Look... there's something I've got to tell you... talk to you about," Johnny broke into her effervescent monologue, trying frustratedly to fix a drink in his building state of exacerbation, "I saw Micko Zlacko, the gambling king tonight... and..."
"Okay, partner, but let me tell you how I pitched this game tonight," Maria insisted excitedly, fluffing up the couch cushions, "The dancing business didn't go over too well. All the old biddies in the place were eyeing me up and down something terrible... as bad as back home. But... he's interested in my typing ability..."
"What?" Johnny said incredulously, after gulping a straight shot of bourbon, then taking a quickly mixed highball to Maria, "I can't take a picture of a typewriter and scare him with it... but look, that's okay, we'll get back to it later. This guy... this guy Zlacko..."
"Just a minute, partner," Maria frowned poutishly, sipping her drink, then giving a friendly pat to the space beside her, "Sit here and listen. I thought this young congressman was your big deal-the thing that's going to make both of us rich. Well, tomorrow night I'm going to his apartment and type up..."
"Shut up!" Johnny screamed, then buried his head in his hand remorsefully, his next statement coming out with the same kind of pitiful whining as Lester Fremont had exhibited, "I saw...heard... a woman get killed tonight! She was... cut to pieces by a madman! I... I hardly knew the girl... she... she was a little tramp... a stupid bitch! But I liked her... she was all right. And Micko... Micko cut her to pieces... like a piece of... of goddam salami!"
"Johnny! Johnny!" Maria tried to soothe him, "I'm... I'm sorry, Johnny. I didn't know..."
Maria pulled his head over to her lap, kissing his forehead like a dutiful mother. When he shook uncontrollably with the horror of it all, and sobbed out the details in terrified anguish, Maria held him tightly to her breasts, their maternal warmth exuding needed relief to as great a degree as they could arouse bestial passion some other time.
"... and then he told me he needed someone to type a radio script for his tape recorded report to the homefolks," Maria was explaining later.
Johnny was nearly himself now-a little ashamed of having sought refuge like a child in a woman's bosom, but confident Maria Karlson would never laugh at his predicament, never mention it again. She seemed a strange type of woman to Johnny, albeit a very wonderfully strange type. There had been no hate in her voice even for Zlacko after he had told her, only sympathy for the unfortunate girl, and an expression of regret that man could be so desperate for a woman's love that an infidel mistress would have to suffer death. This admixture of emotion Johnny felt-this strange coalescing of tenderness and passion -was bewildering and gratifying at the same time, a feeling he had never before experienced.
"... felt sorry for me, I guess," Maria continued, jiggling the ice cubes in her empty glass while Johnny listened with intent respect, "I made up a story about my boyfriend marrying a Japanese girl while he was stationed in Tokyo, and what shame it had brought on me in that small town where everyone knew we were engaged."
"So... he wants you to type for him," Johnny mused, finishing off his drink and taking both glasses to the bar, "I guess that's the Washington way of asking a girl up to look at his etchings."
"Oh, he's got some typing all right," Maria insisted, happy to see Johnny's recovery and pleased that she had played a part in it, "He offered three dollars an hour, which is the going rate... for typing at odd hours. But he liked the body too. I could tell that by his eyes. They didn't miss a single inch."
"Think you'll connect tomorrow night?" Johnny asked, feeling curiously unexcited about the possible coop, "I better get Ben to get over there and set up the cameras."
"I... I don't know," Maria became suddenly hesitant and uneasy, "Johnny... you won't hurt him, will you? Promise me you won't. Don't ruin his family and career. You won't have to, will you?"
"What kind of talk is this?" Johnny became angered, looking up at Maria, "Are you in love with this guy, or something?"
"It's just that... he's a wonderful man, Johnny," Maria tried to sound unemotional about it, "I... just don't want to ruin his life... that's all."
JOHNNY was depressed once more when he drove away from the apartment at 4:15. Maria had been too helpful in a moment of desperate need for him to probe and press anymore about what Toler could ever mean to her. Besides, he tried to rationalize, she had done the first part of her job for him extremely well. And she must like him, else why was she so eager to provide the comfort and solace he wanted so desperately? She was a damn good friend, a damn good business partner. Wasn't that enough?
Johnny knew it wasn't.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE PAYOFF AND THE PROBLEM
Glasses tinkled and highballs sloshed. A jazz quintet beat out modern rhythms from the adjoining dining room, whose old French doors had been opened out to make one big part area in the Shoarmont's Presidential Suite.
A round bottomed blonde in scanty hatcheck-girl shorts skimmed through a crowd of men, yelping and laughing in that order while her shimmering buttocks was tweaked and titillated by laughing, glowering males.
Limpy, whose real name was Ian McArthur, but who went by the monicker of Arthur, glided through the mumbling masses with a tray of highballs and cocktails.
This was Micko Zlacko's big payoff party, a spontaneous but elegant affair inspired by the sudden notification from the Congressional Committee that contempt charges, subpoena for reappearance, and all further investigation, had been dropped. Now, the Mick could go back to Chicago and take up where he'd left off, secure in the knowledge that the one big threat, an investigation by the untouchables of Capital Hill, was taken care of as neatly as the local Precinct Captain.
Johnny finished a torrid, rhythm heaped mambo with Darlene to the sound of admiring applause. Micko smoothed his chubby hand up the stockinged thigh of a surprised hotel waitress next to him, bellowed out crude laughter, then walked over to Johnny and Darlene.
"You dance good, baby," he congratulated Darlene, his tiny eyes x-raying through the mauve colored party dress that clung to her lithe lines, "But I like it real close better... slow music... hot pants... Ha ha! I dance with you in a few minutes, eh?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Zlacko," Darlene smiled and twisted her body sexily for emphasis, clutching Johnny's waist, "Johnny get tired of my dancing some time... but he never get tired of me."
"Come inna my study, kid," Zlacko told Johnny, slapping his shoulder with a fat paw while he winked at Darlene, "We got business to'do."
The ornate and bowlegged desk, the semi-antique finery looked incongruous as an office for Micko Zlacko. But this was a temporary thing, and Johnny had a good idea the headquarters in Chicago was trapped with more modern furnishings. Even Micko looked ill at ease in this baroque setting. But Johnny's discomfort came more from his vivid recollection of two nights before in this same set of rooms.
"Twenty four grand. Right, kid?" Micko asked with an amused grin as he pulled a big envelope from the wall safe, "Zlacko always pays his debts in cash. Don't need no receipt either. Count it."
"I trust you," Johnny stated, pocketing the thick wad and feeling increasingly uneasy, "I... I gotta leave soon, Micko. Got a deal in..."
"I wann lay yer broad!"
Micko said it with cold deliberateness, his pudgy features remaining stoically immobile. There was no threat to his tone, only a flat announcement. Johnny knew Micko had enjoyed dancing with Darlene earlier. And he wanted to get rid of her himself. But he remembered Tipsy's fate, and couldn't help but feel protective.
"She's my girl, Micko," Johnny told him, nervously fingering a desk set, "There's... well, nothing really set... no permanent..."
"I won't cut her up," Micko promised with a knowing sneer, fishing in the safe again, "But I like the gal. I'll pay ya off... ten grand. How's 'at?"
"Darlene's not for sale!" Johnny persisted, straightening his tie and turning toward the door.
"Darlene's a jealous bitch!" Micko called out to Johnny, then calmly laid out five stacks of hundreds on the desk, "She don' know 'bout you shackin' with that blonde babe in the Arvo Towers."
"Godammit!" Johnny cursed, wrenching his body around to face Zlacko again, "What're you doing? You putting the black on me now?"
"I gotta watch out for my int'rest, kid," Micko shrugged, dropping into the chair behind the desk, "I put a guy on you for the past two days to see what-cha do witcherself. I get a reading of a guy with the hots for the blonde and a problem name o' Darlene. Come on now... take the ten grand an' save yourself a lotta pain."
"No deal!"
"You know what George loves to do with blondes?" Micko eked out the threat with deliberately slow menace, showing the yellow teeth in a maniacal grin, "He rapes 'em first... plugs out their insides an' then..."
"Shut up!"
"No, kid, you shut up!" Micko's beady eyes gleamed death as he tore around the desk and grabbed Johnny's lapels, glowering with sadistic ferocity, "You dirtied up my deal with Tipsy an' I let it go. Now, you gimme that Latin babe or I'll make Maria Karlson wish she was never born! Darlene ain't no faithful piece to you nohow. I felt her up plenny dancin' tonight... got me a good han'-ful of it, an' she loved it... tol' me I could get it tomorrow."
"Keep your goddam money!" Johnny spat angrily, wrenching Micko's hand from his coat.
"You... you givin' her away?" Micko questioned, easing his hold.
"Take her, but don't break her," Johnny snapped with disdainful sarcasm.
"Get outta here!" the crime czar husked viciously in his confused after-rage, "Get out or I have George fix you too."
DRIVING up Connecticut Avenue, Johnny was sick to the pit of his queasy stomach. There was no real love lost for Darlene, but the pity he felt for her, the guilt he harbored at having let Zlacko take her so easily, jabbed at him with depressing barbs.
He turned into the Arvo Towers parking lot without a conscious thought about where he was going. Strange, he reasoned, pulling into an empty space, he needed someone and he automatically drove to Maria's. She wouldn't be in. He knew that. Not only because it was just 11:30, but with that pessimistic complex of inferiority that underlay his outward aggressiveness.
This was the second night in a row she had gone to Congressman Philip Toler's apartment for typing. Last night it had been 3:15 when she got back. Could he stand waiting so long again?
Johnny glanced in his rear view to line up the car better.
And he saw it!
Dr. Bordon Wheeler eased his sedan into the lot without his lights on, choosing the second lane over from Johnny to drive down the line of parked autos. Johnny shut off his motor and slipped out of the car, creeping up the row of cars in the opposite directions.
But the Doctor must have seen him. The big sedan slammed into reverse and backed up to the access lane where Johnny was emerging.
Johnny panicked, all the fear and frustration of his multi-faceted dilemma welling up into a single scare. He took the twenty yard dash to the building's rear door at the pace of a gridiron runner making for the goal before the final pistol shot.
Bang! Whi-i-ine! Splat!
The pistol shot came. But unlike at the stadium, this one was loaded. The bullet careened past Johnny's ear and tore out a piece of brick, pulverizing it into powdered dust.
Bang! Whish! Glunk!
The next one landed in a soft garden plot, just as Johnny bolted through the thick, solid glass doors.
Bang! Chreeeee! Crash! Thud!
Huge slabs of glass cascaded from the entrance. The bullet, spent in tearing through the inch thick crystal, hit the plaster wall and dropped.
The elevator door suddenly opened.
"Say... whasha big racket here... hie?" a jolly carouser queried slobberingly, hanging onto a fifth of Scotch in one hand, a redheaded G-girl with the other. Whasa..."
The reveler dropped his bottle, the girl screamed, as Johnny maulingly shoved both back into the cage and pressed haphazardly at the floor buttons to close the door.
"I'm a policeman," Johnny lied effectively, snapping open his wallet, then closing it briskly, Got a gunman on my tail."
The elevator stopped at the third floor.
"Go back down... tell the guy I went to the manager's office," Johnny directed the bewildered couple, pressing the basement button again, "The department'll really appreciate your help. Goodbye..."
"But... but wait...," the closing doors clipped off the protest.
Johnny was out of breath and weak after a nine story climb up the emergency stairs. The hall was clear. He lumbered shakily down the carpeted passage to Maria's apartment. He fished nervously, with scared glances toward the elevator, until he came to the key which had worked when he and Ben planted the camera.
From the picture window, Johnny looked down to the parking lot and saw the two cherry topped cars with their rotating beacons. The cops were already there in answer to the gunshots. He only hoped Doc Wheeler didn't know where he was, didn't know Maria's name.
By the light of the weird, Christmas-like illumination reflecting up on the ceiling of Maria's living room, Johnny made for the bar, filling a highball glass to the brim with straight bourbon.
Feet shuffled in the hallway outside!
They went on, and Johnny relaxed, the tranquilizing alcohol coursing through his tensed body and rendering a quick sense of security. The red lights stopped flashing. The two cars drove away.
Johnny felt safe now-tired but safe. He filled the glass again with the sedating liquor and quaffed it in two gulps. He lit a cigarette. The feel of the smoke against his alcohol anesthetized membranes was sheer delight. The world seemed aglow with the smattering of street and moonlight from outside. He was sleepy and needed to lie down. But he had enough sense to close the door to the living room.
Johnny passed out in morphic reverie on top of Maria's bed.
"I love you, darling... of course I love you," Maria's voice came beautifully through the dream mist, "And I want you so bad too."
Johnny smiled in his half sleeping state and turned over. This was the kind of dream from which he never wanted to awaken. This was euphoric Utopia, the cozy sense of well being, and the girl he loved wrapped in his arms.
"I know it sounds crazy, Maria. I'm a married man. But I love you too," a male voice confessed breathily after a long silence.
Johnny bolted up in the bed! It was no longer a dream. The feeling of delightful calm and tranquility burst into harsh reality. The voices were there, no visionary mumblings, but there in the apartment, in the next room.
The luminous clock on Maria's night table showed only 3:10, but Johnny's heavy consumption of the numbing liquor was wiped away by what he was hearing-Maria and Toler in the living room.
"I... I can't take any more of this, darling," it was Maria's voice again, mixing with the sound of ice cubes, "I'm not one of these cold and frigid little wenches. When you... kiss me like that I want more. In your apartment tonight I was going crazy, darling. Please... why can't you make love to me when we're alone like that?"
"If I didn't love you, Maria, I would," the man's voice proclaimed piously, "But I can't ruin your life like that. The only way for us is for me to get a divorce first."
"And ruin your career?"
"I don't care!" the man's voice protested strongly, "All my life I've been groomed to do the right thing, go to the right schools, marry the right girl. Maria, darling, my wife is a living, breathing iceberg. She's beautiful, lovely to look at, but there's no warmth, no love, no feeling between us. It's true, Maria! The only time I've even slept with her was to get her pregnant. And why?. Because having children is the right thing to do!"
"Phil, honey, I know it must be awful," Maria was consoling him now, the couch making the appropriate noises.
Johnny bit at a fingernail and lit a cigarette. The taste was awful, like drawing wads of cotton through his dried throat.
"Maria, darling," the man pleaded again, "Can't you understand? I've never known a woman like you before, never knew this kind of real love existed. I thought it was all storybook stuff. I'd give up my career, everything for it. My parents are both gone now. I took over my father's business back on the coast, and it can all be ours. Oh... I'll have to make a settlement with Gloria, but her parents have money..."
Johnny was bursting inside. He had to get Toler in bed with Maria, had to in order to make the hundred thousand dollar deal and also to save his own neck from Lyman Rivers' threat. But this was torturing him. Every word that Philip Toler poured out to Maria, was what Johnny felt but couldn't say. And here was this crazy Congressman turning down on grounds of respect, fidelity, purity and morals, what Johnny DeFranco couldn't buy or coerce from Maria Karlson.
"I love you, Maria."
Johnny's fist balled up with impotent menace, even though Toler was using the words as a farewell this time. He slammed his right fist into his left palm, like a golfer whacks his ball full force with a subconscious strike at a hated boss.
And the door finally closed.
"You're in love with that son of a bitch!" Johnny pounced in on Maria accusingly.
"Jealous, dear?" she smiled the question with amused calmness, "I saw the bedroom door closed... and your car outside."
"What a bunch of crap!" Johnny exploded, heading for the bar, "Go to bed with him! That's all you're being paid for. You've got him acting like a lovelorn kid."
"He is rather pitiful," Maria admitted seriously, biting her lip, "But rather nice at the same time. He needs a woman who understands him. His father guided his whole life, arranged everything for him, even financed his whole campaign and donated thousands to the party. And just think... he'd give up everything for me."
"Son of a bitch!" Johnny swore, downing a double shot, then declaring wrathfully, "Maybe I love you too! Yeah, what about that? I'm single and available. But you don't even give me a chance. Wittlmaier was married... and I'm damn sure he wasn't the first one, either!"
"But you don't need me, Johnny," she protested with serious miscalculation, "Wittlmaier is a nice old man who desperately needs a young girl... to stay young himself and do his important work in..."
"Godammit! I need you too!" Johnny blared, slamming his glass on the bar and going to her, "I need you like this!"
Johnny tore down the off the shoulder dress and ravenously kissed Maria's denuded breasts, then pulled her netherness against him. She reacted with fright at first, then moved against him in a lazed undulation, hyper-excited by the preceding actions with Toler, and now the immediate and proximous contact with Johnny.
"Oh... Johnny, I want you...," Maria moaned lassitudinously, cupping his chin in her hands and drawing him up to kiss her excited lips.
"Maria, honey!" Johnny enthused, his hands pulling her to him under the back of her dress, clutching avidly at the naked leg above her gartered hose, "Ohhh... Maria, this is what I want so goddam bad."
"Kiss... kiss my breasts again...," she pleaded in a deliriously hot cry, her probing hands desperate for intimate contact.
"Let's go... in the bedroom," Johnny insisted in a passionately interrupted breath, keeping a hand pressed against the naked thigh.
"No!"
Maria jerked from her mood with a resoundingly emotional switch. She pulled down at her dress and away from Johnny, trying to maintain enough equanimity to light a cigarette with her table lighter.
Johnny felt suddenly impotent, just stood there with a dumbfoundedly confused expression. He wanted to strike her, curse at her, bedevil her, even vent his anger by hurting her like Micko Zlacko would do.
But not even Johnny DeFranco could bring himself to willfully strike out at the girl he loved.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE BIG BREAK
Johnny jumped when the phone rang.
Almost the entire evening had been spent in pacing nervously across the floor of his newly repaired apartment, waiting for the phone call from Maria. The vote on the rocket contract was scheduled for next week. Success or failure for Johnny DeFranco depended on the results of tonight's date with Toler.
"DeFranco here," he answered in a sharp clip.
"Iyuz Mozz Willyums theah?" a rich hillbilly twanged through.
"Wrong goddam number, Mac!" Johnny cursed, and slammed down the phone.
He poured ginger ale in a fresh glass and laced it with straight ice. The constant sipping all evening was making Johnny too drowsy. And this was one time he had to be alert, had to...
A firm rap at the door broke his train of thought.
"Good evening, Johnny," Lyman Rivers smiled his public relations special, walking right in and tossing his umbrella across a chair, "I came to get the results."
"The race isn't over," Johnny admitted tersely, going to the bar and taking down the bourbon, "Plain water for you?"
"Straight," the impeccably dressed lobbyist replied, smoothing fingers across the meticulously trimmed mustache, then frowning, "You told me Wittlmaier was arranging that last vote, Johnny. You mean it's not wrapped up yet?"
"Nothing to worry about," Johnny bluffed, feeling the perspiration start to ooze, "I... I'll get the picture of this guy tonight... put the pitch to him tomorrow."
"You're nervous, Johnny! Rivers accused, leaning over the bar and trying to catch the darting eyes, "... and you've good reason to be."
"I said we'll get them tonight," Johnny said tensely, handing Rivers the wrong glass, "I know we'll get them tonight. It's all set."
"Then why did you give me the wrong goddam drink?" Rivers shot the query with furious violence, dropping the PR man's manner and picking up a big sticked threat, "You're scared crapless, Johnny! What went wrong?"
"Nothing... nothing, Lyman... Mr. Rivers," Johnny shot his wad of pretended casuality, "I mean..."
"You're scared, kid," Rivers became even more vicious, downing his drink neat and grabbing Johnny's arm across the bar, "And well you might be, Johnny. I've promised Millytronics that contract, taken a fifty thousand advance from them and dropped the regular promotion campaign."
"Let go my arm, godammit!" Johnny riled up again, pulling away.
"I'll let go, Johnny," Rivers acceded with a shove that sent Johnny back against the liquor cabinet, "But if you don't get me that vote... I'm going to get a big piece of your ass, kid. And I don't mean that I like to sleep with punks like you!"
"You wouldn't... look, Lyman, please, I got a million problems," Johnny started to warm for the beg-off, "Doc Wheeler's still after..."
"I know he is," Rivers shot back, adjusting his shirt sleeves so just the right amount of cuff showed, "I figured he was the one tried to blow up your guts the other day. Well, I got a boy watching him now. Your hide is safe until and unless you get that vote. If you don't produce, Johnny, my boy becomes Doc Wheeler's partner. Understand?"
"Su... sure, Lyman," Johnny gulped fearfully, "I... I understand."
It was 4:15 AM when the phone rang again.
"I'll be right over, honey," Johnny insisted, refusing to listen to anything on the phone, pessimistic that the last try had also failed.
And Johnny was right. At Maria's apartment he burst into a bubble of frustrated franticism and desperation. He paced the floor, pounded his fist on the bar, dashed the drink she poured him into the luxuriantly piled carpet, cursed obscenely, and smashed his fist on the bar again.
"I'm sorry, Johnny," Maria cried, grabbing his shoulders, "But... he's got this crazy idea about not wanting to hurt me. I tried, Johnny. Honest... I tried. I played every trick a girl can. He just wouldn't budge. I... I guess that's what you call character"... or something."
"Character!" Johnny raved, running both hands despairingly through his wiry hair and plopping on the couch, "The son of a bitch is crazy! Any guy who could turn you down like that is crazy... or queer!"
"Not Phil Toler," Maria jumped to his defense, "He's a man every inch of the way... and I mean that any way you want to take it. But he just has some... some moral kind of respect for me that keeps him from having sex with me unless we're married."
"He's really nuts about you, huh?" Johnny asked, calming down as an idea began to form.
"You heard him the other night," Maria offered, admiring the handsome way Johnny looked when he was serious, "He'd divorce his wife... give up a kid he's never seen...just to marry me."
"That's it! That's it!" Johnny snapped his fingers, going to pour two drinks, his mind clicking in high gear, "If he'll divorce his wife for you, he'll sure as hell change his vote on the rocket deal. I... I should have thought of this before... it's simpler than blackmail. Go ahead, tell him you'll marry him... if he'll vote for Millytronics. Tell him... oh, tell him your old man's a big stockholder in the company. Then after the vote Tuesday... bingo! You can dump him!"
"No."
Maria punctuated her refusal by pushing aside the drink Johnny had just placed in front of her. He looked at her with incredulous disbelief. His firm jaw gaped open. His sharp eyes blinked several times. When he spoke, it came out in a raspy stutter.
"You... you're... you're kidding... of course..."
"No!" Maria repeated resolutely, crossing her arms and walking over to the picture window, "I guess you think I'm crazy too. I'd... I'd have gone along with the deal if he'd gone to bed with me. I could have... well, rationalized doing that. But not this way, Johnny."
"Look, Maria! I wasn't kidding when I told you that bunch would kill me if I don't produce," Johnny pleaded as he walked over to her, "You've got all this... this goddam respect for Toler at my expense. You're setting me up to get gunned down in the middle of Connecticut Avenue some day. Is... that what you want?"
"You could leave town, Johnny," Maria suggested seriously, clearly on the verge of tears, "You've got money, Johnny. Leave town and set up your... your business in some other place. I'll... I mean... if you didn't have that other girl friend, I'd even... go with you. You... you've got to have a woman... in your work..."
Maria was scornful with the last sentence, but sobbing at the same time. She walked back uneasily to the couch to get a handkerchief out of her purse, then gulped from her drink.
"Cut out the damn crying!" Johnny angered, then felt hurt himself as soon as he said it, "You... you made a deal with me on this guy, now you're backing out."
"I made a deal... if he went to bed with me, Johnny!" Maria snapped back, relighting her cigarette, "Can I help it if he's got too much... character? Yes, Johnny, I mean character!"
"You think I'm a bum, is that it?" he barked the question, standing in front of Maria, grabbing her chin to force her to look at her, "You think I'm some sort of animal because I want to go to bed with you? Is it wrong when a guy wants to lay his wife?"
"But you... you don't love me, Johnny," Maria sobbed, then swallowed hard and regained her composure, "No... there's nothing wrong with that... but you don't love me and you don't need me. I can see a lot from this window, Johnny. I could see you out there in the car with that dark haired woman the other night. You've told me about Honey Newgott and the girl who got killed, there must have been more... must still be."
"But those were..."
"I'm not that kind, Johnny! I'm bad but not that bad!" Maria shouted, wringing her hands and fighting back tears, "Sure, Johnny, I want to make love with you... I nearly did the other night. But it's no good... I can't be just another girl to you. I can't let a man make love to me unless there's some..."
"All right! All right!" Johnny cut her off, striding over to the bar, "I suppose I've gotta marry you, is that it?"
"Johnny DeFranco marry a little twenty year old girl who makes sixty a week...hah!" Maria was bitter for a moment, turning around to face him as she leaned back against the window sill, "No, Johnny, you'd have to have a better reason than that to.'.."
"Shut up and listen to me!" Johnny yelled, grabbing her by the soft shoulders, "I'll marry you tomorrow... in Arlington. We get a blood test, rush it through the clinic, and we can be married before noon. Now... do you believe I love you?"
"No... I mean... Johnny! Oh, Johnny! You do mean it!" Maria was suddenly ecstatic, at a loss for words.
"Maria, baby," Johnny breathed heavily, talking in a quiet whisper, his whole being infused with the yielding softness of her body, "I do love you, Maria. I... I can't say the words right... but there's..."
"Don't talk...just hold me, darling," Maria asked him, her head going round in circles, her body responding with pent up desire.
"I want you, Maria," Johnny professed with rising fervor, smoothing his hands across her back and down over the youthfully rounded hips, "Ohhh, baby. I've wanted you like this for so long."
"Tell me again, Johnny. Tell me again," Maria begged, panting breathily as she helped him uncover the large breasts and then hold his head against them, "Oh, darling, you're driving me crazy... oooohh, Johnny, my precious... oooohhh!"
"Let... let me watch you undress, Maria."
"I... I'd feel dirty, Johnny."
"Not if you love me, Maria," Johnny argued easily, cupping a jutting breast and kissing at the erected nipple with tantalizing nibbles, "If you really love me, Maria, you'll do anything."
"Of course I will. Ohh, Johnny... I'd do anything for you. It's not dirty if you love me. Anything, my precious..."
Johnny switched off the table lamp, so that only moonlight and streetlights from above and below diffused into the room in dim luminescence, silhouetting Maria against the window. His keen eyes sharpened to the semi-darkness, and he could see clearly by the time she stepped out of the half slip and faced him.
"Do... do you really like my body, Johnny?"
She asked the question nervously, even with a trace of uncertainty, but smiled warmly at the response. Johnny stepped in front of her and let his hands come down across the naked breasts and over the sheer-pantied buttocks, pausing on the bar thigh above her stockings to probe with intriguing subtleness just underneath the elastic.
"Ohh, honey!" Maria trembled excitedly, "Help... help me off with the stockings."
"I love you," Johnny emoted with tender passion, holding her in complete nudity next to him.
"Let... let me help you undress, darling," Maria begged eagerly, letting him guide her trembling hand.
"I want to look at you...just once more, Maria," Johnny asked, backing away, "My God, honey. I've never had a body like that. Maria... baby... baby..."
"I'm glad you like it," Maria smiled easily, but still fired with feverish, burning desire.
She stood there, the outside lights illumining her perfect 34-22-34 figure. Johnny was amazed at the precise symmetry, the rounded perfection. This was what he had wanted for so long. This was the girl who had gotten under his skin, taunted him, teased him. And now she was all his... all his to enjoy as he wished.
"You meant it, didn't you, Maria?" he asked with calculating, yet passion racked sincerity, walking into her outstretched arms, "... about doing anything?"
"Of course, Johnny... ohhh, Johnny, love me! Love me hard!" she broke into an excited plea when he kissed her neck and arms, then trailed his mouth across to her breasts again, "Johnny! Johnny! Anything with you! It's wonderful when you love me! Anything... Johnny!"
"You'll get the vote from Toler then?" he questioned quietly but firmly, glancing up from her throbbing bosom, his hand teasingly still.
"God damn you!" Maria screamed, throwing out a wild haymaker, which he ducked, "You lying... no good... Get out! Get out of here and never come back... never as long as you live!"
JOHNNY winced painfully as he daubed merthiolate across the knob on his forehead, which Maria had managed to connect with a well aimed whiskey bottle. Johnny DeFranco was in the worst kind of way -a gash on his forehead that throbbed with a dizzying pain, a cut at his conscience that hurt like a salt tipped rapier's wound.
Johnny walked into his living room and took a slug straight from the bottle. He cursed himself, Rivers, Toler, Wittlmaier, everyone he could think of. But most of his wrath was for Johnny DeFranco. He was in love with Maria, really in love with her. But would she ever believe that now? Why did he have to pull that lousy con on her?
He knew why -because he was running scared, scared to death of what could happen now that the last chance of the subcommittee vote was gone.
Escape was the important thing now. And he would have to do it this weekend -get the money from his bank in the morning, pack his bags, and leave before Rivers tried to see him again. The apartment? The expensive furnishings? He would leave them to Ben as a bonus. Ben would love to have the swank apartment to entertain a few girls in until the rent gave out... then he could sell the furniture.
Johnny loosened his tie. He was sweaty and hot, though the heat had been turned down to 62 for the night. He opened the closet door and looked at the double length rack of suits. He couldn't take them all, had to travel light, had to be mobile enough to pick up and run at the next stop if they caught up with him.
The telephone rang!
He couldn't answer. Might be Rivers... or Doc Wheeler.
But maybe it was Maria! Maybe she really did love him, was sorry she got so mad over the...
"Hello," he answered in a deepened disguise of his own voice.
"Hi, honey!" the bubbly tones of Honey Newgott, effervesced by alcohol, came at him.
"Go 'way!" Johnny growled, starting to hang up.
"I got a hot one for you, sweetie," she purred excitedly with her husky sexiness, "Pictures an' everything. Real wild."
"No Pentagon Generals, Honey," Johnny rushed to finalize it, "Not tonight anyway. Call me... or call Ben on it tomorrow."
"This isn't the general, silly," Honey chided with a laugh, "This one's a big old Congressman... and I do mean old. But he's still got a few left in him."
"There's only one Congressman I want," Johnny ventured, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette, "And that's Philip Toler. But he's not even thirty yet. Call Ben on it tomorrow. I may... may be out of town for a while. Uh... who was this guy tonight anyway?"
"He-hee," Honey giggled insipidly, tinkling ice backgrounding her, "I don't even remember his name... who was that guy you said?"
"Toler. Philip Toler," Johnny replied, pausing to light his smoke, "But he's a young kid. Not even..."
"But Johnny, that was the name... I think, Maria was excited then hesitant, "Something like Toler... or Toling house... or something."
"Tur-ling-hausen?" Johnny eased it out in quandarous dismay, "You... you don't mean Artemus Turlinghausen?"
"Yeah... yeah, that's it!" Honey recognized it instantly, "Good old Arty... that's what I called him when he told about the..."
"Stay... stay right there, Honey!" Johnny sputtered breathlessly, grabbing his coat from a chair while still gripping the phone, "Don't move from your apartment. I'll be right there... and, call Ben right now! Tell him to set up the darkroom. We're in business, baby! And you just got yourself a big fat bonus!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - LIKE CLOCKWORK
Johnny's resurgent spirits prompted an excited whistling of an old tune from childhood days as he tapped his foot impatiently in the slow moving elevator of Honey's apartment building. He recalled other times when he had been faced with almost certain disaster, and the rescue had seemed to come from some mystic source at the last minute. Johnny DeFranco had a charmed life, there was no doubt about it.
"Hi, sweetie!" Honey greeted cheerily as she opened the door, clad still in her pasties and G-string from the Paris Boheme act, "I got a terrific new routine to show ya... crazy gimmick that really flipped the old Congressman tonight. He had a front row table and..."
"Where's the camera?" Johnny barked, ignoring the half soused undulations of Honey's now prone anatomy.
"Behind the mirror. I ain't touched it," she informed him, pushing a long leg with fancy garter band high into the air, "Here... get a load of this. The vice squad was away again, so I did the whole bit."
Honey pumped both of her legs in a bicycle motion, then eased them down gradually as the rounded hips and pelvis went into a horizontal gyration. Still on her back, feet on the floor now and knees up, she lifted her hips lithely and put them back, her face going into the writhing, ribald contortions of a human bitch in torrid heat. The huge bosom rocked from side to side in a juggling momentum, never falling quite all the way from left or right. The long red hair lay out behind her vibrant face like a crimson rug.
"Makes me hot jus' doin' it, Johnny," she smiled, looking down at herself, then stopping suddenly to turn her head and look at Johnny, "Hey! What the hell are you doing? You weren't even watching."
"These pictures may save my life, Honey," Johnny told her excitedly, yanking the two cameras out of Ben's specially built box, "Which kind of light was it, regular or infra-red?"
"You think I notice that when a man's in bed with me?" she asked flippantly, getting up from the floor with a disappointed pout, "What's with you tonight, gettin' old?"
"Take a rain check, okay?" Johnny offered, kissing her cheek as he breezed back through the living room, "I'm off for Ben's now."
"You bastard!" Honey punctuated with an irreverent stomp of her bare feet on the floor after she peeled off a pasty, "What am I supposed to do for kicks tonight? Call the janitor? Those old guys like Turling... whatsis, just get a gal hotted up for the real thing..."
JOHNNY tossed the cameras in the back seat of his car and slipped into gear. He was letting the clutch out, all set to pull from the curb, when the right door swung open.
"Well, let's go, lover boy," Honey brazened, sliding in next to him, her body draped in a long mink she had earned in bed.
"Close the damn door!" Johnny ordered with a disgusted sigh, Ben'll love to see you this time of the morning. But I'm not so sure about his wife."
"So... good morning," Elfrieda Lipper greeted the pair half heartedly, looking her frumpish worst and frowning testily at the unexpected sight of the mink draped stripper, "Ben fix up a bathroom now to make pitchers."
"All set, Johnny," Ben yawned, coming out in his undershirt, "Hey! Gee!... Uh... I mean, I didn' know ya was bringin Miss Newgott."
"I'm coming in the darkroom, Ben," Johnny announced, handing him the cameras, "I want to see this as soon as it comes from the developer."
"I fix you some coffee up," Ben's wife announced sternly to Honey, pulling her robe around sagging breasts, "Here, I take your coat."
"Oh, I'm going in the darkroom too," Honey ejaculated with a wide-eyed sparkle, clutching at the expensive mink, "I have a personal interest in these pictures. And I better keep the coat on. It's terribly cold in here."
"Hmph!" the dowdy Elfieda expressed indignation, nodding toward the oncoming daylight, "The heat comes on in a few minutes. But... I guess you like it real hot... don't you?"
"The hotter the better, dear," Honey retaliated with a sexy smack of her painted lips, then followed the men into the makeshift darkroom.
"Y'all keep back outta the way," Ben warned, turning off the light as he closed the door, "Kinda cramped up in here to do this work nohow. Ya drop a film strip in the toilet'n that there uric acid ruins the pitchers."
"We'll stay way back here, Ben," Honey vowed obediently, pressing herself against Johnny in the corner, "Mmmmm-mmmm, this is nice."
"Not now, baby," Johnny objected tersely, pushing her away, I gotta see about these pictures. If they're duds, I'm a dead man. And anyway..."
Johnny stopped when his protesting hands contacted the plush, yielding flesh of her naked breasts, and Honey moved against him again. She had moved the coat to the side and back. There was nothing under it but her. Even the infinitesimal G-string was gone now.
"Say, Johnny... mmm-mmm," Honey moaned with subdued excitement, "You're all ready, aren't you, baby? Here... here, baby. I'll stand on my tiptoes in the corner here. Okay?"
"Too much on my mind now, Honey," Johnny reneged, backing away.
The whole setting was singularly unattractive to Johnny. There was a trace of physical desire, but no reason...no lasting reason to the passionate beckon of this adroitly versed, full bodied redhead. His own desires became more of a yearning for Maria - as if it were only natural to want this most intimate of fulfillment from the girl he really loved. It was confused, out of line with the usual course of thoughts for Johnny DeFranco. And it wasn't that he had become a sudden moralist-Honey was sexy and he knew it. The basic carnal charm was there, only this wasn't the basis on which he wanted it now.
"Phooey!" Honey snorted with a shrug, letting her coat drop to the dirty floor, "I guess I know what you did last night. That Cuban bitch wore you down. You're getting old, Johnny."
"How're the pictures coming?" Johnny asked, feeling his way along the wall toward Ben, and ignoring Honey.
"I got 'em in the s'lution now," Ben informed with an audible yawn, "Gotta let 'em stay there a while t'git fixed. Be 'bout ten minutes 'fore we kin turn on the light an' look at 'em."
"I'll show you who's the man in this room," Honey whispered curtly to Johnny, then raised her voice, "Where are you, Ben? Come on over here. I've got something for you."
"Sure thing, Honey," Ben agreed readily, groping through the darkness, "Where are you? Oh... over-in a corner, huh? There you are-Holy smoke! Jeez... Hon... Honey! Ho... Holy smoke! Gawd-amighty! Do... don' make too much noise, the ol' lady's right outside. Ohhh! Holy smoke... ohhhh..."
FIFTEEN minutes later, Honey was back in her mink, and the trio was gazing eagerly through the film strip of negatives Ben held to the light. Johnny stuffed his hands in his pockets contentedly, breathing an inward sigh of deep relief. Ben studied them with relaxed frowns and smiles from a professional standpoint. But Honey seemed dissatisfied.
"That's terrible of me," she complained, pointing to one of the shots, "Gee, if I only knew when that damn camera was going off... I could do something artistic."
"Good gosh, girl, what do you want?" Johnny was enthusiastic, pushing her hand away so she wouldn't smudge the dripping negative, "Nobody in the world would have thought Turlinghausen was a beast like that. This is worth a million!"
"Hey! Hey, Ben! You been in there too long enough!" Elfrieda's muffled voice penetrated the door suspiciously. "You come outta..."
Johnny nipped the inside latch and swung the door open. Ben's wife almost tumbled headfirst into the room, then looked sheepishly at the trio, all in perfect order, and Honey with the mink draped discreetly around her pulchritudinous body.
"Oh! I... uh, well, I thought you was maybe in trouble," Mrs. Lipper apologized, expecting the worst, "... wasn't no noise, I... 'scoos, please."
"Fix me up some of those disappearing prints," Johnny requested, lighting up a cigarette as he thumbed through his address book.
"Okay, Buddy," Ben responded, frowning as Elfrieda led Honey out before he closed the door, "Uh... takes about a hour, ya know?"
"How long for just regular prints?" Johnny asked, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he dialed a number on the phone.
"Oh... I dunno," Ben leisurely totted up the timing, distracted by the way Honey let her coat slide apart every time she faced him, "Mebbe twenny minutes... half hour at the mos'."
"Make me two sets of regulars," Johnny directed, taking the cigarette from his mouth and holding up a hand for silence, "Hello, is this Congressman Turlinghausen's residence?... Yes, I was calling on vital business concerning his Subcommittee work.
What? Ten o'clock tonight?... Yes, yes, I'll call back... No, that's all right, I'll call back. Thank you."
"Ha ha... hee hee," Honey tittered, letting the coat slide thigh high as she perched on the edge of a chair, "He's worn out, Johnny. I guess he has to rest up all day from his date last night."
"For your information... dear," Johnny spoke at his derisive best, yanking her coat across the naked leg in deference to Elfrieda's dagger looks, "The congressman left on a fishing trip at 6:30 this morning... less than a half hour ago. I'd say he must have either found that fountain of youth everybody's been looking for... or else you're getting pretty lousy in your old age."
"Go to hell! All of you!" Honey shouted, pulling her coat around tightly as she stormed for the hall door.
"Who... who is it?" the sleep filled voice of Maria Karlson came muffled through the door of her apartment at 7:30 AM.
"Special Delivery letter for you," Johnny answered, pitching his voice high and distorting it.
He hated the idea of using deceit on Maria, but he was desperate to see her, desperate to make amends for last night's mistake. And he knew she wouldn't open the door to him otherwise.
"I had to see you, Maria," he jumped quickly into his explanation, jamming his foot in the opening Maria cracked, "Things are different now. You don't have to worry about Toler. Everything is fixed."
"Last night isn't fixed," Maria angered, pushing the door against his foot, "Now get out or I'll call the police."
"Look, Maria," Johnny pleaded, pushing his way in with one big shove, "I've got to talk to you... explain what's happened. We've got it made now. We don't need Toler. I've got..."
"Maybe I need Toler," Maria cut in with a vengeful smile, backing up to the phone table and putting her hand on the receiver, "I'm human, Johnny. I need love... real love and respect, as much as you need your damn money. Phil Toler loves me, Johnny... really loves me. I could make him happy, and... he could at least make me feel wanted... like a respectable girl."
"You're going to break up his family, ruin his career, never let him grow up to be a man?" Johnny shouted out the questioning accusations like a Dutch Uncle, advancing slowly towards her, "That boy needs a momma. He never got weaned from his mother's breast or his old man's fat bankroll. The only way he'll grow up is to stick with his wife and kid."
"When did you grow up, Johnny DeFranco?" Maria asked through gritted teeth, clutching the phone until her knuckles went white, "You're the one who was all set to really tear him apart. And all so Johnny DeFranco, the great Johnny DeFranco could get rich and keep his trampy women, his fancy car and good clothes. Yeah, Johnny... when did you grow up and learn about love and devotion, family responsibilities, and being a good, honest citizen in spite of your misfortunes? When did you learn it, Johnny?"
"It started... when I met you," Johnny stated with a strange surge of honesty, hesitating only because of his own shock at realizing it, "I... I really love you, Maria. Really love you!"
He repeated over and over that he loved her, his voice heightening to a near panic, as if only by repetition and shouting could he make her believe it. Maria's grip on the phone relaxed, her lips tensed, then opened slightly as Johnny's face came closer. She wanted him, wanted to feel his mouth against hers, feel his tongue straining for the burning closeness which can never be quite fulfilled until the nether contact blends lovers into a oneness of indescribable joy.
The phone dropped to the floor unheard as Maria preceded Johnny into the bedroom leaning back in rapturous languor to let the tops of her pajamas fall back over the soft arms.
Johnny held her from the rear a moment, cupping his hands up under the lovely breasts and kissing at the nape of her neck. When they fell on the bed together, the union became the moving, powerful, Freudian contact Johnny knew was the real thing - no perverse scuffles and twists, no bestiality -only the beautiful movement of two naked bodies in the tumultuous heaves and love throes of physical incursion.
"This is the operator. Please replace your telephone receiver... This is the operator. Please replace your telephone receiver... This is the...," the tape recorded voice from a distant switchboard droned on and on into the empty, sunlit living room.
"These are terrific, Johnny!" the usually even voice of Lyman Rivers exclaimed elatedly as he looked at the prints in Johnny's apartment that evening, "I guess I misjudged you, boy. I thought you were crapping out on me yesterday. When do you see Turlinghausen?"
"Tonight," Johnny only half lied, almost certain he could arrange it when the Congressman returned, "And with this guy on our side, we might even get a unanimous vote. He controls the opposition, just like Wittlmaier runs the administration party boys."
"Of course... you've still got to convince this old buzzard you mean business," Rivers noted seriously, finishing off his Scotch.
"What can he do? He'll have to fall in line," Johnny commented, grabbing Rivers' empty glass, "Once he's this far, he's hooked."
"Turlinghausen's a pretty old boy... around seventy, I think," Rivers mused, getting up from his seat, "... no more for me to drink, thanks, Johnny... You know what can happen when a self righteous old character like that lets his sins finally catch up with him?"
"He goes off his rocker?"
"Either that or off the Calvert Street Bridge," Rivers frowned, smoothing his trim mustache with two fingers, "And if he goes balmy or kills himself, that leaves us with a ten man Subcommittee and a tie vote. Be careful, Johnny. There's a lot at stake here... for both of us."
Johnny shuddered when the lobbyist had gone. There was no doubt what Lyman Rivers meant. It was a pure and simple threat.
But Johnny DeFranco was too confident to stay unhappy. He had a hundred thousand dollars practically in the bag, plus the most wonderful girl in the world. And after tomorrow, after the big killing, he had promised Maria they would go far away from Washington and this life of crime and open up a legitimate business of their own.
An abrupt frown creased Johnny's handsome face as he put the envelope of damning prints back in his coat pocket. The second envelope was gone-the one with the duplicate set Ben had made.
Then he relaxed, remembering they were safely stashed under the mattress in Maria's bedroom. Johnny was careful. Nothing like an over-excited victim tearing up the prints, would trip him up on this one.
Nervously, his index finger stiff and tense, Johnny dialed Turlinghausen's number. It was four minutes past ten. Johnny was anxious but confident at the same time. Things were going too well to miss now.
"Hello," the mellow, cultured voice of the revered lawmaker came on the line.
"Congressman Turlinghausen?" Johnny queried formally.
"Yes, this is Artemus Turlinghausen," the lawmaker acknowledged with democratic modesty.
"This is Johnny DeFranco. You probably don't know me, sir," Johnny opened with ludicrous courtesy, "But I have some very important information for you. I can't discuss it over the phone, but..."
"My dear young man," Turlinghausen cut in with ruffled severity, "It's after ten o'clock, and I have a very important subcommittee meeting at nine in the morning. I suggest you call my secretary tomorrow and make an appointment. I'm sorry I can't do.."
"I'm sorry too, sir," Johnny broke in firmly, "But I think you'll want to know about this before the meeting. I have some irrefutable proof that the Pentagon has that rocket request padded with nearly a million dollars in kickback funds. I know it may sound..."
"Are you serious?" the Congressman interrupted with grave concern.
"I'm as sure as my name is Johnny DeFranco, sir, that you'll want to see what I have tonight," he replied with solid believability.
"Very well then," Turlinghausen assented, clearing his throat, "How soon can you get over to my place? I'm on Pennsylvania, right by..."
"Can't do it, sir," Johnny pre-empted, "Your apartment's being watched. Those Generals at the Pentagon are afraid of a tip-off. You'll have to get a cab over here, and make sure you're not followed."
"How do you know all about this?" Turlinghausen turned wary.
"I'm a private detective," Johnny lied beautifully, perfectly at ease now, "That's how I know what's going on in this deal. I'll tell you the rest when you get here. Do you have a pencil?"
"Yes... yes," Turlinghausen relented, "Give me your address."
Johnny smiled when he hung up. He hunched his shoulders to relax the kinks, then walked over to fix a drink. Everything was working out fine-just like clockwork.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - THE BIG DEAL
Artemus Turlinghausen was a thin, almost anemic appearing septuagenarian. But his concaved cheeks and sunken eyes had a lively vibrance about them which dispelled any appearance of emaciation or decrepit-ness. His hair was a steely gray, unlike the legendary stark white sported by so many of his colleagues, and was cut with conventional closeness rather than allowed to pile up like a horse's mane.
"You are Johnny DeFranco?"
The elderly Congressman's voice was sharp and distinct, had a confident lift to it that belied his age as much as the keen alertness of his deep-set eyes. He stood erect but not rigid in the doorway to Johnny's apartment, then strode inside with a purposeful gait.
"I wasn't lying when I told you you'd want to see what I have," Johnny started his pitch, settling behind his desk as Turlinghausen eased into the upholstered chair facing him, "... but I may have mislead you a little at first."
"You mean this doesn't affect the rocket contract?" the lawmaker asked testily.
"Oh... yes sir," Johnny laughed, opening out the manila envelope, "It most certainly affects the rocket contract. I think it might even persuade you to vote for Millytronics."
"You must be out of your mind, young man," Turlinghausen ruffled angrily, putting on a pair of bifocals as Johnny pushed the photos toward him, "I don't see what... Good Lord, man! You're a blackmailer!"
The words came out with startling exclamation, but there was no hesitancy or nervous concern. The effect was much what Johnny had expected. The incorruptible Turlinghausen might take pride in never jaywalking or using his Congressional immunity to thwart the minor laws which upset the newspaper readers so much. But even an honest politician knows the value of compromising sometimes with what is known in Washington as "political expediency."
"Twenty years on The Hill... and now this!" Turlinghausen threw down the prints in disgust, then looked Johnny squarely in the eye, wagging his thin finger admonishingly, "I've spent the greater part of my life in politics, young man, I've seen every dirty trick in the book played on my lawmaking brethren. And I've conducted myself with complete honor throughout all these years... except this one time."
"Cut the speech, Congressman," Johnny became arrogant now, snarling disgustedly as he leaned across his desk, "That's probably why you stayed a bachelor too... to escape the scandal trap. Well, it won't work with those Bible Belt voters of yours. Married or single... when they see these pictures of you and that redhead... upside down and belly to belly... you're a dead man - nothing but a foul, filthy old lecher to their puritanical minds."
"I won't deny that, young man," Turlinghausen waved aside the diatribe, appearing to accept the whole thing with amazing reality, "I'm merely kicking myself in the rear for being such an idiot."
"You'll... vote for Millytronic?" Johnny questioned, amazed that success was coming so quickly and without protest.
"Yes... I'll vote for them," Turlinghausen agreed, gazing out the window at the snow between the Venetian blind slats, "But you'll need more than my vote to tie it up."
"Wrong, sir," Johnny beamed with a confident smile, feeling in complete mastery now, "I have the other votes. So if you don't come through... I'll know where the wrong vote came from."
"Curious thing...," Turlinghausen mused, turning around with a thoughtful grin on his small lips, "Luxotronic spent a million dollars lobbying for this thing. And I know their hands aren't completely sterile. They've offered a few bonuses under the table. But their bid's the lowest and they've had more experience. Millytronics will do the job alright in the long run of course. And it may not cost the taxpayers a great deal more. But look... look what it's cost you to get it for them!"
"How about a drink?" Johnny asked with a sardonic grin, getting up from his desk and going to the bar, "Let's forget politics and drink a toast to all the beautiful redheads in the world."
"No thanks!" Turlinghausen clipped, picking up the photos from Johnny's desk, "You've got your vote and I've lost my self respect. Perhaps... well, maybe some day we can both regain a decent notch in society... I don't think you were always a blackmailer, young man. You have a good, strong, clean-cut look about you."
"Uh-uh," Johnny negated firmly, walking to Turlinghausen and holding out his hand, "The pictures stay here until after the vote. Not that I can't get all the prints I want... I just think it's safer this way."
"What do you want? A written guarantee?" Turlinghausen snapped, holding onto the pictures, "I wanted to have them only as a reminder of an old lecher's stupidity."
"You'll get them later," Johnny was persistent, blocking the man's way to the door, then relaxing as an idea hit, "Yeah! I'll just take that written guarantee. Sure! Give me the written guarantee and you can keep the prints. That'll nail you down even tighter."
"At this point, young man," Turlinghausen began, walking to Johnny's typewriter, I could hardly be more in your debt. Get me some paper."
Johnny produced the paper, then started to think of the wording he should dictate. But the astute Congressman began batting away at the machine like an experienced stenographer, then snatched out the result and tossed it over to Johnny.
"That should cover it," Turlinghausen averred crisply, reaching for Johnny's pen in the desk set, "I don't see how I could guarantee you the vote any better."
"This is great!" Johnny smiled, reading over the document:
I, Artemus Turlinghausen, agree to cast my vote in the Military Rocketry Subcommittee for Millytronics Rockitronics to obtain the contract for the Q-27. In return, Johnny DeFranco agrees to turn over to me all photographs he has taken or caused to be taken of me and others, and promises further to make no uses of any negatives or prints derived from such activity.
"And now, young man," Turlinghausen added stiffly as he scribbled out his signature, "I think it's only fair that you sign it too."
"I suppose you want a notarized copy," Johnny sneered, standing beside him, "Well, you don't get one. This stays locked up right here."
"I wouldn't expect you to do otherwise," Turlinghausen acknowledged, getting up, "But I think you could at least show good faith by..."
"Why not?" Johnny laughed with amusement, grabbing the pen and scrawling his name under the Congressman's to placate his apparent whims, "Anything to make you happy, dear sir. There it is - signed, sealed and delivered... at least you better deliver that vote tomorrow. And now I'll lock it up safely here in my... Hey! What's that?"
The sound of a key in the door was a warning, but it came too late. The door swung in as Johnny fought with the drawer lock on his desk.
"Hands high, DeFranco... you bitch!" the lisping voice of Wittlmaier's appointments secretary proclaimed with a new found virulence.
Johnny fell back into his chair, floored from the shock. Even his agile mind could not grasp the significance of what was happening. The sudden appearance of the effeminate Sid somehow took on the proportions of a completely separate thing, disassociated from the business at hand. But Johnny suffered under this delusion for only a fleeting moment.
Turlinghausen, with no show of emotion, no look of elation crossing his right, rigid features, stepped casually to the desk and picked up the agreement Johnny had just signed.
"This will put you in the penitentiary for five years, young man," the sharp Congressman stated with cold assurance, then leaned over the desk to face Johnny even closer, "I'm an old man with no family, Mr. DeFranco. And I'm putting myself on a sacrificial altar to stop your..."
"I'll ruin you, godammit!" Johnny growled between gritted teeth, his wrath rising at final realization of the trap, "I've got the negatives of those pictures... hidden where you'll never find them. Anything happens to me and out they go to your home district opposition... to the civic association... your buddies in Congress... your preacher. I'll... I'll even send one to the President!"
"I know you would," Turlinghausen agreed with unerring calmness, no sign of victory or trium-phance, "... but when Paul Wittlmaier came and told me what you were doing, I immediately dropped all partisan considerations and became a humble human being and public servant. Hard for you to realize, perhaps. But the problem, like the vote you wanted to snare, resolved itself to a simple matter of mathematics."
Sid, resplendent in his role of gunman holding the young upstart at bay, eased over into a corner of the room, heightening his menacing presence by rolling the revolver's chamber each time Johnny tried to lower his hands.
Turlinghausen, with a paternal fierceness in his compelling stare, had now settled into an overstuffed chair across the room from Johnny, his sharp, clear voice carrying easily to its target.
Johnny began to shake. It was evident in the weak tremble that showed in his arms, making them too heavy to hold up, only forced into their position by the sheer fear which gripped him with each new intrepid jab from the indomitable Congressman.
"Mathematically speaking," Turlinghausen continued, swinging his crossed leg monotonously, "I simply have the least to lose from being blackmailed by you. And the only way to stop a man like you is to call his bluff. The evidence here, in this document... and these pictures..."
Almost on cue, the door to the hallway opened and Maria entered. For one brief second, Johnny's entire world shattered into slivers and specks of awful-ness. Was Maria the plant? Was she -the girl he loved, the girl he would quit and go straight for - his undoing? The jig was up and jail seemed certain now... but not this! Not Maria!
A matronly woman stepped in behind her. And Johnny could see that Maria was crying... crying bitterly, sobbing into a lacy handkerchief, as the big woman pushed her into the room. But Maria was innocent! Why was she being brought here? There was never the final deal with Toler.
"We have your accomplice, too," Turlinghausen explained, motioning the older woman to have her sit on the couch, "She can draw a five year term out of this too. She's..."
"You've got nothing on her!" Johnny screamed in Maria's defense, starting to get up, then backing down as Sid stepped forward, "She did nothing on this deal. There's nothing..."
"These were under the mattress," the woman spoke for the first time, her voice gruff and commanding as she handed the Congressman an envelope.
"Thank you, Miss Beeman," Turlinghausen acknowledged, peeking into the manila folder, "This makes it very conclusive against the young lady. The charge of attempted blackmail on Mr. Toler might have been hard to prove, but now as an accomplice to actual blackmail... and with this evidence... there's no doubt that..."
The astute Congressman carried on with his damning charges while Johnny became increasingly aware of Maria's situation. There was sincere hurt in the hard eyes, gone was the uncaring unconcern of the angry young hoodlum. The point was hitting him all too vividly. Although relieved that Maria was no part of his own entrapment, it was even worse that they were going to charge her too... make a criminal of the girl he loved. These were new and strange emotions to Johnny DeFranco, and merged with the shock of his sudden downfall, became a turbulent amalgam of sick confusion.
"... and if you care to bring Mr. Wittlmaier into the mess, you'll only get five more years for yourself and possibly for Miss Karlson too," Turlinghausen was concluding, rising from his seat and nodding to Sid, "So there it is, young man. And now, I'll use your phone to call the police..."
"No! No! Oh, God...no!" Johnny cried out, dropping his arms and running to Maria.
"Hold it!" Turlinghausen warned the overzealous Sid, who was leveling his gun.
"... give... give us... give her a break," Johnny begged tearfully, holding Maria in his arms as if his very surrounding her could be helpful at this point, "We... I was going straight after this... and she didn't know the pictures were there... I..."
"You really love that girl, don't you?" Turlinghausen asked, a curious twinkle sparking his shrewd eyes.
"Look... sir," Johnny pleaded, clutching Maria tightly with his left arm as he gestured piteously "Maria's no criminal... she just... well, she was in love with me, and..."
"What would you do, Johnny? What would you do if I gave you that break?" Turlinghausen demanded quickly as Sid frowned disappointedly.
"We'd go to the coast... or to Florida... anywhere!" Johnny vowed volubly, "I've worked in a mail room. I could set up a letter business... you know, duplicating..."
"That takes money."
"I've got eighteen thousand bucks in the bank. I could..."
"It's not yours, Johnny," Turlinghausen was firm, paternal but not patronizing, "It all has to go back."
"I got twenty five grand from..."
"That goes back too," the Congressman barked, waving aside the idea.
"I... I could get a job doing something," Johnny argued, but intuitively held up both hands helplessly, "I... I worked before... I could..."
"There's nothing a youngster like you can't do," Turlinghausen agreed, pondering the idea as he bunched the bushy eyebrows thoughtfully, "... once he's made up his mind to it. But you're nearly thirty years old... and with no really skilled trade. That's not good!!
"I'll clean streets... do anything," Johnny vowed pitifully.
"Easier said than down," Turlinghausen observed, then came to a decision suddenly, "But you could work in one of my filling stations down south... Miss Karlson could keep books. You can be safe from your enemies then too. I can see to that."
"Hunh?" Johnny puzzled, looking from Turlinghausen to Maria.
"We're all in this together, whether we like it or not," the Congressman philosophized, striding about the parlor like it was a caucus room, "We're in a similar fix to two arch enemies confronted with a common disaster. All right, Johnny. We can salvage a great deal from this."
"I... I think Mr. Wittlmaier wanted the police to make the...," Sid jumped in, still brandishing the gun.
"Oh, be quiet!" Turlinghausen cut him down, "Paul wants this worked out for the benefit of everyone as much as I do. And if the reputation and respect of Congress can be maintained... and two young people's sojourn into the disintegratingly vapid life of crime can be curtailed and their rehabilitation effected, then we all come out ahead."
"You... you mean that, sir?" Johnny questioned with disbelief, his hard eyes welling uncontrollably as he pulled Maria closer.
"I'll keep an eye on you, young man," Turlinghausen warned, but there was a warmly familial smile in the shrewd celibate's voice now, "If you work for me, you'll have to toe the line-one false move and there's a Lt. Connors at Police Headquarters who'd love to make a case against Johnny De-Franco... as well as a certain Lyman Rivers and Doctor Wheeler, who wouldn't be so legal about it."
"You... you're the most wonderful man I've ever known...," Maria burst out, the doubled up in tears and pushed against Johnny's chest.
"But Johnny...," Turlinghausen held up a cautioning finger, "There is one legal procedure I'm going to demand of you."
"Yes sir," Johnny gulped tremblingly, ready to confess all he knew about Tipsy's murder.
"You've got to marry that girl before you go to work for me."
"Thank... thank you, sir," Johnny managed, then folded himself around Maria.
"Damn... damned humanitarians," Sid lisped to himself in a disgusting whisper.
