Conchita Perez is a graceful, fiery Mexican from the New York slums. When she and her girl gang become involved in the murder of a girl from another gang, Conchita flees to Los Angeles. Here she is befriended by Pedro, and after he knows all the delights of her passions, she discovers he is nothing more than a procurer and starts finding customers for her. Frank is the first, a real estate man ... and he promptly establishes Conchita in a private harem, to share her shame and degradation until Conchita finds out about his wife ... At the airplane factory, Conchita finds a job and is thrown in with the biggest, toughest, meanest girls in the world ... a gang of perverts who hang out around the beach and engage in all manner of shameless activity until Conchita and Elsie, their leader, have a bloody fight on the beach and Conchita is spirited away by Audrey Nolan, a wealthy women who wants to love her in her posh apartment ... but now Conchita, the victor on the beach, finds herself leader of the depraved gang from the shame slum....
CHAPTER ONE
Conchita Perez followed the man upstairs. One flight after another up the dusty brown steps. Someone had told her there were no tall buildings in Los Angeles, but she took a look between the banisters and see that they were a long way up. Just like her own apartment building in Manhattan. Also the same grimy windows on each landing, the same spicy smell in the hallways. She felt good about that; she could almost imagine she was home again, back in her old neighborhood, back with the gang, and that nothing had happened to rocket her three thousand miles away with no friends, no money, no job and not even a place to sleep.
The man-he said his name was Pedro-kept turning around to make sure she was there, as if there were some place she could run away to. He didn't realize he was her only hope in the world right now of getting something to eat. And just as well; if he knew the price she was ready to pay for a plate of food, he would be sure to demand that-and probably twice as much. When she first saw him at the bus terminal he looked kind and generous. He was a Latin brother; he had a nice smile.
But now he was in such a terrible hurry to get to his apartment. His eyes were greedy as he looked back at her. She'd been around more than enough to know that look.
She had no choice but to follow him. It would be the same with any stranger right now, and at least this greedy one was a big, handsome brute; and perhaps that would not be so bad with him once she had something to eat and stopped being afraid.
He was in such a hurry and she was weak from hunger. He got a full flight ahead of her, so when he looked around she wasn't in sight. He shouted her name and raced down the stairs, almost knocking her over on the landing.
She leaned on his big chest and caught her breath. "How much farther?" she gasped. "Why do you live so high up?"
He laughed and put his arm around her. "It is cheaper the higher you get. Only the strongest of men can make the climb every day."
"Well I am not the strongest of men. At least you could carry my bag." She had a cloth satchel stuffed with all her possessions. She held it out to him, but he refused it.
"Come," he said, "it is only one more flight." He took her arm and moved her a step above him. "You first, so I can keep an eye on you."
They continued up the stairs. She knew where he was keeping his eyes. She wore a dark blue skirt, as tight as a second skin and shiny from too many ironings. She was a slender girl, but well endowed where it counted. Her buttocks made two shiny globes beneath the skirt, rolling back and forth as she mounted the steps. She jutted out in front, too; heavy, bullet-shaped breasts that made sharp points on her white, sleeveless blouse. Almost too large in front, compared to her long, delicate neck and graceful limbs. People on the busses and at the terminals across the country kept trying to peek down her armholes to see if her bra was packed with flesh or with rubber cups and tissues. In Manhattan, of course, you couldn't get a stranger to look twice at you, no matter how big you were.
But Pedro had those greedy eyes, and sure enough he transferred the greed to his hands just before they reached the top of the stairs. He gave each round cheek a firm pinch and made a loud, rude noise through his teeth.
If a man had done that one week ago without first earning the right, he would have been pulling a spiked heel out of his eye socket five seconds later.
Now, Conchita only turned around and smiled at him. Things were that bad.
They walked to the end of a dark hallway and Pedro unlocked his door. He went inside and waved for her to follow. She had a sudden impulse to turn back and run for her life. She followed him.
The apartment consisted of one small room and a kitchen alcove. The place was a filthy mess, but there was a large mattress on the floor, against the wall, and Conchita looked at nothing else until she had thrown her bag aside and flopped down on it, stretching her weary body across its width.
A gray cat climbed on her stomach and peeked over her breasts. She went to pet it, and suddenly Pedro's hand knocked it away.
"Gorron!" he swore. "All he does is make the room stink."
Conchita sniffed the musty air, but noticed that smell of man far outweighed smell of cat. Pedro opened the window, then returned to the mattress and sat down next to her.
"Ah," he groaned. "A hot day. It makes one tired."
"Yes. But it's not as bad here as in New York."
He leaned on one elbow and bent over her. "So you came all the way from New York, eh? You didn't like it there?"
"I loved it. It was my home."
"Then why did you come here? You have a family here? You are running away from someone?"
"I told you at the terminal-I am here to find work."
"But that is only half the story. There are plenty of jobs in New York."
She shrugged. "You will have to be content with half the story. After all, I know nothing about you, except that you offered to buy me supper."
"You mean give you supper. I will cook it myself-much better than the restaurant."
"Good. Whatever you want."
"I have wine, too. Would you like some wine?"
"I would like to eat first."
She hoped he would waste no more time. She'd had nothing all day but a hard roll. It was now seven o'clock. The California dusk was closing out the supper hour.
But Pedro only nodded and leaned closer. His face was directly over hers. A big face, with dark eyes, wide nostrils, and a huge Pancho Villa mustache. He showed his white teeth.
"You're a pretty girl," he said softly. "So pretty, and so young. You could not be more than twenty."
"I am nineteen," she admitted.
"Nineteen! So young to be alone in a strange, new place. You need someone strong to protect you ... to take care of you."
She smiled. "And to feed me."
"Are you really so hungry, my sweet one?" She nodded.
"And when your stomach is full, will you run away from me?"
"I'll stay for a little while at least."
"Promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
He smiled again and got up. Conchita breathed a sigh of relief as he entered the kitchen alcove and began rustling through the pantry. Not only because she would eat at last, but also because he seemed so nice. She was not afraid any more. She had found an oasis of warmth in this bitter, unfamiliar desert. Someone she could trust. Perhaps in a little while she could unburden the terrible weight on her shoulders. Share her soul with him ... and also her body. That was the only way not to be lonely, the only way to belong and to survive so far from home.
He was making tamales. The aroma of beef simmering in tomato paste and onions and tangy herbs was intoxicating. Pedro rattled the frying pan over the stove and sang "Amor es el Pan de la Vida"-Love is the Bread of Life.
Conchita propped herself up against the wall, closed her eyes, and hummed the song along with him. Before she knew it, there was a cloth napkin across her lap and a plate of tamales in her hands. He gave her a fork and sat down beside her, eating slowly and watching her voluptuous mouth as it enveloped, chewed and gulped down the food. She didn't say a word until she was through. Then she got up, took her dish and his to the sink, and turned on the water.
"Don't bother washing them," he told her. "Later we will do them together. Bring the red wine here with some glasses."
She saw the half gallon bottle above the sink and did as he asked. She sighed with contentment, leaned back and patted her stomach. He poured the wine and put his arm around her. They sat quietly for a while. Each had a full glass of wine, then another. They watched the twilight creep into the room, painting the gray walls a velvet blue and splashing soft light over their flesh.
Pedro held her closer and pressed his lips against her glossy black hair. "Conchita.. " he whispered. "Yes?"
"Why did you come with me at the terminal? Was I the only one who asked you?"
"No. There were one or two others. I liked you."
"I am glad of that. It makes me proud."
He held her tighter. She felt secure and safe in his strong arms. And the wine was encouraging her passion for him. Still, she had to be careful; she had to know just a little more about him-to make sure, at least, that his wife and children would not walk in on them.
"Pedro," she said, "why were you at the terminal today? Were you just passing by?"
"Hey," he laughed, "you won't tell me your story-why should I tell you mine?"
She gave the side of his leg an affectionate little squeeze. "C'mon, tell me anyway. I want to know you better-in all ways."
He looked at her and twirled the end of his mustache "All right," he shrugged. "There's nothing to hide. I work at the terminal. I wash dishes at the snack bar. A hard, miserable job, but at least a job until I find something better. Anyway, I was just getting off work when your bus came in and I saw you standing alone, searching all around you like you were waiting for someone. I've seen enough busses come in and enough people get off to know every type. You were the type who is lost--and so I decided to help you find whatever you were looking for."
"And you did help me," she said. "I don't feel so lost any more. You've been very kind, Pedro."
He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. His dark eyes rolled down her throat to the huge mounds that moved as she breathed. His own breath came harder. "I have only been kind because you're so beautiful," he told her.
"I know," she smiled. "I am no fool. You surely didn't help me for my money ... and that isn't money you'll get in return. I have only one thing worth giving...."
Pedro's hands trembled. "Conchita-do you mean...."
"Yes. You have earned that. That is, if you're as anxious as I am."
"Anxious!" He threw his arms around her and almost swallowed her ear with whispers and caresses. "Ah, my sweet, beautiful darling ... I have been anxious since I first laid eyes on you. Even before, in my dreams, hopes and wishes...."
She sighed and closed her eyes. Now this was exactly like at home, secure and blissful in the torrid embrace of a lover-a warm, passionate lover ... one of the gang or one of her boy friends ... so wonderful to be adored; to see and feel a man or woman being carried away.
Pedro kissed her ears and neck; her forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks and lips. Then beyond her lips; her mouth; deep, searching kisses.
His big hands swooped over her breasts, her middle, hips and legs. She unbuttoned her blouse. He helped her off with that. Then the bra, which snapped away from her swollen breasts like a rubber band.
Her back was against the wall. Pedro pushed himself away for a moment to behold the wonders he had uncovered. Her naked breasts were like two rockets of flesh, aimed straight out in front of her and pointing their brownish-red tips directly at him.
"Oh," he sighed. "Oh, madre!" He buried his face against the soft, warm valley between them, then kissed every inch of the flesh, working toward the tips and finally caressing them until they swelled as huge and hard as chestnuts.
She ran her fingers through his hair and whispered his name, again and again with each caress. Her body began to shift. Pedro unzipped the side of the skirt and pulled that off. He kissed his way back up her legs, grabbed hold of her panties, and slipped them off with a single motion.
He stood up to remove his own clothes, then returned to her.
Now that was her turn to kiss. She maneuvered him to his back and caressed his face and shoulders while exploring the rest of him with her hands. Her fingers moved lightly, maddeningly over him. Pedro was going wild, jerking his head back and forth, pounding the mattress and sobbing out a string of endearments.
Conchita was glad to please him like this. That excited her to an agonizing peak and she could wait no longer to please him all the way.
Nor could he. His fingers clawed at her, achieved a firm grip, lifted and pulled at her.
"Oh! Oh, Pedro!" she cried. "Oh, you beautiful man. Good, lover, good, good..
Her words changed to loud, inarticulate cries as he worked with hard, savage force.
Suddenly she tightened her arms around his massive form; she dug her nails into his shoulders, pressed her mouth against his and screamed through slightly opened lips.
He was aware of the wave of ecstasy as that rumbled over her, shaking her arms, her heavy breasts, the rest of her-and before he could stop that, he was overwhelmed with the keenest thrill known to man.
Swirling in bliss, they said nothing until the spinning slowed down. Then they stretched out on the mattress so they could cool off. The night air soon made them chilly. Pedro pulled up a blanket from the foot of the makeshift bed and they snuggled together again.
And now that she had given herself to him, Conchita felt at last that she could yield the rest: the heavy weight on her soul; her sad story. Then he would understand her completely, and he could help her to find herself in this new world.
It was Pedro himself who brought up the subject. After they had kissed for a while and he had explored the marvelous curves of her body again, he gazed into her eyes for a long time, as if to extract from them all that they had seen. But he failed to comprehend their secrets, and finally he had to ask her outright.
"Conchita, who are you? What happened that made you leave home?"
She held him tight and closed her eyes. The events of the recent past flashed sporadically through her mind, and she murmured her thoughts as they came to her.
"There was a murder...."
Pedro's heart jumped, but he lay very still and listened carefully.
"No one knew who did it, we were not even sure it was one of our gang. But the cops were sure of it, and so we all had to get out fast."
She opened her eyes and saw that he was confused. "Let me start at the beginning," she said. "I live in uptown New York-Manhattan. All my life I have lived there. Me and the neighborhood kids, the girls and boys, we grew up together. We loved one another and we loved the neighborhood. When we got older, we made gangs-everyone is in a gang in New York. It's the only way to be part of something, to have protection and friends. Otherwise, you might get stabbed on your own front steps and no one will look at you. They won't even care.
"So we made two gangs, las Halcones y Agwlas-the Hawks and the Eagles. We girls were the Hawks, but it was really all one gang. We were poor fn our neighborhood. Life was hard, and we had to fight for everything we ever had. I mean, it was the same with everyone, but perhaps a little worse for us, because we became one of the toughest gangs in the city for our size. And there were plenty of rumbles, especially after school. We stood out more than the others, I guess. We had real sharp jackets. Everyone was jealous of them.
"The trouble was, we stood out too much. The cops got to know us real well. They picked on us a lot because we were a small gang and couldn't give them the trouble some of the big ones could. We even got blamed for things that other gangs did-vandalism and small thefts--just so the cops could make some quick arrests In a short time they knew every one of us.
"Then something big happened. Something really bad. We had a rumble with a gang from Harlem. They were in our territory. There was no fooling around with this bunch-it was the worst rumble we ever had. Everyone got pretty messed up, but one of the Hawks-a good friend of mine-she was knocked down, and someone put a firecracker on her face, and...."
Conchita choked up. Pedro gripped her shoulders. "And what?" he whispered. "What happened?"
"She can't see no more. She's blind, Pedro. And in one way, that's a good thing-because she'll never be able to see herself in the mirror. Oh, it was...."
She sobbed, but quickly gained control of herself, remembering that tears were weak and that now she had to be stronger than ever.
"There's more to the story," she continued. "The cops knew all about the rumble, of course, and there was a big investigation about my friend. In a month or so, after questioning everyone in our territory and in theirs, they came up with a suspect-a girl in their gang who had a long record of assault and violence. But they couldn't find her. Not for a few days, anyway, and when they finally did, there wasn't much she could tell them."
Conchita paused.
"She was dead?" Pedro asked.
She nodded. "She was more than dead. I won't tell you how bad that was. Perhaps you can imagine."
"And so your gang had to beat it, eh?"
"And fast. Luckily we got the word from a neighbor who was nearby when they found her. We were all out of the city within an hour, before the cops even got back to headquarters. The chief of the Eagles had everything worked out in case something like this ever happened. He sent us to every part of the country-and he seat me the farthest, because I was number one suspect.
Avenging my friend's blindness-plenty of motive. And perhaps I would have actually done it if I'd had the chance."
Pedro twirled his mustache and narrowed his eyes at her. "You, Conchita? I cannot even imagine a girl like you in a friendly argument."
"That's because I'm a good fighter. I could show you a few small scars, but nothing more. Nobody ever messed me up really bad."
"And have you ever done a good job on someone else?"
"I have left a few lying on the ground for a long time. But eventually they got up again-and when they did, they were not blind or crippled for life. I have only protected myself or fought for the gang. I am not cruel and I am not a killer. I didn't think any of the Hawks were like that."
"And what about the Eagles?"
"Yes, there were some violent ones among them. And yet, I am sure that none of them murdered that girl."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because they found her in her own territory. None of our gang would have ventured there alone. And I would have known about it if a group went over to seek revenge. We had strong codes, Pedro. Codes that were never broken. Some of them were good, and some bad, but there was one that forbade killing."
"Do you think the cops would believe all that?"
"I know they would not. That's why we had to run. I don't know if we will ever return to New York."
"And so you will never see your friends again?"
"I will see them again. As soon as it is safe. We are a family-we are bound together for life. We all know where to contact the chief. From time to time we will tell him where we are, and eventually we will all meet again at one place. Wherever he decides."
"Where is the chief now?"
She smiled. "What are you, a cop or something? That is a secret I would not tell my own mother."
"Okay, it doesn't matter to me. I am just concerned with protecting you while you are here. Because from what you tell me, I see you are in even more danger than I thought. You need a friend and you need a place to stay. Do you have any money?"
"No. I had to borrow some wherever I could just for the bus fare."
"My poor child-you would have starved if I hadn't found you. Or gone begging in plain view of the cops."
"Come on," she laughed. "I am thankful for all you have done and offered, but I would have made out somehow. Isn't California the great golden land of opportunity? Where the sun always shines and none are poor?"
"Perhaps a hundred years ago, Conchita. But look at this city. This old building, my own poor flat. Times are hard everywhere."
"Perhaps, but I know there is more to California than this part of Los Angeles. All I have seen is from the terminal to this street. Where are the palm trees, the great blue ocean, the castles of all the movie stars?"
He shrugged. "They are all within a few minutes ride from here. If you want, I will take you out and show you all this. It is very pretty to see, but only the rich can afford to do more than look. The first thing we must do is get you some work."
"Yes, that's true."
"What did you do in New York?"
"A lot of things. I worked at the supermarket, the dry cleaners, the laundry, the cafeteria-anything I could get."
"Such honest work! You never did anything, you know...."
"Illegal? Well, a couple of years ago we handled a shipment. The gang. We were all selling a little bit here and there."
"A shipment?"
"You know, of tea."
"Ahh-marijuana."
"Yes. We made a nice profit, but we had to turn down the second shipment. By then the cops were watching us. It was too risky."
"I see. And other than that, you did only honest work?"
"Sure. I like honest work. The harder the better."
"No, Conchita. You're much too pretty for hard work. Let the men do that. I'll find you something easy."
"I've never heard of easy work without some catch. What did you have in mind?"
He opened his mouth as if to answer, then closed it and stroked his mustache.
"Well?"
"I'll think of something," he replied. "I'll work on it in the morning. But now, the night is still young, and I think we should have some more wine."
She agreed, and they sat up to finish what was left in the bottle. When it was gone, Pedro insisted on getting dressed and going downstairs to get another. He was gone a long time, and explained that the nearby liquor store was closed so that he had to search for another. Conchita assumed he had stopped in a bar to have a few with the boys and tell them of the beautiful mistress who had fallen from the sky. She hoped he was not a wino. If he was, she would move right out on him. She had no use for a weak, lazy bum; not after the kind of savage, energetic people she had grown up with.
But if he was as he seemed now-an honest worker, a kind man and a good lover-perhaps she would stay as his mistress. Especially if he got her work, as he promised.
She did not discuss these thoughts with him. They spent the rest of the night sipping wine and working themselves to an eager passion again. The second time was even wilder than the first, and ended only by a volcanic eruption of joy.
They fell asleep very late.
CHAPTER TWO
"C'mon, wake up!" Pedro's hand shook her shoulder. Without opening her eyes, she reached out for him, hoping to greet the morning with a continuation of last night's joys.
But he shouted at her again, and when she opened her eyes she saw that he was already dressed. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Where do you think? I'm going to work. I'm an hour late already."
She jumped up. "Oh dear, I forgot all about your job. It's all my fault, too."
He smiled. "Don't worry, it's all right. I would have let you sleep, but, ah ... there's a little favor I want you to do for me."
"Sure. What is it?"
"Well, a few friends of mine from out of town may drop in here this morning. Very fine people. Some of them very important. I want you to stay here and entertain them. Be nice to them. See that they have whatever they want."
She cocked her head. "Pedro-what are you talking about?"
"Just what I said. A few friends will be-"
"Yes, yes, I heard you. But I don't understand. What friends are these? And just what am I supposed to do for them?"
He frowned and worked on his mustache a moment. "Look-it's a little complicated, and I don't have time to explain. These are business friends."
"What business? The dishwashing business?"
"Don't make fun!"
"I'm not making fun. I have a right to know who I'm entertaining."
"Conchita, the only rights you have in my house are those I give you. Now don't get me angry!"
"Don't get you angry?"
She started to get up, but he quickly put his hands on her shoulders, made his eyes sad, and pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, angel. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to yell. Please...."
She pouted, but lay down again on the pillow.
"Listen," he said, "these friends-they are men I knew in better times. They have money. They are influential. They can give you work! It's all for you, Conchita, don't you understand?"
"No."
"Then please, sweetheart-just do what I ask as a favor to me. Was I so cruel last night that I deserve nothing from you?"
"I gave you something, Pedro. I gave you everything I had."
"All right, then don't do this for me. Do this for yourself. You need money, right? You need work? My friends will give you both-if you play this smart."
"Pedro, you'd better tell me what you're talking about."
"Look, I told you I have to go now. My friends will explain. I'll see you about one o'clock." He went to the door. "Pedro!"
"Conchita-you want to be on easy street?"
"Sure."
"Then just shut up and stay where you are. You don't even have to get dressed. I don't want to spell that out for you, honey, but I think you know the score."
He stepped into the hallway.
"Pedro-if you mean what I think you mean..
He peeked back. "And what's that, baby?"
"I won't even say and put ideas in your head. But don't forget there's a code I live up to. And there's one thing that no girl in the Hawks will ever do. We are proud!"
Pedro stepped all the way back into the room and waved his fist at her. "Proud, eh? You were ready to make love last night for a plate of beans, weren't you?"
She murmured a string of curses and looked around for something to throw at him.
"That's true, isn't that? Don't put on airs with me, kid!"
"That's not true. I mean, that wasn't the same thing. I was starving to death-and I liked you!"
"Well, you're still starving-and you'll like my friends, don't worry. I don't send up any bums. Not for my number one girl-my angel. Only the best for you. Comprende?"
She said nothing.
Pedro winked and started out the door again. "And don't forget, baby, you got no more place to run. It would be terrible if someone tipped the LA cops about you, wouldn't it?"
She still said nothing, and Pedro assumed from her silence that she understood and accepted. He was glad of that, because he still lacked the courage to spell that out, tell her to her face. He was even a little sorry he had to share such a pretty one; but business was business, and Conchita was a gold mine. He just hoped she would not stand by any foolish principles and give trouble to those who came up. After all, these were very special customers; his richest. He would hate to offend them.
He assured himself that there was no cause for worry Conchita was a rare beauty, but she was just another woman at heart. And all women were the same; proud and haughty until pride stopped being in their best interests. Conchita's principles would take a holiday when she realized her present alternatives.
And just to make sure she would realize them, he would give each of this morning's clients a little message to take her; a little reminder.
Conchita was still silent. She was staring at him, her big, dark eyes as hard as stones. She was angry now, but she would be all right in a while. They always were.
He slipped out of the room and went to work.
Conchita had plenty to tell him, but she was shocked into speechlessness. She lay in bed for another ten minutes, barely able to move, but thinking all the curses she knew against him. He had betrayed her. The honest worker, the kind man, the good lover-it was all a cruel deception. Last night she had a friend; it was almost like being home again. Now she was more alone than before. All she had was a new enemy from whom to flee, and she was more afraid than ever. She was sad and disgusted that any man would do this to her after she had placed herself in his hands, body and soul, asking only for some kindness.
And she was angry at herself for being such a fool. For trusting anyone outside the gang, especially in this strange, unknown part of the world. For telling what had happened in New York, and thereby giving him something to hold over her head.
Well, there was one lucky thing. She never told him her last name. In a little while she would be gone, and there would be no way for him to trace her unless they met on the street. And she certainly didn't intend to stay in this part of Los Angeles. As long as she was exiled to the Pacific Coast, she might as well take advantage of its physical virtues. She would find those palm trees and that great blue ocean.
Did Pedro actually think she would stay and work for him? If so, he was a bigger fool than she was. Of course, he was right about one thing-she was in desperate need of money; of some kind of work.
But she would not be a hustler. Never. There were worse things than getting paid for what you like to do, but the Code was the Code. When she broke that, she would no longer be part of the gang, and when that happened, she would be nothing.
Conchita made two vows. The first was never to open her mouth again about the murder or even the gang.
The second was to get out of the apartment without another minute's delay; but it was easier resolved than done. As soon as she sat up, it was like a tidal wave had crashed down on her head and swirled around in her stomach.
Too much wine last night. She had the worst hangover she could ever remember, and was sure she'd be deathly sick if she even stood up now. Her lids felt heavy She needed at least another hour of sleep, visitors or no visitors.
She let her head sink back on the pillow; it felt much better/Perhaps if she could just rest like this for a little while it would pass.
But she made the mistake of closing her eyes, and was asleep instantly.
Almost an hour and a half later she was awakened by a knock at the door. She tried to ignore it, but it got louder and angrier, accompanied by shouts, until there was nothing to do but answer it.
Slowly, she got up and looked around for her clothes. The cat was sleeping on her blouse, across the room; she couldn't locate the rest. If Pedro had taken them, she would....
"Open up, damn it! Hey! Open up!"
"Just a minute," Conchita shouted back. "Just wait a minute."
She ripped the sheet off the mattress and wrapped it around her, then staggered toward the door. She was a little fuzzy-headed still, but other than that not too bad.
She opened the door. The man outside took one look at her and stopped in the middle of a shout. "How do you do?" he said softly. "My name is Frank."
Conchita looked at him. He was a pleasant surprise-or he would have been if the circumstances were different. She hadn't known what to expect as one of Pedro's clients. This man looked like a gentleman, and was exceedingly handsome. He was tall and thin, very dark, and had a long face with gentle eyes and sparkling teeth. His hair was black and curly, neatly combed. He wore a midnight blue suit, a crisp white shirt and silver tie.
"I'm sorry I shouted and made so much noise," he said, "but after climbing all those steps and finding the door locked..
"Yes," she said. "That would have made anyone angry, I guess. But I'm afraid you're going to be even angrier in a minute."
"I don't understand."
"Well...."
"Listen," he said, "may I come in and sit down? Really, I'm about to collapse."
She looked at him nervously, trying to tell him the truth with her eyes. But when he smiled and asked her again, she could only motion him in and step aside.
She closed the door. Frank turned up his nose at the mess, but only for a moment. He cleared some junk off the easy chair and sat down.
"Excuse me," she said. "I'll be right with you."
He nodded. She ran to the bathroom and came out a moment later with her face wet and her wild black hair a little neater. Frank was taking a cigarette out of a silver case. He offered her one; she refused. A flame burst from a corner of the case when he snapped it closed. He lit up and smoked a bit uneasily as she stood watching him.
"Well," he said finally, "it looks like Pedro told the truth for once in his life. You're the most beautiful creature I've ever set eyes on."
"Thank you," she murmured.
"What's your name?"
"Con-Betty."
He smiled. "Make up your mind."
"Betty."
"Okay, Betty. Why don't you sit down? You're making me nervous."
"As a matter-of-fact, I was just leaving."
"Leaving!" he laughed. "In that sheet? What I would suggest is that you put the sheet back where it belongs and let me see how beautiful the rest of you is."
"Listen," she said, "did Pedro say anything about my clothes?"
"No, not that I can remember. He did give me a little note to deliver, though. Maybe that mentions them."
"A note? Let me see it?"
He removed an envelope from his vest pocket and gave it to her. It was hotel stationery. She opened it and read the words scrawled in pencil.
Conchita-this man has given me fifty dollars. Half of it is yours if you do as he wishes. If you don't, there will be two very angry men and one little girl in big trouble.
-Pedro
Violently, she ripped the note in shreds and threw it aside. She was careless about the sheet as she did so, and it dropped down to her waist before she caught it. Her naked breasts loomed before Frank in all their massive beauty; round, smooth, tapering to their huge, dark tips.
Frank swallowed hard. He bit his lip and groped for another cigarette though he had not yet finished the first.
"Betty," he said, "let's stop fooling around. Whatever that note said, just forget it and let's get started. You're too much to resist another second."
She pulled the sheet back up, although the old habitual thrill of exciting a man with her body tempted her to do otherwise.
"Okay," she said, "I won't fool around any longer. I'll tell you now-you've wasted your fifty dollars."
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm not what you think. Pedro didn't tell you the truth. You were foolish to trust him, and that makes two of us. He gave me a plate of tamales last night and thought I would be his number one worker in return. Except he never asked me. If he had, he would have known differently. All he did was make some hints this morning, threaten me, and then run off. I thought he was going to work."
"Work?"
"Yes-at the terminal."
"You call that his work? Pedro never worked a day in his life, that filthy, rotten, son of a...."
"So the dishwashing job was a lie also?"
"He hangs around the terminal to pick up customers-and sometimes a new girl to work for him. So you fell for it, eh? And now I'm the victim of the same deception."
She studied his face. "I thought you'd be furious when you found out," she said. "You look very calm."
"Calm perhaps, but terribly sad and disappointed. If Pedro were here you'd see some fury. I can't very well be angry at you-it wasn't your fault. And in a way, I'm almost glad."
"Glad about what?"
"That you don't sell your body. I would hate to think of a thousand foul creeps mauling that beautiful flesh, just because they handed you a few dollars."
"And so would I, believe me. But what about the money you paid? Can you get it back?"
He smiled. "I never pay in advance. Especially not that lout. But tell me-are you really in need of money?"
"I haven't one cent. I guess that's being in need."
"I guess so. Listen, Betty-or whatever your name is-why don't I just give you the fifty anyway?"
"You mean just hand it over?"
"Yes."
"Why? What for?"
"Because you're beautiful-and because I have plenty of money. Fifty dollars is nothing to me."
"Really? What are you, chief of Pedro's syndicate?"
"No, not quite. Pedro is an independent little nobody who somehow comes up with the best women. I'm in real estate."
"Real estate, huh? Maybe you can find me some nice, free place to live."
He rubbed his chin. "That's right, you need a place, don't you. Let's see...."
"Oh, look," she said, "I was just kidding. I don't have any money and I'm not going to take your fifty. I'm no beggar, either."
"Such pride!" he laughed. "So what will you do?"
"I don't know. I'll make out somehow."
"Sure-sleeping in jail." He stood up and came over to her. "Listen, let me help you. I have a place that will be empty for another two weeks. It's not much-just an apartment over some stores-but at least it will do until you get a job and find another place."
"Two weeks to find a job? According to Pedro, it might take me two years."
"That's what Pedro said? Well, I think we've learned our lesson by now. Whatever Pedro says, the opposite is true."
"You know of some jobs?"
"Hundreds! This is a great time for jobs around LA. What kind of work have you done?" She told him.
He shook his head. "No, we can do better than that. How about waitressing?"
She shrugged. "I don't know the first thing about it."
"Hmm, maybe it's not the best thing for you anyway. Too many roving hands when you pass between the tables."
"Hey-I worked in a factory once. A textile factory."
"Oh, you can always get work in a factory out here. Especially the aircraft factories. In fact, Bowden Aircraft is hiring eight hours a day right now. They got a big contract with someone."
"Where is this Bowden Aircraft?"
"It's right outside Los Angeles-in Santa Monica. Not far from the beaches."
"They hire those with no experience in building planes?"
"Sure. My niece works there. She still doesn't know the difference between a plane and a truck. All she does is rivet all day."
"I guess I could do that."
"My niece is a big, strong girl. They pay well at Bowden, but they don't pay for nothing. It's hard, back-breaking work, and there's a pretty tough crew to work with. A mean bunch until you get in with them. You don't look like the tough factory type to me."
"Looks can be deceiving. That sounds like the perfect job for me."
He shrugged. "If you think so. Like I say, the pay is good. You're really interested, huh?"
"Tell you what. If you lend me enough money to get over there this afternoon, 171 pay you back double."
"I'll gladly drive you there, never mind the money.
All right?"
She laughed. "How can I refuse?"
"Now you're talking. And how about the apartment? If you're worried about living there free, you can pay me the daily rent after you're earning plenty of dough. Two dollars a day."
"And I live there alone?"
"Alone-unless you want company."
She smiled. "Maybe I'll get lonely, who knows?"
"Then you'll take it?"
"Frank-or whoever you are, I am not one to sell my body or go begging, but neither am I one to turn away miracles. Just help me find my clothes so we can get out of here."
"Yes," he said, getting up. "This place stinks. How did you stand it here?"
"First I was hungry and then I was drunk. But I'd sure like to get out now. What do you think he'll do when he finds me gone?"
"Nothing. He'll whine a little and blame himself."
"I almost feel sorry for him."
"Don't. He does all right. If he didn't gamble and drink so much he'd be a rich man. Hey-what's this?"
He pulled her bra out from under his chair and held it out to her. "Must be yours. No one else is that big."
She smiled and took it from him. "Are the other things under there, too?"
"I don't know, let's see."
They bent over simultaneously, and once again the sheet fell away from her breasts. Frank looked up and came face to face with the naked tips.
"So beautiful," he gasped. "They are so lovely...."
This time she didn't bother to pull the sheet back up. She had the bra in her hands, so she sat up straight and slipped the bra over the heavy mounds, pulling it tight and hooking it in the back.
Frank's mouth was wide open. He seemed about to cry.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to tempt you."
"It's all right," he whispered hoarsely. "Just seeing you is better than having a dozen other women."
She smiled, but realized she had to be careful. She was getting excited and had a strong feeling that she owed this man all she could give him. But that was not true. She owed him nothing, and she would give him nothing until she was sure of her own motives and of his.
She fished her skirt and panties out from under the chair-Pedro had hidden everything but the blouse there as a safeguard-and took them into the bathroom to finish dressing.
As soon as she came out, she picked up her satchel of belongings and they left the apartment. Frank continued to play the gentleman. He carried her satchel down the stairs, and outside on the street opened the car door for her.
He drove a blue, hardtop Thunderbird. The car slipped away from Pedro's building, smooth and noiseless as a canoe on glassy water, and wove through the heavy metropolitan traffic. Conchita noticed they were on Hill Street-a street like any other in the big cities. But after a few blocks they took a right on to Pico Boulevard, headed west for a while, and suddenly, it was the California Conchita had always heard of. The palm trees, the stucco houses with red clay roofs, the feeling of spaciousness, and of course the Los Angeles snog floating above them like a transparent blanket.
She told Frank that this was the first local color she had seen, since she'd slept the last hour on the bus.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" he said. "This is the poor section of town, let me show you something better."
"You don't have to go out of your way."
"Your pleasure is my way," he smiled, and turned right. He drove up to Wilshire Boulevard, and, still heading west, cruised through the Miracle Mile with its spectacular office and apartment buildings, and soon was in Beverly Hills. It looked like any elite, surburban shopping area, but Conchita was thrilled with the thought of being there.
Frank detoured up some residential streets, however, and it was no longer like any other place she had ever seen. The palm-lined streets themselves were like palatial gardens, and they passed by palace after palace, each more elaborate, more luxurious and fantastic than the last.
Frank pointed out the homes of some movie stars. "Would you like to live in one of those some day?" he asked.
"That would depend on the price I paid," she said, "and I don't mean money."
"Well, maybe you'll be a movie star."
"Me? You kidding?"
"Come on, you got twice what any of them have. Especially in front."
"One needs more than that to be a movie star," she smiled.
"Not always. You just have to know the right people. Now if I was in the business, I'd put you in every movie I made."
"And what would I have to do in return?"
"Nothing. Just be as beautiful as you are. Of course, if you wanted to do something special for me once in a while, I wouldn't stop you."
"Well, maybe I would-I mean, if you were in the business."
He looked at her and daydreamed of a frenzied transaction of flesh on the casting couch. "Perhaps I will change my profession," he said. "It would be worth it."
"Don't bother," she told him. "You have as good a chance as a real estate man. I'm interested in what a man is, not what he does or what he can do for me."
"Careful," he sighed. "Don't build my hopes up."
She didn't answer, but his hopes had already soared to a new, agonizing peak of desire. Conchita could tell as much by his expression, and she wondered why she had dropped the little hint that caused it. It wasn't hard to arrive at the answer; this tall, dark gentleman was becoming more and more appealing to her, so that each move he made was melting away the barriers of caution resulting from her experience with Pedro. Already she could easily imagine herself loving him, enjoying the touch of his slim, naked body and bringing him to the ecstatic fulfillment he wanted. And bit by bit, this pleasant image was spreading through her body as pure desire.
Nicest of all, she would be doing that because she wanted to, because he was a kind and beautiful man, acting without the promise of a reward. If she had been something of a tramp last night-as Pedro had said-she would not be like that now.
She decided to wait and see what happened. If everything continued to be just exactly right for romance, then she would let him romance her, as far as he liked. All the way.
Frank decided to wait and see what happened also; but he didn't want to wait any longer than he had to. He reversed his direction and headed back toward Pico Boulevard.
Fifteen minutes later they were in an older section of the area again, a strip of the Boulevard lined with two or three-story brick buildings, mostly stores with apartments above.
Frank parked in front of a dry-cleaning store. There was just one apartment upstairs.
"This is it," he said as he helped her out of the car. "Hardly fit for a movie queen, but it's better than that rathole we just came from."
When they got upstairs, Conchita told him that it was also better than most of the places she'd lived in. It consisted of a large living room, kitchen and bedroom, with plenty of light and air, and smooth ceilings. The furniture was second-hand stuff; old, but comfortable. Only the living room wallpaper was a little hard to take; an ugly representation of twisting vines and green leaves.
"It's a perfect place for one person," Conchita said. "Too bad it's rented already."
"Listen," Frank said, "if you want, I can just tell the tenant we changed our minds. That there was a mistake or something."
"No!" she laughed. "Stop being so kind to me, will you? I don't want to put anyone out."
"Well, it's up to you. You'll probably want to live closer to work, anyway. It's a fifteen minute bus ride to Bowden Aircraft from here. Twenty minutes to the beach."
"Hey-that reminds me. I'd better get over to Bowden before they stop hiring."
"Oh, there'll be plenty of jobs left tomorrow. And for another few weeks."
"Maybe, but I want to start working tomorrow. Even tonight, if it's possible. Don't forget, I haven't got a cent."
"You still won't let me lend you a few dollars?"
"No, you've been kind enough already."
"But you'll starve to death before you get paid."
"No, please forget it. I'll make out somehow. I want to take a bath or a shower right now and get over there as soon as I can."
He stopped arguing. "Come on," he said, "I'll show you the bathroom."
He did so. It was a large, sunny bathroom with a huge porcelain tub in a stall. There was a shower fixture overhead.
Frank opened a closet door. "Look at this," he said. "Towels, soap-everything you need."
"You must have planned this whole thing," she laughed.
"When we furnish a place, we furnish it," he said, and tossed her a bar of soap. "No washclothes, I'm afraid."
"There may be one in my satchel. I still don't know what's in it. I just emptied out two of my dresser drawers."
"You were in such a hurry to leave New York?"
"Who told you I was from New York?"
"Pedro."
"What else did he tell you?"
"Nothing. Why, is there something else I should know?"
"Not really."
"Okay. As long as I know how gorgeous you are, that's all that matters. IT1 get your satchel for you."
"Thanks."
He went to the living room and got it. When he returned, she already had her blouse unbuttoned, and the sharp, tightly-packed cups of her bra were jutting out. His blood jumped.
She took the satchel and started rummaging through. "Look at this," she said. "A pillowcase. I really need that. Let's see what else, my good slip, a pair of pajamas-I haven't worn them in five years-a bathing suit, a sweater-that's good-ah, here's some stockings and underwear ... and a pair of slacks. I'm all set." She reached the last item. "Ah," she murmured. "Thank goodness I didn't forget you."
She fondled the black, silky material of her gang jacket. Some of the red letters spelling Las Halcones were visible, and part of the fierce white hawk, with its yellow eyes and graceful wingspread.
"What's that?" Frank asked.
"Nothing," she said, and quickly stuffed everything back in the satchel except a change of underwear, which she hung on a towel rack. "It was just some private property."
Frank shrugged. "I guess women have a right to privacy."
She smiled. "Does that include when they take showers?"
"If it was up to me, I'd say no. But I guess that's not up to me, is it?"
"No, unless you think like Pedro."
"Just to prove I don't, I shall leave at once. Would you prefer that I leave the apartment altogether?"
"Do you want to?"
"Want to? I should say not-I mean, well, I was hoping you'd let me drive you to the factory."
"What else were you hoping?"
His face grew sad; a trifle angry. "Come on, Betty, 'don't tease me. I'm trying to be as nice as possible, even though there's a monster inside me growling and snarling to get at you. Just tell me-should I wait outside or go home?"
Conchita got a glimpse of that monster in his eyes, and realized how much control he had exercised to restrain himself, from the moment he'd walked into Pedro's apartment. She also saw a very human yearning in his expression, was warmed by that, and decided that it was time to throw caution to the winds and yield to the eagerness of her own needs. She had nothing to lose, and a great deal of pleasure to gain.
And as soon as she had made her decision, the pleasure was heralded by little rivers of joy that ran through her and prompted her to make that a sweet, unusual and unforgettable experience for him.
She smiled, flashed her dark eyes, and removed her blouse.
"Betty," he gulped, "if you intend to make me leave...."
"In the first place," she said, "my name isn't Betty. It's Conchita."
"Conchita," he murmured, adoring the sound of it.
"And in the second place, I don't intend to make you leave. I need you here."
"You need me?"
"Yes," she said, feeling giddy. "You're going to be my washcloth. That's very easy. All you do is take off your clothes while I'm taking off mine, get under the shower with me, grab the soap...."
The first thing Frank did was to grab her in his arms and kiss her hard and passionately on the mouth. She parted her lips, accepting his caress, accepting him as a lover. She pressed against him. He pulled her tightly to him. Her body trembled. She worked up an enormous swell of desire for him and, being aware of that, thrilled all the more.
"Come on," he gasped. "Let's..
"Okay."
They parted and undressed themselves and each other. Conchita admired the smooth, manly handsomeness of him and caressed him. Frank returned her caresses with frantic touches of his lips over her limbs, her middle, her ripe, swollen breasts; ending at the dark tips and working at them until they were jutting out like blunt, rubbery spikes.
By the time they got under the shower, the water might have been ice-cold and they would hardly have known the difference. But the water wasn't ice-cold; that was deliciously warm, like everything else, and Frank used the warm water with the soap to work up a rich lather in his hands and to spread the lather over the hills and valleys of Conchita's body.
She did the same to him, and after the second rinse, they threw the soap, their hands going wild, mouths mad, getting closer, closer....
Until suddenly, they were together.
On the ledge of the tub.
Hips thumping against the hollow porcelain, sounding out a primitive beat.
Echoed by Conchita's cries. "Lover, lover...."
And by Frank's intoxicated murmurs, outcries and sighs....
Until finally, the shower above them was matched and outdone by a shower of needle-sharp bliss; finally, all was ended with two sweet, prolonged outcries.
Conchita put on the slacks and sweater, which would not be too warm for the cool evening and which, Frank assured her, would be all right for the employment office at Bowden.
"It's not like applying for a foster child or something," he told her. "They have hundreds of people to process each day, and they don't even look up at them. It's like the Army. You just file through, get a number, tell a man you want to work there all your life, and get your picture taken. Give them this address and use me as a reference, you'll be all right."
"I don't even know your last name," she reminded him.
He thought a moment. "All right," he said. "I'll give you my card. That's my office number there, but you must never call me unless you're dying in the middle of the desert. In my business, a tied-up phone could mean the loss of a thousand dollars."
She nodded and took the card. "Frank Martinez. I'll never forget that name."
"And I'll never forget Conchita. Just Conchita-that's all I want to remember."
He put his arms around her and gave her a long kiss.
"Come on," he said, "we'd better get going."
They left the apartment and drove toward Bowden Aircraft, about five miles west in Santa Monica. Just before they got there, Frank realized that neither of them had had anything to eat all day. Another hunger had taken his mind off his stomach, but now that the first was satisfied, he was famished. Conchita admitted that she also was, so he pulled into a drive-in and ordered a stack of hamburgers.
"I'll pay you back for these," she told him as she swallowed the last bite.
He shook his head. "You know something?" he said. "You're really nuts. I know they tell you not to take candy from strange men in the park, but really-didn't you ever go out on a date? If your date buys you a glass of beer do you say you'll pay him back?"
"No," she laughed. "I guess not. Maybe I am a little nuts."
"Well, you're beautiful enough to get away with it. But anyway, just consider this whole afternoon a big, wonderful date. And since I can't wait around to take you home, here's a little money for your bus fare."
He took out his wallet and started counting off tens. Conchita slapped his hands away.
"No!" she said. "You can call me nuts or anything you want, but I won't take advantage of your generosity."
"Well then take a ten at least! Pay me back. You don't get your salary here for another week."
"Oh, all right," she sighed, taking the ten. "And I will pay you back, don't worry."
"Conchita-I feel that I want to do so much for you, and you won't let me."
She took his hand and kissed it. "You want to do something for me?"
"Yes!"
"Then meet me back at the apartment tonight. Sleep with me. Make love to me again."
He bowed his head. "I can't, Conchita. I'm obligated."
"What about tomorrow morning? I could start work tomorrow night, and then perhaps"
"Conchita...."
"What" What's wrong?"
He shook his head and started the car. They were at the factory employment office in a few minutes. Nothing was said until he parked. Then he turned to her.
"Conchita-I'm a married man with four children. I can't get involved. Why do you think I deal with Pedro? I have a few hours off from business I call Pedro, and-" he snapped his fingers. "Just like that, I have a woman. No fuss, no involvement. No one to hang on to me. No one to come bursting into my house or office to ruin me."
Conchita was silent a long time. Frank started to get edgy.
"Frank," she said finally, "why didn't you tell me it was like this?"
"Like the old joke goes-you didn't ask me."
"This is no joke, Frank. I don't believe in affairs."
"I know, Conchita, I know. That's why I was afraid to say anything."
He was also afraid to look at her now. He looked at his watch instead. "The employment office closes at five, Conchita. One hour."
With a gasp, she jumped out of the car and threw his ten dollar bill back through the window. "Goodbye, Frank," she sobbed, and ran away as fast as she could go. She never saw him drive off.
The factory was an enormous green blur. She couldn't think straight. The people in the employment line were looking at her as though she had three heads-or so she thought. No matter how little there was to getting employed here, she could not go through with it today.
She turned around and started walking home.
Almost three hours later she entered the apartment and saw some packages on the couch. There was an envelope with them. Inside was fifty dollars and a note:
Conchita-
Forgive me. I couldn't think of you with no clothes on your back and no money for food. Yes, you can pay me back. But I feel guilty enough already. I wish you would accept this. Perhaps some time in the future we can meet again-when I'm ready to give up everything-because I'm crazy about you. I have to think. Take care of yourself.
-Love, F.
Conchita crumpled the money in her hands, read the note over, and once again was overwhelmed with the most terrible loneliness and fear.
CHAPTER THREE
She felt much better the following morning. The bright sunlight purged most of the fear, and the prospect of marching into the employment office today, and soon after into some honest work, surrounded by co-workers-this prospect helped combat the loneliness.
She felt better about all of yesterday's affair. She had been deceived by two men, and yet, Frank's deception was far different from Pedro's. She could hardly blame him. All he wanted was to love her, and he did, and that was beautiful-even now, looking back at that. The end justified the means. Perhaps she would have refused him if he'd told her the whole truth, in which case, she was glad that had happened as that did. She had a feeling, anyway, that he would try to see her again. What man was strong enough to shun ecstatic pleasure just from a fear of getting involved? Whether or not she would allow him to see her was another question-depending on what his situation was with his wife. If she was a monster, a villainous shrew, all right. But if Frank was the rat and the villain, then nothing doing.
Conchita also felt better about the fifty dollars. It was only a loan, and there was no doubt that she needed it. She had been proud yesterday, but after a few days of starvation and walking five miles to work, she might have felt different. Where else would she have gotten some money without selling herself for it? She probably would have starved to death, fool that she was.
She remembered the packages. She hadn't opened them last night, but instead, had gone straight to bed. Now she ran into the living room like it was Christmas morning and undid the wrappings.
Frank had bought her a red dress, a black dress, two jerseys, two sweaters, and two pair of nylon stretch slacks. Also a set of lacy black underwear, which increased her suspicions about seeing him again.
Everything was top quality, high fashion, and with a little taking in here, a little letting out there, would fit perfectly. He had left the sales slips in the packages, in case she wanted to exchange something, no doubt. Conchita set them aside carefully so she would be able to pay him back the exact amounts.
The clothes delighted her. She would never have bought such good things if she had gone out shopping for herself, but now that she was more or less forced into buying them, she was glad they were hers. Conchita Perez in good clothes! It might change her whole personality, and right now she felt she could use some changes.
But right now, she also needed some money to pay for the clothes and everything else. It was time to go to the Bowden employment office.
She put on one of the new jerseys. Orchid colored, it was tight enough to reveal the fullness of her breasts without outlining every detail of them. The stretch slacks were much too provocative for work. She put on the slacks she'd found in her satchel. They were bad enough, the way they hugged her round buttocks.
She left the apartment, had a quick breakfast at a nearby luncheonette, and took the bus to the factory.
There was no way to see all of the Bowden Aircraft plant at once, except from the sky. It was a city in itself, stretching for several blocks in series of I-shaped and L-shaped buildings with ridged roofs; dozens of smaller, tin-roofed shacks; a network of private roads and passageways; huge, open yards filled with raw materials, finished and half-finished products; hundreds of large and small vehicles, and of course, thousands of workers.
One of the tin-roofed buildings, about the size of two Army barracks and situated at the edge of a parking lot, was the employment office.
Conchita went to the end of the line that extended about thirty yards out from the front entrance. In front of her was an older woman, worried that she would not be able to keep up with the grueling pace of the factory, would lose her job in a week, and not be hired elsewhere, so that her husband would die in the hospital with his bills unpaid and the bank would take away her house and the finance company repossess all her belongings.
It was not exactly the kind of conversation Conchita wanted, so she assured the woman that the work would not be too hard, then turned around to see who was behind her.
It was a boy about eighteen, a hoody, blond kid, and behind him was a young man approximately twenty-five, with soft brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses; a gaunt, intelligent look about him.
The blond kid winked at Conchita as she turned. "I hope they put us in the same section," he said.
She gave him a polite nod and tried to look past him at the other, whose face interested her. Now the blond turned around.
"Take a look at those boobs ahead of us," he told the brown-haired fellow. "They're gonna get caught in the machines."
Conchita overheard him, but the other one paid no attention.
The kid tried again. "They look like big, giant scoops of ice cream, and man, I'd sure like to find out." Still no response.
"Hey!" he shouted. "I'm talkin' to you!"
The young man looked up at him. He was much shorter. "I'm perfectly aware of that," he said, "and I would appreciate it if you'd shut up."
The kid's cheeks turned red. He glanced nervously at Conchita, then turned back. "Hey, what are you, a wise guy?"
"I'm a very wise guy. That's why I can't stand stupid remarks."
"You callin' me stupid?"
"No, but if you're asking me for a snap judgment."
"You're askin' for a snap judgment in the mouth!"
"Well, there's another stupid remark."
The kid's nostrils flared. He turned to Conchita. "Should I smack him one?"
"You'd better smack me one first," Conchita replied, "because I also think you're stupid."
He turned redder. "You know, it's just a good thing I don't hit girls."
"Hah!" said the man behind him. "It's got morals, yet."
The kid wheeled. "Okay, four eyes-let's go!" He put up his fists.
The young man took off his glasses and held them out to Conchita. "Hold these please."
She took them. He turned back to the kid, crouched slightly, and brought his hands up to either side of his face, keeping the palms open, the fingers curled in.
"It's my duty to warn you," he told the kid, "I'm going to use karate."
Either the kid didn't hear him or he wasn't impressed. He led with two left jabs, and before he could use his right, the young man lay flat on the ground.
Conchita was terribly disappointed. She'd thought her brown-haired friend was one who spoke softly and carried a big stick. But here he hadn't even shown a little twig to back up his gentle courage. She knelt beside him to see how badly he was hurt. He had such a pretty face-long lashes, thin lips, and a strong chin belying his weak jaw.
He looked like he was out cold, but as soon as she touched his cheek, he opened his eyes and raised his head.
"I'm all right," he said. "Where're my glasses?"
"Right here." She gave them to him. He put them on, looked at her, and rubbed his chin.
"Where's the punk?" he asked.
Conchita looked around and spotted him a few places up the line, talking to some wide-eyed female punk-apparently his equal in intelligence-and glancing back once in a while.
She pointed him out to her friend on the ground, but he didn't look. He started to get up. Conchita went to help him; he moved her hand away.
"Look, I said I'm all right. Don't make a fuss." He got to his feet, shook his head a few times and moved his jaw back and forth.
"I was only trying to be nice," Conchita said. "You helped me, so I wanted to help you."
"Yeah, I really helped," he said. "That wasn't even my intention. I just didn't feel like listening to his remarks-or anyone's."
She cocked her head. "You're a strange one."
"That's right."
The line had been moving slowly all the while. Someone behind them shouted for them to close up the gap. They did so.
The young man stood with his hands in his pockets, looking every which way but at Conchita. He gazed at the hazy morning sky for a while, his thin lips turned down as though he were condemning the entire universe.
It was obvious he did not want to talk, but there was something about him Conchita could not resist. Perhaps it was just the challenge of drawing him out. She wanted to try.
"You know," she said, "it's too bad you didn't use your karate on him."
"Yes, it is too bad," he replied without looking at her. "Especially since I don't know the first thing about karate."
She laughed. "Then why did you say what you did?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes it scares them off." She laughed again. "You're funny." He didn't answer.
She groped for something more to say. "My name's Conchita. What yours?"
"What's the difference?"
"I want to know. If it doesn't make any difference, you might as well tell me."
He finally looked at her. "All right. My name is Mike Ross. Any more provocative questions?"
"What kind of questions?"
"Skip it. Look, why don't you just leave me alone? I'm not the friendly type. Go talk with your blond buddy up ahead. I'm sure he'll be crazy about you."
She bowed her head. "That was cruel."
"Well that's me all over. Very, very cruel."
"But I like you. I even like your name."
"Thanks, but I'm afraid the feeling isn't mutual. I don't like anyone or anything this morning. And I've forgotten your name."
"Conchita."
"I want to forget it!"
"Conchita, Conchita! Boy, you can make someone mad. What's wrong with you? I never met a man who wouldn't at least talk to me."
"Oh, have I hurt your pride?"
"Yes!"
"Well then maybe you should reexamine your assets."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think people are interested in you, or in those?" He nodded toward her breasts.
She blushed a little, but at the same time was glad that she had finally drawn him out, and that he had at least noticed something about her-even if it wasn't with the usual admiration.
"I think they're interested in both," she replied.
"Yeah, both breasts."
"No! I mean-"
"I know what you mean, but don't be sure of it. Take me, for instance. I'm not interested in what's up front, so I'm not interested at all. Doesn't that prove something?"
"I don't know-maybe it proves that you're not a man."
He cracked the faintest hint of a smile. "I assure you, I am a man."
"Then why aren't you interested? Look around you-every man in this line has had his eyes on me for a while. What makes you so different?"
That got him. He gritted his teeth and rapped his temple. "This makes me different!" he snarled. "Gray matter. If you think I'm one of these factory yuks, then maybe I'd better straighten you out. I'm an artist! It sounds corny to shout it, but it's true. I happen to be an artist."
She raised her brows, half mockingly. "I see. What kind of an artist?"
"A photographic artist. Translation: I take pictures."
"So what are you doing here?"
"What the hell do you think? I need the money."
"Can't you make money taking pictures?"
"Obviously not, or I wouldn't be in this parade of creeps."
"Really? Well maybe you're a creep yourself if no one will buy your pictures."
"They do buy some-but not enough. Not enough."
"Well, I still don't know why you're here. Why don't you work for a newspaper?"
"Or a photo lab? I tried one and didn't like it-hated it, and the photo labs pay coolie wages."
"You need so much money?"
"Yes." He said it sadly, and his eyes journeyed somewhere beyond. He spoke as if to himself. "When she gets here, I don't want to be living in that dump any more. She's used to good things. I don't want to drag her down."
"She?"
"Harriet. My fiancee. She'll be out here as soon as she finishes school."
Conchita's heart sank. She didn't know why. What was this Mike Ross to her but the man in back of her in an employment line? A man with an interesting face, like hundreds of others. And a very nasty, snobbish fellow at that.
But in every man-woman relationship, there is always the element, the possibility, of romance and intimacy. While Conchita was not aware of it intellectually, her heart had been very much involved, and sank at the word "fiancee."
It showed so strongly on her face, that Mike's faraway gaze returned to notice it.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked harshly.
"Nothing. I hope you'll be very happy."
"Who?"
"You and Harriet."
"Oh ... thanks, but I doubt if well ever be very happy. In this rotten world you're lucky if you can get through a day without throwing up."
Conchita looked at him a moment. "You know," she said, "maybe it would be best if we ended this conversation. I came here in good spirits. I want to work in the factory. It is honest, respectable work. And the world is only as rotten as you make it. So please, either stop lowering my spirits or don't talk to me."
"Now look, Chiquita-I didn't start this conversation. If you want to end it, that's fine with me."
"The name is Conchita. For the last time, Conchita!"
At that, she turned around and showed him her back, which she assumed interested him no more than the front. The line continued to move forward and soon she was at the entrance. Mike had said nothing more. She didn't really expect him to, but in a way was waiting for him to tap her on the shoulder and apologize. Perhaps even tell her that it was a lie about his fiancee; that there was no such person, and he had just told her to make her jealous-and how would she like to come over to his place tonight and look at his photographs and go out to a movie.
But Mike said nothing, and she resisted the temptation to turn around and see if he was still there. When she got inside the building, however, ten people
-ending with her-were counted off to proceed to a row of desks. She then managed to glance back casually
-and more interesting-than ever. She looked away and decided that it was foolish to devote any more thought to him. It was only because she was still in a state of loneliness that certain people seemed irresistible. If she had passed him on the street in New York, she would never have noticed him.
She sat down at the desk and received a white card from an official. It called for name, address, work experience and character references two. She wondered who would ever recommend Mike's character, cursed herself for thinking about him again, and realized that she wasn't in such good shape herself. She could put down Frank Martinez as one reference, but would have to invent the second. She couldn't mention anyone from New York. She couldn't mention New York at all. It was all right to give her real name _-there were hundreds of Conchita Perez's around. But Conchita Perez of New York would make it just a little easier for the cops to spot her here if it ever came to that.
The woman ahead of her in the line-and now sitting next to her-saw her hesitating with the card and leaned over. "Just put anything down, sweetheart," she told her. "They never check them."
It was a relief. Conchita thanked her and filled in the card, using street names and business places she had seen in her travel, yesterday.
A few minutes later, the group was moved to the next station, taking their cards along. Ten interviewers sat at separate desks; Conchita's was a husky woman with short hair, dark make-up on her eyes, and no lipstick. She gave Conchita an especially warm smile as she sat down in front of the desk. She took the card from her, looked at the front a minute, then turned it over to the section to be filled in by the interviewer.
"Ever been in jail?" she asked.
"No."
She checked a box. "Are you a Commie?"
"No."
She checked a few more boxes. "How long do you expect to work here?"
"All my life, if I like it."
She looked up and smiled again. "I hope better things come your way than Bowden Aircraft. Maybe you'll find yourself some nice woman to take care of you."
The remark confirmed what appearances had suggested to Conchita.
It was strange, though, that the woman had singled her out as one of her own kind. Did she somehow know of the one affair so far away in New York?-the sister in Las Halcones with whom she'd taken a long and sweet journey along this byway of love? She herself had not thought of that in such a long time ... was that true, then, about the sixth sense of these women-or did the experience show as clearly as the bite of the vampire? Perhaps there was some trick, a diabolical deception to weed out the unnatural kind. She had to be careful.
"Did you say some nice woman?" Conchita asked.
"I did," she replied, and burned the fact into her with her eyes. Then, as suddenly as she had gotten off the track of business, she got back on it. She made an entry on the card and looked up again, her face innocent.
"Now-according to the front of your card, you've had no experience in aircraft work or anything similar, is that right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Okay. I'll put you down as a mechanic then."
"A mechanic?"
"Everyone without a specialty is a mechanic here. It doesn't mean you'll be fixing airplane engines."
"That's good."
"It could be, depending on who you work with." It was another off-track remark, but she quickly got back to business. "Next question. Did you want to work the day or night shift-or doesn't it matter?"
"I guess it doesn't really matter."
"In that case, I would suggest the night shift. It gets pretty damn hot in this place during the day. The night shift is nine-thirty p.m. to five-thirty in the morning. The only disadvantage is that the night shift may be discontinued if business is bad next year. But right now we're loaded down with contracts and there's even some overtime if you want it."
"Discontinued ... I don't know...."
"Well let me tell you, if business is bad next year, just about everyone hired during these months will be laid off-day or night. Especially the mechanics. You like the beach?"
"I love it," Conchita said, thinking of Coney Island, Rye Beach and Jones Beach. "Why do you ask?"
"Because night shift people can spend their days basking in the sun and the ocean waters. It's actually a lot more fun. Why don't I put you down for night, then if you don't like it you can always transfer."
"That sounds pretty good. Okay, put me down."
"Right The next thing is which section to put you in. Let's see...."
She leafed through a pile of mimeographed sheets on her desk. Each represented a department with a running tally of manpower. She took out a sheet.
"Here there's still some room in Interior Shop A. That's a good one."
"What do they do there?"
"Does it matter?"
"No, not really."
"Okay, then I'll sign you un for it. You'll probably be installing interior wall panels. It's a good bunch, though, and that's what counts."
"Fine. Thanks."
"My pleasure. There're some other questions on the card, but you can fill them in while you're waiting at the next station. You swear that everything you have told me is true to the best of your knowledge and all that jazz?"
"Yes."
"Sign here."
Conchita signed the card, and the interviewer stamped a number in the box provided. "This is your employee number," she said. "You're all set here. Get your picture taken through that door. Too bad they only take it from the neck up."
Conchita smiled at the compliment, took her card, and started to leave. But suddenly, the interviewer grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard. "Maybe we'll met again some time," she said. "On a weekend. My name's Jo."
"Sure, Jo, maybe we will. And thanks."
Jo nodded and let her go. Conchita hurried to catch up with her group, which was already filing into the photo room.
The rest of the morning was mechanical-fingerprints, ID card, tax forms, and a brief lecture on rules and regulations at Bowden, accompanied by a film on the building of airplanes. Conchita was impressed, excited, by the whole process, except at the station where she had to sign away forty-six dollars from future paychecks to pay for prescribed Interior Shop tools. It was a precaution against employees quiting in a week or two.
She was given the option of starting work any time within five days. Needing money as she did, she chose to start that night, at nine-thirty.
She left the employment building in high spirits, fondling her plastic-coated ID card, laughing at the fanny picture of herself in the corner, and reading the security regulations on the back.
Someone passed close by her as she walked toward the bus stop. All she saw was his back when she looked up from the card, but she recognized him as Mike Ross.
"Hey!" she called, forgetting her vow. "How did you make out?"
He turned. "Oh, it's you."
"Well?"
"I'm on the night shift, so I can take thousands of pictures during the day and maybe get the hell out of this place."
I'm on the night shift, too. Interior Shop A, installing panels, I think."
"Damn!" he swore. "You see that? You see what I mean?"
"What?"
"It's a rotten world-at least for me it is. I get every lousy break in the books. If you hadn't been in line, / would have gotten that section. Nice quiet work at your own pace. But because you were ahead of me, what do you think I got?"
She shrugged, already sorry she had spoken to him.
"Riveting! That's what I got! All night behind the gun-bang! Bang!" He belted his forehead with each bang. "The lousiest, crummiest, hardest job in the whole damn place!"
"You weren't given any choice?"
"No, of course not. Why, were you?"
She ignored the question. "So you're actually blaming me for your troubles, is that it?"
"Well, yes, in a way."
"Then I have one thing to say to you-why don't you just go to hell?"
She didn't bother to observe his response. She ran past him and hurried to catch the approaching bus. When she looked out the window a minute later, she couldn't spot him-and this time, really didn't care if she never saw him again. He was an idiot. She felt sorry for his fiancee.
As the bus headed up Pico Boulevard, all thoughts of Mike Ross and of everything else were replaced with one which had obsessed her from time to time during the morning: why had that interviewer-the Lesbian-singled her out?
She could no longer believe that Jo gave every woman the same routine. Not only would she have lost her job long ago, but it was now apparent that Jo had done her a special favor-given her an easy job. This she certainly could not do for every woman.
No, there was definitely some way she knew, something she recognized. It was next to impossible that Jo had crossed paths with Conchita's female lover in the Hawks. What was it then? Just the fact that perhaps she was prettier, more desirable than most of those who came before Jo's desk? Or was it some cast to her eyes, a way of smiling, of moving her hands or of walking? A Lesbian in Jo's position would be very sensitive to these little signs.
Which raised another question in Conchita's mind. Why should she bear the marks of the Lesbian-however subtle-as the result of just one affair? Certainly her present desires were overwhelmingly straight.
Or were they? Why was she so obsessed with the incident?
The answer to all these questions did not present itself clearly until she got back to the apartment hot and sweaty, filled the tub with warm water, and started taking off her clothes.
It was only then, aroused by the sensuality of her nakedness, by the voluptuous caress of water as she entered the tub, by the warmth that enveloped her-it was only then that she recalled the particular sweetness of her Lesbian affair, the actual memories, the images, the specific thrills, all strong enough to have their permanent effect on her secret personality. The personality that Jo had glimpsed.
She remembered one incident in particular, the second session with Toni. The first had been strained ... Conchita was nervous, frightened, guilty the first time. She'd only done that to please Toni, her best friend
-and so persistent, so terribly gay, through and through. Little Toni, petite, curvy, surprisingly strong for her size. Crazy, funny, wilder than a mad tiger with her wiry black hair, fiery eyes, frantic lips. Those firm little breasts, and the taut, muscular buttocks rolling like two small boulders, yet so smooth, round, sensitive to the touch.
The first time had been in Toni's house; hasty, unsafe, eyes and ears poised for the parents, brothers and sisters. Then, a few days later, Toni took Conchita on the midnight rounds; the night world, the Lesbian crowds. Along Seventh Avenue, working down to the Village, one haunt after another, until there seemed to be no other world but this one where woman loved woman, and all else was strange, pretentious, almost wrong.
A dozen bars ... so much to drink. Toni holding her hand, squeezing her in her arms, warm whispers in her ears, hands sliding down her back, caressing her.
You're my girl, Conchita. See how everyone wants you here-but I love you and want you and need you. I'll make you happy, darling. I'm your lover, and I'll make you so beautifully happy....
And finally, when the bars closed, the all-night restaurants quieted, Toni took her to an east side hotel: cheap, dingy, but locked away from the other world and with a soft bed, clean, cool sheets. And there they took off their clothes and were together naked; smooth, warm, at a peak of sensuality from the long, eager night....
Conchita stretched out, yielding herself to Toni's wild eyes and then, arching her back, to the hysterical onslaught of caresses. She had never, never, dreamed of anything like that. That mouth-swirling around her breasts, adoring their massive fullness and creamy texture ... cruel bites at them, then sliding down, down, leaving no area of flesh unaroused ... swooping at the deep navel, a fierce rhythm, a prelude....
Conchita began to shake, seething, tantalized by pinching, loving fingers....
"Toni, oh...."
Toni furious scrambling to the goal of love, her hands racing up and down, reaching, then grabbing hold, securing an inescapable love knot....
And then the attack.
Love. Joy. Mad, convulsive rhythm of bliss, faster ... faster....
Conchita caught fire. Her own hands raced to hold and clutch as if forever....
"Toni! Toni! Oh-baby! Lover!"
Building, swelling, rising higher, higher to the top-Conchita pulled the plug out and caught her breath as the warmth rushed away.
She had her answer: the ultimate bliss of her affair with Toni, an affair that went on like that for a long time. Such bliss could come from nothing that was all wrong, evil and unhealthy. No guilt could linger from something so beautiful.
And that was why she still bore the mark. Because there was no guilt, she was perfectly ready for another affair like that-perhaps even seeking one. Perfectly capable of going either way, straight or Lesbian.
And Jo had recognized that.
Conchita wondered if that recognition had anything to do with the section to which she'd been assigned at Bowden.
CHAPTER FOUR
It didn't take her long to find out.
Conchita got to the plant at a quarter after nine, showed her ID card, and followed the guard's directions to Interior Shop A. She stopped at the time clock and punched in. She could not yet see the workers in the shop; her view was blocked by the rows of stock bins taking up a third of the entire area. But she could see the top of the enormous jet liner they were working on-the long silver fuselage sloping up two stories high to the cabin, its graceful tail fin even higher. And she could hear the noise. Mike Ross called it a nice quiet section. It was deafening.
An older man came up to the time clock as she put her card in the rack. She asked him about the racket, and he explained that it came not from the Interior Shop, but from the body riveting section directly behind it.
Which meant, Conchita realized, that Mike Ross might be working only a few yards away from her. Which in turn meant nothing, for she reminded herself that she hated him.
She rounded the corner of the bins and came into the working area of the shop. A few of the regulars were just getting their equipment together. One of them was a gigantic woman with huge, square hips, arms like a man, a jowly face and short hair.
It was Conchita's first clue to what she'd suspected, and she was sure now that there would be many more such women around when the shift started. It was the section, all right. Jo had put her right in the section.
The butch looked her over and gave her a broad grin. Conchita was too much afraid of her to return it. She nodded.
There was an office area near the tail of the plane, and near it were grouped two women and three men, surrounding a fourth man-obviously the foreman, a thin, walnut-faced fellow. He spotted Conchita and waved her over.
"C'mon there, dreamer!" he shouted. "You're holding up the whole production!" His voice was sharp, piercing.
"Don't let him bug you," the butch told her. "I'll smash his teeth in, he gave you any jive." Conchita hurried over to the group. "You Perez?" the foreman said. "Yes."
"Mechanic or 'lectrician?"
"Mechanic."
"Okay, that's everyone." He addressed the group. "All right, I'll give you the lowdown on this joint now, then we'll get some work out of you. Pay attention! I don't want nobody askin' me later what I already told
'em."
The lowdown consisted of the usual pep talk-you're here to work and the assignments to various crews Conchita's main job was to be the installation of fiberglas panels in the hostess cabin, behind the cockpit. She would take orders from the crew leader.
The foreman marched the group to a section where the new workers picked up their tools. Conchita felt a little more secure about the job when she saw the metal plate on her tool box with her name and number stamped on it.
When they returned to the work area, things were going full blast. It was a fairly noisy operation in itself, with the drills of the electricians and the panel crew boring into the ribs.
Interior Shop A received its planes just after the metal skin had been riveted to the skeleton. The electricians then ran their cables and wires through, and the panel crew installed the gray fiberglas walls which would later be wallpapered in the upholstery shop. Interior Shop B was a few sections away. What came after Conchita's section was the area in which the wings were attached. This area was in the same building, just a few yards away. The plane was pushed manually to a hoist apparatus, raised about thirty feet in the air, and positioned to receive the wings that rode on cables from either side.
There was a plane up on the hoists now, and as Conchita mounted the gangplank to her own plane, she saw the workers attaching the wings and wondered how they got up there. She learned later that they rode up in the fuselage. But it was of little significance compared to what she learned when she boarded her plane.
The interior was a madhouse. The workers were packed in elbow to elbow-not as tightly as the proverbial sardines, but under worse circumstances, since everyone was moving around, crossing one another's paths, tripping over cables, tool boxes, jabbing ribs and stepping on fingers.
As if the work itself wasn't hard enough-drilling, cutting, filing, sanding, and bolting, all under the pressure of stepped-up production, one had to battle his fellow workers to get the job done. And there was no question about it: the job had to be done and done right.
A lot of the pushing and shoving, the jabbing and finger-squashing was passed off as standard procedure. But occasionally, someone would go a little too far and a volley of curses, a brief tussle, would erupt. Usually it went no farther than the screaming threats Conchita heard from two of the women as she entered.
"Hey! Wait till I'm finished here, will you?"
"You been there three days already! I gotta get this panel measured!"
"I'll measure my foot on your rear in a minute?"
"You try that, baby! Just try it! You'd look awful funny with this screwdriver through your neck!"
"Yeah? You look pretty funny right now, you dog-faced son of a-"
"You wanna jump with me, creep? I'll wrap those ugly boobs of yours around your ears!"
"Yeah, you wish you could get some of that, don't you, you gruesome freak-"
But all the while, one was working away and the other was sitting calmly on her tool box. At the height of their tirades, they simply changed places, muttered a few more curses, and went about their business.
It was not exactly what Conchita had expected, but she felt that she was up to the challenge. The work she had done in New York-at the supermarkets, laundries, dry cleaners, cafeterias _-was every bit as fast paced, sometimes a lot worse. At the dry cleaners, where she pressed shirts, she could never stop moving, or the shirts fed to her would have piled up to the ceiling in five minutes. And when that happened, the boss-who was always watching, whipping, slave-driving-would have shipped her out faster than a rush order on a handkerchief.
She felt she was up to the work, but as for the actual battles that might occur when things went too far-she wasn't so sure. In New York, of course, she could handle herself against anyone her size-some men included.
But the women on this plane were giants. Most of them were enormous Lesbians like the first girl she had seen. Arms like oak branches, faces as mean as the devil's legs like battering rams.
Which in itself wouldn't have frightened her; she'd handled plenty of big ones, too. Her fear was that of the unknown; she'd never fought a bull in New York, but had heard all the stories of how ferocious they were-how they would just as soon take a punch at an oncoming locomotive as at any poor female who tried to take away their girls. She'd heard of bulls who'd fought and whipped some cops that no male hood would dare speak to. Bulls who'd plunged knives, forks, fingernails into some of the most formidable faces in gangland.
That was in New York; East Coast bulls. Conchita's fear was that the West Coast variety might be even tougher. There was no way of telling, and she wasn't particularly anxious to find out through personal experience.
But it wasn't long before it had to happen that way.
It began when Conchita pushed her way through some of the workers in search of her crew leader. The foreman had told the new employees that the crew leaders would give them their specific work assignments and instructions. He told Conchita to find Elsie.
Conchita turned to the biggest bull of all, a woman with a small head and shoulders, but with breasts, arms and hips that echoed the enormity of the jet liner itself.
"Where's Elsie?" she asked.
The woman she asked was none other than Elsie, but she wasn't about to let on. Not when there was a chance for a little fun; an informal initiation rite.
"Whatcha want Elsie for?" Elsie said.
"I'm supposed to report to her. The crew leader."
"You mean a pretty little thing like you is gonna help us make airplanes?"
"Sure," Conchita smiled.
"Sure, huh? Look around you. You sure you wanna work with all these ugly creeps?"
"I don't see any ugly creeps," she replied. She thought it was the best thing to say.
"You don't? What do you see, gorgeous?"
"Look-where's Elsie?"
"Elsie ain't gonna help you till I tell her to. First you tell me what you think of this bunch."
"I don't know," she shrugged. "It's a good bunch, I guess. Just some women."
"No, sweetheart-it ain't just some women. It's a bunch of crazy, hungry fools, and they may decide to eat you up when you're least expecting that."
At that moment, someone grabbed her buttocks and squeezed so hard she almost cried. "Like this!" a voice shouted, but when Conchita wheeled around all the women were standing with their arms folded, their faces raised angelically. The work in this part of the plane had stopped. Everyone was looking.
The electricians nearby also stopped, and one of them, a husky male, waved his fist at the bulls. "Leave her alone!" he shouted. "Don't you ever get sick of yourselves?"
One of the bulls told him to shut up.
"No, I won't shut up," he yelled, turning red. "If you're not sick of it, I am! You filthy, disgusting freaks !"
The same bull smashed him in the mouth, and down he went, everything crashing and clattering around him as he hit the deck. He shook off the pain, bellowed a curse, and came up fighting. He landed a punch or two and received the same before both panel crew and electricians moved in to break it up, everyone whispering that Ratface would come in and they'd all lose then-jobs.
Ratface was the foreman.
"All right," Elsie shouted when the others had calmed down. "I don't know what everyone's getting so excited about. Maybe the girl likes what she's getting."
"I sure didn't like that pinch someone gave me," Conchita told her. "If anyone tries that again..
"Now, now, take it easy, honey. Don't make any threats you can't follow through on. And besides, we're not always that rough. Sometimes-if we like you we can be very kind and loving and gentle. But 111 tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna let you decide this whole thing for yourself."
"Decide what?"
"Look, baby-I'll ask the questions." She glanced at the others, then turned back to Conchita. "Did a certain interviewer named Jo send you here?"
Conchita hesitated, but could see no reason why she shouldn't admit it. "Yes, she did."
"There, you see now? She must have had some reason for doing that."
"What kind of reason?"
"I think you know what kind, lover. And 111 tell you something, Jo very rarely makes a mistake."
Conchita shrugged. She was trying to be calm and noncommittal. Actually she was scared to death, anxious, nervous. All she wanted right now was to get to work
-nice hard, honest work-so she could prove what a good worker she was and keep her job and make lots of money. She hated the group for putting her in this precarious situation. What if Ratface walked in? She would be out on her rear. And if that happened, she would go right to Jo and knock her teeth out for setting this up in the first place.
"Okay," Elsie said. "I'm gonna pop the question." She paused dramatically until she had everyone's attention. "Are you one of them-"
She gestured to the group of electricians nearby. Men and women with kind, intelligent faces, some of them extremely handsome. A good bunch.
"Or are you one of us?" Elsie concluded.
She didn't have to gesture. "Us" referred to the panel crew and its team of bulls. But as Conchita glanced down the line of crew members, she noticed for the first time that they were not all bulls, although they were one of a kind and stuck together accordingly. Some of them, however, three out of the seven, were slim, feminine women like herself. The girl friends. A redhead, a blonde, and two brunettes. Pretty, cat-like yes, voluptuous lips, firm, upright breasts, tiny waists, and round, shapely buttocks. One of them-shorter than the others-bore a slight resemblance to Toni. All of them looked capable of the same tender, blissful love that Toni had given her.
It would not have been too hard for Conchita to say yes, I am one of these three women, very much like them-and with that slight exaggeration to have the torturous ceremony over with.
But Elsie was not referring to these three alone. It was very clear what she meant, and Conchita could not force herself to sell her soul and her body on the spot for the sake of job security.
"Well?" Elsie demanded. "Make up your mind! One of them, or one of us?"
Conchita moved her lips helplessly. She raised her palms, begging mercy.
"Answer!" Elsie shouted.
"I can't!" Conchita cried. "I'm not going to make any stupid choice like this! All I want is to go to work! Why can't you leave me alone and let me work?"
The electricians murmured their sympathy. One of the pretty crew members took a timid step toward Elsie, but was afraid to do any more. No one wanted to start another dangerous outbreak.
Elsie looked her over, sneered, and winked at the others. "Well," she said. "Tell you what. Maybe we're rushing things a little. Maybe you need a little time to think and make your decision. And since you're so anxious to get to work-well, there's always plenty of work to be done around here."
Conchita held back her sigh of relief. She smelled something rotten.
Elsie turned to one of the other bulls. "How long's it been since the hold was cleaned out?"
"Hey," the bull said, "now that is one hell of an idea!"
There was mixed reaction. The bulls laughed. Their girl friends shook their heads, but said nothing. The electricians moaned and said things like "poor kid," then started back to their work.
Conchita knew she was about to clean out the hold, whatever that meant.
"I'll take her down," Elsie said. "The rest of you get back to those panels. They'll be raising this baby for the wings in a few hours."
Slowly, the others picked up their tools and returned to their jobs. Elsie waited until the noise of the drills, the shoving, pushing, shouting and cursing was up to normal; then she took Conchita's arm and led her down the gangplank.
Conchita pulled her arm free. "I don't care if you're taking me to hell," she said. "I don't have to be dragged."
Elsie frowned. "Suit yourself, baby. Maybe you won't be so tough in a couple of hours."
"What's this hold business anyway?"
"Right there, sweetness," Elsie said, and pointed to the black, gaping entrance of the luggage hold-the dark bowels of the plane.
"What do I have to do?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Let's get you the equipment first."
They walked toward the stock bins. Against a wall were two machines on wheels. One was a giant vacuum cleaner and the other a compressed air pump. Both had hoses about forty feet long, wrapped around in coils.
Elsie took the air pump and had Conchita wheel the heavier machine back to the luggage hold. Ratface the foreman was there.
"What's goin' on?" he asked.
"Nothin'," Elsie said. "I'm just gonna have her clean out the hold."
Conchita tensed up. She didn't know if the foreman would fire her on the spot or fire Elsie for assigning anyone this inhuman task.
But the foreman didn't seem too upset. He looked at Conchita. "Is this a punishment or just one of your initiations?" he asked Elsie.
"Neither. It's gotta be done, don't it?"
'It's a man's job, Elsie. One of the kids over at upholstery can do it."
"Look-we're crowded as hell on the plane. You want her to just stand around? You know my girls can do twice the work of any man."
"Oh-is she one of your girls?"
"Damn right," Elsie said, warning Conchita with a glance not to say a word.
"In that case she can do that every damn day for all I care," he said, and walked away.
"Damn you!" Conchita swore at Elsie. "You got me in bad with the boss now!"
Elsie scoffed. "You'll soon learn that I'm the only boss you got to worry about. He don't mean nothin'. I run my own show, and I run it good, that's all he cares about. And you're also gonna learn that you don't open your mouth to me. Not until I've had that mouth where I want it."
"Why you...."
"Yes?" Elsie did something with her shoulders that made her look twice as big and mean. It was enough to make Conchita hold her tongue. She was also convinced that, indeed, Elsie was her boss, and until things really went too far, it was a matter of keeping cool or saying bye-bye to Bowden-along with the work and money she needed so badly.
So she said nothing as Elsie grinned and looked her over once more, and she followed quietly as Elsie wheeled the air pump up to the plane.
"This ain't such a bad job," Elsie told her. "Others have done it and lived to tell about it. It's just the attitude you take."
She peeked inside the hold and motioned Conchita next to her.
"See now, here's all you got to do. A lot of junk drops down here from tip above-nuts, screws, wire, dust, filings-and it's all got to be cleaned out. Every bit of it. So all you do is climb in with your little air hose and your vacuum, blow it loose, and suck it out. From here, up to the front there, then all the way back to the tail. Now that ain't so hard, is it?"
Conchita had to admit it didn't look so bad.
"That's right. Of course, your back may get a little uncomfortable layin' on all those ribs, but don't worry about it. Maybe we get someone to rub you down afterward. Would you like that?"
"I'll tell you afterward."
"Hey, now that's an improvement in attitude already. You sure you ain't one of us, honey?"
"I'm not sure of anything right now."
"Well, that's a start. So why don't you start on this little job right now. Here, I'll boost you up."
She put her hands on Conchita's hips and lifted her into the hold. Then grabbed a little more as Conchita kneeled forward.
"Cut that out!"
"Tch tch. Still so touchy." Her voice hardened. "All right, here's your two hoses." She handed them to her. "I'll plug the machines in. I suggest you start from the front and work back. And I suggest you work fast. I'll check back in a while, don't worry."
Conchita watched her put the plugs in and then reboard the plane. She was on her own now, and it wasn't so bad at all. What the devil, she was earning good money all the while. Why did everyone make such a fuss about this job in the hold?
She found out as soon as she started crawling toward the front.
The sharp, steel ribs on the floor were farthest apart in the middle; but as one got to the ends of the fuselage, they got closer together until one could hardly get his knees between them as he crawled.
And there was no other way of moving but to crawl. The hold was about four feet high in the middle, but it diminished to about one foot at either end.
Conchita had only progressed a few feet, but already she had to lie prone over the ribs and felt the first sharp bites of the steel edges against her flesh and bones. There was no way to relieve the pain but to move up a few inches and shift to another four or five points across the body. She realized that very soon she would run out of points to shift to; that soon, every inch of flesh would be bruised and sore, and that agonizing pain would result from moving or from lying still.
And yet, the pain from the steel ribs did not constitute the worst part of the job.
The worst part was the dust, the fiberglas dust and metal filings constantly blown up by the air hose. In the confined space, it was like a solid cloud of tear gas. The air hose kept blowing, churning it up; it got in Conchita's nose and mouth, her lungs; foul, dry, dusty particles making her cough; almost suffocating. It was whipped into her eyes, burning, irritating, piling up faster than the constant flow of tears could wash it away.
She tried holding the mouth of the vacuum hose by her face, but it didn't help. There was simply no fresh, clean air available. It was hot, stagnant air, and soon she began to sweat. The particles stuck to her flesh, dug into her pores like little ticks, biting, prickling, making her skin itch beyond endurance.
But Conchita endured it. She had the whole job ahead of her, and she wasn't going to give up before she started.
She wormed her way to the front of the hold, poked the air nozzle across the base of the first rib, and sucked the loosened debris into the vacuum hose. It seemed that no matter how many times the process was repeated, there was still some debris left behind the rib. But finally, nothing rattled or flew up under the sweep of the hose, and she moved on to the next rib.
An hour later, she was only halfway to the entrance at the middle. Three quarters of the job still to go.
"Hey! How's it goin' in there?" a voice called. Elsie's. She popped her head in. "How you doin'?"
Conchita tried to raise herself up so she could see her boss, but the pain in her ribs, knees and arms was so terrible now that she could scarcely have moved to meet her maker.
So she tried calling back. All that resulted was a racking cough that shook her whole body against the steel ribs and caused a new explosion of unbearable pain.
But once again she bore it. If this job was a test, an initiation, she wasn't going to fail it, no matter what. She could be as tough and tougher than any of them when it came to endurance. She hadn't grown up in Manhattan poverty for nothing.
And there was little else she could do but bear it, other than somehow crawl out and hand in her resignation. So she remained as she was-prone on her stomach, her legs toward the entrance-and continued to sweep the air and vacuum hoses back and forth.
She heard Elsie grunt and groan as she hoisted her huge body up to the entrance and clambered aboard.
"Hey you okay?" she called. She coughed from the dust and crawled closer.
Conchita struggled to push her voice through the dry clouds of fiberglas in her throat "I'm fine," she croaked. "Just fine. I thought this job was such a big deal. It's nothing."
"Yeah^ Well you ain't breakin' any speed records, baby What'samatter, muscles a little sore?"
Conchita tried to brave another wisecrack, but she went into a coughing fit instead and felt as though the last of her fighting spirit was being hacked away.
"Okay, sweetheart," Elsie said. "You had enough?"
Conchita could tell from the voice that Elsie was right behind her, but she still couldn't turn around to see. It meant too much squirming and shifting of weight; too much excruciating pain, too much effort. She didn't want Elsie to see her pass out or burst into tears.
"I said I'm okay," Conchita whispered. "If I'm going too slow, you'll just have to fire me. I'm doing the best I can."
"Now now, honey. Ain't no one gonna fire you. And you can stop actin' like you been sleepin' in the clover for the last hour. I know you're hurtin' pretty bad."
"All right, so you know. What am I supposed to do?"
Elsie's voice softened. "A chick that's got all that you got can do plenty. Why don't you just play ball? 111 take you out of this hell hole."
"What do you mean play ball?"
"Come on, baby, you know what I mean. Just pretend you like me, even if you don't. Be a little nicer to momma."
Conchita started to ask her exactly what that involved, when suddenly she got a very good idea.
Elsie had edged closer and had placed her big hands on Conchita's legs. Starting from the calves, she began to inch upward with greedy movements of her fingers. She could feel the sweet curves, the supple texture, through Conchita's tight slacks. As she reached the backs of the knees, she began to pant; her hands squeezed harder, moving higher, more and more.
Conchita was helpless. She couldn't scream. She couldn't turn around. She couldn't kick her legs. The pain of resisting would have been far worse than the simple disgust she felt at Elsie's touch. She lay still, but she wasn't about to give Elsie the satisfaction of thinking she enjoyed her attentions.
"You pig!" she gasped. "You filthy pig!"
Elsie ignored her. "Be nice to momma," she panted. "So nice. Oh, baby, what I'd like to do for you...."
The hands moved, kneading the muscles of the legs, working, more frantic in their movements.
"I'm warning you!" Conchita said. "Cut that out!"
"Can't stop, honey. Never stop...."
"I'll kill you, Elsie! You go any farther and I'll kill you!"
"Big talk from such a sweet, luscious little girl," Elsie said, and moved her hands up to the smooth, tender buttocks rising like twin hills. She began to work the flesh hard, digging her fingers, rolling, clutching.
At the same time she was grinding Conchita against the steel rib beneath her.
"You're hurting me!" Conchita cried. "I can't stand that! Stop!"
"Too late, lover. I never had anythin' like this before, I ain't about to stop now...."
Her fingers circled, approached the legs again, and suddenly, rushed madly, roughly to their goal....
So that, finally, the pain and humiliation of what Elsie was doing outweighed the pain involved to stop her. With a cry of double agony, Conchita raised herself up, twisted her body around, and slashed her fingernails across Elsie's jowls. The blood seeped out from three furrows.
Elsie gasped. She fell back, poised herself for battle, then altered her plans. Slowly, she wiped the blood away and twisted her features into a terrible scowl. "Okay," she said. "You stay in the hold the rest of the night. And then, right after work, you and me are gonna have us a little rumble-unless you never want to show your face around here again."
"I'll fight you any time and anywhere you want, witch!"
Elsie grinned. "Say your prayers, sweetheart. I'm gonna rip your heart out."
She crawled back to the entrance. Two other bulls, who had witnessed the challenge, helped her out.
CHAPTER FIVE
Conchita had worked her way to the middle of the fuselage when the lunch whistle sounded. She jumped out of the entrance, picked up her lunch bag where she had left it, and hurried to the nearest cafeteria. As she ran, she had some idea of what soldiers felt like when they'd been blasted by shrapnel. But she no longer cared about the pain. Her fighting spirit was up. The spirit of Las Halcones. Her only wish was that the work night would be over in a hurry, so she could be at it.
In the meantime, she wanted to avoid the enemy. She knew that one more word from Elsie and she would lose control. There was still a chance that she could salvage something out of this job; no sense losing it the first night for fighting on the premises.
She bought some coffee in the cafeteria and sat down by herself at a table. In a few minutes she was joined by an older, gray-haired woman. She recognized her as one of the electricians. "Hi," she said. "I'm Sally."
"Hi."
"I, uh, heard about the fight coming up."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, Elsie's been shouting about it like the bull elephant she is. All morning. Everyone knows except Ratface, of course."
"I don't care. I'm just anxious to get started."
Sally shook her head. "If I were yon, honey, I'd forget all about it and put in for a transfer. Or get out of here altogether. There's plenty of jobs around."
"I want to work here."
"I'm telling you, that's a bad bunch. They're not only in this section, you know. All over the plant. They'll hound you everywhere. It's awful. Sometimes I think they're taking over the world."
"Well they're not going to take me over."
"You're a brave gal. I wish you luck-and believe me, you'll need it. I'd say Elsie is about the toughest number in this whole factory-men included. She's a terror, kid. Really. Strong and mean. You wouldn't believe how strong and mean. I remember one time-"
"Please. I don't care. I'm not afraid."
"Honey, I don't mean to frighten you. I'm just plain worried. You know where the fights going to be?"
"No, where?"
"On the beach. They'll make you go to their beach with them if you want to fight. Their private little stretch of beach-a ten minute walk from here. That's where they all go every morning. Hundreds of 'em, from all over the area. It's one big pack. Terrible. Elsie is bad enough by herself, but you're gonna fight her in front of hundreds of her buddies. They'll be screaming behind you. Screaming for your blood."
Conchita was fast losing her appetite. She pushed her food to one side. "Sally, I appreciate the warning, but let me tell you something. I grew up fighting. I've heard thousands of voices screaming for my blood. And I've learned one thing. Honor is more important than life itself. The worst she can do is kill me, and if she does, at least my spirit will soar up proudly. Now please-I don't want to hear any more about what will happen. Whatever happens, happens, that's all."
Sally touched her hand. "Then once more, good luck."
Conchita nodded her thanks and tried to eat some more food. "Incidentally," she said a while later, "where is the bunch now? I don't see any of them here."
"No, they all go to another cafeteria. I'm telling you, they stick together. I guess you won't see them this afternoon, either. I mean, you'll be in the hold the rest of the night, won't you?"
"Yes."
"Real bad in there?"
"Yes."
"I know. Even with the filter mask and bottom board, you still get sore. And of course, the dust gets all over your-"
"Wait a minute. What did you just say? The filter what?"
"The filter mask and bottom board. Oh no, don't tell me!"
"I don't know what you're talking about. All I had was myself and the two hoses."
"You poor son of a gun. She really gave it to you. Listen kid, you're supposed to have this face mask in there so you can breathe and see. No wonder your eyes are all red. And don't you know there's a board that fits across those ribs? Don't tell me you let yourself get all chopped up!"
Conchita slammed her fist on the table and stood up. "I'm gonna kill her! Right now!"
Sally grabbed her arm and eased her back into the seat "Don't be a fool. You'll ruin it for all of us. Ratface said one more fight and we're all done for. Easy, kid, easy. You'll get your chance soon enough."
"You bet I will!"
"That's right. In the meantime. I'll get you the board and the mask for the afternoon. Don't worry, I can sneak it in. At least you'll get some rest and relief. You'll need it."
Conchita nodded. "Yeah, thanks, Sally."
"It's okay."
Conchita got plenty of rest. She finished the job in two hours, slept on the board for another hour, and just relaxed until the morning whistle. No one bothered her.
The bulls and their girls were waiting when she climbed out of the hold. They motioned for her to follow them as they went through the process of checking out punching the time clock. Then they marched out of the building single file and regrouped on the sidewalk.
Elsie came up to her. She looked even meaner in the gray morning light.
"You still wanna go with me, baby?"
"Yes, I think so," Conchita replied, and called her the filthiest name she could think of.
"Okay!" Elsie roared. She wheeled around and marched down the sidewalk, westward, toward the Pacific Ocean. The others marched alongside or directly behind her. Conchita followed.
As they passed each factory gate they were joined by more bulls, more of their girls, until the total number reached about fifty. The word of the fight was passed along. The code here was as tight as that of Las Halcones. No one spoke a word to Conchita. They hardly looked at her.
The gray sky turned stark white with streaks of pink and blue rising on the eastern horizon. The pack cut over to Venice Boulevard, walked clown the last block-a decrepit, decaying slum-and came out on Venice-Playa del Rey Beach.
As Sally had warned, there were close to fifty more women there already. No men. Some of them were swimming. Of these, only a few wore bathing suits. The rest were naked.
There was a lot of shouting and fooling around as one group marched across the white sand to meet the other. But word of the fight quieted things down. It was like a ritual. Gradually, an enormous circle began to form.
Someone pushed Conchita into it. She looked around, then walked to the center. A moment later Elsie came in and walked up to her.
There was a deadly silence. Only the persistent whoosh of the surf sounded.
Elsie's eyes were like two steel pinballs. She glared down at Conchita.
"You got a knife on you?"
"Yes."
"No knives. You ever pull a knife here and a hundred broads will cut your throat with it. Throw it away."
Conchita reached in her pocket and took out the kind of pushbutton she'd carried with her since she was twelve. "How do I know you don't have one?"
Elsie gestured around the circle. "Looks like you'll just have to take my word for it."
"Throw it here," one of the bulls shouted. "If you live through this I'll give it back to you."
Conchita tossed it to her. She glanced around the circle of hostile faces. It had never been like this before. She had never been so alone. A few of the women were murmuring, complaining that it would be a short fight, one or two minutes before Elsie destroyed her.
Conchita was scared, more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She asked herself how she got into this mess; why it was that little Conchita Perez was in such a mess on both coasts of the United States of America.
There was no clear answer. And there was no turning back. Conchita, she told herself, you are a Hawk. A killer Hawk. You are afraid of nothing or no one. You will kill or be killed to protect your honor.
It helped a little, and she turned to face her opponent. She only wished she were wearing the black jacket of Las Halcones. She felt terribly vulnerable in just her jersey and slacks. But Elsie was also wearing slacks. Slacks and a white blouse. So they were equal in one department-the only one. Elsie puffed herself up to look nine feet tall.
Then she crouched. "Okay," she snarled. "Let's go!"
Conchita took a deep breath, swallowed some of her fears, and crouched opposite her. They circled around like wrestlers for a moment. Then Conchita put the number one rule of the Hawks into effect.
She hit first.
A sweeping right to the face, fast and furious. As soon as she felt cheek against her knuckles, she followed with a swift right knee which thumped hard against bone.
The crowd screamed. Elsie staggered back, wind-milling her arms. Conchita tasted quick victory. She ran in for the kill.
But she was overanxious. She came in too fast to see that Elsie had recovered her balance and was winding up.
Elsie stopped her dead with a short, open-fist left, shifted her weight, and let loose with a roundhouse right that cracked against Conchita's head with the sound of an oak mast going down in a tornado.
Conchita's feet left the ground. Almost like in a cartoon, she sailed to the right and landed flat on her right side. The soft sand was a lot better to fall on than a New York sidewalk-but she had rarely felt such pain racking her skull from a single blow. If it had landed closer to the temple she knew she would have been dead.
Now-she was just stunned. She shook her vision back into focus in time to see Elsie taking a flying leap at her. Her only hope was another trick learned in the Hawks.
All in an instant, she faked to the left, then squirmed away to the right. It was enough to throw off Elsie's aim so that she landed on nothing and came up with a mouthful of sand.
That was when Conchita had a chance to catch her off guard. Lightning fast, she leaned back on her palms, coiled her right foot, and let it fly with all her strength directly at Elsie's face.
Conchita was wearing flats with leather heels. The right heel landed squarely between Elsie's nose and mouth, causing a rush of blood from each.
Elsie screamed and reared back. Conchita let her have it again. Another scream, like at the end of the world. Conchita coiled her leg for the third time and let go, positive that this would be the finisher. The noise of the crowd was deafening. Let them cheer against her-she was ready to take on every one of the hundred.
The trouble was, she hadn't calculated the strength and endurance of her present opponent.
Elsie was the kind of superwoman who would go on fighting with her head cut off. The two crushing blows to her mouth would have stopped a wild boar. But not Elsie. Elsie took her mashed lip and nose in stride. The third time Conchita lashed out with her foot, Elsie caught it. She caught it around the ankle, and that was very bad for Conchita.
Elsie locked her fingers around it as tight as a bear trap. She stood up, still holding on. Conchita kicked and squirmed, but there was no way to get free. Elsie twisted her foot until she had to turn over on her front. The next thing she knew, she was being dragged across the sand. Elsie was running backward. Conchita's face became a plow. The sand rushed into her eyes, mouth and nose. She tried to keep her hands over her face, but it was terribly hard. Elsie had both ankles. She was running so fast. Where? Where was she running? She could hear the crowd running along, the screams ... where were they going?
Suddenly she knew. The sand became cooler. Then moist. Then like wet sandpaper, grinding away at her flesh. The noise of the surf grew louder, louder, drowning out all other sound, all thoughts but one:
This was death. Elsie was going to drown her.
Death, murder, the end of life, the triumph of honor.
Death.
She no longer cared. The pain was too great. The fear. The loneliness. The hardship. She welcomed the first rush of salty foam as it slammed against her chin and rolled under her face, then slid back to the sea.
She had one more breath left. She breathed it in and prepared herself to die, when suddenly she felt her legs drop free.
Before she could do anything about this strange, miraculous turn of events, another rush of foam-this one farther out and stronger-carried her several yards back to the shore.
She'd been given another chance. She scrambled to her feet and turned around. It only took one glance to understand what had happened.
Elsie was staggering and waving her arms once more to keep her balance. But this time she was covered with blood, from her nose down to her middle. Her eyes were rolling skyward.
Elsie was superhuman in strength and endurance, but only human in the functioning of her circulatory system.
Conchita had opened two large gashes, in Elsie's nose and her upper lip. When Elsie ran her frantic hundred yards in reverse, the blood had pumped that much harder. And gushed out.
And finally, the wounds had taken their toll. When the first rush of water hit Elsie's ankles, she had all she could do to remain standing. That was when she let go of Conchita.
And now, dizzy, weak, forced backward by the undertow, she was no match for the next big wave. It flattened her.
Conchita watched as a dozen women ran in and dragged her out. They laid her on the wet sand, tilted her head back, and soon stopped the flow of blood. She was moving slightly. Someone announced that she would be all right.
And a moment later, an enormous cheer went up.
Conchita held her temples. The pain was still throbbing in her head as though Elsie were still punching.
She started to walk away from the crowd. It was hard to walk straight. The horizon kept tilting back and forth.
Another cheer went up. Were they so happy that Elsie had survived?
She fell to her knees. She tried to get up. She called on all her strength, but there was none left.
Until someone else's strength helped her. Two warm hands under her arms. She turned around. A lithe redhead with the most gorgeous emerald eyes she'd ever seen was holding her up. The redhead smiled. Her lips were full and voluptuous.
The crowd kept cheering.
"Why. ." Conchita gasped. "Why ... they shouting so loud?"
"They're cheering for you," the redhead replied.
"For me?" Conchita cried, and passed out.
CHAPTER SIX
Conchita had some strange dreams while she was out, but none of them so unlikely as what she saw upon waking.
She was in a plush bedroom overlooking the sea through a wall of plate glass. The walls on either side of her were deep blue, with a texture so rich they looked quilted.
She was in a huge bed, with perfume-scented sheets and a silk comforter enveloping her. She was in her bra and panties.
She looked at the sunlight glistening on the water, shooting flecks of golden light up to the ceiling. Her eyes traveled around the room, to the modern paintings, the expensive furniture, her own slacks and jersey folded neatly on a chair, and to the tall white door with the brass-ring doorknob, which now opened.
The redhead walked in. She was wearing a fluffy, light blue robe.
"Hey-you're awake!" she laughed. "I'd given you up for dead."
Conchita raised herself and shook her head back and forth. She blinked her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Is that all you want to know?" The redhead smiled. She sat on the edge of the bed and puffed Conchita's pillow up behind her. "Don't you want to know where you are and who I am?"
Conchita still felt a little groggy. Her head hurt.
She let the redhead ease her back on the pillow. "You're the woman at the beach," she said. "The one that helped me up."
"That's me, all right. Thank goodness you didn't lose your memory. That punch Elsie gave you was enough to make an elephant forget."
"Oh," Conchita groaned. "Don't remind me."
"Well, it's all over now. You were magnificent Just unbelievable. Do you know that no one else has ever beaten her? And that includes some pretty rough characters."
Conchita shrugged. "I was lucky."
"You were beautiful. And you're a very beautiful woman besides. I've never known a pretty one who could stand up to a bull."
Conchita smiled. She couldn't help feeling proud about that. She'd beaten a bull. One of those fearsome amazons who killed cops and stabbed gangsters.
"My name's Audrey," the redhead told her. "Audrey Nolan. This is my house, as you might have guessed. We're about ten miles north of Venice Beach-where the fight was."
"You drove me up here and carried me in?"
"With the help of my roommate, Lee."
"Oh ... where's Lee now?"
"She's back at the beach. She can't stay away from the pack. But I sure can, if I've got something worth staying away for."
Conchita gave her a suspicious look. "Are you a Lesbian like the rest of them?"
Audrey smiled. "That's a terribly blunt question, and I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me."
"Then you are."
"Conchita, that's your real name, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Do you mind if I call you Connie? I'm crazy about that name."
"No, I don't mind."
"Okay, Connie. Now where was I?"
"You were perverted."
"Oh yes," she laughed. "So I was. Well listen, Connie, there's a little bit of gaiety in all of us. Some people fight that. I don't. So there's your answer as far as I'm concerned. But the question of the week involves a dark tantalizing stranger named Connie. No one can blame you for hating Elsie and most of them. But what about the rest of the pack? Are you with us or against us?"
"Everyone keeps asking me that question," Conchita said. "That's what started the whole fight. I don't know what I am. I don't know whether I'm straight or nuts or what. If I see someone or something that excites me, 111 go with that, and I don't care if that's a man, woman or a steam engine."
Audrey smiled and leaned closer. The lapels of her robe fell away and revealed her naked breasts, not especially large, but beautifully tapered to the red tips. Two smooth, rounded cones.
She opened her emerald eyes wide. "Do you find me a little more exciting than a steam engine?" she smiled.
Conchita was nervous about those eyes. They were drawing her in, hypnotically; drawing her to the voluptuous mouth that smiled at her.
"Yes," she heard herself whisper. "You do excite me."
"Connie...." she sighed, and started to come at her, lips parted slightly.
But Conchita held her off. "Wait a minute," she said. "Just take things easy."
"But you said...."
"I didn't say you could excite me for one minute and then grab me."
"Don't you believe in love at first sight?"
"Sometimes. But I haven't even gotten a good look at you."
"Well now," Audrey said, "that's easily remedied, isn't that?" She stood up, flicked the lapels of her robe apart and off her shoulders, and let the garment slide down her naked body to the floor.
Conchita's temperature rose. The woman was beautiful, her slender, sloping curves enhanced by the smoothest flesh imaginable. Those proud breasts, tipped with sharp rubies; the tender rise of hips, the rest.
"There," Audrey said. "Now you've seen more than enough to fall in love, haven't you?"
"That's not what I meant," Conchita said weakly.
"Don't you like me?"
"You know I do."
"Then darling," she said, sitting on the bed again, "What are we waiting for?"
Conchita forced herself to look away. "We're waiting for me," she said. "I'm not ready yet."
"Perhaps I can do something about that, too," Audrey said, and she slid her hands under the covers and put them around Conchita's waist. Warm, knowing hands, sliding, awakening the flesh.
Conchita caught them and squeezed them affectionately, but at the same time prevented them from going any farther.
"You're being cruel," Conchita said.
"Am I? I don't mean to be. I want to make you happy."
"Then please-slow down. I want to know you better. I want to know what's going on here in the first place. Why you took me home with you and who this roommate of yours is. Why she's not here and what she would say if she were."
"Now, Connie."
"I still don't even know what time it is!" Conchita cried, getting really upset now. "Maybe I should be getting home and I have to go to work tonight! And I'm still so bruised and sore and my head hurts-and you want me to love after three minutes like some pig who can't wait even if she's dead!"
"Connie!"
"I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel."
"Oh baby, baby," Audrey sighed, taking her hands away. I'm the one who's sorry. Oh, what a pig I was being! Please, Connie-please forgive me. You're absolutely right. I just completely forgot the whole situation. Do you forgive me?"
Conchita looked at her. "Of course I forgive you, as long as you understand. I almost forgot the whole situation, too. But that would have been bad. No good. I would have been very sorry."
Audrey was off the bed, putting the robe back on. "Yes, and do you know something? Instead of being disappointed, I'm twice as crazy about you as I was before-even though you are a sight," she added with a smile.
"Me a sight? What do you mean?"
"Take a look at your knees and elbows and ribs." Conchita threw the covers aside and did so. "Oh! It's awful!"
"You can't climb over steel ribs all rright and get dragged through the sand without a few bruises. Your face is pretty scraped up, too."
"Oh dear, is it?" Conchita cried, trying to feel the wounds with her fingers. Audrey brought her a hand mirror and she cried out again.
"Oh, it's not that bad," Audrey said. "The beauty still shows through. I fell in love with you, didn't I?"
Conchita smiled.
"You'll be all right in a few days," Audrey said. "I bathed all the wounds this morning so there won't be any infection."
"You did?"
"Oh yes, I was very busy. You were covered with sand and dust, metal filings-everything. But you were my heroine, and my discerning eye could see the princess beneath the chimney sweep's disguise. So I took you home, gave you a sponge bath-the works."
"And I was out cold all this time?"
"Oh, you stirred and mumbled once in a while, but, yes, you were pretty cold."
"Maybe I have brain damage or something."
"No, you're all right."
"How do you know?"
"I should know--I'm not head nurse at Elberoo Hospital for nothing."
"You? A nurse?"
"Head nurse. Quite a difference, especially in pay." Conchita laughed. "What's so funny?"
"Those poor female patients in the hospital. Especially the pretty ones."
Audrey shook her head. "Uh-uh. I never mix business with pleasure. And I'll prove that to you."
"How?"
"Well, what you really need now is another sponge bath and a rubdown with some ointment, otherwise you'll be too stiff to move tonight. So if you'll take off your underwear and let me do the job, you'll see how terribly professional I can be."
"I don't know...."
"Oh, come on. You can tell me to stop any time you want. And if I don't, you can give me one of those kicks you gave Elsie-and you know I don't want that."
"How is Elsie, by the way?"
"I'll answer all the questions you've asked me while I'm rubbing you down. I'll even tell you what time it is. How about that?"
"Well, okay. That might be nice."
"Oh, you'll love that. You'll want that to go on forever."
That's what I'm afraid of, Conchita thought as Audrey went to get the materials. But nevertheless, she removed her bra and panties and carried them to the chair with the rest of her clothes. Her head ached while she was standing. She climbed back in bed and pulled the covers up. Audrey returned with bowl, sponge and ointment.
"Are you sure about my head being okay?" Conchita asked.
"Does it throb or just ache?"
"Aches."
"Are you dizzy? Nauseous? Weak? Eyes going blurry now and then?"
"No, nothing like that."
"Then I'm sure you're all right. The bump is on a nice fat part of your skull. But 111 tell you what. If it still aches as bad tomorrow, we'll have some X-rays done."
"We will?"
"Connie, whether you like this or not, I've assigned myself to look after you. At least for a little while. You don't mind having a new friend, do you?"
"No," Conchita smiled. "Not a bit."
"Okay," Audrey said, "that's settled, then." She pulled a chair up to the bed and flicked the covers back without batting an eyelash. Conchita watched her face carefully, and was amazed that Audrey could, indeed, switch to such a professional attitude. She stretched out and relaxed. The first touch of the warm sponge on her flesh was heaven.
If she had seen what was going on behind the professional facade, however, she might have been a little more nervous. Audrey's lust was raising the devil, swirling in her, reaching out for those caramel-tipped mountains of flesh, those slender, shapely legs.
But she kept her lust in check, telling herself later, just a little while longer. Audrey was an old hand at these matters. She knew how to play her cards.
She sponged Conchita's forehead, then gently patted the bruised cheeks.
"You know," she said, "speaking of friends, do you realize you've got about a hundred new ones as a result of this morning?"
"I do?"
"Yes indeed. Don't you remember how they were cheering for you?"
"Hey-that's right, but I don't really understand."
"Then let me explain. It's a tight pack. We stick together and we look out for one another, otherwise we'd be shot down every step of the way. We've also got rules, codes, like any organization. Rituals. Some of them are silly, or cruel and savage-like this morning's. The ritual of the challenge and the fight. "It's just like a herd of wild horses. You beat one of the leaders. 11 won't say it exactly made you a leader yourself-that's determined by other things, such as positions at work. But it did make you one of us. You've gained everyone's respect. And friendship."
"But...."
"But suppose you don't want to be one of us?"
"Yes."
She shrugged. "Then I guess you don't have to be. But I'll tell you something-it would sure help you at the factory. And in a lot of other places around here. You could make it awfully hard on yourself or pretty damn easy. How do you think I got to be head nurse at such a tender age? Oh, I was qualified, all right, but so were a lot of other women-with seniority. It helps, Connie, believe me."
"I see. And what does one have to give in return?"
"Nothing-at least not what you're thinking. You don't have to make out with all the bulls or with anyone, for that matter. Not after the way you've proved yourself. You're valuable to the pack for reasons other than these." She tapped Conchita's breasts with the sponge, resisting once more the desire to pounce on them with her lips.
Conchita got a kick out of the casual touch, an interesting little pleasure. But right now, she was more interested in the subject at hand.
"Why am I valuable to them?" she asked.
"Because you're tough. Your only obligation to the pack is to look out for fellow members. If they're in trouble-a fight, say-you've got to help."
"Are there many fights?"
"No, not many. At least they usually don't involve more than two people. There are some other codes, though. For instance, doing something at work that would endanger the jobs of fellow members. Something big, I mean, like if Elsie had started an all-out rumble with the electricians. That would be very bad."
"What would happen?"
"No telling. The pack can be pretty ruthless at times."
"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that. I'm not a troublemaker."
"Do I take that to mean you've decided to be one of us?"
Conchita looked at her. "I don't know. It sounds like a good thing in a way. Almost like a group I belonged to in New York."
"Yes, I heard you were from New York. What kind of group was it?"
"Not exactly like this one."
"Was it a gang?"
"Well. " Conchita remembered her vow to be discreet about the past.
"How exciting!" Audrey said. "A real New York street gang! Tell me about it. Is that where you learned to fight?"
She saw no harm in admitting it, and did so. But she quickly worked back to the subject of the Venice Beach pack.
"Tell me," she said. "How perverted does one have to be in this group of yours?"
"I told you, it depends on your value, your place, in the group. I mean, if you're married to one of them, then you'd better be faithful."
"But what about me? Suppose I wanted to go out with a man-and no one else."
Audrey frowned. She didn't want to, but couldn't help it. "Well," she said, "then you'd have a choice. You could just quit us and give up all the benefits of friendship and belonging-or you could stay in, and we'd continue to look out for you."
"How so?"
"You know, you could have your man, do anything you want, even marry him. But if you ever came to us and said he was treating you bad, we'd kill him. Simple as that. Of course, you'd still have to help any of us whenever you could."
Conchita was a little frightened by the hard gaze. "And what about you yourself, Audrey?"
"What about me?"
"Are you completely ... I mean, do you ever go out with men?"
Audrey hesitated a moment, then slowly shook her head. "No," she said softly. "Never. I rather hate them."
"I see. And what about your roommate-what's her name?"
"Lee."
"Yes, Lee. Is she the same way?"
"She hates them worse than I do. She's capable of an amazing amount of hate." Audrey cursed herself for letting that slip. It was the wrong remark to make to one's new lover.
Conchita picked it up. "Then you two-you must be like husband and wife here. And I'll bet Lee hates me already."
"No," Audry said quickly. "That's not true at all.
She has no grounds to hate you." Audrey was covering up now. The remark was the first major lie to Conchita. "We're like landlord and tenant here, not husband and wife If she was so crazy about me, why would she be down at the beach now?"
It was another distortion. Audrey didn't reveal that she had ordered her small, blonde mistress to get out of the house for the afternoon. The details of the living arrangement that she now gave Conchita, however, were true.
"This place rents for three hundred a month," Audrey told her. "Lee pays me a hundred a month for her room and house privileges, and that's it. That's our relationship."
"Come on, I'm not that stupid."
"Oh, we fool around a little, sure. But, you know, nothing serious. She's flipped over one of the bulls."
It was the last lie Audrey had to tell. The rest of Conchita's questions she could answer truthfully.
"Where does Lee work?"
"At the factory. You may have seen her. She's in riveting, right behind you."
Conchita thought of Mike Ross again, but only for an instant. "Isn't that a terribly hard job?"
"Well, she doesn't do the actual riveting. She's an inspector there. Worked her way up. She goes around with a little board and checks for quality. Very easy position. The pack helped her get it, of course."
Conchita smiled. "Of course."
"Any more questions?" Audrey said after a moment
"Yes-what time is it?"
"Oh! I'm sorry...." She picked her wrist watch up from behind the bed lamp. "Five-thirty. You've had a fall day's rest."
"Yes, and I'd better get home soon. I'll have to change and everything before I get back to work."
"Oh, you have loads of time. At least let me finish the treatment. And if you're a little late, one of the girls will cover for you. They have a system with the time cards. Of course, you shouldn't even be going to work for a few days. You'll be sore for a month."
"I know I shouldn't," Conchita said, "but I have to."
"Why?"
"I need the money."
"No one needs money that badly."
"I do, believe me. All I have is a few dollars that I have to pay back to someone this week. And then I have to start looking for a new place to live. My apartment is just temporary."
Audrey's lust took a new leap. She was sponging Conchita's middle. A vision of that smooth, delicious middle next to her every morning came in loud and clear. She decided to make the obvious proposition without delay.
"Listen, Connie. You're short of money and you need a place to stay, right?"
"Right."
"Well I have all the money I need right now, and a five-room house with only two people in it. Need I say more?"
Conchita looked at her. "I think you'd better."
"All right, I'll spell that out. I want you to live here with me."
"Now wait a minute."
"No, you wait a minute. We have two bedrooms, one of them with a single bed, and this one. You can stay in the other room and Lee can sleep in here with me, or any way you want to work that. 1 mean it-strictly for convenience. No one's going to force you to do anything. You're too tough for that. As for the money, you can pay me when you have it-I don't care if it takes ten years."
"And what about Lee?"
"Will you stop worrying about her? She'll love the idea, since it will cut her rent in half. Fifty a month for her, fifty from you. Come on, how about it?"
"I don't know...."
"Look what a gorgeous place it is! Look at that view of the ocean. And there's a lovely living room, dining room, big, bright kitchen. It's a wonderful, happy place to live-among friends. Do you live alone now?"
"Very much so," she admitted.
"There, you see? You'll be lonely here, or depressed. Never!"
"It does sound beautiful, the way you put it."
"Well that's the way it is."
"I'll tell you what. Give me a little time to think about it. Two big decisions in one clay is too hard."
"Two decisions?"
"Yes. I've already decided to belong to the pack."
"Wonderful! What made you decide?"
"Everything, I guess. Mostly that I'm new out here. I need friends."
"Well then you've made a very wise choice. And I want to be your best friend of all. I'll let you think it over about living here if you promise to come visit me every day. I can meet you at the beach right after work and whisk you away from all those nasty girls. How about it?"
"Well.
"It's for your health," Audrey smiled. "One must keep in touch with one's nurse."
The emerald eyes sparkled as warm and inviting as the coral seas.
Conchita squeezed her hand. "Okay," she said, "It's a deal."
"That's my girl!" Audrey cried. "Just for_ that, I'm going to make you feel like a million dollars in ten minutes. You get the deluxe rubdown."
Conchita smiled agreeably and stretched her naked body out at Audrey's disposal. Audrey still had that professional look about her, and Conchita felt comfortable and secure. But at the same time, she was hoping that the rubdown would not be one hundred per cent medicinal. She was ready to accept just a little bit of sensual pleasure along with that.
Audrey finished the sponging with two firm strokes down her legs. Then she set the sponge and washbowl aside, picked up the tube of ointment, and spread some of the white cream on her palms.
Conchita closed her eyes.
Audrey rubbed the ointment into her neck and shoulder muscles. Cool, delicious, invigorating, it was as if new life were being worked into her weary flesh by the strong, magic fingers. Loving fingers.
"How's that?" Audrey whispered.
"Mm."
"Just relax, Connie, just relax...."
"So nice...."
"Of course this is."
The white cream dissolved. Audrey squeezed more onto her palms. She started at the throat now and worked down and outward, under the arms, the ribs, around to the front, and up, to the foot of the huge mountains.
Lightly, adoringly, her fingers climbed the soft, round slopes.
"Oh!" Conchita cried. "Shh ... relax, baby."
The fingers climbed, massaged, working love and thrills into the flesh and nearing the dark, massive peaks, then touching....
Audrey's professional facade crumbled. Her eyes opened wide. Her fingers trembled as they circled delicately around their prize. Her breath came short and hard.
But Conchita didn't notice. Her own breathing was like the roaring beat of the surf. Her breasts heaved up and down And then, with only a second's reservation, she arched her back and yielded them to their lover.
Audrey took what was offered. She took them with her hands, kneading, rolling, pulling upward, with the skill of a woman who knew what she herself would want done
"Oh," Conchita cried. "So good, harder!"
Audrey worked harder, and when the tips swelled and grew sharp and firm, she swooped down and drew them to her lips, lavishing them with caresses and gentle bites and warm love.
Conchita went wild. She knew that would happen. She'd known all the time, and she was glad. Blissful. Delirious. She sighed Audrey's name. She ran her fingers through the thick, red hair, pressing her head down, encouraging her to do more ... everything.
Audrey threw off her robe. Conchita's arms were around her at once, her nails digging at the smooth flesh of her back, down her sides, to her firm, round buttocks.
"Connie!" Audrey cried. "Baby!"
She pushed against her. Audrey grabbed Conchita's ears; she brought her face up, kissed her eyes, her cheeks, ran her mouth along the lips until they parted, and kissed brutally The point of no return, the rhythm of ultimate passion, had begun.
That spread to their hands, pulling, rubbing, massaging ... to their legs, jockeying for position, and finally to their bodies, working out a symphony of joy....
"Audrey!" Conchita screamed. "Oh! Oh, lover!"
Audrey gasped and panted and worked hard, just to keep up with her fierce, unleashed victim ... a labor of love ... mounting, swelling, rising to an incredible pressure bursting the very walls of their souls....
And then, the surge of pure ecstasy beyond which there is no more.
They exploded, locked in embrace, screaming endearments, then whispering, sighing, and finally only breathing the spent encores of rest and peace.
Audrey drove her home a while later. They parted with a warm kiss at the door to Conchita's apartment. Then Audrey floated down the stairs, running on clouds, and drove off.
She raced her big white convertible down Pico Boulevard, weaving in and out of traffic at sixty miles an hour, screeching to a halt at every light. The wind made a flaming torch of her hair. She turned the radio up full blast and laughed and sang along with it.
She hissed into her driveway, jumped out, and burst into the house.
Lee was waiting for her in the kitchen, a small, curvy blonde; hair in a pony tail and sun freckles on her cheeks, a tough, wiry little sprite. She was wearing skin-tight shorts and a white, sleeveless blouse open down the front. Nothing underneath, so that the cleavage of he: pert breasts made a sweet, rounded vee.
She had her hands on her hips, and a frown as exaggerated as a painted clown's.
Audrey put her hands on her own hips and squared off with her "Well?" she snapped. "What's your problem?"
"You!" Lee snapped back, but her voice was a little shaky. "Did you have a good time with your invalid?"
"You want the truth?"
"You're damn right I want the truth. I didn't hang around the beach all day for the sake of a fairy tale."
"All right, Lee. I dig her."
"I assume that, the way you kicked me out of the house What else?"
"We made out."
Lee hissed in a breath of air through her nostrils. "And where does that leave me, my dear lover?"
Audrey smiled. She was up to Lee's rage. She was so high up, that nothing in the world could bring her down.
"That leaves you second best, baby. That leaves you with fifty dollars less rent a month."
Lee clenched her fists. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that you can stay here if you want to, but that she's moving in-with me!"
"You filthy pig!" Lee screamed, and came at her with her nails flying.
Audrey put up her arms and caught part of the attack on her shoulder, but she countered with a ferocious crack on the face that sent Lee reeling across the room. Audrey ran after her, and with two more ruthless blows had her groveling on the floor.
"You fixed that for yourself!" Audrey shouted. "Now you can get the hell out!"
"No," Lee cried. "Please, Audrey! Please, 111 do my thing! Anything you want!"
"You have done anything I want," Audrey said. "And I'm tired of you. All I want now is for you to pack your things and get out."
Lee was silent a moment. She trembled. When she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears-and with vengeance.
"I'll get you for this," she sobbed. "And I'll get her too."
Audrey walked away from her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Conchita moved in two days later.
She wrote a letter to Frank at his real estate office, promising that she would pay all that she owed within two or three weeks, as it was possible. She did not tell him where she was moving; she had no desire to see him again. It seemed like such a long time ago that they'd had their brief affair, and yet it was only a few days. She could hardly even remember Pedro, except as a bad dream she'd had.
It was strange how a vast change in emotion could give the illusion of a vast change in time. For now that Conchita's emotions had veered toward the isle of Lesbos, all her dealings with men seemed like ancient history.
The change in emotion-her involvement with Audrey-was so strange as to blind her to reality in the present as well. Thus, when Audrey gave her a weak explanation as to Lee's absence, she accepted it without question.
Audrey told her that Lee had gone with her girl friend, had decided that her companionship was no longer needed by her roommate, and so had moved in with her, a mile or so below Venice Beach.
Actually, she hadn't the least idea where Lee had gone. She only knew that she'd left in a black rage and was still working in the riveting section at Bowden.
As for the rent, Conchita would only have to pay the fifty a month. Audrey was glad to take care of the rest. She would gladly have paid it all and then some for the joys of Conchita's naked body every morning, afternoon and evening.
Conchita lost herself in the sensual paradise of Audrey's expert loving. She forgot her worries, obligations, vows and inhibitions, and simply yielded herself to the floods of pleasure that were stimulated by her least suggestion.
Audrey was good. She was wonderful. A thousand times better than Toni, and so terribly beautiful. Conchita's legs would start trembling at a single flash of those green eyes, and then she would submit to the loving.
They went on like that for two weeks. Life was beautiful twenty-four hours a day. In the evening, after a day of sweet sleep in the big, luxurious bed or on the warm beach somewhere, they would love and then prepare a sumptuous meal for themselves. Audrey spent money like water, and Conchita soon found out where most of it came from. Audrey had a nice inheritance from her father. The interest alone was almost enough to sustain her.
After dinner, they would relax a while, gazing out at the sea, and finally, leaving for work.
Work was eight more hours of joy for Conchita. Now that she was in with the pack, they worked along with her and gave her every break she needed, although she was content simply to do her job without interference. She learned in a short time how to cut the fiberglas panels, drill the holes so they would match those in the steel ribs, fasten them temporarily, and then ream the screws in with the heavy power tool. She was good at it, as fast as those who'd been on the job five years. The foreman liked her. She got along with the electricians, although they recognized the thing that forbid intimacy.
She even got along with Elsie, whose split lip was just healing. Elsie was still resentful of Conchita's narrow victory, and every now and then looked at her as though she'd like to have another go at her. Nevertheless, she had to respect Conchita's working ability and Conchita's very special membership in the pack-as the wife of a long-standing member. And so they got along fairly well.
The others also respected her as Audrey's girl. They all knew she was living with her, and according to the code, that meant hands off.
Therefore her relationship to the pack was ideal.
After work, when they all congregated at Venice Beach, she had the joy and security of belonging-of having a hundred friends-without the fear of being mauled by the bulls or any others she disliked.
Audrey would meet her there, and they would swim nude by themselves or with a small group, the salt water making their flesh tingle, and then the secret caresses of each other's hands setting them on fire.
They would bask in the morning sun for a while, then go to a secluded beach or back home to love themselves into voluptuous slumber. And the cycle would begin anew.
On weekends they went for long rides up or down the coast. The warm winds rushing through the convertible, the sparkling sea below, and the dreamy music on the radio separated them from all cares. They sat close with their fingers intertwined between them and exchanged sweet nothings; then they would stop at some quaint hotel or secret cove and consummate their desires.
Conchita felt loved, wanted and needed. She all but forgot about New York and the friends she'd left behind She felt she could go on like this forever.
But as with all heavens on earth, the foundation rested on the flimsiest of clouds, and a storm was brewing all the while.
It broke the day after her second weekend with Audrey.
She was at work. It was two a.m., an hour after the lunch break. Conchita was measuring for the drill holes in a panel, the most tedious part of the job.
"Get your own damn bolts," someone behind her shouted. "I only got a few left."
"How the hell can I get 'em?" another woman yelled back. "I'm holdin' the damn panel up with one hand."
"Hey!" Elsie bellowed. "Someone get some more bolts!"
Conchita was glad to have a little break. "I'll get 'em," she said. She put her panel aside, picked up the large tin box in which they were stored, and carried it off the plane.
She wove her way through the labyrinth of stock bins until she came to the row where millions of screws, rivets, nuts and bolts were kept in open troughs.
The bins were divided into sections about ten feet long by eight feet high. Each was built like a section of library shelves.
On the top of two shelves of Conchita's section were stacked a variety of iron casings for electric motors. Most of these were about the size of a basketball, and weighed from thirty to fifty pounds. They were stored on open shelves, rather than in troughs.
Conchita began scooping the bolts into the tin box. The riveting section was just around the corner, and the hideous racket was almost unbearable. But she kept working, and soon the sound of screws dropping into the box combined with the other noise to make a rhythmic duet, suitable for daydreaming.
Suddenly, she had the feeling she was being watched. She moved her eyes slightly, just enough to glimpse a short figure in a neat gray work suit. She kepi working. The other kept watching.
Finally, she whirled around to see who it was.
A short, blonde woman carrying a clip board gave her the most hateful glare she'd ever received, then disappeared around the corner.
Conchita knew that woman. She'd seen her some place before ... on the beach, certainly, but there was something else something that would explain that hateful glance.
She tried to remember. It was so hard to think next to those rivet guns. And there was a funny, scraping noise coming from the other side of the bins.
She was about to go around to see who and what it was when everything happened at once:
She remembered that the woman was Lee, Audrey's old roommate.
She caught a glimpse of another figure walking toward her-a man.
And the shelf, holding all the screws, rivets, bolts, hardware and iron casings began to topple in at her.
The iron casings rolled to the edge. She couldn't believe it. She stood paralyzed. She screamed.
"Look out!" the man shouted, and the next thing she knew, she was on the receiving end of a flying tackle, sliding along the cement floor, while a ton of iron crashed down behind her. The casings shattered and bounced. A jagged piece ripped a gash in her arm like shrapnel from a grenade. She cracked her shoulder against the base of the opposite bin.
The man who had tackled her let out a terrible howl, then another, and let go. She turned around.
It was Mike Ross. He was groaning and whimpering with pain as he tried to move one of the casings off his foot.
"Mike!" she cried. "Mike!"
He strained to turn toward her. "You okay?" he gasped.
"Yes, yes, I think so. But-oh, Mike, your leg!"
She pushed some of the smaller debris away and started to get up, but by now a crowd of workers had pushed their way between the bins. One of the men lifted the casing from Mike's foot.
Another came with a first aid kit and knelt beside him Soon half the crowd was attending Mike and the other half surrounding Conchita, asking her what had happened. She looked up and saw Elsie, some of the panel crew, the electricians, and Ratface the foreman.
"Who did it?" Ratface demanded. "You tell me who did it, or else!"
"I...." Conchita held out her hands and shook her head.
"He do it?" Ratface said, pointing to Mike.
"No!" she cried. "No! He saved my life!"
"Yeah? Well then who the hell-"
"Aw, lay off!" said her old friend Sally the electrician. "Poor girl almost got killed, what do you want? Maybe she's hurt."
"She looks all right to me," Ratface said.
"Yes," Conchita said, standing up. "I'm okay. Just this little scratch."
Her arm was bleeding. Someone got a roll of gauze from the first aid kit and wrapped it around the wound.
Elsie noticed that some of the electricians were looking at her. "It sure in hell wasn't me did it!" she bellowed. "I was on the plane all the time. Ask anyone in my crew!"
"That's right," some of the crew murmured.
Elsie leaned close to Conchita. "You can tell me who did it later. We'll fix 'em, don't worry about that."
"I don't know who did it!" Conchita said. "Maybe no one did-maybe it just-I don't know."
"Them bins don't fall over by themselves," Ratface said. "Somebody took a lot of trouble to pry it up with a crowbar or somethin'. Some girl friend of yours didn't like the way you were treatin' her." He turned to Elsie and the others. "I tell ya I'm gettin' sick and tired of you girls! This ain't the first time this has happened, but damn it, it's gonna be the last! I don't know why the hell they let you-"
"
"All right, can it!'" Elsie said. "You'd be better off with my bunch if we knocked over fifty bins a day. And I'll lay ten to one it was some creep from another section altogether." She motioned to her crew. "Okay, as soon as they drag this guy outta here you can start cleanin' up the mess."
"And you can throw it all away, too," Ratface said, "now that it's all messed up. I'll have to requisition a whole new stock, make out damage forms, damn...." He started to walk away, then noticed Mike again. A worker had taken off his shoe and sock and was examining the swollen foot. Mike howled whenever they moved it.
"Who is this guy?" Ratface asked Conchita.
Conchita was kneeling by the foot, terribly concerned. She looked up. "I told you, he saved me."
"Yeah, yeah, I know-but who the hell is he?"
"He works in my section," said an older man standing nearby. It was the foreman of the riveting section. "Just leave him alone."
Ratface grumbled something and walked away.
The workers helped Mike to a standing position, but he yelled again when he tried to walk on the swollen foot The department medic arrived immediately after and took a look at it.
"Looks like a bad sprain or a bruise," he said. "We'll take some X-rays and make sure."
"Listen," Mike groaned, "you've got to fix it so I can work tomorrow."
The medic shook his head. "You'd better figure on at least three or four days in bed."
"In bed! But I have to work-I need the money!"
"Don't worry," his foreman said. "You won't lose your job."
"Yeah, fine, but I'm not qualified for any sick pay yet. either. And how the hell can I stay in bed? I live alone!"
The medic shrugged. "We can put you in the hospital, if you want."
"No! I hate hospitals! And I can't afford a hospital! Listen-I'm okay. Just put a splint or something on it and I'll be okay."
"Nothing doing," the medic said. "Then we'd really get in trouble. What'll it be, hospital or home?"
"Home," Mike sighed. "If I'm lucky, I'll starve to death in a few days."
Conchita grabbed his arm. "Mike-I feel terrible about this. I owe you my life. Let me-I mean, is there anything I can do?"
He looked at her. "Yeah," he said. "Disappear. I don't know why the hell I did this. If it happened again, I'd just walk the other way."
"Mike-please! Tell me where you live."
"I live under a black cloud," he told her, and turned away. The others carried him off.
Conchita stood watching him, dumbfounded, until his foreman tapped her shoulder. "He lives at 7 Venice Boulevard Extension," he whispered. "I remembered that after I saw his work card. It's a real crummy section."
"Right near the beach?"
"Yeah. Skid row. It's a boarding house or a bum's hotel or something. I'd be careful if I were going down there."
"Yes ... thanks."
He nodded. "Ross isn't a bad kid. Just sorta moody. He doesn't say much. Surprised the hell outta me to see what he did-but I guess anyone would have done the same." He looked over his shoulder. "You got any idea who tipped the bin over?"
"No," she lied. "I don't know who it could be."
"Okay," he smiled. "Well find out anyway."
The foreman returned to his section and Conchita helped the others as they started cleaning up the debris. There were a lot of whispers being passed, speculations, and several times she heard Lee's name being mentioned. It made her realize for the first time that Lee was her enemy. Audrey had lied. Lee had been Audrey's girl and Conchita-unknowingly-had edged her out. Everyone seemed to know about it; some had even heard Lee swear revenge. So now it was Lee, Lee, Lee-number one suspect, until someone discovered that Lee had left the building about five minutes ago. Then it was clear: Lee was guilty. Lee had broken the code.
"Don't you worry about a thing," Elsie kept saying back on the plane. "If she wanted to fight you for Audrey, okay. But this bad jazz at the factory-that don't go. It's bad news. And she's gonna find out just how bad, believe me."
Conchita believed her, but for the rest of the work night she couldn't have cared less. She might have done the same thing if the relationship between Lee and herself had been reversed. She did not express these sentiments to Elsie or the crew, however; the code was the code, and if Lee was ostracized, there was nothing she could do about it.
But there was one thing she did care about, and it was something on which she could act: the plight of Mike Ross. Mike had saved her of all people, Mike Ross. Her fascination with him jumped back to its original level. And he was in trouble. He needed her.
She resolved to pay him a little visit this morning, right after work.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Conchita hoped that she could slip away and go directly to Mike's room when the work shift ended, but it wasn't that easy.
As soon as she had punched her time card, she turned around to see Elsie and a dozen of her women surrounding her.
"We got the word," Elsie said.
"What word?"
"Where Lee moved after she left Audrey. Three blocks away on Olympic Boulevard." Conchita shrugged. "So?"
"So let's go! She's probably packin' her things right now."
Conchita looked at the others. Their expressions were fixed in hard, tough scowls. She had no choice but to go along with them on their mission of revenge. Lee had endangered their jobs; now, according to the code, she had to pay for her mistake.
"Okay," Conchita said. "Let's go." She tried to look as hard and tough as the rest of them, but secretly she hoped to diminish Lee's punishment as much as it would be possible. Somehow, she just couldn't work up the appropriate rage. Instead, she felt sorry for Lee, who had lost Audrey. That was punishment enough.
As for the attempted murder or whatever it was, she only regretted what had happened to Mike. This business of revenge stood in the way of helping him, and she would gladly have let it go.
But she was in the pack now, and she had to follow the pack as it marched to Olympic Boulevard and two block' west. There were about fifteen women now. Elsie designated Conchita and three others as the advance party.
They stormed upstairs. Elsie rapped on the door. It was a three-story building of run-down flats.
She rapped again, and when there was no answer, stepped back, puffed herself up like a blowfish, and crashed her enormous weight against the frail wood. It splintered like glass.
There was no one inside the single room with the dresser drawers and the closet door wide open. Four or five articles of clothing were strewn about. Everything else had been removed, apparently in great haste.
Elsie cursed and rapped her bloodthirsty knuckles together. Conchita breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"She got away this time," Elsie said, "and she'd better be far away like in Siberia or some place. 'Cause if she's anywhere around here, we'll get her. Don't you worry. You hear me? Hey!"
She tapped Conchita's shoulder-but with respect.
"Yes, I hear you," Conchita said.
"Okay," Elsie said, giving her a slightly suspicious look. She turned around to the opposite door in the hallway and knocked hard.
The door swung open instantly, and a short, muscular man in his undershirt glared at her. "What do you want?" he snapped. "What the hell's all this racket? And look at that door!"
"Never mind that," Elsie boomed. "You know the broad who lives there?"
"What's it to you?"
Elsie puffed herself up again "Look, pal there's me and fourteen others like me wanna know " She gestured to the others downstairs.
"You don't scare me, sister," he said, "but if it's so important to you, there ain't no broad lives there. Some old geezer does. But maybe he's dead by now, I don't know. What's your problem?"
"don't play dumb with me!" Elsie yelled. "A chick moved in there about two weeks ago, and a lecher like you oughtta know every move she's made ever since. Now where is she?"
He looked at her a moment. "Go to hell," he said. "I don't know what you're talkin' about." He stepped back and slammed the door in her face.
Elsie crashed her fist on it, and a moment later he opened it again. But this time he had a gleaming butcher knife in his hand, with the point inches from Elsie's throat.
Elsie played it cool; perfectly still.
"Now I don't have to lie to you," he said. "Right?"
"Right."
"Then I'll tell you once more I don't know any broad ever lived there. I mind my own business." He waved the knife. "Now beat it!"
Elsie turned to the others. "Okay," she said, "let's go. Maybe she's dumb enough to show at the beach."
She led the way down the stairs. The group lingered in front of the building a while, then headed for Venice Beach. Conchita now hoped that within an hour or so she could sneak away to Mike's, which was only a block from where the pack congregated on the ocean.
Meanwhile, the man in the undershirt locked his door, went into the bedroom and opened the closet. Lee staggered out as white as a ghost. He wrapped his strong arms around her waist.
"Quite a bunch of friends you got," he said. "Without me you'd be in pretty bad shape right now."
"Yes," she gasped, realizing that she was in pretty bad shape anyway.
She'd left the factory right after she'd pried the bin down. It had been an impulsive act which she now regretted a thousand times over. She hoped no one was hurt-including Conchita-but her concern was with her own welfare at the moment. A hundred women were after her blood, and the strong man holding her was after her.
She cursed herself for not running away when she had the chance. She'd gone from the factory all the way to the bus terminal, only to change her mind at the last moment and come back to the apartment, where she had about two hundred dollars and all her possessions stored. Then, by the time she'd packed, she realized it was too late to hit the streets again, and so had made a bargain with the man next door-the first time she'd ever spoken to him. She'd asked him to hide her When he refused, she offered money. When he saw the danger and refused again, she rolled her hips, cupped her breasts, and followed him inside.
Now the payment was due, and she dreaded that almost as much as the vengeance of the pack. Lee was not two-way. This was going to be terrible.
There was nothing to do but let him get this over with. She knew nothing about him except that he was strong, and determined enough to hold a knife at Elsie. There was no fighting a man like that.
He noticed she was trembling. He seemed to like that. He wrapped his hairy arms even tighter around her waist, lifted, and carried her to the bed. He fell against her His face was rough, his lips savage as he worked at her mouth. He drove himself at her, pounding out a preliminary rhythm of lust.
Instinctively, she pushed him away, but he slammed her arms down and pressed all the harder against her small helpless body .
"Be gentle," she pleaded. "Please-don't be rough "
"Sure," he growled. "I'll be gentle as your big bull girl friend I always wanted one of your kind ... I'm gonna make up for every man you ever turned down!"
"No!" she cried. "Please! I can't help what I am!"
"Well maybe I can!" he laughed, and at that point stopped listening to her protests.
She was wearing gray slacks and a man's white shirt Both looked incongruous on her supple, feminine body He wasted no time unbuttoning, unzipping, and stripping her down to bra and panties.
"There," he said, running his calloused hands over her smooth flesh, "now you look like any normal broad." He rumpled up her boyish hairdo to complete the effect. "Nice." he murmured. "I got me a nice little blonde."
But his nice little blonde turned to a block of ice, body stiff, eyes shut tight, lips trembling.
He was determined to have her no matter how much she fought, but he didn't want her like this. Cold fish and dead bodies were not his idea of a good time.
"C'mon," he said, "relax. I ain't gonna be that rough I'll even take things easy if you want."
"That doesn't matter," she whimpered. "I just can't. Couldn't we settle some other way. I mean...."
He looked at the pert breasts rising up, the supple legs and pretty face. "Uh-uh," he said. "I wanna prove somethin'."
"You won't prove anything except how I feel about men."
"Trouble with you is you never had a good man." She'd heard that one a hundred times, but she said nothing.
"Now you just lay back and relax," he told her. "We'll see if I can't be as nice as any broad and then a lot nicer."
He leaned over her and began to kiss her, working her panties down over the velvety flesh. That wasn't exactly his style, but he was trying his best to start slow and build her passion up gradually. His own passion had already zoomed to the point of no return.
She lay back, as he'd told her, and closed her eyes again. But instead of relaxing, she strained to imagine that that was Audrey running lips and hands over her body. Yet, the lips were rough, the hands unskilled, and she dared not reach out to touch the muscular arms and shoulders as she would have reached for Audrey to urge, coax and caress.
He was going so slow. She just wished he would get this over with so she could gather her things together and go far, far away....
The pack was still too close for comfort.
Closer than she thought. Elsie, Conchita and the others were only about five blocks away. They'd come to an all-night drug store, and were now milling about inside picking up cigarettes, gum, sun tan lotion and magazines for the day at the beach.
Elsie was restless. While most of the others stood at the magazine rack, she wove through the aisles of toys, gadgets and kitchenware. She was trying to make up her mind about something, and a particular item on display helped her to do it.
The item was a huge, shiny meat knife, bigger and sharper than the one that had recently been at her throat. She ripped it out of its cardboard and plastic package and weighed it in her hand.
She made up her mind. She was going back to that little runt in the undershirt to face him on even terms Not only was she suffering with the humiliation ef giving in to a man, but there was something pretty fishy about the way he'd guarded the door. She was ready to lay odds that Lee was still there.
She called two of the bulls over-the biggest two. She tossed the knife around in her hands.
"I say we each grab one of these and go back there," she told them. "I don't dig the way he put us down."
"Think Lee's there?" one of them asked.
She nodded. "First we do that little cat in, then take care of Lee on the spot."
"You mean cut 'em up a little?"
"Ain't nobody gonna get cut. The little cat ain't about to take on three terrible broads wavin' these things. What do you say?"
"I'm game."
"Me, too."
Elsie nodded and called Conchita over.
Conchita took a nervous glance at the knives. "What's up?"
Elsie told her. "If you want to get in on the fun, you're welcome," she added. "I mean, you the one almost got killed by the chick."
Conchita shrugged. "Yes, but I don't really think she's there, and I don't care about the man next door."
Elsie glared at her. "I sure can't figure you. You came on strong enough against me, and now you soundin' just about chicken."
Conchita glared back at her, then at the other two, who seemed to agree. It was a tight spot. She wanted no part of this brutality. All she wanted was to get to Mike's and play the gentle nursemaid. But she could hardly reveal these sentiments. Either she had to go along with them or give them the only excuse that would be valid-an excuse likely to cause trouble later on.
She chose to delay trouble rather than walk into it right now.
"I'm not chicken and you know it," she told Elsie. "The whole thing is, I'm supposed to meet Audrey at the beach in about five minutes."
Elsie raised her brows.
Conchita winked. "We had a little something special planned for this morning. Can you blame me for being in a hurry?"
"I sure in hell can't," one of the other bulls said. "I wish Audrey was waitin' for me."
"Well I'm her girl," Conchita said, "and I'm the one with something better to do than go on a wild goose chase. So...."
The others looked at Elsie.
"C'mon," Elsie told them. "Let's buy these blades and get goin'." She turned to Conchita. "Give Audrey a little somethin' for me."
"Sure," Conchita said. "And if you do find Lee, give her a big something for me." She slammed her fist into her palm.
Elsie grunted. "Yeah ... well, I'll see you at work. Don't say anything to the pack. I don't want no more than us three goin' up there."
Conchita said she wouldn't, and the three bulls marched up to the cash register, bought the knives, and slipped out of the drug store. Conchita waited a few minutes, made sure no one was watching her, and slipped out herself-in the direction of Mike's.
The man in the undershirt was no longer wearing his undershirt or anything else. Lee was also naked. He was kissing her breasts now, drawing the pink nipples to his lips, pressing the firm mounds together, then running his hands down her body and kneading the flesh of her legs. He was frantic.
But there was no response. As hard as she tried, Lee could no longer imagine that was Audrey. The body with her was that of a man; she could sense his brutal striving for her every moment.
She clamped her arms around him. "C'mon!" she whispered. "Let's see what you can do!"
"You mean...."
"I've never been more ready in my life! Let's go, baby!"
He required no more persuasion than that.
Lee tempered her scream of agony into the word lover, hoping that the old prostitute's trick would speed things up.
But suddenly, things started happening with more speed than any nightmare could have produced.
The door was smashed open.
Elsie and the two girls charged into the bedroom waving the knives like Saracen warriors.
The man jumped away from Lee, started to go for the kitchen, then for the front door. But each time he was stopped by a menacing flick of the knife blade, and they looked like they meant business.
The two girls drove him to a corner of the room while Elsie stood guard over Lee, who wished a thousand times again that she were dead.
"Stash him in the closet," Elsie commanded, wild with victory. "The minute he comes out-swoosh!" She cut an imaginary victim.
The man willingly let himself be imprisoned in the close i. One of the girls stood by, ready to follow orders if he came out.
"You stand by the front door," Elsie told the other. "Make sure no one gets in or out."
The guard was posted. Elsie turned to Lee. "And now for you, baby."
"Elsie please!" Lee cried, cowering at the head of the bed. "I'll do anything! I'll give you anything! I'll let you do whatever you want!"
"Damn right you will," Elsie said. She tossed the knife to the floor. Lee breathed easier for a second, thinking that perhaps she could pay for her crime by giving herself to Elsie as no woman had ever done. By giving herself to all three, no matter what they asked for, no matter how humiliating that might be. She even stretched herself out voluptuously as Elsie glared at her, the movements of her body saying: anything you can think of.
But what Elsie thought of sent her reeling back into the depths of fear and panic, and while she continued to scream for mercy and offer a dozen far-out delights, she saw what was coming and knew that that was inevitable.
Elsie was removing a heavy leather belt from the man's trousers.
Lee knew she was going to get hurt. Bad. Really bad. If there were just Elsie alone or just one of the others, she might have seduced them into something less terrible. But with the three of them on hand, the code had to observed. And when the code said punish, it didn't mean chastise or spank. It meant something next to murder.
Elsie slung the belt over her shoulder. She grabbed a pillow and ripped off the case. This she folded into a gag, and-pulling Lee to her by the hair jammed it against her mouth and tied the ends together at the back of her neck. Finally, she forced Lee to stretch out the length of the bed, face up.
"We'll cook one side at a time," Elsie snickered to the others. At that, she gripped one end of the belt brought her huge arm all the way back, paused, and whipped the belt forward with enough force to smash a two-by-four.
The belt whistled through its arc, snapped inward at the last second, and with its maximum force slashed Lee's breasts as loud as a rifle shot.
Lee's eyes bulged as she screamed in vain against the gag. The pain shot through every muscle in her body so that her limbs and torso convulsed as though riddled by machine gun fire. Her only thought was: I'll never live through another one like that.
"The first fifty," Elsie announced, "will be for breakin' the code. Then fifty more for tryin' to run away. After that, I start workin' downward, and I don't know how many you're gonna get for havin' a man. Until I'm tired or you're dead."
Elsie brought her arm all the way back again. Her heavy muscles tensed. She shifted her weight.
"Two...."
"Three...."
"Four.."
CHAPTER NINE
As soon as Conchita got out of the drug store safely, she dashed around the corner and hailed the first taxi that came by. She jumped in and directed the driver to 7 Venice Boulevard Extension-Mike's place-then ducked down in the back seat. Several members of the pack would be heading for the beach around this time, and she couldn't afford to be seen. It was going to be bad enough facing Audrey later on, giving her some excuse; for Audrey was waiting for her at the beach, as she did every morning, although nothing special had been planned for the day.
Nevertheless, Audrey was going to be furious just for having to wait, and the excuse would have to be elaborate. If someone saw her now, she would be limited in the details she could invent.
Of course, Conchita thought, she could always meet Audrey first and tell her she had some business to attend to, but then Audrey would want to know all the details and would argue with her, and it would be harder than ever to slip away and go to Mike's.
So this way was best, because she would be sure, at least, of getting to Mike and thanking him for what he had done and giving him whatever help he needed. No matter what happened afterward, at least the all-important meeting with the mystery man would be accomplished.
The taxi stopped. Conchita remained crouched.
"Hey, we're here," the driver said, turning to her.
"Listen," she said, "I'm trying to avoid a certain person. Are there any young women in sight?"
"Around here? And at this hour? There's two bums sleepin' on the sidewalk ... that's it."
Conchita took a peek for herself. The street resembled the Bowery in New York, except that two blocks away it emptied into Venice Beach. Once part of a boardwalk amusement arcade, the area was now just a slum, destined for clearance.
Conchita strained to see if any of the pack were on the beach, but the area was a little south of where they usually congregated, and the morning haze obscured the view anyway.
She paid the cabbie and hurried through the doorway of number seven. One of the rusty mailboxes nailed to the wall inside said MIKE ROSS, APT 4. The doors on the first floor were 1 and 2.
Slipping one hand into the knife pocket of her slacks, she climbed the flight of dirty, wine-stained stairs, rounded the corner and came to number 4. She paused, listened, and hearing nothing, knocked on the brown, termite-ridden wood of the door.
There was no answer.
She hadn't gone through all this trouble and taken the risk for nothing. She knocked again, harder. "Mmm?" croaked a sleepy voice inside. "Mike?" Conchita called, "you in there?" A brief pause. "No!"
But she recognized the voice. "Please-open the door."
"Who is it?"
"It's me-Conchita."
Another pause. He groaned and mumbled something like "What the hell does she want?" But a second later she heard the creaking of the bed, then a clumping sound approaching her. The door latch rattled and the door itself opened.
His brown hair was disheveled, his eyes were still half closed, he had a gray blanket wrapped around him like an old Indian, and was supporting himself on crutches.
Conchita looked down and saw that his foot was bundled in splints, gauze and tape.
"Oh dear," she sighed. "It's really bad, isn't it?"
"Everything's bad," he said. "What do you want?"
He was blocking the doorway. He wouldn't even open the door enough so she could see inside. Conchita resigned herself to the fact that he would be nastier and more hostile than ever, and decided to be perfectly cordial herself no matter what. This time, he would have to kick her down the stairs before she'd be discouraged.
"I wanted to thank you," she smiled.
"Look," he said, "I already told you I didn't do it to be a nice guy. If someone had warned me about the foot, I would have stood there with my arms folded and watched the whole thing. I might even have laughed."
"At my death?"
"Sure. What's so bad about death? At least you don't have to worry about groceries and rent and everything else."
Conchita smiled. "If we're going to get on this subject, I think you ought to invite me in."
"Okay, we'll forget the subject. I just got to sleep an hour ago. Those butchers at the factory took all night to put a little tape around the ankle. I'm beat. I' depressed. I'm ruined. The place looks like a rat's nest It is a rat's nest. I don't feel like talking or anything else you might have in mind. So what do you want come in for?"
"Lots of reasons," she answered. "For one thing, I went through a lot of trouble to come here."
"So who asked-"
"Okay, okay. Maybe I'd just like to sit down a minute. Ts that too much to ask?"
"My dear girl, anything is too much to ask me. Are you beginning to get the idea? Now why don't you just-"
"No! I want to help you. You need help."
"If you're thinking of playing nursemaid, forget it. It's just a lousy sprained ankle and I can do anything except go back to work for about two weeks. The only help I need is in the form of little green paper-"
But Conchita had anticipated the remark and was already holding out five singles to him; money that properly belonged to Frank Martinez or to Audrey.
"You drive a hard bargain," she said, "especially when I ask nothing in return."
He hesitated a moment, then, as if hating himself for doing it, he grabbed the money and crumpled it into his fist. "Okay," he said sullenly. "Come on in."
She followed him through the door and looked around the room as he put the money in a drawer. The place wasn't much better than Pedro's in Los Angeles-the same crummy furniture, chopped walls, and piles of junk everywhere, although Mike's iron bed was a slight improvement over Pedro's floor-level mattress.
There was one vast difference, however. While the most valuable item in Pedro's apartment was his bottle of cheap wine, one corner of Mike's room was taken up by perhaps a thousand dollars' worth of photographic equipment.
"Almost two thousand worth," Mike corrected as he saw her looking at it. "I wonder what I'll have to sell first."
Conchita shook her head and walked over for a closet look.
"Careful," he said. "Don't touch anything."
She said she wouldn't, but he moved next to her to make sure. There were three cameras, tripods, floodlights, and dozens of gadgets she didn't recognize. Mike opened the door of the only closet and showed her the darkroom he had set up. More equipment; bottles, pans, and an enlarger.
"Does one need so much just to take pictures?" she asked.
"Hell no," he snorted. "All you need is a lousy fifty dollar camera and a couple of breaks. But, see, I don't get the breaks, so I have to do things the hard way. You know, the honest way. That's why I end up riveting my brains out in an aircraft factory so I can buy a roll of film now and then."
Conchita heard him out, then focused her attention on a wall covered completely with his work. One did not have to be an expert in photography-and Conchita certainly wasn't-to see at once that they were great. Portraits, landscapes, close-ups, abstracts, trick shots, nudes-every kind of subject, some of them pale, delicate and subtle; others stark with black and white contrast and bold objects, all of them sensitive, meaningful, beautifully composed.
"Look at these!" she cried. "How can you be so bitter when the results are as wonderful as this one ... and this ... all of them!"
He didn't look at them. "Sure," he said, hobbling back toward the bed. "They're great, I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it except the magazine editors I haven't sold a picture in six months."
He tossed her a magazine from his night table. "Here-page forty-two. That's the last one I sold, for a big grand total of ten dollars."
She looked at the picture, a winter landscape at sunset. "It's beautiful," she said. "It's worth a thousand dollars."
"Yeah" he scoffed. "To me, not to them." He flopped down on the bed and sighed. "I don't know what the hell it is. Maybe there's just too many damn photographers around. If I was an editor with ten thousand photos on my desk I wouldn't know which end is up either. It's a stupid business. Don't ask me why I bother."
"Maybe it's because you love it."
"Sure I love it. Everyone loves to snap a picture. But they don't put every cent they have into it."
He paused a moment and looked away from her. Conchita sat in a worn, ragged easy chair.
"I wanted to be more than someone who just snaps pretty pictures," he mused sadly. "I wanted to be a photographer." He said the word with reverence. "That's all I ever wanted to be. The guy in the tweed coat and sporty hat running all over the world for Life. A thousand bucks a shot. Celebrities calling all the time for a portrait. All the glamour and romance of being a great artist, besides the satisfaction. That's why I couldn't stand working for a newspaper-at least not the small town rags where the jobs are. Lining up five members of a bowling club and telling them to say cheese wasn't my idea of a career. Not at fifty, sixty dollars a week.
I mean, I don't mind doing hack stuff-you've got to do some of that no matter what you are-but the money and the prestige ... there's got to be some of that, too. I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to be rich enough by this stage of the game to ... well, to be worthy of a certain person. I mean...."
"You mean Harriet?"
He turned to her. "How did you know?"
"About your fiancee? You told me in the employment line, remember?"
"Oh .., yeah. I don't know why I told you. It's a big laugh. She thinks I'm swinging in Beverly Hills right now, doing publicity for MGM or something ... I forget what lies I made up. She's supposed to come out here in about two months. You think I'll hammer in enough rivets by then to rent a fancy apartment and put on the big show? That's if I can keep the factory job in the first place."
"I don't understand," Conchita said after a moment.
"What don't you understand?"
"Why you can't tell her the truth. If she's your fiancee, she must love you. And if she loves you, what difference would it make if-"
"All the difference in the world," Mike said emphatically. "You don't know Harriet. She's top class. Beautiful. A society queen and all that. All I've ever done is lie to her, or she wouldn't even let me walk in her footsteps. You may go for that romantic jazz about love conquering all, but you don't understand how people like Harriet tick. She'd marry a hopeless bum like me like you'd marry an African wart hog. She's a different breed of woman. An entirely different species."
"Then why must you try to be something you're not? If she can't come down to your level while you're struggling to make something of yourself-then why should you lie and kill yourself to get up to hers? Forget her!"
"Sure, sure! Just like that. Don't you think I'd like to? Don't I see how impossible the whole thing is?"
"Well?"
"Well, I'm hung up on the girl, all right? That's just the way it is. I'm hung up on her. Now let's drop it! Like I say, I don't know why the hell I ever told you about her or my ambitions or anything."
"Because perhaps I can help-in some little way."
"What way?"
"I don't know yet. Not with money. I'm pretty badly in debt myself."
"Don't tell me you're gonna ask for the five back."
"No," she said, trying her best not to lose control. "That's for saving my life-and I'm sure you don't value my life at more than two or three dollars."
"Listen," he said, touched by her patience with him, "I appreciate the dough, I think you're a knockout and a great chick and all that but don't you see you're wasting your time here? I mean, what do you want from me? Aren't you getting sick of my routine? I don't know, you're trying to come on like a...."
"Like a friend!" she shouted, finally carried away. "Can't you accept that? No matter how much you may hate yourself, I happen to like you!"
"Then you're either nuts or some psychiatrist in disguise."
"I'm not any psychiatrist, but I understand what it's like to be alone!"
"What are you talking about?"
"About us. We're both alone out here. Thousands of miles from what we love."
He leaned toward her. "Hey, now just a minute. Let's not claim any miseries we're not entitled to Haven't you forgotten about a hundred buddies of yours out here?"
She cocked her head.
"Come on, don't put me on. Even the worst photographers keep their eyes open. You're in with the girlie pack You're one of them. You've got that made."
She stared at him.
"Well?" he said. "Aren't I right? Aren't you in the pack?"
"Yes," she said after a moment. "I'm in the pack."
"So there you go. You're all set."
"And what if I told you I hated every one of them?"
"I'd say you were full of it. The next thing you'll tell me is that you're not one of them."
She jumped to her feet. "Listen, you!"
"Yes?"
"I...." She didn't know what to say. Could she tell him she was half and half? Would that make any more sense to him or help him to accept her? Perhaps if she told him one simple truth....
She waited another moment, then began. "Remember I said I went through a lot of trouble to get here?"
He nodded.
"Well I wasn't kidding. I had to sneak away from the toughest bulls in the pack to start with-you know Elsie, don't you?"
"Yeah, I know Elsie."
"Well, her and two others And do you know where I'm supposed to be right now?"
"I can't imagine."
"With the queen of the whole bunch. A woman any of the others would die for. A woman who's so crazy about me she'd give me her soul. So now let me ask you one question: why do you think I'm here?"
"I don't know," he said, "but I hope nobody knows about it. That's all I need is to get mixed up with that bunch."
"Don't worry, no one knows ... and they won't find out, either. But I'll tell you why I'm here. I'll tell you and then I'll go, because I see that you'll never understand."
She moved to the foot of the bed and leaned on the iron railing. "I came here to offer myself to you," she said. "I didn't even realize that myself until this moment. I felt sorry for you. I had a crush on you, or something. Whatever that was, I wanted to give something to you-and I only have one thing worth giving. My body. That's how I grew up in New York. When you like somebody you show you do by loving them. You can think I'm a tramp or anything you want. I didn't give myself to the whole pack. I gave myself to one woman who deserved me. And even though you don" deserve me, there's still something about you that...."
She sighed. "What's the difference? The offer still stands, but I can see that's not what you want."
Slowly, Mike looked up to consider what was being offered. Her huge breasts loomed over him, jutting out full and sharp beneath her black jersey. So much there. So much to turn down. Those lovely breasts and the other treasures he'd been contemplating since the first day he saw her in the employment line.
But he was determined to turn her down nevertheless. For all the lies he'd told Harriet, he'd told her one truth: that he'd been faithful.
His fidelity was Harriet's main concern-perhaps even more important to her than his success-and he couldn't blame her. For Mike Ross had been Harriet's first and only lover, and she had sworn that would be that way until they were married. She expected the same fidelity on his part, stressing that in every letter.
This was the one thing he could do for her. He could not be a success, but he could remain faithful in the meantime and hope that success would come eventually, so that Harriet would be his, without lies and deception.
It wasn't easy. At the factory, the beach, wherever he turned in this land of sunshine, there was always some luscious siren tempting him to break his vow. It required more than will power to resist; it required an inner disguise, a self-deception, so that he actually believed he was not interested.
Conchita had all but shattered this superficial attitude the first time she appeared before him, all curves and voluptuous flesh and sweet mouth. But he had conquered the temptation and convinced himself that she was worthless trash. Later, when he discovered she had joined the pack, he seized upon the label of dike to cancel her out of his thoughts.
This morning, though her very presence contradicted that, he'd continued to think of her as out of his realm. A Lesbian. No threat to his fidelity. Yet, at the same time he'd hated her for that. Because she was so beautiful and desirable and gave herself to women instead of men.
That had worked very nicely for him. He could accept her financial help without the least temptation to accept any more.
That is, until she offered herself to him on a silver platter. It was only then that he admitted to himself how terribly much he wanted her.
But she was going away now. He had stared dumbly, and now she was going to walk out the door, her offer refused. It would be the easiest thing in the world to let her go, except that the roll of her buttocks was driving him out of his mind. He tried to think of some way to have her and not have her. Anything. Something that would bring him in touch with that naked beauty without--
The answer could not have been more obvious. He jumped off the bed and hopped after her on one leg. She was already descending the stairs.
"Conchita!" he called. "Wait!"
She stopped and looked up at him. "Yes?"
"Listen-I can't accept your offer. You know I can't. I promised Harriet I'd...."
"Of course. I understand." She smiled. At last she had broken through his wall of indifference. She waited for him to say more-while Mike formed his words carefully.
"Conchita, there's another way you can help me. I mean, if you're still interested."
"What way is that?"
He glanced behind him. "Could you come back upstairs?" he whispered. "Nosy neighbors and all."
This sounded interesting enough. She nodded and followed him back into the room. He closed the door.
She put her hands on her hips "Well?"
Mike decided to come right out with that. "I want you to pose for me," he said. "In the nude."
Her eyes opened wide and he thought he'd made a stupid mistake. He was too blunt. He sounded as lecherous as he was. But now Conchita gave him a warm smile, and he saw to his amazement that she was delighted.
"You want to take my picture?" she laughed. "Without any clothes on?"
"Yes. But I don't mean the kind you sell to high school kids. I mean good ones-like this." He pointed to one of the nudes on the wall, a study in lights and shadows over the smooth curves of the body, with the subject's face turned away.
"I would love that!" she said. "I never had a picture of myself-I mean, you know. You would give me some copies, wouldn't you?"
"Of course! As many as you want."
She looked at the nude again and at a few more. "I'll bet mine comes out better than these," she said. "I've got a good body."
"Yes," he gulped, excited all the more by her innocent vanity. "That's why I'm so anxious to try this."
"Okay," she laughed. "I'm anxious, too. So you put the film in your camera while I take my clothes off."
She tugged the jersey out of her slacks and started to pull that over her head. Suddenly, she stopped.
"Hey, wait a minute," she said. "How is this going to help you?"
Mike told her one half of the truth. "The minute you walked out of here I had a feeling I'd never see you again-or that I shouldn't ever see you again, because I couldn't take you up on what you offered. But I thought that if I had some memento, you know, the photographs, I could still be faithful to Harriet and yet every once in a while I could look at them and imagine ... well, that's hard to explain, but ... you know, I'd be a little less lonely. Does that make any sense?"
She thought a moment. "Not really," she laughed, "but that sounds like a compliment, and that's good enough for me."
At that, she pulled the jersey all the way off and tossed the garment on the easy chair. Her breasts seemed twice as huge, the way they stretched out the material of the bra as smooth as rubber and formed a deep cleavage. The silken texture of her flesh overwhelmed him, and now, as she unbuttoned her slacks and let them fall to the ground, he saw how the voluptuous splendor of her legs excelled that of any he had ever seen-including Harriet's.
If Conchita's simple pleasure in being admired was enough reason for her to pose, that was good enough for him, too. There was no need to say any more. The other half of the truth was that he would try to sell the photographs to a magazine, and in that way she would help him financially.
He already had a theme worked out-designed for some slick men's magazine-and with a subject like Conchita, didn't see how he could possibly fail.
The theme was "Rich Little Poor Girl," or something like that. A woman with all the priceless physical endowments of Conchita, in an impoverished setting: his own miserable room. Captions like: She dreams her sweet dreams and tucks her lovely body in this poor flophouse bed ... Doesn't someone have a fine four-poster, a satin quilt and feather mattress with room for one more, that our rich little poor girl might have a night's respite from her harsh reality?
There was no need to tell Conchita about that. Not now, anyway. If she was willing to pose just to please him-as that certainly would-so be it. A lot of women were funny about magazine photos-even women with nothing to lose and everything to gain, like Conchita. Dead broke, at the bottom of the social ladder, loves to be admired-and she still might be violently opposed to having some artful shots in a famous magazine.
So he said nothing, but watched with delight as she kicked away the slacks and stood up in bra and panties, ripe, magnificent, smiling like some mythological temptress.
It wasn't until she unhooked the bra and slipped that away from her naked breasts that he said something about the bandage on her arm. That was a good excuse to get closer to her.
"That's from some piece of metal that fell down," she said as he pretended to look at the bandage. "Just a small cut. I think we can take the bandage off."
He nodded and fumbled with the tape and gauze, sneaking glances at the billowing mounds and their dark, prominent caps.
She smiled and helped him with the bandage. "Here," she said. "Let me do this. You can look as much as you like."
He stepped back, blushing. Quickly, she removed the bandage, walked over to the sink to wash the small cut, then faced him again. She stuck her breasts out His jaw dropped.
"You like?" she said.
He managed to nod.
She was having a good time. She'd never seen anyone so shook up over a little strip tease, and played that for all that was worth as she slid the panties down over her hips, paused at one point, then took them down the rest of the way.
"Okay," Mike stammered. "I'll, uh, set up the camera, and we'll get down to business...."
He stumbled about his equipment as if both legs and his hands, too, were wrapped in bandages.
"What's the matter?" she teased. "I thought photographers were used to nudes."
He looked at her very seriously. "There're nudes that look like statues and nudes that look like women. It's been a long time since I've seen the latter kind."
"Like me?"
"Like you."
"What about Harriet?"
Harriet was of the statue variety, but Mike didn't feel like admitting that to Conchita so she could lord it over his fiancee and confuse him all the more regarding his true emotions. He gave her an ambiguous answer.
"It's been months since I've seen Harriet."
"It's been a long time since you've had anything to do with women, isn't that right?" she said. "No wonder you're so nervous."
That made him doubly nervous to hear her say so.
He was still wrapped in the gray blanket. "Would you mind if I worked in my underwear?" he asked She assured him she wouldn't, and he tossed the blanket on the bed. He then motioned her to the easy chair.
"Now," he said. "We have to get the position just right." He leaned over her and moved her arms the way he wanted them. Twice his hands brushed accidentally across the tips of her breasts, and the second time he noticed that they had become swollen and stiff. He couldn't help staring.
"I'm sorry," she said, "For what?"
"For being excited."
"Oh ... that's okay. I mean, uh ... the pictures come out better that way-"
"Oh ... good."
"Yeah...."
He faked a little cough and concentrated on getting , her legs in the right position. He had to touch her legs and buttocks to do that. The tender softness of the flesh was maddening.
When he finally stood up and returned to the camera, Conchita knew how terribly excited he was him-; self. She was sure that in a matter of minutes her seething desire-right or wrong-would be gratified.
But an hour later, after some sixty photographs in a dozen different poses, he was still holding back-though his excitement had not diminished in the least. Finally, as she was sprawled out enticingly on the I bed, Mike snapped the shutter for the last time.
"Okay," he said nervously. "That's all. You can get dressed now." She didn't move. "Conchita...."
"Hey," she whispered in a desperate turmoil of need. "Come on!" She held out her arms to him.
He shook his head violently. "No!" he shouted, almost crying. "I told you-I can't! Harriet! Remember? Harriet! Har-"
"Oh damn Harriet! What she doesn't know won't hurt her!"
"That," Mike gasped, "is where you're dead wrong," and he turned around and wouldn't face her again until she had some clothes on. He knew that the moment he touched those sweet, ripe lips, his need for Harriet and all that that meant in the way of ambition would vanish like a pretty soap bubble in the air. He wasn't ready to let go of his dream. Not yet.
CHAPTER TEN
Conchita left soon after, saying nothing about the future except that she would stop by sometime to look at the photographs. Mike had even less to say.
She felt a little guilty about the way she had tempted him. After all, it was a noble thing to remain faithful to one's fiancee. Or was it? She'd had no experience in fidelity; it was hard to judge. It seemed that if one preferred the new to the old, he should take the new and forget the old, as long as he was not yet bound to the old by marriage.
That was her logic, and she knew that she would try again to impose it on him during her next visit.
And there would be another visit. Many more, perhaps, because the simple fact of the matter was that she wanted him. She still had no idea why, except that he was physically appealing and so alone and such an unusual challenge.
Not that she wanted him in place of Audrey, but in addition to her. She was still strongly attached to her female lover, and right now was hurrying back to Pico Boulevard where she could catch the Ocean Highway bus to Audrey's house.
It was much too late to try and catch her on the beach. She was supposed to have met her there about two hours ago, and if she was still waiting, it would mean a furious scene in front of all the others.
No, it was better to meet her at the house or to wait for her there, so she could make up any excuse she wanted and seduce anger into forgiveness and love.
Conchita noticed something unusual as soon as she stepped off the bus, some forty minutes later. There were two cars parked next to Audrey's. Very rarely did Audrey allow any visitors to interrupt their days of love.
Which meant that a day of love was pretty unlikely no matter what excuse she invented. She wondered what kind of day it was going to be. The possibilities frightened her and angered her at the same time. It was a questionable state of affairs when one had to say and do certain things, or else. The code of Las Halcones was one thing; it was worth-while for the protection it afforded one against the world. But the code of the pack-one still lacked protection against the pack itself.
She found out how right she was the moment she walked through the door into the kitchen.
Five angry women were sitting at the table, smoking and drinking coffee. All five glared at her without a word.
One of them was Audrey, by far the angriest.
Another was Elsie, smug and fiendish. Her two bulk from this morning were still with her. The fifth was a short, but tough-looking woman in a black leather jacket.
This was very bad indeed. Conchita could easily imagine what had happened. Elsie and her bulls had gone to the beach after searching for Lee and had run into Audrey. "Where's Conchita?" Audrey had asked them. "We thought she was with you. She said she had to meet you right away. That you had something special planned."
"I had nothing special planned and I haven't seen her."
"So where is she?"
"Where were you?" Audrey demanded. "I waited two hours on that lousy beach!"
Conchita hesitated.
"You'd better make it good," Elsie put in. "Better than that lie you told us."
"You stay out of this!" Conchita shouted at her. "What are you doing here in the first place? What are you, the secret police or something? This is between me and Audrey-why don't you beat it?"
Elsie smiled. "Don't push your luck, sweetheart. You and a couple of ocean waves did me m once. Maybe you won't have all the breaks the next time."
"Yeah? Well any time you want to try it again, sweetheart, it's okay with me! Any time and any place!"
Elsie glanced at the others and started to get up. Conchita got ready. She was furious.
"No!" Audrey cried. "Sit down! I don't want this-not now."
Elsie sat down, swearing under her breath.
"Well?" Audrey said to Conchita a moment later. "Are you going to say anything or not?"
Conchita shrugged. "Like I told them this morning-I didn't feel like going on any wild goose chase after Lee. I didn't think she was in that man's apartment and I had a pretty good idea where she might be. So I told them I had to meet you just to get away and carry out this idea by myself. I knew you'd be waiting there, but I figured you'd understand when I explained things later."
"Maybe I will," Audrey said coldly. "Let's hear the explanation."
"Well, the first thing I did was get to a phone and call the bus terminal in Los Angeles. That's where I thought she might be, and I knew someone there who could tell me for sure."
"Who do you know there?" Elsie interrupted.
"Some guy named Pedro. I met him when I-what difference does that make?"
"None," Audrey said. "Go on."
"Well, I got hold of Pedro and asked him if there was someone waiting there who fit Lee's description. He said he was pretty sure a woman like that was waiting earlier-for about a half hour-and then went back out on the street."
"How could he notice one woman out of hundreds?" Elsie said.
"Because that's his business-he lives off women."
Audrey cracked a hint of a smile, which relaxed Conchita somewhat so that her imaginative powers could soar. "Just finish the story," Audrey said.
"Okay, I figured I'd take a chance and go down to the terminal just in case it was really her. You know, I thought maybe she was hanging around for some later bus to Chicago or some place. The main thing was that I wanted to see her alone. I wanted to get to her before the pack did."
"Why?" Audrey said.
Conchita looked her straight in the eye. "Because I wanted to find out exactly why she tried to kill me. If it was just because she didn't like my looks or something, she could have done me in any time, at her own convenience. But to go through all the trouble of getting a crowbar and prying over the bin just because I happened to be standing there for a minute-I don't know, you gotta be pretty flipped about something. Something that's been bothering you pretty bad-eating away at your heart until you don't know what you're doing any more. I wanted her to tell me what that was, because I sure didn't know, did I?"
Audrey was getting uneasy. Conchita was on the offensive now, and she pressed hard. "I mean, as far as I knew, Audrey, she just moved out of here to live with her girl friend down by Venice Beach. She just packed up and left on friendly terms, right? She was only a tenant here, right? Nothing between you and her. No reason for her to hate me."
"Connie, I-"
"Unless you lied to me, Audrey. Unless you lied, so that I never had a chance to decide what was best. So that I could never talk to the girl and explain things, and perhaps make things a little easier for her to take."
"And she would have killed you on the spot!" Audrey cried, deeply upset. The others had turned their malicious glances in her direction. "I lied for your own good. You didn't know Lee-she was a mean, spiteful little witch when she didn't have what she wanted, and there was no way she could have that any more after I met you. If I had told you the truth I might have lost you and she might have slit your throat the minute you looked at her."
"So instead she tried to kill me at the factory."
"Well how the hell was I supposed to know she was that crazy?" Audrey shouted back at her and at the others. "All's fair in love and war as long as it doesn't break the code-isn't that right?"
She addressed the remark to Elsie. Elsie rubbed her chin and nodded. "Right."
"Yes," Audrey continued. "If Lee wanted to come back and do battle with me-fine! In fact we did have a little scuffle when I told her to leave, and she didn't do so well. So she was chicken to come back. And she was chicken to lock horns with you, Connie-I mean, out in the open, fair and square. In other words, she was a loser, all the way, and if she couldn't lose gracefully-if she had to break the code and endanger everybody's job not to mention your life, to get back at us-well tough! She deserves what she got!"
Conchita gasped. "What she got? What do you mean? You found her? What happened? Tell me!"
"We didn't know you were interested," Elsie said casually. "I mean, you told us this fine story and all, but there ain't a word of it that's true."
"You calling me a liar?" Conchita challenged. But she was more frightened than angry now, since her story was-every word of it-an outright lie. She didn't want to push it too far.
"I ain't callin' you nothin'," Elsie said calmly. "I'm just sayin' I don't believe you. So like you went down to the terminal and waited around for an hour, but Lee didn't show up, is that it?"
"Yes ... that's right. Then I came directly back here."
"Uh-huh. And suppose we called up your boy now-what's his name, Pedro-and asked him to tell us the whole story. Would he know what the hell we're talkin' about? Or is there a Pedro in the first place?"
"You can call him all you want," Conchita replied. "But he's not gonna talk to someone he doesn't know. Like I told you-"
"Yeah, yeah. Sure. I don't want to hear it again. All I wanna know is where you ran off to when we were huntin' down Lee!"
Conchita exploded.
"I told you where, damn your ugly hide! If you don't believe it you can go to hell-all of you! Who do you think you are? You don't have any claim on my life-not my private life! What I told you is true-but suppose I did something else after I left you? Suppose I just went to a bar and drank for a couple of hours?"
"While Audrey was waitin' for you?"
"Yes, while Audrey was waiting! That's between me and her-it's got nothing to do with the pack or the code or any of you four lousy dames! I'll decide what I do in my own personal life-" she pointed at each consecutively, "and not you or you or you or you-" Then, after a second's pause, she pointed at Audrey, "And not you, either!"
Audrey jumped up. Her complexion challenged the blazing color of her hair. Her green eyes narrowed, cat-like.
"All right!" she screamed to the others. "Now!"
Conchita was stunned. Before she could see what was happening and act against it, she was held fast by the three amazons while the short, leather-jacketed woman pressed the point of a knife at her throat.
Instinctively, she struggled to break loose, but only for an instant. They had her arms twisted in a crucial position behind her. One move and they could snap the bones. And the knife was pressed harder.
She forced herself to remain still.
"Okay," Audrey said in a strange, alien voice. "Let's go." She led the way out of the kitchen and upstairs to the bedrooms. The door to the smaller bedroom was closed. Audrey stopped in front of it, glanced at Conchita, and put her hand on the knob.
"We have a very definite claim on your personal life, as you call it," she said to Conchita without looking at her. "Somebody tried to do you in, and the pack avenged you. The pack fixed it so that couldn't happen again. If it wasn't for the pack, you wouldn't have had a personal life for very long-or any life." Now she looked at her.
"So don't tell me we haven't any claim on you! You belong to the pack and you belong to me, baby! That's the code, and do you know what happens when you break the code? Do you know what happens?"
"This is what happens!" Audrey screamed, and threw open the door. It was Lee.
Conchita could tell by the blonde hair and the general shape of her body. Beyond that, there wasn't much resemblance to the woman she'd seen only eight hours ago, bfore the bin crashed down.
Lee was stretched out nude on the bed. She was not a pretty sight. One could tell she was alive only by the light heaving of her breasts.
She was bandaged around her legs and ribs. Her entire body was covered with ointment, which seemed almost farcical considering the severity of her wounds.
She looked, in short, as though she'd been run through a meat grinder.
Elsie had laid on the hundred and fifty lashes all right, but it was apparent that at some point the belt had been turned around, so that the steel buckle struck first.
The flesh was striped with red gashes from head to toe. And between the stripes there were cuts, punctures, chunks of skin ripped away.
And that was not all. Elsie, or perhaps the other two, had been carried away in their sadistic orgy. Lee's face had been battered by hard, brutal fists. Her face was swollen, distorted and gory.
Conchita focused her attention on the eyes: tiny slits at the peak of two mashed-up swellings. Like the eyes of a frog whose face had been smashed by a hammer.
Like the eyes of someone else Conchita remembered. Like the eyes of her friend in Las Halcones, after the rumble ... after the firecrackers had been placed on her closed lids ... the incident that started everything ... this whole nightmare away from home and her loved ones....
Conchita screamed.
She screamed loud and long. She screamed from the center of her soul, as though she would never stop.
But she did stop. She stopped very suddenly and got a crazy look in her eyes. The bulls held her tight. They were scared ... cautious.
Then she screamed again, but this time in words. A volley of curses, a hysterical condemnation of those around her, dredging up every obscenity she'd ever known.
Finally, she broke into sobs.
"She didn't deserve that," she cried. "That was my fault ... Audrey's ... You didn't have to do this to her ... that was wrong ... wrong...."
"She broke the code," Elsie said.
Conchita wheeled on her "You pig! Go to hell with your code! I hate the code! I hate you! I hate the whole bunch of you filthy-oh!"
Elsie twisted her arm up as far as it could go without breaking. "You know what you're gonna get?" she shouted in Conchita's face. "You're gonna get the same!"
Conchita screamed again from the pain.
"Lay off!" Audrey said, tugging at Elsie. "Let her go! She's upset, what do you expect her to say? She doesn't understand. She's not used to our kind of justice. Please-let her go. I'll take care of her. Just leave her to me-you'll only make things worse."
Elsie ignored her at first, but she continued to plead on Conchita's behalf until Elsie sacrificed her blood thirst for the sake of the pack. Audrey was an important member, with her money and influence. It wouldn't do to alienate her. Reluctantly, she released Conchita and shoved her into Audrey's waiting arms.
Conchita continued to sob, exhausted now, disgusted, and Audrey held her tight and massaged her shoulders. "It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right now."
She motioned for the others to leave. They had no reason to stay any longer; Conchita and the code were avenged; Conchita was back in the arms of her lover, who in turn would bring her gently back under the wing of the pack.
When the others drove off, Audrey took Conchita's hand and led her into the main bedroom, away from Lee. She closed the door. Conchita pulled away from her and stood by the window, looking out on the ocean. Audrey waited a while, then came up behind her and slid her arms around her waist. She pressed her lips to Conchita's neck and spoke softly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "That's awful, I know. I never thought that would lead to this, I swear it. As much as I love you-as much as I lose my mind when you're away from me-I would never have let this happen to her. I would have given you up first."
"How bad is she?" Conchita murmured.
"Well, there's no permanent injury or anything like that. She may have a few scars here and there, that's all. You know, not much worse off than you were when I first brought you here. I'm taking good care of her. don't worry."
"Is she going to stay here?"
"I suppose she'll have to until she's better. But I guarantee she's learned her lesson. You don't have to be afraid of her."
Conchita turned around. "It's you I'm afraid of, Audrey."
"Me?"
"Yes. Maybe you love me too much. I'm afraid you'll do crazy things to keep me under control. As crazy as this whole nightmare with Lee."
Audrey bowed her head. "I can't help it," she whispered. "I've never felt like this before. Every second without you is pure agony."
"That's no good. I like to be independent, Audrey. I hate it when I feel like I'm trapped."
"Do you hate me now."
Conchita looked at her. The emerald eyes were terribly sad and as beautiful as ever. They spoke of a need so urgent that life itself was secondary. That was hard to resist. Conchita's own need for passion-frustrated at Mike's-was soaring to the same peak of urgency.
Conchita smiled. She took Audrey's hands and put them to her breasts. Audrey trembled. Her fingers enveloped the warm tips and squeezed gently. Suddenly, with a deep sigh, she threw her arms around Conchita's waist and pulled her close, meeting desire with desire and kissing her shoulders, neck, ears and finally her lips.
"Oh baby!" Audrey gasped. "Sweetheart ... please. I need you so bad, darling. I'll die without you...."
It had been a long morning for both of them. Both needed the sweet release of tension in the worst way.
But Conchita held back another moment to bargain for the most important thing of all.
"Audrey," she whispered. "I'll throw off my clothes now and give you anything you want-on one condition."
"What, baby? Name it."
"That you let me come and go as I please."
'But Connie, I...."
"I've got to be like that. I don't want to be a slave. I'm no good when I feel that way."
"But why is that so important? Don't you love me? Did you find somebody new?"
"Don't ask me why. That just has to be. I want you as much as you want me right now, but I also want my freedom. That comes first. You've got to promise not to be jealous and spy on me and make me account for every minute. Otherwise...."
Audrey studied her expression. She read a lot more there than Conchita had implied. So you did find somebody new, Audrey thought. And now you want to have your cake and keep it, too. Well, baby, I'll promise anything you want, because you're right: I am crazy. I'll promise anything and I'll do anything to keep you on this bed-but I'll go back on every word and do things you never dreamed of before I'll let someone else have you. I promise, all right. I promise that you'll be perfectly free-from this other lover. Because I'll kill whoever that is the minute I find out.
"All right, darling," Audrey whispered. "You leave me no choice. I promise."
"Really?"
"I swear it."
Conchita sighed, held her tight, and put her lips to her ear. "Then you leave me no choice ... let's go."
Clothes flew across the room. The two naked bodies crashed together, moving to receive and search for love ... every pleasure, until the first well of bliss over-flowed-before they even reached the bed and tunneled their way between the sheets.
Conchita's ecstasy continued, but with that, something strange. Something as puzzling to her as that would have been fatal, had Audrey sensed that.
She began thinking of Mike.
She became obsessed by the thought of him, until that was all Mike, every thrilling touch....
Until Audrey was only his substitute.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next few weeks were filled with with tension.
The tension of loving Audrey, satisfying her insatiable demands, and all the while wishing she were someone else and trying not to show that.
The tension of facing Lee as she got better and walked around the house, though Lee spoke only when spoken to and then only a few quiet words.
The tension of working in close quarters with Elsie and the other bulls at the factory; of being watched every time she left the plane; of being trailed now and then on her way to the beach to meet Audrey. In short, the tension of being in the pack on a kind of probationary basis; not really wanting to be a member, and yet forced by necessity to continue playing the role.
But the worst tension of all was her desire to see Mike, frustrated by her fear of the consequences. Audrey had promised her freedom, and had renewed the promise with almost every session of love. During the first few days, Conchita might have gone over to Mike's without the least worry. But she didn't. She wanted to give Mike some time to be lonely; time to study the photographs and torture himself with desire until he had to have the real thing.
Finally, when she'd thought the time was ripe for a visit, a change in Audrey's attitude forced a change in her plans.
Audrey showed herself as the jealous, possessive, desperate madwoman through every word and movement Her promises were empty In moments of passion love or anger-she would actually swear vengeance on anyone who stole her Connie away. Then later she would retract it, but only to start in on some new complaint or interrogation regarding Conchita's behavior.
Eventually, Conchita stopped pressing the subject of her independence. It was useless. As long as Audrey loved her, and as long as Audrey was backed up by the pack, Conchita was trapped-and she knew it.
But after three weeks she could no longer resist the desire to see Mike. There was more than desire. Mike had not returned to work, although his foot should have healed sufficiently a week ago. Did he have a new job? Had he moved away? Or had something unforeseen happened-some catastrophe? Conchita was worried about him; filled with worry, desire and all the tension she could bear, until finally she decided to stop at Number 7 Venice Boulevard Extension after work.
Thursday evening, at supper, she gave Audrey an elaborate excuse as to why she could not meet her at the beach the next morning. She said she had to meet the real estate man to whom she owed money, and made up reasons why an extraordinary time and place were necessary for the rendezvous. She did not mention Frank Martinez by name-she had already mailed him most of his money-but knew that she could arrange for him to verify the lie if it came to that.
Strangely enough, Audrey's reaction was calm and almost disinterested. She only said that she would meet Conchita later, then, back at the house.
Of course, as soon as Conchita left for work, Audrey phoned Elsie and told her to have somebody follow Conchita from the moment she left the factory. "But make sure it's on the sly," Audrey added. "All I want to know is where she goes and whom she's meeting. No interference."
Elsie agreed to the plan.
The work night was a long one for Conchita. She checked her watch every five minutes and thought the morning would never come.
But it did, and at the stroke of 5:30 a.m., she hurried to the time clock, punched out, and with a brief glance over her shoulder, left the building.
Elsie had appointed a woman from another section to follow her, a member of the pack who rarely went to the beach, so that Conchita would be unlikely to recognize her.
It wouldn't have mattered. Conchita glanced behind her only twice as she walked toward Pico Boulevard, and at those times the woman was lost far back in the crowd.
Once on the boulevard, Conchita's eagerness overrode her caution, and she hailed a taxi without the least notion of the danger.
It was an easy matter for the woman to jump into another taxi and have the driver follow Conchita's cab to the corner of Venice Boulevard Extension.
"Dead end," the woman's cabbie said. "He's gotta stop somewhere between here and the beach."
"Okay," she replied. "I'll get out now." She paid him and waited for him to drive away. Then she peeked one inch around the corner, just enough to spot the house Conchita entered. She waited again, then walked to Number 7, keeping close to the buildings so she could not be seen from any of the windows.
Cautiously, she entered Mikes building, wrote down the names on each of the four mailboxes, then left in a hurry She called Elsie. Elsie called Jo, the interviewer in the factory employment office, and eventually it was deduced that Conchita was visiting Mike Ross, the young man from the riveting section who had saved her from getting hurt. Audrey was quickly notified.
Conchita had to knock hard on Mike's door to wake him up, but this time he got out of bed without grumbling and let her in as though his life depended on her presence.
He actually embraced her. In just his underwear.
Still holding her hands, he stepped back and surveyed her from head to toe. "Boy, it's good to see you!" he said. "Where have you been? I thought you'd be back in a day or two."
"Where have you been? Where do you think? I've been working at the factory and wondering why you were still out."
"So you could have come to ask me why."
"Well ... it wasn't so easy. It's a long story. But anyway, here I am. How's the foot?"
"Great," he said, and jumped up and down on it to prove it. The bandages were off. "Everything's great!"
She gave him a suspicious look. "Great for who?"
"For me-and for you, too!"
"Oh? What happened?"
"Just what I knew would happen sooner or later-but you helped bring it about. I got a break! Imagine that? Me. Mike Ross. I got a break."
"Well come on," she laughed, amazed and uplifted herself by his high spirits. "Don't keep me in suspense."
"Right," he said, letting go of her and running to his dresser "You're wondering why I'm not back at work-and you're also wondering how those pictures of you came out."
She nodded as he pulled open the top drawer, reached all the way in back, behind some socks, and emerged with a fist full of money.
"Here's how they came out!" he shouted. "Three hundred bucks!"
A cold chill ran up Conchita's spine. "I don't understand," she said. "Where are the pictures?"
He looked at her as though she were crazy. "Conchita-the pictures are now in the editorial offices of Bachelor Boy! Who else buys unsolicited layouts? Maybe the dough isn't the greatest but the important thing is that they want to see some more of my stuff so that I can turn over some of this three hundred to you and we-"
"Mike!"
"What?"
"I don't think I know what you're talking about. Or maybe I do, and I don't think I'm going to like it. Why don't you just slow down and tell me exactly what you did with my pictures."
He sighed, shook his head, and held up his hands. "Okay. I see we're going .o have problems. First of all, let me show you the copies."
He pulled a stack of eight-by-ten glossies out of another drawer and handed them to her.
"The first six are the ones Bachelor Boy bought."
"Who is this bachelor boy?"
"It's a slick magazine. A very colorful magazine with a big circulation. All over the country. And you, Conchita, are going to be famous, because they are using those pictures about four months from now and everyone is going to see how beautiful you are and the movie men are going to knock on your door and hand you a million dollar contract-" He paused a second, then spoke faster, getting more excited, more upset, as he saw Conchita's face getting red and her hands trembling and her eyes about to ignite "You're going to be rich and famous, Conchita, just like I wanted to be, which is the reason I did this, because I was dead broke and down and out and sick and tired of working in a factory-and this was the first solid chance I ever had for a decent break and I wasn't going to miss out for anything or anyone and there isn't one damn bit of harm in this for you, so don't get mad!"
"Mad?" Conchita said as she ripped the photographs into shreds. "Who's mad?" And at that, she threw herself on the bed and burst into tears.
Mike groaned. He put the three hundred back in the drawer and started over toward her. He reconsidered. He went back to the drawer, took out a hundred, and then sat down beside her. He didn't know if she was going to scratch his eyes out or what, but he felt bad enough about her reaction to brave a hand on her shoulder. To his surprise, she reached up and touched his fingers.
"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "I really am. I thought that would be a wonderful surprise for you. I wanted to give you this."
He slipped the hundred dollars into her hand. She raised her head to look at it, then gave it back to him. "You don't understand," she sobbed. "You just don't understand what you've done. I wish I could hate you for this, but I can't. You needed the money-the break-and were afraid I wouldn't give you permission to go ahead. And I wouldn't have. But you didn't know why, and so I can't really blame you."
"No," he said, now more puzzled than anything else. "I didn't know why you'd refuse. I thought you'd like the idea, but I wanted this to be a surprise. Some of the most famous women in the world pose for these magazines. I mean actresses, royalty, high society. There's nothing wrong with letting the world see your beauty if you-"
"Mike, I would gladly walk across the country without a stitch of clothing on if that wasn't against the law. I like my body. I'm proud of my body. A few months ago I would have shown myself to anyone in the world, just for the asking. But now it's different."
"Why is it different?" he asked with the slightest overtone of nastiness.
"Because now if a certain group of men sees even my little finger, all hell is going to break loose, that's why!"
"What group of men? What are you talking about?"
His impatience, his unwillingness to understand, made her blurt it out at once. "The New York cops-that's who I'm talking about!"
"The cops? Oh, no-don't tell me you're in trouble!"
"Well I am telling you! Yes-I'm in trouble. Big trouble. As soon as that magazine comes out and somebody recognizes me, I'll be tracked down and thrown in the clink so fast I won't have time to cross the street."
Mike stood up. "Damn!" he swore. "Why the hell didn't you tell me? How was I supposed to know? What did you do, anyway, murder somebody?"
"No!" she sobbed. "But that's what they think. I didn't do anything!"
Mike slapped his hand to his forehead and sank down on the bed again. "Oh, brother. Of all the women in the world, I had to get...." He swallowed the words. "So what am I supposed to do now, return the money and get the pictures back?"
"Of course that's what you've got to do! What do you think?"
"I think I'm gonna go nuts! My first break-the only real chance I ever had to make it. Row can I throw it all out the window?"
"I don't know, Mike, but I'm not going to throw my whole life out the window instead. Listen-why don't you just tell them to black out the face? They do that sometimes, don't they? I'm willing to take that much of a chance."
"Yeah, great. Except this isn't a scandal rag. The face is important. No face, no pictures. No money. No budding photographer. Nothing."
"Well," she said, bowing her head, "then it's nothing. If you're such a good photographer, you can do the same shots with some other girl."
He didn't bother to reply. Sure, he could do the same layout with some other model and sell it all over again-if he were world-famous. But for a beginner, a nobody with no connections, no agent, not even a handful of credits, a model like Conchita made all the difference. She was spectacular. No editor could resist that wild Latin face, the dark flesh, those crazy boobs and frantic curves, sweetened by a bit of soft light and a rumpled sheet.
Just like Mike himself could no longer resist her.
He'd had some beautiful plans for the moment she returned. First, the big surprise about the sale; a little waving of the green. And then, another surprise, as they hugged and kissed in celebration. Or at least after he'd convinced her how great it was to be a Bachelor Boy Mistress of the Month. That wouldn't have been hard if she'd been angry for the usual reasons. Then, when she was loving and grateful, the surprise: I've decided to sleep with you, Conchita. You were right-I need you ... and all that.
Beautiful plans, shot to hell. Because Conchita, of all things, was a murder suspect in New York.
"What is this murder thing about, anyway?" he asked her.
"It would be better for both of us if you didn't know the details," she replied, "but I'll tell you this-I'm as good as convicted until they find the real murderer."
"Who was killed?"
She sighed. "Just somebody in a Harlem gang. And that's all I'm going to say, except that that happened only a couple of months ago."
"But that's a long time in this kind of thing. How do you know they haven't found the real murderer by now?"
She looked at him, wondering why he'd asked a question she'd hardly considered herself, a question that was so terribly important, and one that brought another problem to the fore.
"I don't know," she said. She sat up. "I don't know because I haven't been in contact with the person who could tell me!"
"Who's that?"
She referred to the gang chief of The Eagles, but she answered: "Just somebody. I was supposed to keep in touch with him, but I haven't had any safe address to send him. I mean, I wouldn't even see my mail where I'm living now."
"Now wait a second," he said. "One letter from this guy could make it okay to use the pictures?"
"Mike, if he tells me I'm out of trouble, everything in the world is okay."
"And all you need is a safe mailing address?"
"Yes. I wrote him that I'm working at the factory, but of course I told him not to send any mail there."
He grabbed her shoulders. "For Pete's sake, Conchita-send him my address! Do it right away-you can trust me, can't you?"
She thought about that. "I've got to trust you," she said. "You know too much already."
He smiled. "That's right. I could blackmail you into letting me sell the pictures. You'd be in worse shape if I went right to the cops than if a few nude shots appeared four months from now under a fake name."
She jumped up. "Mike, if you-"
"Don't worry," he said. "I won't do that. Because I'm trust-worthy. In other words, you can send this guy my address right away. And in the meantime, I'll call the pictures back."
She kissed him on the lips. "So you can be unselfish. I know how much those pictures meant to you."
He held her tight and brought her lips to him again. He kissed them hard, hungrily, giving the passionate thrust of her mouth a quick reception.
"Conchita," he gasped. "That kiss meant more to me than all the ambition and success in the world. You don't know what I've been going through these last few weeks. Staring at those pictures until they almost came to life ... wishing they would come to life, so that I could take this beautiful, magnificent, voluptuous hunk of woman in my arms and tell her how I'd changed my mind and how much I needed her and wanted her."
As he spoke-and he went on and on-he ran his hands over that body he needed so much, tracing the rich curves from the torso to the waist and out again over the hips and down the legs, then up again until stopped by the arms so that his hand could do nought but move inward to cup and caress the huge, jutting breasts, lingering on their supple fullness, fingers skiing along the gentle slopes to the sharp, swollen tips.
Conchita began to sigh. Her passion rumbled to set every nerve trembling on edge. When he paused in his hypnotic caresses, her hands slid forward to seek him out, all the way, to join flame with flame....
They fell prone onto the bed, rolling from one side to the other in seething, desperate lust. Her kisses traveled from his lips to his ears, back and forth. Her breath was warm and heavy.
"Mike," she whispered. "I'll make this nice for you. You won't be sorry you decided to do this ... When I'm through with you, you won't care about those pictures, whether you can use them or not ... I'll give you the best love you ever had ... enough for ten years, I swear."
He closed his eyes. "Conchita, I...."
"You just lay back a second and relax," she told him. "You made a wonderful sacrifice for me. Now, just lay still and let me pay you back for that."
She kissed him once more, then moved away and stood up. He opened his eyes to watch her. His lips formed a smile and trembled in blissful anticipation of what was to be. He was overwrought with excitement; the ecstasy was already mounting. He only hoped he could stay with her to the glorious finale.
Conchita felt almost the same way. She was going to give as she had never given, all the way, everything, to this nervous young man who needed her so much. She smiled back at him and removed her blouse. Then her shoes and slacks.
She had worn a black French bra and brief, lacy, black panties for the occasion. The smooth flesh of her breasts billowed up in two colossal mounds; her sleek waist and upper legs were maddening as offset by the panties.
Mike groaned and reached out for her, but beyond that he could hardly move. So she walked around to his side of the bed, breasts jutting out, and stood over him so that his hands could touch her.
They stared at each other, a moment of excruciating stillness. Then her eyes softened, her lips parted slightly, and she reached back and unhooked the bra. The cup dropped away from her breasts. She threw the bra aside. His eyes rolled over the naked globes and savored the dark, firm tips. When he could no longer bear that, he lowered his glance, only to see her thumbs hooking the waistband of the panties and moving downward, revealing more and more of the impossibly smooth, mellow flesh, down over the upper legs, the knees, the calves, ankles-and off.
He started to spring up, but she eased him down again, giving his hands a playful slap.
"All I want you to do is remove your I-shirt," she smiled.
He did so in two seconds, so he could feed once more on the lush beauty of her nakedness.
Gently, she pushed his shoulders down on the pillow. Her breasts touched against his bare chest as she did so, and it was all he could do not to grab her right then to consummate the sweet agony she was building up. But he held back once more in deference to the sweetest agonis of all, yet to be.
They began immediately. She removed his under-shorts and said one of the most exciting things a woman can say.
Then she climbed on the bed, knelt beside him, and kissed his mouth. His shoulders. His chest, ribs, working her lips and teeth with incredible skill, awakening every nerve, biting where that was best ... and finally, where there were no words to describe the rapture....
He cried out her name. He cried out a string of endearments and anything and everything that came to his mind-except that he was out of his mind; waves of insanity accompanying the hysterical ecstasy inspired by her frenzied assault.
He grabbed her hair. He leaned forward and grabbed her shoulders, urging her on but pulling her around toward him.
And then there was pleasure ... the pleasure, the joy, the bliss; mutual and all pervading, swirling around the love knot, the center of lust, traveling through limbs, mouths bodies in a savage orgy of forbidden madness....
Until they twisted once more to the inevitable embrace, the penultimate embrace; the wild jumbling; the one-second pause in which all lust runs to the centers of passion, and finally, the seething development ... then again, the lust swelling ... again ... faster ... desperate, tense, bursting, passion rising higher ... higher ... to the very peak of the volcano ... of the universe..
"Mike! Oh! Mike! Honey! Lover! Oh!"
"Conchita!"
Three seconds or four or five-an immeasurable moment at the pinnacle of existence, a billion light years above reality.
And then the fall.
Free fall through space. Clear of all obstacles. Floating ... drifting ... through the clouds, and gently, gently back to the tender arms of earth .. the warm earth and soft pillow-the peaceful flesh.
A long time after, when the sweet cycle had been repeated once, and then once again, Conchita got ready to leave. It was late afternoon.
"I'll be back whenever I can," Conchita told him hen she was dressed. "If that was up to me, I'd be ere every moment. I would live here, and each day would be better than the last. But you know the mess I'm in with the pack and the woman I'm staying with. It's bad. Almost as bad as the other mess, back in New York."
He nodded sympathetically, not really paying at-ntion. He was exhausted. More than satisfied. It was most a nuisance to walk her to the door.
"Listen," she said, "I'm going to write my friend might and give him your address. In a few days we should know if I'm out of trouble or not. But meanwhile, you won't forget to write the magazine, will you?"
"Of course not," he assured her. "I'll do that as on as you leave."
"Then good-bye, Mike."
"Good-bye, Conchita."
They kissed. Mike closed the door, then walked over to the window and watched her as she hurried through the dusk on her way to Pico Boulevard.
When she was out of sight, he set right to work on the letter. Except it wasn't to Bachelor Boy. He had no intention of writing the magazine; no intention of calling the pictures back.
He'd made the decision as soon as he'd given himself to Conchita. That was enough for her. He'd betrayed his fiancee, what more could she expect? He'd let himself be used as a tool of her insatiable lust. She'd conned him out of his' integrity from the moment she first thrust those formidable breasts under his nose. That was Conchita's crime against Harriet. A dirty trick. And now she was going to make him do that again and again, every time she came by. Who could resist a siren like that?
All right, then. He wasn't going to throw away his one good break, his career-not to mention the money-as well as his fidelity. If Conchita was in such big trouble, the cops would find her long before the pictures appeared. And even if they didn't, so what? A girl like that was sure to be in trouble time and again. She wasn't his problem.
With these rationalizations, Mike canceled out his debt to Conchita. His debt, he believed, was to Harriet. A little good news, something to raise her spirits, to compensate for what he'd done.
And so he wrote the letter. A short note to his fiancee, telling her how he'd sold "a stack of photos to a major magazine," and adding that he'd fill her in on the details as soon as "the really big event took place."
He had no idea what that event would be, and it was a good thing he didn't.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Conchita knew there would be hell to pay when she got back to Audrey's. She was supposed to have returned hours ago. Therefore she stopped at a drug store for stationery and a stamp, and wrote her letter to the gang chief in the privacy of a phone booth.
Dear Carlos, Forgive me for not contacting you sooner, but I have been in a dangerous situation the last few weeks. I still am, but I now have an address where you can write me: c-o M. Ross, 7 Venice Boulevard Extension, Santa Monica, Cal. Write me at once and tell me if things are cleared up yet in New York. I have not heard. I am still working nights at the factory, but during most of the days-I hope-I will be at the above address.
Please answer at once. I am among enemies here, and it is like death without my friends.
Love, Conchita.
She sealed the envelope carefully and mailed it to the secret address in Chicago where Carlos was staying under a phony name.
Then she went home to Audrey, dreaming of the next time she would see Mike, and of the time when she would win his heart from Harriet and return with him to New York, where he would be accepted by the gang and they would live happily ever after.
Lee met her at the door, nodded hello, and disappeared up the stairs. Conchita proceeded to the kitchen, where she found Audrey cutting up vegetables for a salad and whistling a light tune.
"Oh, hi," Audrey said. "You're just in time for supper. Would you do me a favor and see if the roast is done?"
Conchita looked at her. "Sure."
She opened the oven door and stuck a fork into the meat. The fragrance of rare beef steamed out, but the smell of something fishy was overwhelming. Quickly, she shut the door and turned around. "It's just about done," she said.
Audrey nodded, and turned back to the salad. Conchita put herself on guard. Audrey wanted to make her talk; about anything, everything, until she slipped up. But she wasn't going to. No matter what, she was going to keep Mike Ross and 7 Venice Boulevard Extension an eternal secret.
Audrey cut the last piece of lettuce into the salad, put the bowl on the table, sat down, crossed her legs, looked directly into Conchita's eyes and said:
"Well, how's Mike?"
Conchita felt her jaw drop as though someone had hooked an anchor on it. She didn't know whether to laugh cry, shout, scream, fight, run or fly. So she stood still, meeting Audrey's stare and tapping the surface of the stove.
"I asked you a question," Audrey said. "How's Mike?"
"Mike who?" Conchita said weakly.
Audrey smiled. "Why Mike Ross of Seven Venice Boulevard Extension. How many other Mikes do you sleep with?"
Conchita's forced calm broke like glass shattered by bricks. "Thousands-" she screamed. "Thousands of Mikes and Toms and Joes! And I'll continue sleeping with them no matter how many times you and your filthy spies find out about that! What do you think of that?"
Audrey maintained her calm, which was far more terrifying than any amount of violence she might have displayed. She could afford this calm; she was on the offensive, and the enemy was cornered at the edge of a cliff.
"I think that's terribly brave of you," she said. "And a trifle foolish. Because the next time you so much as enter his neighborhood, chances are you'll both be beaten to death. And what do you think of that?"
Conchita, who was cornered on the cliff's edge, could only revert to her basic instincts: in this case, rage. She picked up the large platter set out for the roast and threw it blindly in Audrey's direction. It crashed against the wall.
"I hate you!" Conchita screamed. "I hate you and everything you stand for! I hate you!"
She burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen. She started for the front door, then stopped. Where could she go? Could she keep running forever? Could she run to Mike's and wait for Elsie and a hundred demons to break in with knives and hatchets?
With a renewed outburst of tears, she ran upstairs and locked herself into the main bedroom.
And all this time, Audrey-with tears in her own eyes-was whispering " ... and I still love you, Connie ... no matter how much you hate me, no matter what I have to do, we're going to be lovers again...."
She repeated the vow until Lee rushed in, a few minutes later.
"Quick," Lee said. "I heard her dialing!"
Audrey jumped up and carefully lifted the kitchen extension phone off the hook. It was still ringing somewhere on the other end. Conchita sighed impatiently.
"Western Union," a voice answered.
Conchita gave a phony last name and address for herself, then the phony name and real address of Carlos, the gang chief. Her message was simply: Ignore letter till further notice. Then she hung up.
Audrey hung up right after, and repeated the message to Lee. "What do you think it means?"
"I don't know," Lee said, "but it must have something to do with Mike. Some plan to run away or something."
"Of course!"
"If I were you I'd let her go," Lee said bitterly. "She's bad news. Nothing but trouble. No matter how much-"
"Shut up!" Audrey said. "Haven't you learned your lesson? Shut your mouth!"
Quickly, she dialed Western Union and imitated Conchita's voice when the operator came on. She gave the phony name and referred to the message.
"Yes," the operator said. "I still have it right here."
"Good," Audrey said. "I'm terribly sorry, but I've made a mistake. Would you please cancel it?"
"Very well."
"Thank you so much. Good-bye."
She hung up and turned to Lee. "Well, whatever it was, I hope I screwed her up. Because she's not running away anywhere. She's staying right here, Lee.
She belongs to me, and I'll cancel out anyone or anything that might take her away."
Lee shrugged. 'Yeah ... well, I hope you didn't foul yourself up on that telegram."
"I don't see how-oh damn it!"
"What's wrong?"
"The roast!"
She ran to the oven, looked at the overdone meat, then slammed the door shut and turned off the burner. "I've lost my appetite anyway," she said. "You have something if you want."
She stalked out of the room and upstairs to her bedroom door. She knocked and called Conchita's name. To her surprise, Conchita opened the door, head bowed, and let her in.
"Does this mean you don't hate me any more?" Audrey asked.
"No," Conchita replied quietly. "It means I've given up-for now."
Audrey grabbed her arms. "Connie," she sighed. "Oh, darling ... don't you see that this is best for you? I don't want to keep you prisoner-I want to protect you."
Conchita kept her body very still. She looked up. "Protect me from what?"
"From men, for one thing. The horrible, selfish, deceitful, disgusting ways of men. You're blind to them now. Someone was nice to you. Someone used your own beautiful passion against you-to make you think he was a great lover. Someone who's using you for some filthy, selfish motive."
Conchita wondered how much she knew about Mike and herself. Had someone spied on them throughout the entire day? No, that was impossible. What she was saying could apply to any man if one chose to look at it that way.
But she did not choose to see it thus. Lesbian love might still be possible for her, but the Lesbian point of view was a thing of the past-especially in regard to men. She had never accepted it in that respect, and never would.
She would see Mike again. As soon as that was possible, or even if that were not, she would see him again and she would make love with him again, and rise to the heights possible only between a woman and the man she loves, to a level of bliss that made all danger, including death itself, meaningless.
And in the meantime, Audrey could believe whatever she liked. The more she believed that her darling Connie was hers again and hers forever, the easier it would be for her darling Connie to unravel herself from the nightmarish web of the pack and slip away in the arms of her lover.
"I want you," Audrey was saying. "I want you something awful. I need you more than ever before ... right now."
Conchita shuddered but pretended that was passion, and fixed the image of Mike's slim, naked body in her mind as Audrey led her to the bed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Two weeks later, on an overcast Saturday morning, Mike sat in his room shuffling two sealed envelopes from Chicago in his hands.
Conchita had not returned. Not so much as a word from her, and there were the letters she'd been so anxious to receive. He couldn't understand it, but he knew one thing: it was high time to open the letters; to see what this thing of hers was all about.
He'd received the first of the letters twelve days ago, and the second a week after that.
He ripped open the first. The handwriting was sloppy; almost illegible. Apparently, it had been a struggle for the writer to squeeze out the one paragraph.
Dear Conchita-
Wonderfull to hear from you. There is good news. They cawt the real killer. Some guy named Black Bandit from anuther Harlem gang. We are just waiting for the convicshun before we all return to New York. Abowt one month. But wat is this trubble you are in? Rite and tell me quick! Do you need help?
-Love, Carlos
Mike read it again, then folded it up and put it back in the envelope. So she was out of trouble! Which meant no sweat on the pictures at Bachelor Boy. Who said you couldn't have your cake and eat it, too?
Then he remembered that he hadn't had the cake in two weeks, and opened the second letter in the hope that it would give him some clue as to her whereabouts.
But its contents were as he might have guessed.
Conchita-
Why have you not ritten? This trubble of yours it must be bad. If you need help tell me rite away! I will wurry very much if I do not get your letter in a week.
Love, Carlos
Mike replaced the note in the envelope and shoved both communications aside. She couldn't very well write him back if she didn't stop by to pick up her damn letters.
Where was she? And exactly what kind of trouble was she in with 'hese dames?
Mike pondered the questions on and off for another hour, and finally decided it would be best if she never showed up again. He had his pictures, he had his sale-the big break-and all she could do for him now was tempt him into more infidelity. So just as well. Let her keep all her troubles, and he would keep his true love and financee. Harriet had written him a nice reply to his letter of success. Everything would turn out all right now, and he would marry her.
Mike stretched out on his bed and thought about Harriet.
But not for long. He was interrupted by a tremendous racket outside. By the time he got to the window, however, the racket had moved into the hallway downstairs and was now coming closer. It sounded like the whole state militia was charging toward his room.
He was scared out of his wits. He jumped for the latch on the door.
But too late. The door flew open, cracking against the plaster of the wall.
It was not the state militia. He would have been far better off if it were.
It was about fifteen bulls, half of them armed with knives, and led by Elsie and Audrey. A bloodthirsty Elsie, and an evil, devil-eyed, raging Audrey that even Conchita had never seen.
"You Mike Ross?" Elsie bellowed.
He hesitated.
"Are you?" Audrey screamed.
"Yes," he said. "I'm Mike Ross."
With a gesture from Elsie, they closed in on him.
One block away, in the secluded darkness of an alley, six more vicious bulls held another prisoner captive. They literally held her. Two on each arm; two restraining the legs.
The prisoner wore a silky black jacket. On the back of it were big red letters spelling Las Halcones, and beneath these was a fierce white hawk with yellow eyes and graceful wingspread.
Conchita had picked the morning that she came across her old gang jacket as a likely time to sneak away to Mike's. It had given her the necessary courage, but not the luck.
Lee had seen her leaving the house. Lee told Audrey. Audrey called Elsie and instructed her to place every available member of the pack along the route to Venice Boulevard Extension.
Conchita was ambushed a block away from her destination and dragged into the alley. Elsie was notified, then Audrey, and together they set up the advance party to sabotage Mike's apartment.
About a half hour after Mike's door was thrown open, one of the bulls left the apartment and hurried to the group that was holding Conchita.
"Okay," she told them, "you can bring her up now."
They had to drag her all the way. Conchita had a good idea of what she was going to see, and she didn't want to see that.
But she did. They kicked her and punched her and shoved her through the door, and that was ten times as bad as she had imagined.
Elsie and a devil-woman named Audrey glared at her as did the other members of the pack throughout the room. No one said a word.
The bed on which she and Mike had reached the height of passion was overturned. The rest of the cheap furniture was also overturned and broken. But this was nothing. An hour ago, there had been two thousand dollars' worth of photographic equipment occupying one half of the room. Its total value now was perhaps fifty dollars, if the right junk dealer could be found. The cameras, enlarger, floodlights and all the gadgets-a pile of scrap metal and broken glass.
And at the center of this pile was Mike.
His face was battered out of shape. Dry rivers of blood ran from his nostrils and mouth. One eye was hidden by a puffball of swollen blue flesh.
The other eye stared at Conchita. An evil eye, a death ray, so full of hate and fury that Conchita felt every pain in his twisted face and body transferred to her own nerves.
She turned to Audrey. A curse that was sure to get her killed welled up from her stomach to her lips, and she was just about to hurl it at Audrey and the others, when she heard Mike's voice.
She turned back to him. His lips were moving frantically, and the voice, at first just a deep groan, began to get louder, and finally exploded in words.
"You filthy pig!" he screamed at her. "I hope they get you fifty times as bad as they got me! I hope they rip your eyes and tongue out. I hope they cut your boobs. I hope they use a white hot poker--
The obscenities he used, even at this moment and in this situation, blasted her to the depths of misery. She glanced at Audrey, who was smiling from ear to ear, almost laughing, then turned back to Mike with the intention of answering him; telling him this was not her fault; that she'd never dreamed in a million years this would turn out this way.
But Mike was not finished with his own message. He only paused to catch his breath and let the pain subside, then lashed out at her once more.
"Too bad you didn't stop by for your mail-your boy Carlos says everything's fine and dandy in New York. Looks like you got away with one murder. But he's a little worried about your troubles out here, and he oughtta be. Because you're gonna get killed, Conchita. You're gonna get cut up in little pieces and then the fat one's gonna sat 'em up." He pointed to Elsie. "I heard her say so. I heard her say she's gonna chew up your heart and pick her teeth with your bones. Isn't that right, fatso?"
"Shut up!" Elsie roared. She turned to Audrey.
"I think he's said enough. We oughtta be gettin' outta here."
"No," Audrey said. "Let him keep talking. let him reveal himself for what he is. Let Conchita see what stinking, lousy, slimy, selfish rats men are! Let her see what she chose instead of the love and security we offered her!"
There was dead silence for a moment. Conchita was still reeling from the news about New York, news that should have meant the end of this nightmare and the return to her freedom. Instead, with cruel irony, it came at a time when it was meaningless. As free as she was in New York, she was trapped here and now, and she might never survive the ordeal-the brutal punishment-yet to come.
The only consolation of it would be that she would suffer as much as Mike had suffered. That she would share his pain and loss. That they would be united as two innocent lovers struck down by the forces of evil. For Mike, like herself, had committed no crime but to follow the dictates of the heart.
She drew courage from the thought, and was prepared for the worst-when suddenly Mike took that last consolation away from her with only a few words.
"So you want me to show her what a rat I am, is that it?" he said to Audrey. "I'll be glad to! Because this little pig thought she could change the world just by dropping her cruddy drawers! Well you couldn't, Conchita! Your stuff just wasn't that good! A little tramp like you wasn't going to louse me up with a woman like Harriet-louse up my whole career! I never called those pictures back. I never intended to. You climbed ail over me and shoved everything you had at me, and that didn't do one stinking bit of good. I would have sent those pictures in if that caused you to drop dead on the spot. That's how much I cared about you then-you got any idea how I feel now? Do you, you miserable, loathsome witch? I hate you! I hate-
Elsie stopped him with a kick to the head. "I was gettin' a little sick of his voice," she said to Audrey. "I think Conchita gets the point."
"Yes," Audrey said. "I think she does." She crossed the room and stood directly in front of Conchita, while the others gathered around in a semicircle. Behind Conchita was the open door.
Audrey moved her face close. "Do you understand what men are now?"
Conchita was motionless. Silent. Her eyes were blank.
"Do you see why we had to do this?" Conchita said nothing.
Audrey raised her voice. "Do you want to get the same or do you want to come back? Accept me ... and love me."
"Hey," Elsie said. "Just a minute."
Audrey ignored her. "Love me!" Audrey screamed. "Love me or I swear I'll have them cut you from head to toe! TELL ME YOU LOVE ME! SAY IT!"
A great deal of saliva had collected on Conchita's tongue in her nervousness. She let that fly in Audrey's face.
Then she ran for it.
She ran faster than she'd ever run in her life. Faster than from a bloodthirsty Harlem gang in New York. Faster than she ever believed she could move. She reached the street and headed blindly for the beach. The baying of the pack, the screaming, the murderous threats, filled her ears. She could feel a presence, hot breath, directly behind her, and she ran even faster.
Another group rushed out of an alley on the right. Conchita turned to get away from them. She glanced back once, and saw at least fifty demon faces, all after her blood.
She kept running. She was on an old street that ran along the desolate part of Venice Beach. The street itself was desolate, part of the abandoned slums, and seemed to stretch on to infinity.
Which was just how far she would have to run. To infinity. Forever. There was no finish line. No safety zone. Somewhere ahead of her was the point at which she would run out of energy, fall to her knees, and be crushed like a poor, foaming hound beneath a steam roller.
That point was just ahead of her now, where the road took a bend. Like a marathon runner, she focused all thoughts and all energy on that point, feeling like she should have died a half mile back, but could make it to that last landmark if she just tried hard enough, if she gave it everything she had and then twice as much. She pushed on, but still aware of the insane irony: the landmark meant nothing except as the spot at which she would meet her destruction.
She looked behind her again. The pack was over a hundred yards away, but they were still coming. They could see she was about to fall, and there was no need for them to run hard. They would get her. In a very short time, they would get her.
She looked ahead of her again. The bend was almost a stone's throw distant. But it was getting blurry. Everything was spinning; the blood was pounding in her temples with a force that knocked her dizzy. She dosed her eyes. She heard the noise of traffic. Cars screeching to a halt. She hoped they were all coming at her; that she would be crushed by the impersonal fury of steel and rubber rather than by the hands of her enemies.
She took her last step, a step that dragged a thousand tons, and fell 'ace forward on the road.
She blacked out for a few seconds. When she came to, the sound of heavy steps closing in on her was thunderous, overwhelming. Without raising her head, she reached out with one hand to claw at the ground and perhaps drag herself one inch farther, one last struggle before the end. . She touched a foot.
A foot wearing a heavy leather boot.
With an effort she feared might be her last, she looked up.
"Carlos!"
"Conchita-oh Conchita!"
Carlos swooped her up in his arms. Handsome, muscular, six foot two Carlos, as rough a gang leader as ever lived, and shrewd as well-except that he'd had trouble finding Venice Boulevard Extension. He-and the eighteen other Hawks and Eagles he'd picked up on his way from Chicago-had been circling the area for a half hour, the end of a search inspired by Conchita's letter.
Still holding her in his arms as she hugged him and wept, he turned to the others behind him. "Hey!" he shouted. "It's her, all right! Rosita, Louisa-come take care of her while we stop these creeps up ahead."
Conchita's two sisters from Las Halcones took her from Carlos and helped her to one of the cars. But Conchita turned back once more to Carlos as he assembled the gang for battle.
"Give it to them good!" she cried. "Give it to them for every innocent soul they ever destroyed."
Carlos swore that he would, and Conchita went with the two girls to rest in safety.
Seventeen Hawks and Eagles now stood their ground, waiting for the fifty members of the pack.
And the pack kept coming. Three against every one; how could they lose?
They didn't know what they were up against.
Elsie charged first and locked horns with Carlos. She led with her powerhouse right. Carlos knocked it down with his left-almost breaking her arm in the process-and let her have a right of his own in the stomach. Elsie crumpled up like a caterpillar with a match to its middle. He straightened her out again with a short left, then gave her the Manhattan Special to the jaw.
The other members of the pack watched in terror as she flew backward like a tumbleweed in a tornado. She didn't get up again. Not for a long while.
Some of the pack started running right then. Others were foolish, and stayed to fight. One of them-a green-eyed redhead-was half insane.
Ironically, it was little Toni-Conchita's first Lesbian love-who took on the screaming, raging Audrey. Toni knew judo. She flipped Audrey over her shoulder onto the cement and kicked her head until she stopped struggling. Not enough to injure her brain; perhaps just enough to improve it.
The remainder of the fight was a slaughter. Girls fell beneath flying fists like they'd never been hit before-and they never had, not by fists like these.
When the action was over there were twelve members of the pack writhing on the ground or out cold.
The rest had run away, more than happy to forget that Conchita Perez had ever existed.
Only one of the New Yorkers had been hurt; one of Las Halcones, slashed on the arm by a knife But a shirt was ripped into bandages, and by the time the motorcade pulled out of Santa Monica and headed east on the open road, she was all right. Proud and happy. Almost as good as new.
Almost as good as Conchita, but not quite. For when Conchita awoke in the arms of Carlos, her nightmare ended and a glorious light in the east glowing brighter each moment, there was no happier woman on earth.
