There are always those who have and those who have not and too often a sort of balance is sought and the rules are never clear, never defined....
It was a hot afternoon and the people in the old, battered farmhouse were just beginning to stir. The young girl with the child-like face, the long dark hair, the immature, pointed breasts, the long, lissome legs, woke and disentangled herself from the pile of bodies around her. Everybody had fallen asleep on the mattresses that they had put on the floor in front of the TV set. She moved her legs and they hurt. Her crotch hurt, too, and she remembered then, that they had all used her. And in every possible way. She had good reason to hurt in odd places.
Her bearded young husband sat up and blinked his deep-set blue eyes. He looked up at her as she stepped mincingly out of the tangle of bodies.
"You a good wife, Jessie," he said. "You right nice and accommodatin'. You real young yet, but you got a good life ahead of you, Jessie. A real good life."
She grinned at him. "A busy life, anyway, Jake, Now, you come on out of there and help me a little. I got lots to do today."
Jake stood up and his clothes hung on him and made him seem gaunt. He unzipped his fly and took out his penis. He stepped close to an opened window and began urinating, splashing the hard, dry dirt outside the window. Jessie watched him for a moment, then she turned away and started for the kitchen.
"You get done pissin'," Jessie said, "you get me some fresh water from the well and I'll get us fed."
"Okay," he said.
She went off to the kitchen and got the morning meal started. She sighed as she gazed out of the kitchen window. It was always so damned desolate on the farm, so damned poverty-stricken all the time.
She remembered what they had been talking about last night before watching the girls on TV got the guys horny and they started in on her. Christ, that orgy lasted for hours and Jake didn't seem to mind it when she fucked for his friends. He was proud of her in bed, he said. Well, she wanted him to be proud of her in black silk sheets and a swanky bedroom in a big beautiful house and if they really did what they talked about, it could all come out like that. All they had to do was kidnap somebody important and hold them for ransom. It was all in the papers. Jesus, one guy they laid out fourteen million dollars for, now that was a real tidy sum and they could buy lots of goodies with that kind of loot.
Peter said that he had been aponderin' on it for a long time and he had even made up several ransom notes from letters that he cut out of papers. Freddy, the blond, baby-faced moron type, sat and giggled all the while they were talking. He kept saying, "Damn me," over and over again and she finally figured out that that meant he was very enthusiastic about the idea.
Peter was the one who frightened her. He had crazy eyes and a twisted grin that made him look like Lon Chaney at his very worst. Peter was ugly-looking, smooth shaved, pretty good clothes. He always carried a big army forty-five in his jacket and he let it be known that he wasn't takin' no shit off of nobody. She sort of liked him for that. Sexually, he was an animal and he was always hurting her, but Jake got a big bang out of seeing her in pain like that.
Peter and Freddy had been around for a long time now. They were working on a big project and the fact that she had inherited the farm, remote and arid, permanently fallow, made her valuable to them.
Jake had worked for her folks and he had been a good farm hand at one time, but then her folks got killed in a drunken car crash and she wound up with the farm and Jake, and when they got married they simply made their frequent unions legal.
In a way it was grossly unfair, Jessie thought. She had practically grown up on the farm, and they were always in debt, always fighting the gas company or the light company. Her old man had tried growing everything but it was all a waste of time and effort. Their little farm was a bust.
But there was great wealth all around them. It is like that in the San Diego area. There are the poor people of San Ysidro and some of the other small towns, and the opulence of the city's suburbs, especially the La Jolla area. The millionaires were all over the place with the Jags and Rolls-Royces and Ferraris. A lot of the movie stars came down to the area to fool around. They liked to run around bare assed in the big, beautiful mansions and smoke pot and fuck around with some horse now and then.
Now, say they got hold of one of them movie stars and they kidnapped one and held out for ransom, man, that would be something. That would be great stuff.
Her folks were dead a year now and she was not much for running a farm, and because there was no one around to drive him, Jake wasn't much for working, either.
Ramon was a good friend, but he was not always able to deliver wetbacks or a shipment of grass as often as they would like. Ramon had other people telling him what to do.
Jake had found him in town one night and they had gotten drunk together and Jake brought him home. After he had looked around the farm and estimated his chances of landing the plane in the fields, he sat down and talked about the money that they could make if they worked with him.
Ramon was mixed up with a liberation group in Mexico. They were very dedicated people, he said. They helped people to get into America so that they could find good jobs and live the good life. They got a lot of money for that. Too, they flew marijuana and hashish into the country and they got a lot of money for that, too.
They made a deal and Ramon made many landings at the farm, and there would always be men there waiting with a truck for the people who got off Ramon's plane. And when he brought in a load of grass, or whatever, there would be men with sharp faces and beautiful suits, waiting in a couple of cars and it all went well.
Ramon would give them a thousand dollars, but when they split it up, there wouldn't be that much for anybody. Jessie had been thinking up some new ideas lately.
It had been a remark that Ramon made one time that got her head to working right. He had said that they were so close to the rich people and so far away. No one ever came to the farm, it was too far out, the dirt road was always rutty and dangerous to tires. They used the team and the wagons when they wanted to go into town for something. And they never went all the way into town. Just to Grandville's country store. That was close enough to town. Except when they had money and were going to have a time.
Then Jake would go into town and steal a car and they would really live it up. When they were broke they would return to the farm and wait for Ramon to bring more money.
The papers were filled with stories of kidnappings and while no one brought a newspaper out to the farm, the TV told them what was going on and they began to talk about kidnapping a rich guy and keeping him at the farm for a while so that they could collect a ransom.
Ramon was laying over, his plane sitting out in the field, while he waited for a man to meet him in town two days later. He liked the idea of a kidnapping and a big ransom. They were paying off easily these days.
"We can fly the man to Mexico and hide him away in the big hacienda where I live and work. It is an enormous place, many houses, many apartments, and it is all surrounded by great walls. We can keep the person hidden there until the ransom is paid and then we can release him and live in Mexico for a while and spend the money or go to some other place and live graciously. It is a very good idea."
And then they read about a man who had been kidnapped and the people who got the ransom killed the victim and disappeared and no one even knew who the kidnappers were.
Peter sat with the others in the living room while they all watched the news and Peter said that it made sense to kill the victim. It would be foolish to let someone live who could put them away forever, maybe.
"We better figure that we gonna have to bury 'em after we get the money," Peter said. "That's the only way it all makes sense. That's the only thing to do."
Jessie could remember the way it had been that night. They thought of killing someone had gotten her sexually excited just like everybody else and they'd had a real orgy that night. But, when it was all over and they had been refreshed by a night's sleep, it all figured out the same way.
They began moving about in the nights, casing the big estates and checking on the kind of people who attended the parties there. And then one Friday night, they blocked the roadway with the hay wagon loaded down with hay that no one had ever bothered to unload. They fed the horses right from the wagon.
The first car to pull up and stop behind the hay wagon had two people in it. The car was a Rolls and the two young people in it were beautifully dressed. Peter got into the car with them and he pointed his gun at the guy's head and the man drove the car over the rough country road and when they got to the farm, they hid the car under a big load of brush and the two young people were taken into the house.
The girl was pretty and her clothes were just what Jessie had been dreaming about. She could see herself in the pretty, short skirted dress and the sleek pantyhose and pretty highheeled shoes.
Jessie hated to recall the details of their first kidnap attempt. It had gone sour right away. As soon as Peter started talking to the man about writing a ransom note, the man laughed.
He had no way of getting any money. He was an insurance salesman from National City. The Rolls was a rented car and he and his wife had attended a party at the big estate because he had been hoping for some business from the guests.
Peter went through the man's wallet and all of his clothes and his story checked out. There was no money, there would not be any money. That was it.
Freddy took a fancy to the guy's wife and they tied the guy up in a chair after Peter made him strip. Then they let her amuse herself with him and she did it. She was on fire with sexual urgings and the guy was sort of good-looking and he lasted for a long time.
Inevitably, Jake got his hands on the girl and she was stupid enough to try resisting. That was the wrong thing to do. Jake's fingers went around the girl's throat and he squeezed and squeezed and Jessie was yelling and screeching at him to quit, to knock it off, and the poor girl wasn't able to say anything. Jake's thumbs pushed the girl's head right off her throat and she made shrill gurgling noises deep in her chest and her head rolled and fell forward when Jake let go.
"You silly son of a bitch," Freddy said, "you killed her." He sounded shocked.
"How about that?" Jake said. He was giggling and he was pawing the girl's flabby breasts, the cooling pelvis and he decided that he could use her just once more before she got cold.
"Hell," he said, "this here chick still got lots of use in her. You jus' watch ol' Jake. He is gonna have hisself a time."
Jessie was busy with the husband and she could see the look of ghastly horror that came into the man's eyes and made his body useless.
"We can bury her in the shit pile out behind the barn," Jessie said disgustedly. "Might as well bury them both together. They so goddam fond of each other they can just lay side by side for as long as they want to."
Later that night, the harried, terrified insurance salesman began digging big holes in the manure pit while Peter held the hand gun on him. And when the hole was deep enough and wide enough, the victim carried his dead bride to the yawning pit and he wept and sobbed as he dropped her corpse into the steaming compost. He knew that he could expect a blast from the gun at any moment, a shot that would end his life immediately.
It didn't happen that way. The insurance man was weeping, begging to be allowed to continue living, promising hysterically to forget anything that he had seen, just please, let him live.
Freddy threw a pitchfork into the man's soft belly and he began to scream. Jake hit him over the head with a pick handle and there was silence again.
Jake pushed the man's bleeding body into the deep hole where he sprawled beside his naked wife. They began filling in the hole again.
"Maybe he ain't really dead yet," Freddy said.
"Hell with it," Jake said. "He'll die after a while. Don't worry about it."
The lantern flickered and the light became dim and eerie and there was a new and special silence in the night. They finished their labors and the manure mound was pretty much as it had been and there would be new material added to its contour when they cleaned out the stables in the morning.
They walked back to the house and when they went inside Jessie put on a fashion show for them. She was trying on the new clothes that she had inherited. She was very pretty, very contented.
"We'll just have to try again," Jessie said. "Hell, we goof once or twice, if we really hit big with the right one, what the hell's the difference?"
No one argued with her. They were all tired, eager to lie down and sleep. Jessie was a little disgusted with all of them, especially Jake.
She looked so cute in her new pantyhose and short skirt and none of them sonsabitches cared.
Fuck 'em.
The salesman had been carrying about fifty dollars in his wallet and they wrangled over that. Jake wanted the man's wristwatch and Jessie already had the girl's watch sparkling on her slender wrist.
They finally divvied up the miniscule spoils and then it was time to sleep, to dream anew and to ponder the best way to find another victim, one who just might be worth a million dollars in ransom money. Peter had it figured that they should ask for that as a basic minimum.
After all, they were taking a big risk. It had to be worth it.
CHAPTER ONE
Someone handed him a drink and he took it. He was very busy looking around him, enjoying the party, enjoying the many beautiful young things in bikinis. They wandered into the house from the pool area and wandered out again. A string band was making sweet music in one of the big rooms and a strolling band of musicians were moving around, playing request numbers for anyone who might want to hear a particular song.
A tall, slender girl with a prominent set of tits and a sparkling smile came up to him. She was wearing a tight black sheath that did great things for her jugs and her hips. She held out her hand to him and he took it. Her eyes were large and gray and her teeth were very white.
"You must be Jim Carter," she said. "I've heard so much about you. I am Gabrielle Munoz. It is so nice to meet you."
He held her hand a bit longer than he should have, perhaps, but he was a bit dazzled. She was not wearing a bra and the thin fabric of her dress showed off her breasts in a very delightful way. He could see the nipples when they hardened and jutted from their nests and it pleased him to realize that holding her hand had affected her. Her eyes became wary and just a bit interested in him.
"Can I get you something?" she asked.
"Thank you, no. Someone gave me a drink and I seem to be quite all right now."
Her smile seemed to reach out and warm him. "You just got here, didn't you?" she asked.
"Yes. I came with Joe Gordon. He wandered off somewhere."
She nodded. "Yes. Joe is a very handsome man. He knows some of the girls here. He has favorites. Would you like to meet some of the girls? Perhaps you would like to make love to some of them?"
"It's that easy?"
She burst into laughter and helped herself to a cigarette from a box on a table beside her.
"Of course, cheri," she said. "The girls are here for that purpose. This is a party, but, business will be done at this party, and one cannot keep one's mind on business if one is hungering for a lovely young person. That is sensible, no?"
"That is sensible, yes," he said earnestly. "Are you available, Gabrielle?"
"Not at the moment, cheri. After all, this is my party. I have to keep an eye on things. Another time, perhaps?"
"Another time," he agreed.
She plucked his glass from his fingers and tasted it. She took a fresh drink from a passing waiter's tray and gave it to him.
"Shall we sit down and talk?"
"Can you?"
She glanced around and saw that her guests were beginning to enjoy themselves. She took his hand and led him to a long couch upholstered in a bright yellow fabric. There was much color in the house anyway and the carpeting was bright, deep colors, some red, some orange, some green, some black. He liked the house. It was crazy, but attractive.
"You have come down here to run things, I hear," she said.
She was sitting on the edge of the couch, turned so that she was facing him. He was staring into the deep vee of her dress, looking at her breasts, wishing that he could see the nipples, the undersides, the whole thing. They were absolutely glorious. She saw what he was doing and her eyes were amused.
She put her hands in front of her bosom and the fingers curled, pulling the dress apart. She sat then, her gorgeous breasts bared for his inspection. She was smiling, delighted by his patent admiration.
He stared, aching with a quick desire to touch them, to handle them. She sensed his need. Her hands caught his and she placed his palms over her breasts and pushed her body closer to him.
"I wish there was time for more," she said softly. "But you can get acquainted with me a little at a time. I like you, Jim Carter. I like you very much."
He fondled the sweet young breasts, enjoying himself. There were people around but no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. He bent forward and took one of her nipples into his mouth. He was kissing it, touching its tip with his tongue. Her arms went around him and hugged him closer to her sleek, warm flesh. She was shivering and he was, too.
"We will fuck, cheri," she said. "But, not right now. Another time. If you are in need now I will let you choose a girl and use one of the bedrooms. I do want to talk business with you, cheri. But, who can talk business with a hardon?"
She let him go and he realized that his brief sojourn in paradise was ended. She smiled at him and wriggled her shoulders and her dress closed and hid her beauties again.
"Come along. We will go by the pool and you will choose a girl. Then we will talk."
He stood up and felt the pains in his loins, the stinging anguish in his too stiff cock. She reached down and patted the bulge in his trousers and her smile became wistful.
"I would very much like to be the one to help you enjoy that one," she said, "but I cannot do it now."
"But you do want to talk?"
She nodded and used her hands to pull the bodice of her dress into its proper position.
"Yes, of course. I am Gabrielle, the decorator. You are Jim Carter, the new regional director for Belmont, Adams, and Carter, the gigantic advertising company. You are also very well known as an investment counselor. So, we must talk. That is why Joe Gordon brought you to my party. So now you will come with me and find a girl that you like and I will introduce you to her and she will take you to bed with her and when you are surfeited with sex, she will bring you back to me and then we will talk."
He was not too shocked by her offer. And he did know a little bit about her. She was quite well known on the West Coast, a former motion picture set dresser and art director's assistant, who had gone on to bigger and better things.
The casual offer of sex with any girl he might choose was not very unusual these days either. He went to many parties and some of them would offer airline hostesses who were making a few bucks on their time off, or girls from one of the local colleges. They were usually quite beautiful, quite eager for sex, and they would all do the same things. A girl who was not yet an expert cock sucker would not be invited. Those who were gifted with that type of talent were always very much in demand.
He went along with Gabrielle to the pool area and he stood for a time, sipping his drink, looking at the gorgeous young things in too scant bikinis. They wore tiny halters that barely covered their nipples. The other part was a tiny triangle of satin that barely hid their sexual cleft, and the string that held it in place disappeared between plump young buttocks that were utterly bared, then hooked onto a satin belt-like arrangement that girded their midriff. One girl was wearing a slave belt, a chain of huge golden medallions. The strings that held her tiny triangle in place were hooked into loops at either side of the chain, and the G-string went between her buttocks and hooked onto the chain in back. It was quite an arrangement. He was entranced by it for a moment. The girl wearing it was a honey blonde and when Gabrielle glanced at him, probing, he shrugged. He grinned at her.
"I feel like I have died and gone to heaven. They are all very lovely."
She took his hand and squeezed it. "Take my advice," she said, "spend some time with Carla. She is a Finn and she is very beautiful. She is very much an eager sex-partner. She will entertain you and have a good time, too. There is nothing she will not do. Be our guest and enjoy yourself for a while."
He balked. "Do I have to?" he asked.
Gabrielle turned to look at him with a startled gaze.
"Of course not," she said. "I just thought that you would want to. Your friend, Joe Gordon, is already busy with a little girl that often comes to my parties and I was worried about you being alone in a crowd of strangers."
"It is nice of you to worry about me, but I can manage," he told her.
She smiled a bit ruefully. "I was making it all too easy?"
He nodded. "Something like that. Thanks, anyway, but no thanks."
"Let me introduce you to Carla, anyway. She is good company, even if you are not too eager to enjoy her charms. I will have to leave you and I won't want to worry about you wandering around all by yourself."
He went along with her and a moment later was standing in front of the beautiful young blonde girl. She was very blonde, her skin flawless, slightly tanned, and slick now with suntan oils. Gabrielle introduced him to the girl and Carla held his hand gravely, smiling at him with a full-lipped mouth. Her big blue eyes were smiling, too. He took quick inventory and admired her pert young breasts, beautifully shaped, springing fiercely from her chest like tiny coursers eager for flight. Her belly was flat, her thighs round, tapering into lovely legs. She was a glorious young thing and she seemed to know it.
"Hello, Jim Carter," she said. "It is nice to meet you."
"He doesn't feel like fucking just now," Gabrielle said, smiling, "so, be nice to him. Maybe he will feel more like having fun a bit later on."
"Oh, he will," Carla said, wide eyed, solemn, "he will. I promise you he will."
"I promise, too," he said.
Gabrielle stepped close so that she could brush his cheek with her lips. "Till later, cheri," she said.
She went back into the house and he stood beside the gorgeous young blonde girl, a nice-looking guy with lots of dark curly hair and a sports shirt and slacks. His feet were encased in expensive loafers and he was comfortable as he sat down at one of the umbrella-covered tables beside the big pool. The blonde girl sat down too and he found himself staring at her twin beauties. She smiled and helped herself to a cigarette from one of the trays on the table. A waiter wandered close and she did a thing with her brows and a sidelong look and he brought her a drink. The girl looked at him with a warm interested gaze. She had obviously become his girl to do with as he chose. She was going to make herself obliging. That was her attitude.
"Have you been down here long?" she asked.
"No. I've been here a couple of weeks. I like San Diego. And I like this place."
"Yes," she said. "La Jolla is a beautiful place."
It was late afternoon on a Saturday in early April and he was suddenly ill at ease with a very beautiful young girl. For a moment, he questioned the wisdom of coming to Gabrielle Munoz's after all, but, he had agreed to settle in San Diego for a while and try to get the Ambler account and some of the other lucrative accounts from manufacturers who were candidly locating their main offices amidst the beauty of suburban San Diego and La Jolla and some of the other swanky towns in the area, while they set up their plants and manufacturing operations in Mexico. That way they were taking advantage of the best of both worlds.
Ambler Enterprises, Incorporated, was the name of the parent company in a vast conglomerate structure and the main offices of each of the companies was in the vast office building complex on Shadow Lawn Boulevard in one of the suburbs of San Diego. He had been sent to the local office and it was his job to acquire some of Ambler's business. A gigantic conglomerate, whose interests ranged from the cosmetics industry to aircraft and space probe spectrums, too, it was also a big partner in a computer conglomerate and he was beginning to believe that every product made or sold in America was affected in some way by Ambler.
There had been a trend established in the last five years, a pattern of great corporations moving close to the border so that they could take advantage of tax benefits that could be offered beyond the border as well as the nonunion labor force available, too. Ambler was only one of such companies and now the broad, panoramic landscapes and seascapes of southern California's coastline was dotted with the vast, modernistic office buildings. Some were far inland. They sprang at one from a clearing in a deep forest, or they sat in majestic splendor atop a mountain pass. In each case, they were the last bastions of industry, with one foot in America and the other one in Mexico. And that way, they enjoyed the advantages offered by each.
And because the vast office complexes were in existence in the region, there were hordes of people moving in to man the desks and pound the typewriters and plot and scheme the vast nationwide advertising campaigns. And, it was those types he was hoping to do business with. Joe Gordon was a case in point.
Joe Gordon was a vice-president at Princess Erika Miracles, Incorporated, the huge cosmetics firm. Over the years, the company had expanded its interests, beginning as a firm that manufactured its own line of facial makeup. In time, it devoured the hair coloring industries. The hair products spectrum seemed to be endless and Princess Erika hired the best lab people, offering prizes and spectacular profit-sharing plans for those who could invent new and better processes and turn them over to Princess Erika.
Now they had a stranglehold on the entire feminine needs market. It was Princess Erika who was first with the delicately scented and deodorized sanitary napkin. It was the same company who poured millions into the research that eventually produced the Pill. Several of the raw drug companies that were a part of the Ambler conglomerate, manufactured the Pill and were constantly spending more money to develop a new and even better contraceptive.
He knew that he had stepped into a jungle, and he knew, too, that his association with Joe Gordon could do him a lot of good. He wished that he was the kind that could take easy advantage of the luscious blonde's ample charms, but he could not. He had to know the girl and like her. Joe Gordon had simply said that there would be a party at Gabrielle's and he had promised that he would bring Jimmy Carter to the party.
So, here he was and God knew where Joe Gordon was.
"You don't say much," Carla said. She was smiling, showing him her pretty white teeth. He was not in a talkative mood but Carla did not seem to mind that. She would do the talking for both of them. That was her attitude.
"Gabrielle has such a beautiful place," she said, looking around her. He looked too. One of the sweet young things cavorting in the pool was having difficulties with her inadequate halter. She stood at the edge of the pool, trying to get it tied properly. She gave up quickly and took it off, exposing plump, pert young breasts, tipped with cherry red little nipples. She hooked her thumbs into the strap holding her bottom piece in place and shucked it off. She stood, then, bare naked, shaved pubis and all, preening herself, enjoying the freedom of nudity. Then she dove into the pool and got lost amidst the mob of yelling and shifting young people who were enjoying themselves in the big pool.
"Would you like to swim for a while?"
He shook his head. "Not now," he said.
"Okay," Carla said, a bit sadly.
"You can swim," he said. "I don't really need a guardian."
"I'd like to get acquainted with you," Carla said. "After all, later on, maybe, we will want to ball and it is ever so much nicer when a girl is acquainted with the guy. It is even nicer if she likes him. So, we can talk and get acquainted."
"Do you always ball every guy you meet?"
"No, of course not. But, when you come to one of Gabrielle's parties, it is expected, sort of. Oh, hell, it is even more definite than that. The girls who come to these kinds of parties do so because they want to get laid or have some fun with sex. After all, it is better than one's finger."
"I suppose," he said. He was watching the pool and the beautiful young people in it and he noticed that there were many of the girls already naked.
Carla noticed his interest in the nude beauties and she smiled. "After a while, everybody will be naked. For some, it takes a few drinks, for others, it just takes time."
"You mean they all turn into streakers?"
She laughed. "Not really. No one bothers with any running. After a while, the guests will get dressed and there will be a lavish buffet and we will eat and dance and enjoy the sedate parts of the party. Then, when it gets late, couples will pair off and some will find a bed someplace, some will go into town to a motel, some will just flop where they knock themselves out. The party will go on and on and finally peter out on Sunday afternoon. But, in the meanwhile, the guests are expected to have as much fun as they can."
There was a time of silence while he looked around him and she smoked a ciragette. The sun was beginning to set and he tired of nudity after a while.
"I'd like to wander around inside with the people who are dancing and drinking. Can you come along with me?" he asked.
"Of course," she said. "Wait for me. I'll jump into my clothes and then we can dance if that's what you want to do."
She made it sound like a sin. He laughed at her and waited while she went off to the cabana. He stared at her plump young buttocks as she walked away. She was indeed a very beautiful girl and he wished that he could feel more of a yen for her. The casual ease with which he could accomplish any sexual act in this climate was just a bit appalling to him. He supposed that he had spent too many years at work and too many years as Martha's husband.
Martha shared the post-high school days with him. She was his sweetheart, his bed partner, his most important friend and associate. He had loved her passionately, and she had returned his affection. They were the bright golden kids of the new generation. Sex and perversions were in and decency and morals were out. They got caught up in the sexual renaissance and they went to college together and shared a very nice apartment and their friends were equally casual and willing about sex.
Inevitably, they became involved in the swapping business and the first time he watched another man making love to Martha, something good and precious died for him. He was getting a blow job from the guy's girl friend at the time, but still, he did not have the type of emotional structure that could handle such careless and random sexuality.
But he told no one of his feelings, and he and Martha kept on playing games with their friends and associates and when they got out of school, he got the chance to go in with Belmont and Adams, who ran a very busy advertising agency. Bernie Belmont and Charlie Adams offered an eventual partnership if he developed into a good man.
He developed into one of the best and he wound up running the company. They had many millions in accounts now and he enjoyed his work. His life with Martha became unbearable to him, but he made no complaints. Instead, he eschewed Martha's many parties and little bedroom trysts and buried himself in work. Now he could sit and think and wonder why he had ever married her at all. They had simply done what was natural for them to do, he supposed.
Martha's folks had money, lots of it. Her parents were mixed up in the sexual revolution, too, he knew, but in a rather refined and indefinable way. They knew that he was balling their daughter but they ignored the situation, probably because there was nothing that they could do about it anyway. Too, he had heard that they were members of one of the far-out sex clubs in the city, so they had their own problems to worry about.
Now that he could think about his life with Martha in an objective way, he supposed that she was very much oversexed and utterly depraved and for the young years that part of her nature had been a delightful asset, but it did began to pall after a while.
Their wedding had been a very social affair and they had both balled with almost all of the guests at one time or another, so the wedding and the subsequent honeymoon were merely interruptions in a steady parade of sexual acts.
His work kept him busy and he gradually got into the habit of staying late in the office. Martha was always entertaining guests at home and he hated walking in on scenes of great revelry, in spite of the eagerness to share that was always present. He just was not the sexual tiger he had to be to stay in Martha's league. So he worked and spent long hours in the offices and he achieved. Within three years he was a partner and Martha was spending lots and lots of money. She had gotten hooked on sex with kids and she spent a great deal of money indulging herself in her new hobby.
The notion of divorce seemed to occur to them simultaneously. They were good friends and they would remain good friends, and they would part and go their separate ways in peace and good fellowship. And that was the way it worked out.
Martha settled for a lump sum and the house and the cars and he knew that she had a stable of handsome youngsters of both sexes who seemed to delight her and provide her with whatever she required in the way of entertainment.
He supposed that he was just as horny as Martha. He had Cathy in the office and she was one of the new breed, the affectionate blow job artist, geared to performing their sweet chore during a short coffee break or whenever the opportunity presented itself.
She would get him half crazed by the way she wandered around in the office, sleek and well fleshed and sporting legs that would raise a hardon on a dead man. She always wore sheer pantyhose and they made her legs even more inflammatory. She made the first move one day. It was a Saturday and she was getting overtime and she probably wanted to be sure she earned what she was getting.
She was moving around in the office, her pretty young breasts jiggling bewitchingly behind a thin satin blouse that showed them off fetchingly. Then there were the long, beautiful legs and it was all too much. Cathy had a baby face, big brown eyes, a soft, full-lipped mouth, and tiny white teeth. She was a real beauty but her voluptuous endowments were so alluring, it took a while to see past them to the very nice girl that was a part of the package too.
They took time out for coffee and when she set his cup down in front of him, she was bending over and his gaze went to the plump beauties on her chest and when she saw him, she smiled and her big eyes grew even bigger.
"Nice, huh?" Cathy said.
"Nice, indeed," he said. He sat back in the chair behind his desk, feeling the hurting, squirming sensations in his loins and his stiff dick. "You are very nice, Cathy," he said, "but you are much too pretty for an office. You drive a guy up the walls."
She sat in the secretary's chair beside the desk and stared at him, liking him.
"Do I drive you up the walls?"
"You know you do."
"I'm very sorry," she said gravely. Then she grinned and the tiny teeth sparkled at him. "The hell I'm sorry. I'm glad I drive you nuts. I like you."
He didn't say anything to that. He just sat and looked at her, knowing that he was seething.
"Are we all alone here today?" she asked.
"Yes, Cathy. Why do you ask?"
She looked down at the expensive carpeting and then she lifted her head and looked right at him, into him. "If it would be a help, I could blow you and then you could get your mind on the work we have to do. I would like to blow you, if you'd like."
He stared at her, conscious of the way he was trembling. "I think that's very nice of you, Cathy," he said. "I know I would enjoy that."
"I know it, too," Cathy said.
She slid to her knees in a slow, fluid motion. She moved around the corner of the desk, her hands pushing his chair backward so that she could get at him. He sat like a statue and let her open his fly and scoop out his sexual equipment. She made a little moan of pleasure as her mouth slid down over his stiff organ. Her head began to move up and down in a well-earned motion and her tongue began to switch back and forth, flicking lightly against his exquisitely sensitive flesh.
He was shaking and he realized that she was a gifted and expert cock sucker, every bit as expert and ardent as Martha. He was groaning and squirming and patting her sleek head and when she popped him, she lingered and devoured him like a dedicated praying mantis, an eager and fascinated feaster. She was using her nails on his scrotum and the base of his cock and he was still hard and fierce and eager for more. She began moving her head up and down again and he could feel the tightening cheeks, the fierce suction and he knew that she was satisfying her own needs, her own savage hungers.
She spent a long time bringing him to the point of eruption the second time and when she finally let him come, she knelt and shook and feasted and then she lifted her head and her eyes were glassy, not focused, and he was peering down into the valley between her pretty young boobs. He put his hands on them and she let him handle the sleek round globes for a while. She sat back on her heels and he lost the pretty breasts. She pushed his hands away from her and she gazed up at him, smiling.
"We can go to your place after work, if you like," she offered. "I didn't mean to be selfish."
"Fine," he said.
He helped her up onto her feet and she adjusted her clothes and grinned at him. She was looking at his wilted cock, limp and ludicrous outside of his pants. He put the meat away and zipped his pants up again.
She sat down and lit a cigarette from the desk batch. "Did I do it nicely?"
"Very nicely, Cathy. Thank you."
" 'Sokay," she said. "How much longer do we have to work?"
"The hell with work," he said. "Let's go."
They locked up the office and he drove them to his place, a small house set against the hills in Beverly Glen and she began getting out of her clothes as soon as she was inside the place. Instinctively, he supposed, she was a nudist. She loved to parade around naked. She was a blonde and yet she wasn't a blonde. Her pubic hair was dark brown and she trimmed it but she could not bring herself to shaving it off. "That's dirty," she said, when they discussed it.
She had an odd set of rules and principles. He learned that she had developed her facility for sucking cocks by doing it to her brother for most of her life. He was grown now and she still enjoyed sex with him. He had a beard and she said that she loved the way his beard would tickle her inner thighs when he was eating her. Her brother was married but no one was about to say anything to his wife. Cathy thought that maybe she would get married one day but not just yet. She was only eighteen and she was enjoying her life.
They made love on his bed and he exhausted himself with Cathy, and when he was finally too tired for any more activity, she sat beside him in the bed and used her fingers to continue thrilling her sexual flesh.
They slept and woke and then made love again. She spent the weekend with him and when she finally went home, he was glad to be rid of her. She was cute, she was obliging, and she was just too much. Thereafter, each day, she would lock the office door and while he sipped a cup of coffee, she would blow him, at least once, sometimes twice. He enjoyed Cathy and her efforts, but his life with her could not last and it did not.
She met a handsome young man and fell in love. She told him, giggling, that the young man was very much impressed with her because she was a good girl and she would not let him touch her. They finally got married and whenever he thought of the young man who got Cathy, he did it with a sense of envy.
His next secretary was devoutly religious and efficient and he missed Cathy for a long time.
There were other girls, many of them and he forgot about Cathy and Martha and he concentrated upon his work. He was good as a salesman and he secured many lucrative accounts and when he sat down with Bernie and Charlie and talked about the many corporations that were now setting up close to the border, and the millions they offered in advertising budgets, it was decided that he would settle in the area and take over the company's local office while he tried to see people and get the accounts that they hoped for.
He was the single one so he had to travel south, but he was glad now that he had come.
Carla came back to him and she was glowingly lovely in a short skirt and a loose blouse. She wore sandals and her legs were still lovely. She did not wear pantyhose and he noticed that none of the other girls did either. Probably the wear and tear from sharp, clutching finger nails was just too much.
A waiter brought him a drink and Carla got one, too. They stood for a time watching the naked young people frolicking in the pool. He supposed that the whole party would turn into a Roman-type orgy before the night was over.
He sighed and took Carla's arm and they went inside the house. The music was still going full blast and he was not surprised to find Joe Gordon at the buffet tables, filling up a plate. Gordon smiled at Carla first and then at him.
"You are going to have a good time here, Jim," Gordon said. "The party is just getting underway. Have fun."
"Sure," Jim said, grinning. "Carla, this is Joe Gordon, a friend of mine."
Carla smiled at Gordon. "Joe and I are friends, too."
"Sure," Gordon said, "I balled her last week. All damned night. You got a real gem there in Carla."
He stood and faced Carla's smile and he listened to Gordon's words and he wished that he had not had to hear the man's comments. He was beginning to like Carla.
"Eat," Gordon said. "The food here is always great. Gabrielle has a great caterer. It costs a lot of money for these little clambakes but they seem to serve a purpose, so nobody cares much about the expense.
"What purpose do they serve, Joe?"
Carla was busy loading up a plate and it was a moment of sudden, unexpected privacy. Joe Gordon grinned. He was a big man, always sweating a bit, always showing a gold-toothed grin, always busy with shrewd, darting eyes that missed nothing and looked worried about everything that they saw.
"We do a lot of business at these bashes," Gordon said. "For instance, I talked to Danny Clark and nailed down a deal to sell forty tons of machine screws to his company. He got hold of Bud Ames and sold him some stuff, too. Now, take you, you think I don't know what you are after? I know what you want. You are part of a good outfit. We'll talk and maybe I'll set it up for you to talk to the board at Ambler and you will see to it that Uncle Joe gets a little piece of the budget. You know how it goes, Jim. It's the name of the game, little buddy." He winked at his friend.
Jim smiled. He was six feet tall and he was hardly anybody's little buddy.
Carla came back to him with a tray. "I fixed a plate for you," she said. "Now let's find us a quiet little place and we will eat."
Joe Gordon stood for a moment, looking at Carla, drinking in her blonde beauty. He turned to give Jim a sad, amlost apologetic smile. "There really aren't any more virgins around, Jim. That's the way it is nowadays. Things used to be different. A piece of ass used to be a big thing. Now it's nothing."
Carla listened but she said nothing. Gabrielle materialized from the crowds inside the big room and she patted his arm and Jim was glad to see her. Gabrielle smiled at Joe Gordon.
"It is nice to see you, Joe," she said. "I hope you are having a very nice time."
"Sure," Gordon said.
Carla tugged at his arm and Jim nodded at Gordon and Gabrielle and he went along with the lovely blonde. They settled down on a couch with a glass-topped coffee table in front of them. He was really quite hungry and now that he had talked with Gordon about what he was after, he felt a bit relieved and quite confident. He was not at all surprised by Gordon's demand for a piece of any business he helped with. It was pretty much usual and there was always enough money for everybody. Joe Gordon would be a valuable helper and he would certainly earn whatever he got.
Jim would see to that.
CHAPTER TWO
He sat in a quiet place and ate excellent food and visited with Carla and then it was night and there were no quiet places. The dark settled in on them and he noticed that many more people were arriving at the party and as the night wore on, more and more showed up.
The pool was busy and the dance floors were crowded and Gabrielle flitted about, doing her best to make sure that her guests were having a good time.
Carla took his arm and she pulled him out into the area around the pool. They found aluminum chairs and sat and sipped cool drinks and watched the naked boys and girls as they cavorted in the brilliant lights around the yard.
Inevitably, there were couples making love on the slick tiles, uncaring about those who watched. Several handsome young couples were screwing, in varying postures. No one cared, and after a while, it was assumed that everyone would be doing the very same things.
Gabrielle found them and she got some fresh drinks and she sat in another chair and it was clear that she had come to visit. She looked around her, watching the busy lovers and when she turned back to talk she was wearing a big, sparkling smile. She lit a cigarette and blew a long streamer of smoke off toward the pool. "I do like to see my guests enjoy themselves," she said. "Maybe that's why I like giving parties."
He didn't know what to say to that so he kept quiet.
"Carla, dear," Gabrielle said, her smile widening, "are you being very nice to Jim? I do want him to have a nice time."
"He will," Carla said.
He was staring at Gabrielle, marveling at the serene beauty she presented, wondering how she could manage to look so cool, so calm, when he heard the harsh, meaty sounds of fists landing on flesh. He turned and saw two big men squared off, swinging wildly at each other. A cute little brunette with big breasts and a cute round bottom was the prize, apparently.
"Oh, dear," Gabrielle, said, not too greatly distressed. She stood and put her cigarette in the ash tray. "Excuse me a moment," she said. "I'll be right back."
They watched as she walked around the pool's perimeter until she reached the fighters. She pushed one into the pool, then the other. She stepped back to avoid the splashes and waited. When the gladiators surfaced, she smiled down at them.
"That's all," she said. "If you resume fighting, I shall have to ask my people to send you home immediately. Now, do be good boys."
She turned and walked back to him and Carla and Jim felt a moment of admiration. Gabrielle was quite a girl. The men climbed out of the pool and the fight was over.
Gabrielle sat down again and she seemed to be very relaxed, very much at ease. She noticed his look and she grinned.
"The night crew is working now. When I give a party, I usually handle it at the beginning, but, at eight, the catering people bring in a crew. Once they take over, I can relax and enjoy my party. Now, how about we talk business?"
He laughed at her abruptness. "Sure," he said. "What do you want from me?"
She smiled at Carla and held out her empty glass. "Carla, dear," she said, "get me a fresh drink, please. Take your time while you're at it."
Carla stood up and took the empty glass. "Of course," Carla said. She reached out and plucked a drink from a passing waiter's tray. She put it into Gabrielle's hand. "I'll be back with a fresh drink soon," Carla said, with a grin.
She moved off and he stared at the sweet vision her shifting buttocks offered. "That girl is truly callipygian," he said.
"Oh, I'm sure she is," Gabrielle said. "Now, what kind of a deal will you make with me if I am instrumental in helping you to pick up some really good accounts down here?"
"What kind of a deal do you want?"
"I want Gabrielle advertised. In certain areas. I want to go public and I want to be stinking rich and famous."
"That all?"
She grinned and leaned forward to pat his knee and he saw the fabulous breasts again.
"You know what I mean. I do very well here because these people have money and they spend it. I do their homes, but I have many good people working with me. I would like to do homes for some of the really big people. I think that I can help you to get some good accounts down here and I would like you and your company to advertise me and my work in return for what I am able to do for you."
"That sounds reasonable. But, how can you help me?"
She laughed softly, gaily. "I've already done it. I talked with Joe Gordon and I told him that I like you and I want you to get the very best down here. Joe promised that he would see to it that you got some deals and he can do it. He will do it."
"What do you have to do for Joe?"
"Get girls. The younger the better. The woods are full of young kids down here who are just dying to hop into bed with a fully grown man. So, Joe lives rather well. He has done a lot of favors for me but I have done well by him, too. So, it all balances out. But, you, you are different. If we can make a deal, I think you and your associates can make me famous. And rich. That's all that I want. Just that."
There were sounds of a disturbance somewhere inside the house and Gabrielle jumped up and flashed them a quick smile. She reached down to pat his arm.
"We'll talk again tomorrow," she said. "Just so you know why I am being so very nice to you."
She darted away before he could say anything to her. He sat then with Carla, watching the guests get drunk and, after a while, he began to feel a little drunk, too.
"Would you dance with me?" Carla asked.
"Sure," he said. He stood up and they went into the house and the rooms were cluttered with dancers. One tall, slender blonde girl with sharply pointed breasts, was stark naked, eyes closed, while her body writhed and moved in sinuous grace to the soft, throbbing notes of a bass guitar. No one paid any particular attention to her. Too many of the girls were naked. Carla stepped into his arms and they began to dance, adapting to the slower beat. She was warm and delicately scented and very lovely and when she put one hand down between them, so that she could feel his stiff cock, he was amazed to realize that he had had it for a long time. And he was very ready to do something about it.
Carla moved her head so that she was looking at him and he bent and kissed the soft, full lips. She wriggled and sighed. Her mouth clung to his and her lips crawled and worked and squirmed while her tongue slipped into his mouth and touched the tip of his own.
They stopped dancing but those around them seemed not to notice. They were busy with their own projects, apparently. He put his arms around Carla and he could feel the sleek warmth of her body in his hands. He ached with the yearning to feel it beneath him while his inflamed cock dipped and wallowed in the slippery depths of her loins.
"Where can we go?" he said thickly.
She kissed him again and her lips left his reluctantly. "Come with me," she said. She took his hand and he went with her as she threaded a pathway for them through the dense crowd of dancers on the floor. It took a long time for them to reach the kitchen, a place of shining chome and white tile and busy chefs and waiters who were quite willing to ignore them.
Carla seemed to be very much at home in the kitchen.
She went to the drawers set into the counter and she opened one. She got out a small key and dangled it in front of him. She laughed at his puzzled look. "You'll see," she said.
They went out into the night and they were lost in gardens and rows of clipped hedges and he just followed the beautiful blonde girl. The night was something out of dreams, warm and filled with the fragrances of night-blooming flowers, the beauty of a golden girl in bright moonlight. The music was behind them, the sobbing of saxophones a gentle litany to love and splender and delicious joys and he tried to cling to the moment for a time. It would become one of those very special, distinct frames, frozen in the stream of memory and he would treasure it forevermore.
"Hurry up, lover," Carla said. She reached for his hand and led him through a row of tall, cropped hedges and they came to a small building fashioned of masonry that stood at the end of the gardens. The key fitted its lock and he followed Carla into the small building. She snapped on a light, the door closed behind them and he discovered that he was in an elevator that began to move downward. Carla stood very close so that she could kiss him and cling to him and then the elevator stopped and she took his hand and led him into a corridor just beyond the door.
She let the sliding door close and the elevator slid up again and there was a paneled cubicle where the car had been a moment earlier. There was a dim light in the ceiling of a short corridor and when they went through that and turned sharply left, they entered a beautifully furnished underground apartment.
They stood in the living room area and there were couches and comfortable-looking chairs, a TV set, a small wet bar and thick pile carpeting covering the floor.
Carla was holding his hand and she led him into the bedroom just beyond the other room. "There's a kitchen, too," Carla said, "but you won't want to see it right this minute."
She was so right about that, he thought.
There was a king-size bed in the large room, drapes on two of the walls, mirors on the others. Carla turned on the lights and there was just enough light to see how lovely she was. Her eyes were sparkling as she stared at him in the mirror. He could hear the whisper of the air-conditioning system and when Carla touched another button in the wall panel, he could hear the sound of soft, seductive music.
"This is Gabrielle's bomb shelter. The old owners had it built when there was such a big scare. Now Gabrielle uses it for trysts and she sometimes stays down here for days, if she likes what she is doing and the people she is doing it with."
He began unbuttoning his shirt and he was delighted when Carla stepped close and took over the task. He began getting her out of her clothes. There was a thought nagging him and he stopped what he was doing and pushed Carla aside, very gently.
"Let's take our time," he said. "We are not in a hurry."
"I am," Carla said. "I've been dying to ball you for hours now. You are going to get raped."
He smiled. "Fine. But, just you wait a minute, I think I'd like to look around a bit."
Carla went off to fix him a drink and by the time she returned he had found the camera. It was set in the wall, its lens cleverly concealed by the drapes. He turned it off and when he took the drink from Carla he could see from the look on her face that she was astonished. She stared at him and her beautiful eyes were enormous. They were a deep shade of greenish blue and there was a look of outrage in them.
"I had no idea," she said. "Gabrielle must have had a lot of fun with that camera."
"I'm sure that the place is bugged, too. I think our little friend, Gabrielle, is a voyeur. Maybe a blackmailer. At least, we are not going to play her game."
Carla moved close to him and she was half naked already. He put his hands on the plump young breasts and she gasped and it was a sound of pleasure. He knew then that they would not leave the place and their sounds might be heard by a concealed recorder but he didn't really care. He just didn't want to provide people with a free show. Not without being paid, at least.
It occurred to him that there might be other cameras strategically located, but Carla's soft, wet lips were kissing him and he was kissing her and they were shivering and shaking and his hands were busy with her breasts and the little sounds of bliss that were emanating from her lovely throat were just too encouraging. He forgot about everything except the beautiful young girl in his arms.
He shifted one hand and moved it down to peel the skirt off and then she was helping him, with eager hands, to peel away the wispy panties that she wore. His fingers slid deep into the warm, slippery trench and she moaned again.
They were standing beside the bed and they fell onto it and she was on her back, her legs lifted high and wrapped around his waist and her fingers found his stiff organ and guided it into the puckered little mouth that she had between her legs.
"You have such a lovely cock, lover," she whimpered into his ear. She flipped her hips and swallowed his organ in her depths. She was shaking and squirming and he was beginning to move his hips back and forth and her hands clutched his bare shoulders, her nails dug into his skin cruelly, uncaring, and she shook violently as orgasm claimed her, forced her into squealing, gurgling ecstasy.
He kept on moving in and out of her chamber and she was drenching his sensitive flesh with little drops of her own essences and he was shivering, too. He found her mouth and her head was twisting from side to side as the ravages of an exceptional orgasm devastated her. He kissed her lips and found them hot and dry and swollen. He licked them and wet them and her arms clung to him, crushing his shoulders in a vicious embrace. She moved her hips back and forth in quick, convulsive motions and then her orgasm began to dwindle and she was weeping and moaning and the beautiful young body was suddenly drenched with sweat. Her hips were moving again and he was pumping into her constantly, amazed by his own stamina. And then he was moving along the road to orgasm, too. She sensed it and her legs almost broke his back and her arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders and she was barely touching the bed.
They moved frenetically, fiercely, savage in their sudden need to achieve satiety and then he was coming, pouring his hot juices into her sheath and she joined him, whimpering and squealing as a massive, drenching orgasm swept through her loins. She continued to move her hips, shifting and rotating them tightly against his thighs, both drenched with sweat and the juices of love, both seeking the very last vestige of sensual satisfaction.
It happened for her first and she collapsed onto the bed, her legs fell away and she gasped and squirmed in a dying splendor that was pure bliss for her, it seemed. He collapsed on top of her and then he worried about his weight. He started to move but she whimpered in quick protest and her arms held him prisoner.
"Not yet," she murmured plaintively. "Not yet."
He kissed her and the urge to begin screwing again was very strong in him. Her lips were soft and warm and delicious and he could smell her and that was an appealing scent, too.
He liked everything about her and when she finally let him move, he sat up and looked around him, wondering if he had performed for an unseen and unsuspected camera. He thought of making a thorough search and then decided against it.
Carla sat up and she lit a cigarette from a pack on the nightstand. They were not her brand and that made him feel a bit better, for some reason that he couldn't explain.
"That was so good," Carla said, smiling at him, at ease in her nakedness. "The first one was pure desperation, but the next one was pure ecstasy. I hope you stay around these parts for a long, long time."
He was still struggling for breath and he knew that he was in excellent condition so he must have had a fine time. Carla leaned close so that she could kiss him, then she got out of the bed. She made a dash for the bathroom and he waited while she showered and he could hear her doing it. She came back into the bedroom a little later, toweling herself briskly with a puffy pink turkish towel. She grinned at him as she put one knee on the edge of the bed.
"Next," she said. It was practically an order. She handed the towel to him and then she laid down on her back in the bed. She lit a new cigarette and watched him as he stood and looked at the beauty of her body.
She shifted her leg so that he could have a better look. It was a hoyden gesture, but she made it seem rather cute and delightfully naughty.
"You hurry and get cleaned up. I've got some very nice ideas in my little head for us."
He answered her with a grin and went off to scrub the dried sweat and other dried juices from his person. The bathroom was tiled and clean and fitted out with all the fancy taps and expensive accountrements that the very rich seems to like so much. There was a bidet and he was glad of that. Somehow, it assured him that Carla had cleansed her person with ease. He stood under a spray of warm water and scrubbed himself clean and then he toweled himself dry.
He went back to Carla and she welcomed him with open arms. They kissed and she was quickly ready and ardent. She was a very ambitious lover. She began kissing him on the lips and then the chin and then the chest. She sucked each of his nipples into her mouth while her hands toyed with his sexual equipment. He put his hands on her firm breasts and when he handled the little nipples she made soft, barely audible sounds of delight. His palms pressed against the bulbous flesh, he rubbed the sleek, smooth skin and she whimpered and it did seem that her kisses became wetter, warmer.
He realized that they were making love in darkness and he had not noticed when she put the lights out. He didn't really care. He was handling the sensitive flesh between her legs and she was twisted in a way that permitted such play. She was moaning and whimpering as her lips and tongue touched and teased his body. She was licking his belly and his hip bones and then she slid her face down between his legs and her mouth was kissing and licking, sort of plucking at his sexual organs. She was very slow, very deliberate and when she slid her mouth down over his stiff cock and her cheeks collapsed against it, he shivered. She was rubbing her tongue against his sensitive flesh and she was really quite expert.
She shifted again in the bed and then she was astride his face and he could smell the faint scent of her working organs. She seemed to know that he would be eager to tease her flesh with tongue and fingers and she wanted to be devoured, obviously. She settled herself so that her clit and her slit were in his mouth and as soon as his tongue began moving against the tiny little bubble of fevered flesh, she came, her midsection shaking violently as an orgasm set up a violent storm within her depths.
They began then to really provide joy and bliss for each other and she was doing startling things to him with her mouth. She would slide her mouth up and down on his excited prong, her tongue licking and teasing the flesh and the tiny opening that was welling his juices. Then when he was close to coming, she would stop all activity and his cock would lie in her mouth and subside. She did it again and again and the hours went by and then she did it once too often and he burst and she devoured him as eagerly as a desert traveler who has just found water.
They spent hours making love and when exhaustion set in, they slept. When morning came, Carla found food and she fixed some eggs for them and fresh coffee and after they had eaten, they made love again.
They showered and dressed and left the underground apartment and Carla put the key to the place back where she had found it. The party was still in progress and it seemed that those they saw in swim suits or slacks simply had not bothered with sleep. Carla told him that there were many bedrooms and some of the guests would still be asleep, or busy making love.
Gabrielle joined them at the kitchen breakfast nook where they were having some coffee and she seemed very glad to see them. Her bright smile was turned on full strength and she looked to be rested and fresh. She was wearing a loose blouse of a pale tan shade and shorts that almost matched. She sat down across from him and smiled.
"Perhaps we will talk some more," she said. "Not just yet, but later in the day."
He nodded and she patted his hand and the kitchen was suddenly flooded by mobs of hungry people and the cooks and waiters began handling orders and dishing up food in a hurry. Gabrielle suggested that they shift and a couple of waiters set them up out by the pool.
It was a very warm day and the pool was already crowded, half of the swimmers naked, half in some sort of swimsuit. Some of the girls went topless and wore bikini-type pants, some of the amply endowed wore halters to confine their huge boobs while the bottom parts went naked. Others simply wandered around without any clothing at all.
He looked at them and he noticed that most of the girls he could inspect had done away with their pubic hair and were as smooth in that region as a child. He wondered if that was going to be the usual thing for the future. Then he wondered which type he preferred and he realized that he just did not care.
"I hope that you two had a very nice time," Gabrielle said. "I'm sure you did. Do you like my little hideaway, Jim?"
He laughed at her. "Sure. I disconnected the camera, though. I hope you don't mind too much."
She shook her head and said, "It doesn't matter. I suppose you will think me horrid, but, I do hate to miss anything. But, perhaps it is just as well that you put the camera out of business. Some things should be private."
"Now you think of that," Carla said, almost angrily.
"Cheri," Gabrielle said to her, "you must not feel too badly. I do not have pictures of you. Aren't you glad?"
"Sure am," Carla said contentedly. She sipped her coffee and puffed on a cigarette and Gabrielle turned to look at him, to talk to him.
"If you were to tell me that you were particularly interested in getting one particular account, I might be persuaded to begin helping you immediately. David Goodhow is having a party at his estate this evening and I have been invited to attend with such selected guests as I might wish to bring. I could consider you a selected guest. You might even become my escort for the evening."
"What do we do with me?" Carla asked.
"I will find you someone, Cheri. I want you to stay here. This thing tonight will be business and someone should keep an eye on my party."
She twisted in her chair so that she could look directly at him. "I get the fall-out from the other parties," she explained, "all the time. But, you know who David Goodhow is. I can arrange it for you to talk to him."
"Thank you," Jim said. "I would like that. Very much."
"Of course you would. So, tonight you will be my escort and we will attend that party and I shall ask David Goodnow to talk with you and to give you some business."
"Thank you."
Gabrielle smiled and patted his hand. "David will give you some business. I am sure. David is a fine man, he is chairman of the board for Ambler, the parent corporation, and he is president and board chairman of Princess Erika Cosmetics, you know, the miracle company. But, David will be very glad to do anything that I ask of him. I do David lots of favors."
"Girls?"
Gabrielle opened her eyes very wide. "Cheri, no," she said, shocked. "Of course not."
She looked at Carla and her smile practically twinkled. "Carla, dear," she said, "go and get us some fresh coffee. And, take your time. No hurry."
Carla stood up. She smiled at him and it was the weak smile of the good soldier off to do duty. She hated to go but duty called. Gabrielle watched the lovely blonde walk off to the kitchen.
"She has such a lovely ass," Gabrielle said. "And she is truly a nice girl."
"Now, what do you do for David Goodnow?"
She made a face at him. "Must I tell? Do not make me tell you. He trusts my discretion. He asks me to send him handsome young boys, plump ones, and I must explain to them in advance that he will do unspeakable things to them but they will be well paid. I don't know what he does to them and I always think I am better off not to ask, so I do not ask. But, the boys never want to go back to him again. I must always find new boys."
"You must have some fine connections," he said, sarcastically. He was not sure that he liked her at the moment.
She touched his hand again and her eyes were solemn, pleading for understanding. "The boys are volunteers, many of them need the money. Many of them come from across the border and they know that they can earn mucho money if they are sweet and obliging to hot-pants gringos. So, they come to me and they ask to be used."
He sat in the brilliant sunshine and tried not to think about the things that Gabrielle had told him about. He knew that many of the very wealthy had achieved remarkably vivid levels of sexuality and that young people were being poured into the market but he had supposed that such activity on the part of the young was voluntary. Gabrielle watched the wheels going around in his head and her smile was gently understanding.
"Cheri," she said softly, "it is not as bad as you might suppose. Remember, in this climate, venereal disease is unheard of, and the youngsters who become involved are well paid, very well protected and many find this type of activity their only source of income. But, it is not for us to think about. It is none of our business. But, because I am good to David Goodnow, he will listen when I say that I want your agency to have some of the very nice accounts. The biggest budgets, like that. Is that what you will like for me to do for you, my Jimmy?"
"That's what I will like for you to do for me," he said. He supposed that he was being venal, just like everyone else, but he had to get some of the doorways opened. And right here in the area.
The advertising picture was constantly changing and while he and his associates had offices on Madison Avenue in New York, they realized that the big eastern city was no longer the mecca for the advertisers and so the big outfits were opening offices wherever industry and manufacturing located its main nerve centers. And that could be anywhere these days.
He had heard that the gradual dislocation of industry had had its beginning during the war years, when the threat of bombs in a heavily congested manufacturing region was a very real possibility. The plants and mills were moved to new locations, each one far removed from others like it. Now industry was following that pattern and he knew that there were many companies in the San Diego area and their main offices were there, too.
His company had an office in the area and they had many good accounts, but the really big money had been eluding them. Now he was after some of the accounts that would provide vast sums for the agency that handled them. With Gabrielle's help, he could accomplish what he hoped to achieve. She knew it. He knew it.
Carla came back to them, her brows raised, seeking permission to sit down with them again. She was carrying a fresh drink for Gabrielle.
"Would you like to ride, Jimmy?" Gabrille asked.
He knew that there were stables and horses and tennis courts and all of the accoutrements of good living. He was lazy and he just wanted to rest for a while. Perhaps he and Carla could swim later. He said that to Gabrielle.
"All right, cheri," she said. She sighed and got up onto her feet. "You will take me to the party the bigwigs are having tonight and you will meet many of the people you must deal wtih. You will like that, no?"
He grinned at her and she went away. Carla gazed at him with a warm and affectionate look and he sighed. She put her hand in his and she bent so that she could kiss him. He sighed again and took his hand back.
It was going to be a very long day.
CHAPTER THREE
The day went quickly for him because he kept busy. Gabrielle disappeared from her party and he lost Carla, too, after a while. He wandered around after he finished his breakfast and Carla went off to swim. He was not the type to spend the entire weekend partying, so he got into his little car and went to his own house for fresh clothing and a chance to think about what he might say to David Goodnow when he met him. Others in his organization had tried to get some business from David Goodnow and the monolithic cartel he headed, but Jim was now closer than anyone had yet gotten. And all because of Gabrielle.
He showered and shaved and slipped into fresh things while he thought about Gabrielle. He was not sure that he liked her. He suspected that there was a streak of cruelty in her. Perhaps it was a necessary callousness. When he actually put his mind to it and identified his concepts where Gabrielle was concerned, he decided that he considered her a procurer, a lovely woman pandering to the basest instincts in order to further her own ambitions. He laughed then. Wasn't he doing the same thing?
He was still at home when Gabrielle called him.
"I missed you," she said. "I went looking for you and there was no you. Hey, that sounds catchy, no? Like a song title. What are you doing? We have a date for tonight. You won't forget?"
"I won't forget," he said. He explained that he had things that he wanted to do. "I am going into the office. I have to make some calls and check into some of the things I am working on. I will be back to your party in time to take you tonight. Don't worry about that. How do we dress for that kind of. a party?"
"Casual. Very casual." She paused and he could hear the soft, crackling sounds in the receiver. "Would you like me to come into town and visit with you while you do the things that you must do?"
"Would I get around to doing my work?"
She sighed. "I guess not. Ah, well, I will get back to my party and look after my guests and I will think of you and wish that you could be with me. Hurry. See you."
She hung up and he was very much alone in the house and he missed the weird gaiety of Gabrielle's party and her frequent visits with him. But he would get to see her later in the day. He supposed that he really wanted to handle her superb breasts again and he supposed, too, that he wanted to make love to her. With her.
He drove his little car through quiet streets and parked it in his usual slot behind the office building that the company had bought when they first settled in the region. The place was empty and that was not too usual. Many of the people who worked there would come in on a Saturday and work while the place was quiet and virtually untenanted.
During the week there was great hustle and bustle and it was a shop where a great deal of work was accomplished. They had good people working for them, talented people. The place practically ran itself.
His office was a huge paneled room and there was an attached bathroom. There were couches and a combination stereo and TV console, tape recorders, all of the equipment needed for his type of work. His secretary, a stunning blonde named Irene, had her office just beyond his, and he was very glad that she would not be in while he was busy. Irene was the kind of secretary who believed that she should be all to her boss. She was another Cathy, with a better set of brains. She yearned to bring him coffee in paper containers, to polish his desk, to type his letters with a speed and accuracy that was almost obscene. She ached to serve him in any way that she could and she had let him know, rather forthrightly, that she was available if he was in need of female entertainments that she would willingly provide.
Irene was twenty-two, stacked, with long, lovely legs, long golden hair and goon girl glasses that sat upon her cute nose and gave her the look of an amorous owl. She had bright white teeth and a slow, sexy smile. She was addicted to sheer pantyhose and short skirts and revealing blouses. When he first encountered her hoyden and inflammatory style of dress and her guileless stares from big blue eyes, he was tempted to fire her right away. But she took his fast dictation like a real pro and she turned out to be the best damned secretary he had ever known. And she was very willing to do anything at all to please him. Anything.
So far he had not required anything of her except secretarial work. He was often tempted to suggest that she wear different clothing, something a bit more sedate, but he could never quite bring himself to say anything. He was probably strongly voyeuristic by nature anyway.
He settled behind his desk and glanced at the list of calls that Irene had left for him yesterday. Manny wanted him in New York, both of his partners had called him, and there were some other calls that he would deal with on Monday morning. He had left early on Friday so he could get cleaned up and dressed in time for Gabrielle's party. He had expected that it would be a rather quiet party for some of the local executives but it had been more than that. He knew that many of Gabrielle's young guests were high on grass or something even stronger, maybe. Now that he thought of it, he had noticed many of the young people smoking pot, but he was so used to that kind of behavior that he had thought nothing of it.
Blow jobs in public were a bit new to him and he had actually seen all sorts of sexual acts being accomplished and no one said a word about it. Enjoy. That was the keyword of Gabrielle's party. And there had been many executives there. And they would probably come and go and visit other parties going on in the neighborhood.
There was a caste system, he knew, and he was going to meet the very top level people tonight. He was grateful to Gabrielle for that.
He got on the phone and talked to his partners first. They were in L.A. at the moment, Beverly Hills, to be more exact. He reported what he had accomplished and they wished him luck with David Goodnow. Accomplishing an audience with that great man in such short time was spectacular spade work, Charlie Adams said. Each had something of their own to talk about and he was very busy with the phone for a long time.
At one point, he heard the outer door open and close and he supposed that someone had come in to do some work in relative quiet. When he finished with the call he was on, he got up and went outside to look. It was Tippy Palmer, a mousy little brunette girl with steel-rimmed glasses and long dark hair and eyes that were always very worried about things.
Tippy was a layout artist and when he walked into her cubicle he found her hard at work on a sketch. She looked up when she saw him and the quick, worried look slipped into her eyes. She sat back and waited for disaster to swamp her.
"Hi, Tippy," he said. "I thought I'd better let you know I'm here."
"I know, Mr. Carter. I heard you. I had this work to do so I thought I'd better come in and do it. Owen wants it for Monday morning. It's part of the layout for Timber Toys. Owen was very positive about it."
She was talking about Owen Arnold, a thin, harried man who was head of the art department. Tippy was really very much afraid of Owen Arnold, obviously.
"All right, Tippy," he said quietly. "Carry on."
He smiled because he felt foolish saying such things but she just nodded and as she bent her head to her work again he could almost see the look of worry leaving her eyes.
He went back to his office and he was on the phone again when he heard a sound and he glanced up to see Tippy Palmer standing in the doorway. He finished his call quickly and put the telephone back into its cradle.
"Yes, Tippy?" he said.
"I don't know if it's important, Mister Carter, but I worked late on Friday. I had the door locked but about six two young guys came to the door and they insisted upon talking to you. I said that you had already gone home and they wanted to know where you lived, so I told them. I didn't think it mattered one way or the other."
"No," he said. "Did they say what they wanted?"
She shook her head and the long hair bounced around on her back and the goon girl glasses shifted on her nose.
"They just said they were looking for you."
"All right," he said. "Thank you for telling me, Tippy."
She stood for a moment, staring at him. Then she seemed to make a definite decision about something.
"They were hippies," she said. "Real hippies."
He thought about that for a moment. "I don't know any hippies," he said.
Tippy gazed at him with her sad look, worrying about it all. "They didn't say that they were friends," she said. "They were just looking for you."
"All right," he said. "They'll probably come back if it is important. Thank you, Tippy."
"You're welcome." She didn't move. "What do you suppose they might have wanted?" she said, almost to herself. "I mean, what can people like that do?"
He didn't answer her and she stared at him for a moment longer, then she smiled and pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose.
"Oh, well," she said, "I just thought I'd tell you."
"Thank you, Tippy," he said. "Thank you very much."
"Yeah." She smiled again and went back to her own office.
He wondered for a time what the hippies could have wanted, then he went on with his calls and forgot about the hippies.
Tippy Palmer was still working at her desk when he left the office and got into his car. He drove back to his apartment and checked his appearance very carefully. He took a quick shower just to be on the safe side and when he left the house he wore a jacket and a tie. He did not trust Gabrielle's notion of what would constitute casual dress.
Gabrielle's party was still underway and the same faces seemed to be in sight. The same nudes were in and around the pool and some truly beautiful young girls were dancing in the buff with guys who were just as naked. He went looking for Carla but she was not in sight. He remembered his time with her in the underground apartment and he was suddenly envious, assuming that she was probably there with another partner.
Gabrielle, spectacularly lovely in a very brief swimsuit, emerged from the pool and grinned at him. She climbed the steps and joined him. She plucked a cigarette from a pack on a nearby table. She lit it and blew a wavering streamer of smoke toward him. Her smile showed him how glad she was to see him.
"I've been waiting for you," she said. "Do come and swim with me for a bit."
He grinned and let her take him into the cabana so that one of the attendants could find a pair of trunks for him. He changed in a room that had been designed for the purpose.
Gabrielle waited for him and as soon as they walked out by the pool, she pushed him in and then dove in after him. She surfaced beside him and kissed him and then she slid beneath the water again and he was alone amidst a bustling crowd of near naked people, and a good group of bares, too.
He swam for a while and then he and Gabrielle sat at one of the tables and a waiter brought drinks and they talked.
"I will do a lot for you tonight, cheri," Gabrielle said. "Most of the people who attend David Goodnow's parties are the top brass in the different companies. Tonight you will get the chance to meet all of them. It is not easy to get inside that crowd, but we will do it all right. I know all of them and I am sure that they like me.".
"I know why, too," he said. She made a face at him. "Now, you be nice. Someone always has to do what I do. Big business uses up a lot of flesh. And, because there is so much money involved with such people, one must be able to rely upon people whose discretion is beyond question. That is what I provide that is most valuable to my clients. I am a decorator, of course, and it is possible for me to arrange other matters for the people that I like, so I do that. What's wrong with that?"
He shook his head and she changed the subject. She told him that Carla had gone home and might be back again on Sunday. Then again, she might not be back.
"I think Carla has developed a crush on you," she said. "That is most unusual. For Carla. She is a very nice girl."
He agreed with that. They sat for a time in silence and he watched some of the naked young girls around the pool, and each time a waiter put a fresh drink into his hand, he sipped at it and then put it down. He did not want to be in an alcoholic haze when he met David Goodnow and his friends.
"Do we eat here?"
Gabrielle shook her head. "No. There will be a buffet at David's house and we will be expected to eat. I think I'd better check on things here and then I will get dressed. It is getting on, my dear."
The sun was beginning to set and the girls around the pool were wearing goose bumps and little else. He went into the cabana and showered to get rid of the chlorine and then he got dressed.
He ran into Joe Gordon and the man was drunk. A cute little redhead had him on a couch and his face was smeared with red streaks from the girl's lipstick. Joe was sweating and he looked to be a little the worse for wear. He grinned at Jim and he made an attempt to collect himself but it was wasted effort. The girl was smearing her mouth all over his and her hands were inside his pants. Joe Gordon had good reason to sweat.
He wandered and after a while Gabrielle came to him and she was astonishingly lovely in a tight black sheath. Her hair was set in an attractive way and she knew that she looked very pretty. She stood in front of him, soaking his admiration up. Then she pirouetted for him and he looked at her, grinning.
"You are quite the loveliest thing, even at your own party," he said. "Are we ready to leave?"
"Yes, cheri," she said. She stepped close to him so that she could buss his lips with a quick, delicate kiss. When he tried to hold her in his arms she eluded him with a swift, eel-like motion. "No, no. You will ruin my makeup. Maybe my dress. Just wait, mon cher, after the party we will go to my underground boudoir and do many interesting things. No?"
He grinned. "Sure. Why not."
She liked his little car and she decided that they would go to the party in that. He helped her into the car and she tied a wispy kerchief around her hair and then they were on their way. Gabrielle began giving him directions and the darkness of night began settling down around them. He put the headlights on and drove on deserted roads and finally drew up in front of a pair of iron gates. They looked like something out of a horror movie, tall, impregnable, impressive. Gabrielle talked to the young man who came to see what they wanted. He seemed to know her. He opened the gates for them and Jim drove inside. There were other cars coming up behind them, pooling at the gates while the gatekeeper dealt with each one. Gabrielle sat on her side of the seat and she continued to be still.
He guided the car up a winding roadway and eventually found a parking lot at the rear of a massive Tudor-style home, the type of feudal mansion that should have been back East. There were rolling lawns and terraces and a semicircular driveway in front of the huge, leaded window house. The front doors were deep set in stone and there was a footman at the front of the house, a nice-looking young man who offered to park the car. Jim shook his head and the young man directed him to the rear of the house and the big area there.
They got out and Gabrielle knew the way into the house. There were people in handsome clothes wandering around and when Gabrielle saw their host, she made certain that Jim got to meet the man right away.
"David," she said, smiling, "it is so nice to see you again. This is Jim Carter, the advertising man. He wanted to meet you. Jim is one of my dear friends. I promised him that you would send him some business. Did I do wrong, David?"
The tall white-haired man holding onto her hand smiled. He let go of her hand and offered his own to Jim. They went through the business of shaking hands and Jim decided that he liked David Goodnow, in spite of his fondness for young boys. When he thought about it, the man's sexual inclinations and desires were really his own personal affair. Jim shook hands warmly with the big man and then there were others to meet and Gabrielle and David Goodnow made certain that he met everyone.
There was a quality of elegance at David Goodnow's party that was missing at Gabrielle's bash. No one was naked; the women were beautifully dressed, and those using the big pool at the rear of the house were all wearing bikinis that had probably cost fantastically and covered only the strategic parts. There were many beautiful women at the party, but they were wives and the type of women that inhabited the society pages of the newspapers.
Gabrielle stayed close to him and she helped him with his plate when the dinner was served. There were several bands, the usual strolling strings, a dance band and a group that played chamber music in a large room that no one seemed to ever enter. The guests were having a good time and there was an air of subdued gaiety. He and Gabrielle danced and talked and it amazed him to discover that he was considered a celebrity of sorts. The agency he represented and partially owned was very well known in such a climate and people were very interested in learning how advertising campaigns were begun and the things that an agency could do to stimulate sales and to build goodwill for those who paid the bills for it.
The time went swiftly and when Gabrielle suggested that he come along with her, he was a bit surprised. She pulled him away from a group of attentive listeners.
"David Goodnow would like to have a very private talk with you, Jim," Gabrielle said. "He has agreed to do what he can to persuade the people to give your agency some of the nice juicy contracts. I hope that you will be properly grateful and do very nice things for Gabrielle."
"Oh, I will," he said, grinning. "Starting right now."
He kissed her and she ground her body against him while soft, deliberately faked whimpers escaped her lips.
"Stop now," she whispered. "David is waiting."
She took him to a paneled library and there were other men in the big, leather furnished room. David was seated in one of the big chairs, the others scattered around on couches and smaller chairs. There were at least seven men in the room.
"Would you like me to stay and fix drinks?" Gabrielle said to David Goodnow. "Or would you like me to leave?"
"Stay, by all means. We will need someone to fix drinks."
They talked then and Jim was made welcome and it was apparent that David Goodnow's liking for him was going to accomplish great things.
"We are already familiar with your agency, Jim," Goodnow said. "We have had some accounts with your people. We have always had good results. We have been hoping that one of the really big agencies would locate here so that we could work directly with the people who would actually handle the campaigns."
"I'm very glad then that we decided to move down here," Jim said.
Gabrielle flitted around, making drinks, handing them out and he watched her, conscious that she was an incredibly beautiful woman and that she had probably been to bed with every man in the room at one time or another. It was probably an unfair, certainly an inappropriate thought. He stopped watching Gabrielle and began to talk with the men who had come into the library for the express purpose of talking with him.
They spent a couple of hours in the library and when they finally broke up the conference, he was practically glowing. He had gotten a promise of cooperation and future business from each of the men and they were all big men, heads of their own companies, able to dictate and make directives.
When he and Gabrielle left the big estate and the party, David Goodnow shook his hand again and invited him to stop in on Monday. Perhaps they could have lunch. In any event, they could certainly begin to get things moving, Gabrielle stood tall and statuesque and serenely lovely, not yet willing to get into the car. She was smiling and waiting to be kissed. He bent across the top of the car and she bent to meet him halfway and their kiss sizzled and dripped.
"Now we can go to my place and go to bed and fuck all damned night," she said, whispering. "You like my idea, no?"
"Sure I like it. I like you, too."
"That is very good," she said solemnly.
He came around to her side of the car. He got her into it and then he got in beside her. He started the car and drove out to the gates where the same young man let them out. He started speeding along one of the country roads that they had used in getting to the party.
He rounded a curve in the roadway and almost ran into a load of hay on an old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon. The load of hay was blocking the road and when he stopped, two young men came toward the car. They looked like hippies with sombreros.
One of the young men opened the car door and then Jim found himself facing a big handgun. It was a forty-five, he suspected. The young man grinned, exposing beautiful white teeth.
"Get out, Senor," the man said. "Stand up and put your hands on the top of the car. Move, please."
Jim got out. He obeyed the man, not too frightened. He supposed that they were being held up and he knew that he had nearly a thousand dollars in his pocket. That should appease them. He stood quite still while the young man frisked him with experienced pats in the right places.
The other young man was standing beside Gabrielle on the other side of the car.
"Get out, girl," he said. He was a young man with deep-set blue eyes, a heavy beard, and a rifle. Jim noticed that another young man had joined them and he, too, carried a rifle.
"Just what is this?" Jim said. "If it's a holdup, take what you want and let us go."
The young man with the handgun, a clean shaven student type with burning brown eyes and a mean, twisted grin, put the muzzle of his gun against the back of Jim's head with more force than was necessary.
"Put your hands down, put them behind your back."
Jim did as he was told. Something in the young man's eyes suggested that he was dealing with a madman and he could easily get himself killed.
The newcomer stood behind Jim while the other young man put handcuffs on his wrists. Then he was turned around and a crumpled handkerchief was pushed into his mouth. Some tape secured it and he was helpless.
"You are being kidnapped," the young man with the handgun said. "You are being held for one million dollars ransom. After the money has been paid to us you will be released, unharmed, maybe."
The bearded man beside Gabrielle looked across the roof of the car. "What about the broad, Peter?" he said.
"She can go back and tell everybody about the kidnapping and how much money we want and the whole thing."
"She don't have to go right now, does she?" the bearded man said plaintively.
The young man with the handgun was named Peter. A crazy line raced through Jim's head. Henceforth he shall be known as Peter, and the man with the beard and the deep set eyes shall be known as what? "She ain't going nowheres, Jake," Peter said. Fine, Jim thought, that one is Jake. Now, what about the other one? He was shaking and he was surprised to discover it.
Peter stepped back after making sure that Jim was helpless.
"Let's go back to the house," he said. "We've got some time to kill. Ramon will be here come daylight and then we can let the broad go and tell folks what's going on."
"What do we do with her until then?" Jake asked. He was staring at Gabrielle, desiring her, licking his lips.
Peter grinned, the quick, twisted feral grimace. "We will think of something."
The man with the rifle behind him, spat upon the ground and he looked at Gabrielle, enjoying her look of terror.
"That's eatin' pussy, if ever I seen eatin' pussy."
"All right, Freddy," Peter said. "Maybe later you'll be hungry. We all gonna have some fun with the lady. All of us, and you can eat on her any time you feel you want to. But, first, let's all get back to the house. You jump in and drive the car, Jake. I'll take this guy along with me."
Peter jabbed the handgun into his back and Jim jumped in pain. He began walking around the hay wagon. He got up onto the seat when he was told to do so. Peter got up and began driving the wagon, clucking at the team of horses and urging them on to greater speed.
They did not stay on the roadway for very long. He could see the nimbus from the car's headlights behind them and he made a valiant effort to get his brain into working order. He was sure that the men who had captured him had made a mistake. He was not important politically or in any other way. He was just a guy out with a very pretty young girl and there was no reason for him to be abducted. Maybe they really wanted Gabrielle, but he didn't think that she was very important, either. There had to be some mistake.
He wished that he could get the gag out of his mouth. He could feel the slipperiness of mucous under his tongue and he wished that they had used a clean handkerchief.
The horses seemed to know where they were going. They turned into a dirt road and plodded along it doggedly. After a time, they came upon a clearing in the woods and there was a barn and a house and vast flat lands. It seemed that there was grain growing out on the plains. He could see tall stalks waving in the night breezes.
Peter turned to grin at him. He gave him a push and Jim fell off the wagon's high seat and his face smashed into the hard-packed dirt of the yard. He rolled quickly, trying to minimize his hurts and then he lay still. Peter jumped from the wagon and he spoke to Freddy.
"You put the horses and the wagon away, then hide the car in the barn. Then come on into the house. I'll have Jessie make us up a pot of coffee."
"There's tequila," Jake said. "We got us a case of it just the other day. Jessie likes to sip tequila and suck lemons. You know how she is."
Jake helped him up onto his feet and he went along with Peter. Jake opened the car door and Gabrielle got out. He looked at her face and he saw that there were tears on her cheeks and a brand new look was in her eyes. She was terrified and it showed.
Peter pushed the door of the farmhouse open and they walked into a big kitchen. Peter nudged him and Gabrielle onward and they walked into a big living room, furnished with torn and ragged furniture. There was a small TV set going and a young girl was staring at the tiny screen. She turned when they entered and she stood up. She was very tiny but obviously grown up.
She wore a dirty housedress and she looked at Gabrielle's black satin sheath with envious eyes. Then she grinned.
"I can make that over for me," she said. "She sure as hell ain't going to need it where she's going."
"Now, Jessie," Jake said, "you behave. Nobody said anything to this lady so far. She is so pretty. We sort of want to keep her pretty. For a while, anyway."
"I know what you want," Jessie said angrily. "You want to get her clothes off her and suck and fuck for as long as she lasts."
Peter said, "Now that's a hell of a thing to say, Jessie."
"Maybe so," Jessie said. "But I know my husband. I know what he's like with a woman he don't care about."
"Yeah," Peter said, "I s'pose you do."
Jessie walked around Jim and her big brown eyes were dancing with glee. She had long brown hair and plump little breasts. She had a very good figure and she was aware of it.
"He's nice," she said. "How much can we get for him?"
"He's a big wheel in an advertising agency. I been thinking that we could ask for a million dollars for him. They will pay for him. They might even pay two million. I got to think about it."
Jessie's eyes were twinkling and she put her hand on his crotch. She rubbed her palm against the front of his pants and she giggled as she felt a response.
"He's nice. I want him, Peter. I want him for my very own."
Peter glanced at Jake who was gazing at Gabrielle. He seemed to be entranced.
"Now you know that ain't no way to talk, Jessie," Peter said. "We don't want Jake getting out of whack. We are going to need Jake."
She giggled. "Look at him," she said. "He got his own ideas, seems like. He got the smell of strange cunt in his nostrils and he can't cope with anything else. We are going to have us some fun, Peter."
"We don't want her hurt," Peter said. "We going to send her on her way when we leave here. She can spread the word that we have kidnapped Mister Carter here. And, she can tell them that we intend to get us a million for him."
Jessie made a snorting sound and she shook her head. "You a damned fool for thinking like that," she said. "We can send 'em a note. We don't need no broad running around that can identify us and put us in the slammer. Now we can have us some fun and then we can have us a nice funeral and we send a note and collect the money and then we have us another funeral and then we split the money and look around for another rich guy so we can make some more money. That's the way I got it figured out in my head."
Peter became sullen and the twisted grin showed up again. "Maybe you don't think so good," he said. He looked like he wanted to smash Jessie's pretty face in but he didn't dare do it.
Jake walked close to where Gabrielle stood. She was shivering; her eyes enormous with dread. Jake reached for the bodice of the dress and Jessie let out a shriek.
"Don't, damn you," she yelled. "Don't rip the dress. I ain't never had a pretty dress like that. I want it. Don't hurt it none. Now just go easy and she'll take it off. Just tell her to take it off and she'll do it. She wants to live. You can see it."
Jake spoke to Gabrielle. He told her to take her dress off. She was too terrified to obey. Perhaps she was too frightened to comprehend. Jake raised his hand to slap her face and Jessie yelled again.
"Goddamn it, don't hit her. Scairt as she is, she'll piss all over my nice new dress. I'll get it off."
Jessie went to Gabrielle. She unzipped the dress in the back and then she peeled it down over the lush white hips. Gabrielle wore a black silk bra and a tiny triangle that covered her sexual cleft. Jake reached for the wispy garments and Jessie yelped again.
"Lay off, Jake," she said. "I want the underwear too. Damn, that fancy stuff costs like hell. You ain't never bought me nothing like that. Now you want to keep me from getting it when I can get it for nothing."
Freddy walked into the room and he gasped when he faced the flawless perfection of Gabrielle's near nudity.
"You did all right last month when we got that insurance man and his wife. You said she had pretty underwear, too. Ain't you never satisfied?"
"You got a big mouth, Freddy," Jessie said coldly. She was angry. "You got no call to shoot off your mouth about all of our business."
"What the hell difference does it make?" Freddy demanded. "These two gonna do like the others done. We gonna wind up burying them, just like we done with the others."
"She is just so pretty," Jake said quietly. "I just ain't going to enjoy doing away with her."
Jake stepped back and Jessie reached for the gossamer band that barely shielded Gabrielle's pretty breasts. Jessie unhooked the snaps and she removed the garment and they stood and stared at Gabrielle's beautiful breasts.
Jessie smiled at Jake and then she reached for the tiny tringular piece of black satin and she peeled it away and exposed Gabrielle's bald pubis and the delicate cleft of pretty white skin beneath. Jessie slipped her finger into the little trench and she began moving her hand back and forth.
"I'll even warm it up for you, Jake," Jessie said. She giggled and it was an obscene, ugly sound.
Peter was staring at the shaved pubis. He plucked a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket. He lit it and then blew the smoke into Gabrielle's face. She didn't even notice. She was frozen into a stance that was virtually petrification. Her eyes were wide open, unfocused, and Jim was afraid that she would erupt into shrieks of horror or terror or outrage. He wished that he could speak to her and caution her against any senseless actions, but he was unable to say or do anything.
Jessie folded the delicate lingerie and she put the pieces on a shelf that was above the fireplace's mantel.
Jake was handling Gabrielle's breasts and Freddy was putting his hands beween her legs.
Freddy pushed and she sat down hard on a couch. Jessie put her hands on him and she opened his belt and pushed his pants down, then his shorts. She handled his organs with a practiced and eager hunger.
"I guess I'd better shut the TV off for a while," she said.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sun came into the room and hurt hi eyes, and that woke him. He was lying on the bare floor and he was weak, stiff, and woefully uncomfortable. He felt lightheaded, unable to orient himself immediately. His hands were tied behind his back and when he shifted his jaws, the gag in his mouth felt dry and it was hurting him.
He remembered the hours he had spent with Jessie and he shivered. He was convinced that she was insane and her companions were insane, too. He wondered if he would ever get away alive from her and her friends.
His brain cleared and he sat up and remembered Gabrielle. He could still hear her screams in his head and when she had screamed herself out, he could remember and hear again the dry, horrid sobbing, the sharp meaty sounds as uncaring hips pounded against her delicate body.
He could hear the obscene remarks and the crazed laughter. The males took turns with Gabrielle, using her in every possible way, demeaning her, humiliating her and he was helpless to do anything about it. He wondered if she had survived the night.
His initial experience with Jessie had been relatively mild. She had gotten his trousers off and his shorts and her husband had thought her interest in the captive's sexual equipment was sort of cute. Jim was unable to resist the girl. She was expert when it came to inducing orgasms with her tongue and her mouth, and she was avid, insatiable. After a while, she worried about the others watching her and she got angry.
"You sons of bitches got your little playmate and nobody gonna tell you what to do or how to do it. I don't want nobody makin' cracks about me and what I want to do."
Jake lifted his head from Gabrielle's crotch and he licked his lips. "Nobody gonna tell nothin', honey," he said. "Now you just go right on and have yourself a nice time. We got business here."
"Help me get him into the bedroom so's we got us some privacy. I'm tired of listening to that bitch carryin' on. Now, c'mon, you all, help me with this guy."
Jake went back to what he was doing and the others picked Jim up and carried him like a sack of grain. They put him down on top of a bed and then they went out.
He heard Jessie talking in the other room and the way she was talking frightened him.
"Now, I'm gonna lock my bedroom door and I'm gonna have me a time for the rest of the night. Don't none of you bother me about nothin'. You hear?"
A moment later he heard the bedroom door closing and then Jessie was on the bed with him. There was an overhead light in the ceiling and someone had wallpapered the ceiling and there were dark, irregular designs on the paper like the roof had leaked and it had been a long time ago.
Jessie reached for the tape that held his gag in place. She ripped it away and his face hurt and tingled. She plucked the wadded handkerchief from his jaws, and sat back, smiling at him. He was shifting his jaws, trying to get the dry, hurting feeling out of his face. She bounced up off the bed and poured him a glass of water from a pitcher and basin set that stood on the bureau.
"Here, drink this, and it will make your mouth all right again. We gonna have a lot of nice times and I want your mouth workin' all right. I like it when a guy eats me while I'm blowing him and you better do it nice. You don't use your tongue the way you 'sposed to, you maybe won't ever get to use it again. Same way with your cock. I'll cut 'em both out and feed 'em to the pigs."
She took the glass from him and put it back on her dresser. She opened a drawer and then she padded back to the bed. She was holding a long, slender knife in her fingers. She got onto the bed again and she knelt so that she could touch the point of the knife against his throat. There was too much pressure on the knife and it was hurting him.
She crawled upwards so that she could kiss him on the lips and he realized that she was very much turned on, half crazed with rampant sexual frenzies, and he worried about staying alive. His hands were still locked into the handcuffs and he was very uncomfortable lying on them, but he knew that she would not release his hands, even if she could.
She straightened up and took her blouse off and her bare breasts were plump and pretty and sharply pointed. She rubbed them into his face and when he did not perform as she wished, she slapped his face, hard.
"You lick them tits, baby," she said. "You just make 'em glow for little mother or I'm gonna really hurt you some. Now, you just do like you been tol' to do."
He licked her breasts and when she ordered him to suck on each nipple, he did it. She did not expect or require conversation with him. She simply wanted to enjoy everything he could do for her sexually.
She pulled her breasts away from him with very obvious reluctance and she got out of the rest of her clothes. She stood beside the bed and he was amazed to see that she had a very pretty young body. Her legs were very pretty, her thighs sleek and white. The small pyramid of pubic curls gave her an entrancing look of utter femininity. She stared at him, aware of his admiration and her eyes were soft and warm and affectionate. She put her palm against her pubic mound and then began manipulating her own sexual flesh, while she smiled at him. Her small body began to shake and her eyes got a deep, faraway look in them and she achieved her orgasm very rapidly.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and she was panting, struggling for breath. She rolled close to him so that she could kiss him and her tongue crept into his mouth and he shivered. She giggled, delighted by his reaction to her kiss. She seemed to suppose that he liked her and would enjoy making love to her.
It took a while for her to calm and then she straddled his head and her mouth began licking his sexual organs while she settled her own into his face. He could smell the stench of her crotch and he was very close to heaving as he touched the fevered flesh with his tongue. She helped him, moving her hips and forcing her clit into his mouth with frenetic zeal.
It was a grotesque travesty of sexuality, he knew, but his own flesh responded to her expert efforts and as she spilled and clenched many times, it seemed that each orgasm was more intense than the one that had preceded it.
She toppled from him after forcing him into three separate orgasms and he lost count of the number of times she had crested. She laid beside him, naked and drenched with sweat, alive with the rancid ordors of sex, and he turned his nostrils away, almost ill from the stench of her. He wondered if she ever took a bath.
He was tempted to ask but he said nothing.
He dozed, exhausted and worn out and he knew that there were times when her mouth and her little tongue were busy with his sexual parts. At one time he woke and she was astride him, his organ deep into her depths and she was bouncing up and down on his cock while her slippery sheath seemed to get wetter and wetter. She was handling her breasts, squeezing them, digging her sharp, red-lacquered nails into her own flesh. There were sharp little sounds deep in her throat and then she was moving up and down on his cock, her hips and legs wet and squirming as an orgasm of exceptional magnitude began to develop in her. He could feel his own culmination at hand and then he was spurting up inside of her and she was bent over him, her mouth and lips were kissing and licking his lips and she was coming, yelping and gasping and writhing in exquisite agony that could only be described as exceptional erotic ecstasy.
She collapsed on top of him and her face moved off and she stayed where she was. He slid into slumber and when he woke again, she was lying beside him, her nude body touching him and the covers were on top of them, keeping them warm. She was sound asleep. He thought of trying to get out of the bed, of trying to escape, but when he tried to move his legs he discovered that his ankles had been tied securely to the bed posts and he was not going to go anywhere. He slept again, but only because he was exhausted and because there was nothing else to do.
When he woke again it was morning, the room was flooded with sunlight and he was on the floor. He had no recollection of falling, but the bed consisted of two mattresses piled one on top of the other and perhaps he could have rolled off and never noticed. He moved his jaws and the gag in his mouth had a different taste. He was quite sure that Jessie had stuffed her dirty pants into his mouth and he wished that she had put the handkerchief back. He had sort of gotten used to that.
He looked up at the ceiling and he realized that he was in a different room. He remembered that his ankles had been tied to the bedposts in Jessie's room. This was a different room, and a different bed and his feet were tied together and he was on the floor. So they had carried him from Jessie's room and he had been too knocked out to notice.
While he was still thinking about it, Jessie came into the room. She had a tray in her hands. He could smell the fragrance of fresh coffee and he ached with sudden hunger.
Jessie grinned at him as she put the tray down.
"Hi, lover," she said. "You gonna have some breakfast and then you gonna do some things so's we can get the deal all straightened out. You got to write a note for us. Jake will tell you just what to write and, as soon as we get that note to the right people, we can figure that negotiations are underway. Now you have some coffee and some breakfast, then we will have you come on out into the other room and write the note."
She put the tray down on a bedside table and then she bent over him and began untying his feet. She had the key to the handcuffs with her and she unlocked them. Her smile was not the type to give him confidence.
"You behave yourself, lover, and don't try anything even the least bit foolish because I don't want to have to yell and get the guys in here. You just be good and eat your breakfast."
She placed the tray in front of him and then she giggled as she handled his sexual equipment. It appalled him to notice that his organs responded to her touch immediately. She bent and kissed the tip of his cock and her hand wrapped around it and she was hurting him.
"You just go ahead and eat and Mama will have herself a nice time and you just don't pay any attention to Mama at all. When I'm done with you, we can go outside and you can write the note and then we can get the hell out of here."
He was starved and he did eat while she used his sexual organs, devouring him, feeding upon him like an animal. When he was finished with his food and she was finished with her need of him, he tried to talk but his voice was a husky sound, like nails being pulled from old boards. He tried a couple of times but he could not talk. She noticed and her little mouth kissed his lips and her tongue crept inside his mouth and her hands squeezed and hurt flesh already too painful to need any more attention.
"You'll be all right, lover," she said. "Right now we don't need you to do any talkin'. Right now you listen."
She stood up and her skirt fell down and swirled around her knees. She picked up the tray and stood for a moment, smiling as she gazed down at him. She put the tray down again and picked up the handcuffs.
"You better put your hands behind your back and let Mama put your pretty bracelets on. You gonna have to be a real good boy now or maybe you won't do so good. Jake and Freddy and Peter, they kind of had a wild night. They all a little mad at Jake 'cause he kind of got carried away and done some bad things to your girl friend there. But, that ain't no concern of yours. You got to worry about you stayin' alive yourself."
She put the cuffs on him and then she picked up the tray again and she went out of the room. He wanted to ask how Gabrielle was, he wanted to ask her many things, but he didn't get to say anything at all.
He was grateful to her for not putting the gag back into his mouth. He could see the dirty wad of material she had taken from his mouth and it had been her underpants. That knowledge pushed him very close to vomiting.
When she came back into the room, Jake was with her. A moment later, Freddy and Peter came into the bedroom. They clustered around him and they each had the look of men who have become exhausted. They were yawning, scratching their bellies and puffing on cigarettes that dangled from their lips.
"They got stuff for you to do, lover," Jessie said. "Now, you come on out and Peter is gonna tell you just what you should write for your friends. You know, so they will come up with the money."
Peter had his crazy grin working overtime. He spoke to the others, ignoring Jim.
"We got to get a hustle on now. Ramon liable to show up here any minute now and we got lots of things we got to do. So let's get this guy on his feet and out to the table with the paper and pen."
Jim was moving his jaws and his mouth felt much better. He was certain that he would be able to talk. He tried.
"What have you done to Gabrielle?" he said.
The words came out a bit husky, but he was able to speak again and that gave him a bit of confidence.
"That her name? That's sure a hunk of beautiful woman."
Freddy answered him. He was nothing like the others. He had a baby face, and deep blue eyes and his hair was very blond. He was clean shaven and he wore clothes in a much neater way.
"None that kind of talk now," Jake said. "We got things to do right away. We gonna have you do some writin' and if you do it just like we say, you won't get hurt. You get smart, then we just forget about it all and we leave you right here. Now you come along with us."
Jake took out a long, slender knife and he reached down and cut the thongs that held his ankles together. The knife was razor sharp. Jim stood up when he was told to, and the handcuffs were removed. He began rubbing his wrists and trying to move around so that he could get the circulation back into his extremities. They laughed at him.
Freddy said, "You are going to get lots of exercise. You got lots of things to do for us. Now let's get at it."
They herded him out into the living room. There was a dining table set to one side of the big room. It was an old-fashioned round table, scarred and practically bare of varnish. The wood grain was sharply defined and the table was very smooth. There was a tablet of paper on the table and a ballpoint pen. And there was also a note that he was to use as a model.
He sat down at the table and Jake pushed the note under his nose. It read: "I have been kidnapped. Later on, you will be contacted about the ransom and how it is to be paid. Please begin getting together a million dollars in small bills, nothing over a twenty. Make them all old bills and do not make a list of the numbers. Should we find out later that the bills were numbered or treated in any way, Mister Carter will be shot down. We will make contact later and give instructions for payment."
"You just copy that note just like it reads," Jake said.
He glanced up and saw that the men were all watching him, waiting for him to do as he had been told to do. Jessie was in the kitchen. He could hear her moving around; he could hear the clatter of dishes and he wished that he could have a drink of cold water. Anything to soften up his mouth.
He picked up the pen and began copying the ransom note. He knew that he was still in a state of shock, and he knew, too, that he was afraid. These people were psychopaths and murder would not be difficult or anything new for them. He worried about Gabrielle. The doors to the other rooms were shut and he could not hear a sound so he assumed that Gabrielle was sleeping.
There was a crafty, animal-like instinct alive and working in his disorganized mind. He was filled with the determination to be obedient to any of their commands, to be docile and hopeful, waiting and watching for a chance, however slim, of escape.
His head was spinning; it felt enormous, empty. He stopped trying to be the brainy type and concentrated on what he was trying to put on the paper in front of him.
Jessie padded into the room. She put a cup of coffee in front of him and her big smile looked like a grimace out of hell.
"Here, drink this, lover," Jessie said. "You got a long hard day ahead of you. You need some more coffee, at least."
He took a sip of the coffee and Jessie was still looking at him, liking him. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a short skirt, her legs bare, her feet bare, too. She was young enough to look good even without makeup.
Jake sat down at the table and the others did, too. Jim began writing the note as it had been laid out for him, and it seemed to be rather long-winded and he would have worded it differently, perhaps, if he had been required to compose it, but he did what he was told to do.
"Why me?" he said finally. "Why kidnap me?"
Jessie giggled and Jake made a sound like a horse whinnying.
"They had a piece in the paper about you," Jake said. "They said you were a big shot in the advertising business and you were coming down here to head your company's local office. They had a lot to say about you. Jessie got the notion that you just might be worth some money to us."
"Sure," Jessie said. "Your company will come up with a million dollars for you. Easy. You'll see."
"Why hurt Gabrielle? She never did you any harm. Why not just let her go? She won't tell anyone anything. I'm sure she won't. I know she won't."
Jake cackled with an insane leer on his face.
"We sure of that, too. Now you just worry about your own self and we'll look after everything else. You just finish up writin' the letter, and then we got other things for you to do."
Jessie sat down across the table from him. She gazed at him with a look that had little real expression in it.
"Be a good boy, lover," she said. "You just do what you told to do and you can keep right on livin'. You get funny with these guys and you are going to have some real bad experiences. You just be a real good boy and Mama will see to it that you have some real nice times."
"You already been pretty good to him," Jake said.
"You just shut up, Jake, honey," Jessie said. "You had some very good times, too. It ain't my fault you get yourself so goddam mad you ruin everything for yourself."
Jake glowered at his young bride. Then he glared at Jim and ordered, "You get the damned letter writin' done with. We got to get out of here. That damned Ramon gonna be here any minute and we got lots of work to do."
Jim finished the note and put the pen down on the table. He could hear the birds outside the house and it was a warm, sunny day. He could not actually equate the people inside the house with the world outside. These were a strange breed, a wild breed, people without principles or any of the softening influences. He was still thinking about his captors, wondering what was to come next, when Peter pulled his big handgun from his jacket pocket.
"You have done very well," he said. "Now let's go on outside. You got some digging to do."
Jessie said, "You'll find everything you need in the barn. You guys better help him because we have lots to do around here."
"All right," Jake said. "Somebody gonna have to take the plates off that car of his. Then we bury them. Maybe we'll set fire to the car. Or, we can put some other plates on it and drive it into the creek. We got to think of something."
The sound of an airplane was suddenly loud and close to the house. It seemed that the craft was practically raking the roof of the little farmhouse. The sound died out a bit as the plane moved off.
"There's Ramon," Jake said. "You go meet him, Jessie. We got to get this dude to start digging and then you and Ramon can get things squared away here. Now let's get going."
Peter pushed the gun at him and he stood and walked out of the house. The others moved along with him and they led him to the barn. There were many tools in the barn but he was told to pick up a round pointed shovel and the others got shovels, too.
He was told to start digging a hole close to the house. Jake scratched the outlines of the hole with his shovel in the dry, grassless dirt. The shape looked very much like a grave. He became convinced that he was digging his own grave and he wondered how he could have changed things any.
The plane landed amidst the waving grain and he wondered why the craft's engines failed to start a fire. It was a twin-engined craft, much larger than anything that should have landed in a grain field. He lost interest in the plane very quickly because Peter nudged him with the handgun and Jake told him to dig.
The ground was soft and easily penetrated. Freddy began to dig when he did and he seemed to enjoy doing it. Jessie came to where they were working after a time and there was a tall, slender young man with her. Jim discovered that he was Ramon. He was a Mexican and he and his plane had arrived to take Jessie and her associates to Mexico.
The others picked up shovels and they began digging, too. Ramon worked along with the others and he was an energetic worker. When they were shoulder deep in the hole, Jake decided that they would not need to dig anymore. Jessie stood at the edge of the hole and she was looking down at him. He wondered if he was at the end of his rope then. Jake could so easily shoot him, any of them could end his life, with a knife or a gun, or a shovel, presumably. He might hold his own with one of them, but there were just too many men around him to deal with all at once.
"All right," Jake said, "let's get up out of here."
Peter waved the gun at him and he climbed out, too. He was just a bit amazed because he was sure that he had dug his own grave.
"Let's get him tied up and ready to travel," Peter said. He took a pair of cuffs, probably the same ones, from his pocket. Jim's hands were locked behind him and then Jessie took a handkerchief from Ramon. She smiled at him as she told Jim to open his mouth. He did as he was told and she pushed the wadded handkerchief into his mouth. She plucked a small roll of adhesive tape from her shirt pocket and taped his mouth shut.
"That will keep you out of trouble, lover," , she said.
Jake lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the yawning hole.
"All right," he said, "let's get it done. We got lots to do and we better get at it."
Jake started for the house and Freddy and Ramon and Peter went along with him. Jessie stood beside Jim and she kept glancing at him from time to time. She lit a cigarette and blew a long streamer of smoke toward the sun.
"We all gonna get out of here pretty soon. We'll send the note to your people and then we will watch the papers. Ramon is going to fly us all to Mexico. We will lay low there for a while, until we collect the ransom. Think of all the fun we can have while we are waiting for the payoff."
She gave him a gruesome smile and he was quickly nauseous. Then Jake and the others came out of the house, carrying something that was wrapped in a dirty gray blanket. He shivered and even before they dumped their burden into the yawning grave, he knew that he was looking at Gabrielle. The blanket fell apart when she landed at the bottom of the hole and he saw her body, the ugly purple bruises on breasts and hips and throat. He saw the one purple eye that dangled on its cords on her cheek. It looked like an obsidian marble. The blackened bruises on her throat and the hideous angle of throat and head showed how she had died.
Jake looked at him with a feral grin. "She just had some funny notions," Jake said. "There was just too many things she didn't want to do."
"Let's get her covered up," Peter said. "You and me can fill up the hole, Jake. Freddy, you get the plates off this guy's car and bury them out back. Then take the car down the road and drive it into the crick. They won't never find it there."
Jake glared at Jim. "He can help us cover her up, too. What the hell is he, somebody special?"
"Yeah," Peter said. "He is. He liked her. She was his broad, maybe. He shouldn't have to cover her up with dirt. It ain't right."
"I'll help cover her up," Jessie said. "I didn't know her that well."
She picked up a shovel and began pushing the loose dirt down into Gabrielle's face. He was relieved when he could not see Gabrielle any more. She had died in a painful, degrading way and he hoped that he would live long enough to get his own hands around the throat of the man who had killed her. The man who had hurt her. He had no way of knowing what each of the men had done to her. They had all used her, and, therefore, they should all die in an ugly way. He hoped that it could be arranged.
Jessie paused in her labors and she glanced at him. "Just take it nice and easy," she said quietly. "I want to keep you alive as long as I can, but you start in and raise some hell, you just ain't going to last long. These guys would just as soon bury you, too. Try to keep that in mind."
He nodded, unable to say anything, anyway.
Jake gave him a push and he sat down on the ground and he was glad, in a way. He could not see any of Gabrielle anymore. The others worked very diligently and soon the dirt was all back in the hole and there was only a mound.
The man carried the shovels back to the barn and the man named Ramon said that it was time to get their captive loaded aboard the plane.
"We have to wrap him up and hide him, just in case we run into some nosy people. For a while, he is going to be just cargo."
Jessie walked with him to the plane. She tied his ankles herself and when Ramon showed up, she helped get him loaded into the cargo space. Someone threw an old, smelly blanket over him and he was not too uncomfortable.
He could hear people moving around and he could feel it when someone came aboard the plane, and, after what seemed hours, he felt the shudders in the plane as the engines were started. The plane bounced and rumbled and the engines roared. They were taking off and he wondered if he was going to die in a foreign land, a trussed-up victim of a wild bunch of mad dog killers. That was the way it looked at the moment and nothing he could do.
The plane got off the ground and he relaxed a bit. He realized then that he had not supposed the plane would be able to get into the air with the short runway available.
The steady drone of the engines became a lullaby and he knew that his mind was not functioning properly. He was weary, enervated by worry and too much sex, probably, and he dozed.
The plane hit an air pocket and it lurched and woke him. He was very warm, too warm and he wondered if he was too close to some part of the heating system. And if that were true, no one would actually care. Now that he had written the ransom note for his abductors, he had become excess baggage.
Would they keep him alive in Mexico? He didn't think so. He could accuse them of the brutal murder of Gabrielle, he could locate the corpse for the authorities, and he could identify each and every one of them.
They would be foolish to let him live. Even he knew that.
CHAPTER FIVE
He woke when the plane landed and he was left for a long time, while the others got out and went off somewhere. He could feel the motion of the plane when each person climbed out and he established the fact that he was alone by simply counting.
Time was something he could not compute too easily, so he had no idea how long he was left alone, but, finally, the plane began to move, so he assumed that it was going to be put away and then he would be unloaded.
That was the way it worked out. Jake and the man, Ramon, came into the cargo compartment, They removed the blanket that had concealed him, then they untied his ankles, removed the cuffs, and his gag.
"You can get up now," Jake said. "You can get out and walk around and get yourself loosened up. Then you will be taken to the quarters you will occupy until we can arrange for your ransom. Now let's get going. You got some nice surprises coming up now. You gonna live good.
So, come on and get ready."
He sat up and massaged his ankles and then his wrists. Ramon helped him to get up onto his knees. He crawled out of the plane and stood, knees vibrating, grateful for the warmth of the sun and the chance to move around and get his body working again. He stared at Jake and the urge to strangle him was overpowering but he knew that it would be foolish.
The others came out of the big barn-like structure that now housed the plane and when she saw him, Jessie gave him a big grin. She walked up close to him and she stood, staring into his eyes while she lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the sun.
"You can walk around a bit, lover," she said. "You ain't going no place. This is a big place and is surrounded by a high wall and there are armed guards all over the place. You are going to have a nice little suite with everything you might need in it. Behave yourself and you can live good. You fuck up and, well, you know what that can mean. Try to use your head, doll. Stay alive."
"You know you don't have any intentions of letting me live," he said. He was surprised by the strength of his voice. "I know that."
Jessie's smile vanished and her eyes became as cold as chips of ice. Her mouth tightened and he could see the cruelty in her quite clearly.
"We have to keep you alive until we get the money," she said. "They may not pay off unless they can be sure you are all right. So, you have that time. Try to enjoy it. Don't worry about what comes later. Just enjoy what time you got left. And, you can shorten that up, if you want to."
He didn't answer her. A wave of utter defeat swept through him and made him too weak to stand. He moved and fell down. He did not want them to know how very frightened he was. Jessie laughed at him. She walked over so that she could offer him her hand. She was bent over when he took her hand and he could look inside her blouse. It galled him to see that she was wearing the wispy black satin bra that she had taken from Gabrielle. A wave of dizziness swept through him and he lost the urge to stand.
"Come on, lover," Jessie said, "you'll get your sea legs back in just a short while. Take a little walk for yourself. You can't go anywhere."
He got up onto his feet and Jessie was still holding onto his hand. The men were clustered at the entrance to the barn and they were in a big discussion about something.
"Come on, I'll show you around," Jessie said.
He began to walk and his strength flooded back into his legs and then he was all right, able to walk, able to function well.
"This place is a fortress," Jessie said. "The walls are twenty feet high, eighteen feet of concrete and two feet of barbed wire. A rich old guy used to own it and he got tired of getting robbed, so he built a big wall around the place. That really didn't help him too much because some of the bad guys that were hanging out in the hills decided that they would like to take over the place and they did it. So, you just be a good boy and do like you're told and you can keep right on living. All we want out of you is money."
He had thought that she was going to give him a tour of the place but it did not go that way at all. She led him over to the foot of a stairway and there were men there armed with automatic rifles and beards and long flowing mustaches. Jessie gave him a wan smile as the men threatened him with the guns and made him realize that he was under guard and he should come with them.
"I'll know where to find you when I need you, lover," Jessie said. "Try to stay in one piece."
She stood at the foot of the stairway, watching as they marched up the steps. He climbed steps for a long time and then they made him stand still while a big iron gate was opened and he began walking toward the house. It was an enormous hacienda, set high up in the hills. While he waited for the gates to be opened, he had looked around him and he suspected that the city that he could see far below him was probably Tijuana, but he could not be sure of that. At the moment he didn't really care.
He walked again and finally wound up in front of a big oak door in front of an apartment in a light-colored adobe building. His guard opened the door and he was pushed inside. The door closed behind him and he was alone in a rather neat little apartment. There were unmistakable touches of Mexico everywhere he looked. There were colorful rugs on the floor. Black, wrought iron electrical fixtures, with serapes, and sombreros were used as decorative items. He was standing in a small living room and he started walking around, exploring. He went to the windows and found that it was a sheer drop down to a rubble filled valley hundreds of feet below the windows, and they were securely barred.
There was a bathroom with a small shower and he was glad of that. He needed a shower by now. The bedroom, like all of the other rooms, was tiny, but there was a full-size bed. He settled down on the bed and stretched and a sense of utter exhaustion swept over him. Surprisingly, he slept. Deeply, refreshingly.
Jessie woke him and it was late afternoon. She wanted to tell him that she and the others were leaving.
"We are going back with a load of grass. They grow it here, and Ramon uses the farm for a landing place. We will get the ransom note delivered to your offices and then arrange for the money to be paid. You will be given a radio so you can keep track of things."
She sat on the edge of the bed and she was trying to brief him on what to expect, it seemed. She was gnawing at her lower lip with her tiny white teeth and her eyes had a soft, vacant look.
"There is an armed guard at the door with orders to shoot you if you try anything funny. They will put someone in here to look after you. A girl, probably. And, you'd better not make any passes at her. These people make Jake and me and the others look like Bible students. They got lots of traditions and customs and they will kill you and think nothing of it, but they will be very polite and courteous about it all. You just behave, lover, and I will see you soon again."
She jumped up, then she looked down into his face. She bent far over so that she could brush his lips with her own and he glimpsed Gabrielle's bra again. He supposed that she was also wearing the underpants, too. She licked his lips and giggled as she grabbed for his cock and squeezed it. She let it go and sobered again. She stood up and hesitated, staring at him.
"I will try to make them let you go," she said. "Honest, I will. I really, really will."
"Why?" he said hoarsely, his voice still unsteady, weak.
"I like you," she said. "That's why." She turned then and went out.
He got up and washed his face and his hands. He went to the windows, wondering if he would be able to see the plane take off. He was still standing at he window, gazing out at a sunny day and heavy foliage on a distant mountain, when the door opened and a young girl entered, carrying a tray. The napkins that covered the contents were sparkling white, virtually gleaming with a stark cleanliness. The girl looked at him and her pretty young face was filled with compassion and a touch of fear.
She placed the try on the table that was close to the wall, forming a dining nook.
"I have brought your food, senor," she said.
"Thank you. Thank you very much."
She stood, waiting for him to approach the table and sit. He did not move immediately. He looked at the girl and he noticed that she wore no makeup and her eyes were soft and gentle and she seemed to be very young. She was wearing a loose dress and he could not decide about her figure but it was hardly a time for that sort of thing.
"Please, senor," she said, "you must eat now. Your food will get cold."
He nodded. He left the window and sat down at the table. She removed the napkins from the tray; there were gleaming dishes, steaming, and a pot of coffee, too. She was deft and efficient as she served him. He began eating some soup and he could feel it all the way down. He was suddenly ravishingly hungry and he ate with the quiet, dedicated purpose of the starved.
He was sipping his coffee when he heard the plane's engines roaring and then the plane took off and its shadow crossed the window and he wondered if he would still be alive when the plane and its passengers returned again.
The girl sat in one of the chairs at the table and she watched him eat. He had not seen her smile and he wondered if he would ever see her smile.
"You enjoyed the food?" she asked.
"Yes. It was very good."
She smiled then and her whole face brightened up. Her teeth were very white and, examining her face with the studied intentness that the well fed can manage, he decided that a little makeup would make her beautiful.
"My name is Drusilla," she said. "They call me Dru."
"All right, Dru," he said. "I shall call you Dru, too."
Her smile flashed again and it was a startling thing. One moment she was a drab little thing, unworthy of a glance and then she smiled and became spectacularly beautiful. Maybe he was just too appreciative of beauty at the moment.
She stood up and he noticed that her feet were bare. Her long dark hair gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight and when she moved she did it with the grace of the dancer.
She began clearing the table, piling the emptied dishes on the tray again.
"I will take these things back and I will get some fresh vegetables from the garden for our dinner. Someone will bring groceries and we will have everything that we need."
"We?"
"Yes, senor. I have been chosen to stay with you and to do things for you. That is what I am to do."
"What kind of things?"
She gave him a puzzled look. "I am to keep house for you and see to it that you have good meals and enjoy your stay with us. My tio tells me what I must do and I do it."
He knew that she was talking about an uncle and when he began asking questions he learned that her parents were dead and she had been raised by an uncle. He was a devout Catholic and she had been sent to a nearby convent for her education but she had completed their courses of study and now she lived with her uncle in this compound.
"You are a child," he said. "How could you learn so much in so short a time?"
She sighed, pitying his ignorance. "I am eighteen, senor," she said, with a woeful expression. "In this country, at that age, I am an old maid. I will do what I must do, senor. I will be back."
She picked up the tray again and went out. He thought he would take a look outside of the door. Just to see what he was up against.
There were two young men in the hallway with rifles in their hands. They pointed the guns at him and told him to get back inside and he obeyed with a meekness that might have been laughable under other circumstances.
He prowled around and looked into closets and drawers and cabinets. The kitchen cabinets were well stocked with staples and he wondered if someone lived in it most of the time.
There was a small television set and when he tried it, he could not get a picture on it. He suposed that they were in a fringe area, beyond the broadcast area. The people who owned and operated this kind of a complex would hardly subscribe to the cable company's services. He tried one of the radios and that worked fine. He listened to Mexican music and Spanish speaking announcers and he got tired of that quickly. He tried the dial and got some of the American stations. That made him feel a bit better.
There was instant coffee and he boiled some water and got a cup and then he sat down and sipped the coffee and tried to figure a way out of the mess that he was in.
He did not intend to die and he knew that he would have to be very clever if he was to get away with his life. He was pretty sure that he would be ransomed. And, he was also sure that Jake and the others would casually murder him as soon as they had the money. That was obvious.
The girl, Drusilla, returned and he was glad to have her company. She had her arms filled with groceries and she began putting them away. She seemed to know her way around the kitchen of the apartment and she was very earnest and conscientious about making the place clean and neat and comfortable. He was about to die, and probably in an ugly way, but everything would have to be neat and tidy and the time he spent waiting for the situation to be resolved would be time he would enjoy. Drusilla would see to that.
He persuaded her to sit and visit and continue her household chores at another time. There were many questions he wanted to ask and he hoped that she would tell him some of the things he wanted to know.
She knew that the hacienda and all of its far-flung environs was actually a rather complex citadel of crime. But, she possessed the sort of attitude that made the Black Hand seem respectable in Italy. She was devoutly religious, but earnestly serene in her willingness to believe that murder and robbery and all of the other crimes imaginable might be necessary under certain circumstances.
She smiled at him, presenting her beautifully unsullied face in an expression of utter innocence. "I just don't think about things I should not think about."
She was very willing to talk and she told him about the, way life was lived at the rancho. Actually, she supposed, trying to explain, that was what the place was like. It was many houses built against the facade of a mountain with a vast mesa on top. That was where he was being kept. The plane landed on the mesa and there were many separate and different enterprises going on within the walls of the vast place. None of them exactly legal.
She was .a charming companion and she told him, candidly, that she was with him for company, to help him in any possible way, to serve him his meals and to make sure that he did not do anything foolish.
The way she explained it all, it seemed to him that there were many separate businesses being conducted within the complex and all were independent of the others. He learned that he was occupying the apartment that was usually occupied by Ramon, but the pilot would not be using it for a while.
"Ramon is not ever in his home for very long," the girl told him. "I am allowed to clean for him and he gives me money but this place is never very dirty. Ramon is a clean person."
She was addicted to American music and she showed him how to tune in the stations that she liked to listen to. The television was not working at the moment. It had to be fixed, but the area was served by a cable system and, of course, they took advantage of the cable's nearness. She didn't know who owned the vast rancho, but she knew that it was one of the very important bandidos, and intelligent people did not try to learn his name.
After a while, she left him and she was gone for a long time. The day waned and the darkness set in and he put the lights on and they worked. That surprised him, somehow.
He listened to the music coming from the radio and he thought of the gaiety of Gabrielle's party, the happy, work-filled days he had known in the past. He remembered Gabrielle's corpse vividly and he saw again the hideous disfigured face and he remembered the lacerated breasts, the saffron blossoms on darkening stiffening flesh and he stifled the urge to vomit, but only after great effort.
Drusilla brought another meal into the apartment and it was hot food, delicious, and he ate slowly, savoring the food. He dawded over coffee and he watched Drusilla as she moved around in the apartment, straightening things, washing the dishes that he had used and he noticed that there was grace in her, a deft and intriguing way in which she moved and it fascinated him as he stared at her.
He sat for a time, listening to the radio, and when she sat down in one of the living room chairs to talk with him, he was glad for her company.
"Tomorrow I will cook for us," she said. "I have things to do it with now. I am a good cook. You will see."
He asked her where she had gotten the food she had brought in already. She smiled and said that she had gotten it from her own kitchen. She lived in one of the apartments with her uncle and she cooked for him and cleaned his house. Too, she would babysit for some of the other people if they went visiting. There were many families in the compound and many children and she kept busy. But now she would stay with him constantly and help him.
"You want to play gin rummy?" she asked.
"They teach you that in the convent?"
She smiled and her pretty white teeth were dazzling, her sparkling eyes dancing with a sudden merriment.
"I learned that here, but it would have been all right in the convent. You would be surprised about such places."
"I suppose," he said.
She knew where the cards were and she was an expert player. She beat him so consistently he wondered about her, wondering if she cheated. She noticed that he was a bit baffled and she laughed at him.
"You are easy to beat, senor," she said. "You do not think and you do not play sensibly. Perhaps the game bores you?"
"Perhaps," he said. "Maybe we can do something else."
"All right," she said. Her smile was not too sturdy and she was watching him very intently. He could see the bulge of pert young breasts beneath the loose dress she wore and a perverse and incongruous passion came alive within his loins and began to torment him.
"Just how far do we go in your efforts to entertain me?"
She blushed, conscious of his meaning. "No, senor," she said quietly. "Please, not that."
He shrugged and reached for her. He pulled her into his arms and he found the soft young mouth and kissed it. She was frightened and wary and she struggled to get away from him.
He held her in a very tight embrace and he looked down into her upturned face. He could see the fright in her eyes and he could feel the wild beating of her heart against his chest.
"Why not?" he said. "You are supposed to entertain me."
She pushed herself out of his embrace and he was so entranced by the simple, unadorned beauty of her face, he let her get away.
She sat up straight and the gentle brown eyes were huge.
"I am so sorry, senor," she said. "I must not do such things. I am a virgin and I wish to do that with the man that I love. Only with him. Perhaps that is old fashioned. Perhaps that seems silly to you, senor, but that is the way that I am. Please, don't make me do things I do not wish to do."
He felt the swift sting of tears behind his lids and he was ashamed of himself. Perhaps he would die here, perhaps he would never know the warmth and sweetness of a woman's body but he could face what he had to face without lousing up other people. Nice people. Like Drusilla.
"I'm sorry, honey," he said. "Sometime people like me get a little out of whack. I'll be good."
She smiled and sat up straight and the tension of the moment evaporated. "I will make us some coffee," she offered.
They talked and drank coffee and listened to the radio and when it was time for sleep, she told him that she would bed down on the couch and he could sleep in the bedroom.
That was the way they worked it out. He laid awake in the dark, hearing her each time she moved on the couch and, probably because she was so unavailable, he yearned for her. Then he yearned to escape and find himself back in the office and the nightmare of his abduction behind him. He thought about Gabrielle and her untimely and hideous death and he wept. He wept for a long time until exhaustion set in and pushed him into sleep.
The aroma of fresh coffee and frying bacon woke him and he was astonishingly refreshed. He sat up in bed and gazed about him, appalled by his ability to sleep so deep when he was in such great trouble. He was certain that his mornings would be few and he would die as Gabrielle had died as soon as Jake and his people got the ransom into their hands.
Still, he smiled when Drusilla walked into the bedroom, carrying a tray for him. "I am not accustomed to breakfast in bed," he said.
"You might as well. You can't go anywhere. You may as well enjoy the little things."
She put the tray down and he noticed then that she had changed her clothes. She was wearing shorts and a halter and her legs were very good. Downright alluring. She was in her bare feet and the long dark hair had been brushed and tied back and she looked very much like a pretty young child.
"Would you eat with me, Drusilla?"
She smiled, pleased by his invitation. "I have eaten," she said. "I will get some coffee and join you."
She went out of the room and he got up and into his trousers. He had slept in his underwear and he got dressed quickly. He carried the tray out into the kitchen and put it on the table. She was fixing her coffee and she gave him a solemn, uncomprehending stare.
"I have things to do first," he said, "then we can eat and talk. I like having breakfast with a pretty girl."
Her smile sparkled at him and the big brown eyes twinkled and it was plain that few people complimented her. And that was odd, because she was indeed very pretty. A little makeup would make her spectacularly lovely.
He sighed and went off to the bathroom to do the things that he did each morning. He used Ramon's shaving equipment and when he joined Drusilla at the breakfast table he looked nearly human.
"Why are you here?"
Her question amazed him. He had assumed that she knew why he was there. "I have been kidnapped by your friends," he said. "They are holding me for ransom and then they will kill me."
She smiled at him and he could see that she did not believe a word that he said.
"That's nice," she said. "Very nice. Tell me more."
He did tell her more and when he told her about Gabrielle and the way she died, he could see the horror, the dawning belief in her and she shivered. She wept for Gabrielle, finally, and when she was able to stop her weeping, she sat up and bathed her face with a cold wash cloth, uncaring about the drippings that slid down onto her halter and her sleek skin.
"I did not know," she said. "I did not ask. I was told that you were a military prisoner and you must be watched and cared for and when it was time for you to be sent back to your regiment, you would be taken back in good health."
He found that hard to believe. "I am an American. What kind of a military prisoner could I be?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Many gringos come through here. I am gringo, too. How can I know what goes on in a place like this?"
He explored her claim of being an American and she said that her mother had married a Mexican and they had lived in Los Angeles where she was born. But her father died and her mother remarried and she married another Mexican. He was once a man who lived in the compound but he had gotten killed and then her mother died and she was sent off to the convent. When she was sent home, it was to the compound and an uncle who used her as a housekeeper and general housemaid. He never tried to seduce her and when he asked about that, she laughed out loud.
"He would never even think of me like that. He likes big, heavy women. He thinks of me as a worm, a skinny little worm."
She was very much concerned about his welfare after that and the spent hours playing gin rummy. She tried to feed him very good meals, but when he suggested to her that she help him escape, she sat back on the couch and shook her head.
"There is no way," she said quietly. "Even if I could get you out of the apartment, you could go nowhere. The wall surrounds the entire rancho. There are many acres but after you run for what seems like miles, you just run into the wall and there is no way to get over it. I wish I could help you."
He picked a card and went gin and they stopped talking about any hope of escape. They stopped talking about his abduction and the predicament he was in. They played gin rummy with a sort of dedication that was really pathetic, but they both enjoyed it.
The time went swiftly, and, when he thought about it, he supposed that time would always go quickly for those on death row, too. Drusilla was sympathetic and she tried to brighten up their days together but as the days passed, the monotony of their enforced togetherness began to become abrasive, irritating.
Drusilla spent most of her time cleaning and cooking and going out of the apartment for supplies and he listened to the radio, waiting to hear some news of his abduction and the demand for ransom.
He was at the dinner table with Drusilla on Tuesday evening when he heard the whole thing being exposed on a newscast.
"There has been another executive kidnapping and the details were released only after the ransom of two million dollars was paid. The release of the victim is expected momentarily.
"James Carter, a partner in the famous advertising firm, Belmont, Adams, and Carter, was kidnapped on his way home from a party in the posh environs of La Jolla. With him at the time of his abduction was Gabrielle Munoz, one of the nation's foremost interior decorators, and it is presumed that she is being held captive, too.
"According to Bernard Belmont, president of .the firm, a ransom of two million dollars was delivered to a designated spot and the kidnappers have the money in their possession. The release of the two captives is now expected momentarily. Further details of this kidnapping will be reported on as they come in."
The newscaster moved on to other matters and Jim sat at the kitchen table, shivering, suddenly overwhelmed by fear. He looked at Drusilla and he could see the quick and frightened compassion in her eyes then. She believed now and she had not been able to believe before. She knew that he would die now.
He realized that they had doubled the ransom demand and they had gotten the money. It was very slight comfort to realize that he was worth two millions of dollars.
Drusilla got up from the table. She made some fresh coffee and gave it to him. She fixed a cup for herself. There were tear streaks on her cheeks and that made him feel a bit better.
"We must do something," she said. "Your enemies will soon return here to do something about you. I can't let them kill you. I can't let that happen."
He stood up and she did, too. She was close and he was shivering and he liked her very much at that moment. Her concern for his safety was touching. He pulled her into his arms and she felt very good there. She was shivering and he held her, hoping to comfort her, to calm her. She lifted her face to look at him and her lips were wet and gleaming and soft. He bent his head and he kissed her and she kissed him too. Her tiny tongue touched his lips and her slender body shook and her breathing became ragged and then she was fighting him, pushing her way out of his arms.
"Don't," she said. "Please, don't."
"I'm sorry, Drusilla," he said. "I just felt grateful to you because you want to help me."
"I know," she said, almost angrily. "I know how you feel."
"What can you do about helping me?"
"I don't know, but we'd better think of something."
She began doing the dishes that they had used during their supper and when she was done, she put a light coat on and she said that she was going to go to the store. She explained that there was a store that handled groceries and drugs and whatever other supplies might be needed. She was going to get some things that they would need.
He went to the door with her and when he walked out into the corridor, he saw that there was just one man guarding the apartment. Drusilla knew the young man. She smiled up at him and he smiled at her, too.
"It is so nice to see you, Juan," Drusilla said. "I did not know that you would be outside the door. I would have been out to see you. We are friends, are we not?"
The handsome young man nodded, grinning. His grasp on his rifle was not at all dependable. Drusilla glanced at Jim and he saw the young man's interest in Drusilla. He moved with a speed that he had not imagined possible. His hands plucked the rifle from Juan's hands and he hit him over the head with the barrel. As the young man sagged toward the floor, Jim started to put the rifle down.
"We may need that, Jim," Drusilla said.
She was suddenly very much in command of herself and when she took his hand, he went along with her. They ran.
The corridors were dimly lit and there were no other guards in sight. It was a little after eight and the compound seemed to be very still.
"People are resting and sleeping after the evening meal," Drusilla said. "I don't know where we are going, but I know that we are not going to stay here. Those people who brought you here have gotten the money now. They will come and find you and kill you and then they will be very rich and safe. You are the only one who knows who they are. If they kill you, they will be free."
They were hurrying, holding hands, and she led him out of the building, onto a plaza of sorts. There were no people in sight but they kept to the darkened areas. She seemed to know just where she was leading him and he trusted her.
They were suddenly in a heavily wooded region and it was dark around them. They were panting, out of breath, and she let go of his hand so that she could struggle for breath.
He stood, looking back at the lights of the houses or apartments, and then he got his wind back and when she reached for his hand again, he began to lead her.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"I don't really know," she said. "We will just get as far away from this place as we can. Right now we have the chance to run and we'd better take it. When the plane comes back, Ramon and your friends will be hunting for you to kill you."
She was very worried about him and it showed. And then he saw that there was another look in her eyes and it dawned on him that she was in danger, too. She seemed to know that Jake and the others would dispose of her, too. She knew them, of course, she would be able to identify the kidnappers so they could not let her live.
They began moving off into the dark woodlands again but they were walking, holding hands and they were very much like children facing a horrid future. He yearned for a chance to sit down somewhere so that he could think. It seemed to him he was not really achieving much of anything.
The walls around the rancho would keep him and Drusilla imprisoned behind them and it would just be a matter of time until the felons beat the bushes and flushed them out like hunted animals.
They walked for what seemed like hours and they settled down to rest beneath a huge pine tree. The moon was high in the sky and some of its brightness touched her face and he saw the tears. She seemed to know what fate held in store for her.
He pulled her into his arms and he comforted her. He resisted the urge to kiss her.
CHAPTER SIX
There was a chill in the night and the winds began and cut into their bodies with knife like cold. He held her in his embrace and when she shivered, he tried to enfold her slim body with his arms and his legs. She settled back and she was lying down and he covered her with his own body. He kissed her and the tears were wet upon her lips and he wished that he could stife the sudden onslaught of raw passion that swept through his loins.
He found her soft mouth with his own and he kissed her, virtually ravishing her with his lips and his tongue and her own harsh breathing was even more excited. She was kissing him, sobbing and whimpering as his hands slipped inside her halter and cupped the plump young breasts.
She was writhing and moaning, her legs shifting and moving like a spider in its death throes. Her mouth was clinging to his, her lips were crawling and squirming and she was on fire with a quick, demanding need.
"Please," she said softly, anguishedly, "oh, please."
He found the band of her shorts and his hand crept inside. He felt the soft, flattened curls of her pubic region and his fingers slipped into the wet, slippery crevice of flesh between her legs and as soon as he touched her sensitive flesh, she shuddered violently and he was sure that she had achieved a sexual orgasm almost without help.
Her hands were busy with him and she got his fly opened. Her fingers found and enveloped his stiffened organ. She was shifting her hips, already moving into the throes of the familiar sexual thrustings and retreatings, the frenzies of exceptional excitement. She guided him into her body herself and as soon as his organ's tip touched the sopping orifice, she moved her bottom with a quick, convulsive shove and he was devoured. He could feel the stringy, tearing flesh as it imprisoned his cock in a tight, hurting grasp. Then she was moving and shifting and thrusting, and it was quickly over for both of them. It was a fierce, painful union and he knew that he had ruptured her sexual passageway and it had been with her own desire being the most compelling force involved.
He was lying on top of her and he moved so that he could withdraw from her person but she whimpered in quick protest and her arms held him tightly to her and her lips slid all over his mouth and then she was moving again, her hips were pushing against him and he was fiercely ready for a brand-new assault upon her slippery sheath. She was gasping for air, her body was wriggling and squirming its way into brand-new frenzies and he moved so that he was on top of her, his organ was plunging its way into unplumbed depths and she was moaning in ecstatic agony. Her body shivered and she clutched him tightly, her mouth sucked air deep into her lungs and then she was still, like one dead, and he worried for a moment or two but that was needless.
He could feel the savage, roiling seethings deep within his own loins and he knew that he was going to burst anew and she moved so that she could find his lips and then they kissed and moaned and bucked and fought valiantly while the rigors of orgasm shook their bodies and forced them into utter collapse.
He sprawled on top of her and her face was wet with sweat and her mouth was soft and swollen and her tongue was hot and rapid and searching as she kissed him again and again and then she finally ran out of steam and her body became quiescent and he worried about being too heavy for her.
He worried about making her pregnant and that was not a very real worry, either. Very soon he and Drusilla could be dead. That kind of thinking brought him to a state of alertness in a hurry. She was clutching him to her, and he thought she needed to be made warm.
"I love you," she said. The words were the merest disturbance against his lips. He was sure that she could not mean what she said. After all, she had not known him for very long.
He moved finally, and she let him go. The moon was still bright and its light touched her sleek skin and turned it into a shiny, white light. The rifle was on the ground beside them and he was surprised to see it. He had forgotten all about it, and now that he was aware that he had it, he thought it might be a good idea to find out how many rounds he had in it.
He sat up and adjusted his clothes. Drusilla sat up, too, and she looked at him and he could see the tears on her cheeks.
"I'm sorry Drusilla," he said. "I'm so very sorry."
She reached out to touch the back of his hand. "Don't be sorry, she said softly. "I wanted you. I wanted you so badly. You see, I do love you. I don't know why, but I know for sure that I do. So, it is all right. Please, do you have a handkerchief?"
He watched her as she stood and dropped her shorts and her panties. She seemed uncaring that he was looking at her nakedness. She used the handkerchief to cleanse her sexual crevice and then she tossed the cloth into the nearby bushes.
She pulled her pants up and her shorts and then she did things to make them secure. She sat down again and looked at him with a warm, strange sort of smile.
"The wind has died down," she said. "We might just as well stay right here until morning. We are quite far from the house now. We can keep each other warm and when it is morning, I will show you how to reach the wall. How we can get over it is something I haven't figured out, yet. But we will have to get over it if we are to get away."
"All right," he said.
They sat down under the tree and leaned against its trunk and they tried to talk, but there was very little to say to each other. He wanted to ask her a million questions but he was just too weary, too worried, to be able to formulate questions.
They slept fitfully, waking occasionally, then slipping into sleep again. Finally, he woke and the brightness of daylight was all around them. The sun was up and it was beginning to warm the way. He noticed that Drusilla was awake, too. In fact, she was not with him anymore.
He got out from under the tree and he stood and stretched. He began walking without knowing just where he was going. He found a brook and Drusilla at the same time. She was bathing her feet, using the washed-out handkerchief she had used the night before.
She stood up and smiled at him with her eyes serene, her face smooth and unworried. "Good morning," she said. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine," he said. He knelt and splashed water onto his face and then he was wide awake.
Drusilla handed him the handkerchief. She pursed her lips in a grimace as she said, "I washed it very well. I'm sure it is clean."
He took it from her and used it. He stood close to her, looking at her, and she was beautiful to him. That was an odd reaction to his view of her. She was someone he knew very little about, a very young person, and he wished that he could get to know her better. Her grin was a bit crooked, a bit sad.
She had her head cocked to one side and she was listening. He heard it too. It was the sound of an airplane and he looked up into the sky, hoping that it was a passing plane.
"I think they're looking for us," Drusilla said.
A moment later, the plane, flying low, passed overhead. It was Ramon's plane and it was coming in for a landing.
"They are just coming back here," he said. "They don't even know that we are missing."
"They will find out. Then they will start hunting for us. And they will use guns. It doesn't matter anymore, how we die. Just so that we do."
He took a deep breath. "We don't have to hang around like sitting ducks and let them find us. We can try to get out of here. Maybe there's a hole in that wall. Maybe there's a tree close enough to let us climb out of here."
"We can hope," Drusilla said. "What do we do about eating?"
He was hungry, in spite of the worry and fear that he felt. He suspected that she would be hungry, too. He was carrying the rifle that he had taken from the man selected to guard him back in the apartment and he checked it for ammunition. The gun was fully loaded, its magazine jammed full with shells.
"We can find some berries around here," he said. "Let's start walking toward the wall."
She nodded. It took her a moment to orient herself, then she said that they would have to head north. Trying to move in any other direction would be dangerous.
"The underbrush gets very thick if we move in any way other than north," she said. "And we certainly don't want to get back to the hacienda again."
"No," he said, "we don't want to go back."
They walked for a while in relatively light foliage. He was hoping that they might come upon a pathway but they did not. They did find a berry patch and while he thought they were wild raspberries, he didn't examine the big red berries too closely. He was hungry and Drusilla was, too. They ate the berries and when they were filled, they moved off again into the jungle. They found another brook and drank and then he felt better, sated, alive and filled with a new surge of hope.
"They will be after us pretty soon, I suppose," Drusilla said. "I'm glad that we have that gun. I don't know if it will do us much good, but it is comforting."
"How many people are there at the compound that we will have to expect will come looking for us?"
She stopped walking and she turned so that she could face him. Her eyes were soft and gentle and she had a tiny smile on her lips. In view of their desperate position he thought her smile a bit out of place. Still, he felt like reaching for her, holding her, kissing her.
"There won't be any of the others looking for us. Each group minds its own business. They have the money now, and everyone else will know that they have all of that money. Your friends will not want to share. And they will not want to risk losing the money, so they will come looking for us, they will find us and kill us and then fly out of here and never come back. That is the way it will be worked out. Or tried."
"There are others now at the compound who know about the kidnapping and who did it. They can identify the crooks, too."
"They won't. It would be the pot calling the kettle black. It is not their business. No one will ever mention the matter. That is the way it is."
"I suppose," he said. He took her hand and it felt small and soft and slightly puffy in his own. She glanced at him and her head was tilted slightly and she seemed to be examining him very intently.
"Don't give up yet, Drusilla," he said. "We are not yet dead. We still have a chance."
She nodded and then they began to walk again.
The sun climbed high in the sky very quickly and the heat became almost unbearable. They were wet with sweat, scratched and welted by the bushes and undergrowth and they walked for hours and got nowhere.
And then they came upon a small lake, filled with crystal-clear water. The sun was almost directly overhead and he deduced from that that it was very near to noon. He looked at his wrist watch and found that it was twenty minutes until twelve. His ability to tell time by the sun's position gave him a very real sense of pride and he began to hope that they would soon get to the wall and then over it. He had never once thought about what they would do once they got on the other side of the wall. Run like hell, probably he thought.
There were shade trees near the lake and he was not too shocked when he saw that Drusilla was getting out of her clothing. She looked at him, smiling, pleased by the attentive stare he was giving to her nude body. She turned and ran to the water and he was entranced by the simple beauty of her lithe young body, the plump rump, the long, lissome legs. She was beautiful beyond belief once she got out of her drab clothing.
When he joined her in the water, she was busy washing her person and she seemed unwilling to be still for very long. He wondered if she was afraid that he would use her again. He went to her and he kissed her and she hunched her shoulders and moved away hurriedly.
"I won't make you do anything," he said. "You don't have to worry about me."
She smiled. "I have to worry about me. I want you to make love to me, but, we do not have time. We must hurry."
She was right. He got the dirt and grime rinsed from his body, then he and Drusilla got dressed again. He put his watch back onto his wrist and he picked up the rifle and then they were on their way again.
"How far away from the wall are we?" he asked. "You got any idea?"
She said no. "It is a very long walk, I know. This used to be a big cattle ranch and it took many years to erect the wall. That is what I have been told. But, we will walk some more and then we will find it, I'm sure. Now, let us walk."
They went on and the heat of the sun beat down upon them and sapped their strength, and they rested for a time and then it was late afternoon and they almost walked smack into the wall.
It rose in front of them, craggy-looking, covered with crawling vines that were slender as thread, dried by the sun and useless as a way out of the enclosure.
They sat down on the ground, exhausted and eager to rest for a while before they tried getting out of the place. There were huge birds wheeling and dipping in the sky above them. She made a face at him as she watched the birds. "Buzzards," she said. "They are always around. A crow was wheeling and soaring above them, too. He was much more adventurous than the buzzards and that cost him his life. The big black bird swooped down and touched his claws to the top strand of barbed wire atop the wall and he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"The fence is electrified," he said. "You didn't tell me about that."
"I didn't know about that. Now what do we do?"
"I don't know. What can we do?"
Before she could say anything, they heard the loud baying sound of a dog in the distance. It was an ominous sound, and he jumped up onto his feet. He gave her his hand and pulled her up too. She listened to the dog's baying and her face was very white.
"The dog will find us if we don't do something. What can we do to fool the dog?"
"Let's get the hell away from here and look for a stream. If we walk in a stream, the dog loses our trail. I know. I've seen it on television all of the time."
She pressed her body tightly against his and she kissed him. It was a quick, earnest buss and then she moved away again.
"I don't want to die like that girl you told me about," she said. "I don't. We must be very clever now if we are to survive."
"I'm willing," he said sourly. He heard the dog again and it seemed that the animal was getting closer to them. Too, he was right on target, it seemed.
"There is a stream that splits the rancho," Drusilla said. "It is not far from the wall. I know because I saw it when Ramon took me for a ride in his plane one day."
"Let's look for it," he said.
She gave him her hand and they began moving back into the woods, heading off into another direction, in a way that might confuse the trailing dog, he hoped.
They began to run when the undergrowth thinned out. The stream was wide and shallow, and they came upon it and splashed in its depths. Then they walked for a long time, while the sun began to slide down into the mountains behind them and he wished that he could sit and rest and think things out, but the frequent sounds of the dog's nearness was a terrifying thing.
He was sure that they had walked for miles in the stream, but he knew that that was imagination. A half mile, perhaps. They were heading south, away from the hacienda, still staying close to the wall. He was sure that they had to get over the wall in some way, but he didn't know whether he was acting sensibly or not. The awesome ravages of forced flight and subdued terror were taking their toll and he was hardly brilliant about things. And he wanted to be brilliant.
Drusilla suggested that they sit down in the shallow water and rest and when he sat and looked at her, he realized that she had become very dear to him, very precious. He wanted her to live; he wanted to live, too.
"We do have the gun," he said. "That may become very important to us."
"They will have guns, too," Drusilla said. "They will want to kill. We do not."
It was not a time for discussion, he thought. He stood up and she did, too, and they began walking again. And they walked in a circle and wound up close to the same spot in the wall where they had been earlier.
The dark of night began to sift down and they were wearied, worn out by endless and pointless flight. They were rats in a trap, seeking escape when there was no escape and they were beginning to realize it. They rested finally, and Drusilla wept, quietly, helplessly.
The sound of a shot was close and almost deafening. He jumped up and Drusilla did, too. They were in a sort of curve in the river, and when they heard the shot, they hurried to hide in the thick undergrowth just beyond the edge of the water.
He realized that Drusilla was shivering, frightened, and he held on to her hand. "Don't make a sound," he said, whispering. "I think that they are very close."
He was right. A moment later he could hear their voices. "You didn't have to kill the damned dog, stupid," Jessie said. "We need him."
Jake said, "The damned dog was interested in runnin' rabbits. He wasn't no bloodhound. Just a damned old houn' dog. Now, you just shut up, Jessie, and get off my back, or I just might decide I don't need you any more, either. I am a rich man now. We find them two we chasing and put a bullet in 'em and then we got the good life. That's the way it is now, Jessie. You best not get on me no more. Not now."
"Okay, Jake," Jessie said quietly.
She was standing some distance away from him, watching Jake with a cautious look. The others were beating the bushes nearby. He could see them and practically count them. Peter was holding a rifle and using its barrel to push foliage aside so that he could look for his quarry. Freddy had his rifle cradled in his arms. He was just standing still, waiting to move on. Ramon, the pilot, had a gun, too, and he carried it over his shoulder like a recruit. Ramon did not seem too happy about being in the woods, hunting people so that he could kill them.
"Let's keep going," Jake said. "They are around here someplace. We are going to find them. We have to find them. They can't get out. There is no way out."
Peter said, "Maybe we ought to split up and each try a different direction. One of us find them, we shoot into the air so that the others can know about it."
"Don't shoot into the air, stupid," Jake said. "Shoot into them. Kill 'em both, and don't waste one damned minute about doing it. Minute we can bury them, we are all rich."
Sullenly, Freddy said, "We all stay together. We get split up, no way of telling what minute Jake is gonna put a bullet into us. Each time he kills one of us, his share goes up that much. Now, don't go gettin' all riled up, Jake. I just mentionin' what can happen if one of us gets too greedy. We ain't that found of each other, you know."
"Freddy got hisself a good idea," Jessie said. "I seen the way Jake was looking at all that money. He don't really want to split with nobody. Not him."
Jake turned to look at Jessie. His gun was cradled in his arms and there was a cold, feral smile on his face.
"Jessie," he said, "you can outlive your usefulness real easy. Now, you just better shut up and not stick your nose into my business or somethin' bad liable to happen to you right here and now. You just best keep that in mind."
"Fuck you, you stupid meathead," Jessie said amiably. "You shoot me and the others will blow your damned brains out before you get the chance to shoot again. With your stupid head, you wouldn't even get out of these here woods. You just shut your goddam mouth and look for them bastards and then we can get the hell out of here."
Ramon said, "We could just let him go. We got the money and we promised to turn him loose unharmed. Why don't we live up to our word?"
"We ain't got no word," Jake said. "We crooks and kidnappers and killers. Them kind of folks don't have no word about nothin'. You just keep on helpin' us look for Mister Carter and his little girl friend and after we bury them, then you fly us out of here and you get your share and then you can go anyplace you want to go."
"Where are you going, Jake?" Freddy asked quietly.
"You know where I'm goin'," Jake said. "I'm goin' to New York and get me a nice apartment and some damned fine clothes' and I am going to live nice. Me and Jessie, that is. I s'pose she's gonna want lots of new clothes and a fancy car and lots of fancy living. Jessie's got great ambitions. She wearin' that poor dead girl's underwear right into the ground. Time she got some nice new stuff of her own."
Jessie smiled and she sidled close to Jake so that she could hug his arm. He shrugged her off and she glared at him.
"We best get movin'. That son of a bitch has got him a gun so we got to look out for that. Maybe we better split up, just a little It's gettin' dark and we got to get him quick or spend the night in the damned woods."
Jessie snickered. "There's worse things, Jake. We could have us a party here in the woods. You know, a real orgy."
Jake said, "Jessie, girl, you're sick in the head. We got business to do out here. Business first, then we can enjoy ourselves any way we want to."
"We can have some fun with that little girl he run off with. I got me a good look at her. She's kind of cute. She's real young and she just might give a feller a real good time." Freddy was thinking about carnal matters and putting his thoughts into words.
Jake began walking and the others went along with him and Jim kept very still for a long time. When he finally raised his head up so that he could look around, he found that they were alone. He could hear the sounds of the underbrush crackling off in the distance.
He sat up and Drusilla sat up, too. The opalescence of deepening twilight was closing in on them and he could barely see Drusilla's face, but he could see the glistening tears on her cheeks. She was desolate and very frightened. He put his arms around her and he wished that he could still the trembling in her, but he could not. He held her while she wept and when she was calmed, he helped her up.
"We'd better get moving, too," he said.
She didn't object. They started moving in the direction opposite to that which Jake and the others had taken. They walked carefully, slowly, and he was busy thinking up clever solutions to their dilemma. He thought that he might toss his rifle onto the wire that carried the destructive charge of electricity and that might short it out and then they could flee, if they could get to the top of the wall. That didn't seem too sensible when he thought it all over. He would have no way of knowing if he had shorted the wires out or if they still carried current and he would have lost his most valuable weapon, the rifle.
They walked for a long time, then they found another tree and they settled down beneath its sheltering boughs and for a time, they rested. He dozed, exhausted, and Drusilla was holding his head against her breasts when he woke. She had not slept. She saw that he was awake and she bent and kissed his mouth.
They sat up then and talked and her eyes were huge and affectionate and when she crawled into his embrace, he hugged her and kissed her with increasing ardor.
"Please," she whispered, "make love to me. Please."
She helped him, slipping her shorts off, lifting her halter so that her breasts and her crotch were easily accessible.
His hands went to the warm breasts and he ached with the need to make love to her. He got out of his pants and then he was on top of her and she was holding his stiff organ, guiding him into her person. He was intelligent enough to realize that theirs would not be a normal union. For her, there was something elemental, compelling, in their act, a fierce, determined effort to accept the possibility of reproduction. Somewhere, he had read that man's final act is the reproductive one and that females experience intense sexual orgasms when they are close to death. He knew that men who die violently, often peacefully, ejaculate as their final active and organic feat before they are finished for all time.
He pushed his cock deep into her wet, slippery depths and the tightness of her sheath was an exceptional thrill. Her legs went around his waist and her hips began moving. Her mouth was dry and hot, her lips swollen. When they kissed, her whole body shuddered and squirmed.
They began forcing themselves against each other in a savage, brutal assault upon each other's flesh and she was loud and noisy in the night. When she crested, she was screeching softly, like an animal in great distress and he closed her mouth with his own. While their bodies shuddered and shook violently, and their juices spilled and spurted and drenched each other's parts, she whimpered and whispered that she loved him, over and over again. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, too, but he could not manage speech. The warmth and passion in their frenzied union made him weak and useless for anything other than plunging and dripping and gasping in great ecstasy. Her legs squeezed him and hurt him and she climaxed for the fourth or fifth time, perhaps, and it was the very best one of all for her and when it was over, she collapsed and he was sure that she had fainted.
She stirred after a time and she let him move away from her. She had retained custody of the handkerchief and she used it again and then she adjusted her clothes. She was weary and she ached for sleep.
He held her in his arms and he promised her that he would stay awake and on guard. He would warn her so that they could flee if he heard people close to them. It took a great deal of talking to persuade her that she would be perfectly safe is she slept. He held onto her and she quickly drifted into a heavy slumber.
He tried to make his mind work and think of a way out of the mess that he was in. He was determined that he would not die. He was equally determined that Drusilla would not die. He hoped that the whole matter could be resolved and he and Drusilla could get back to the states and they could plan a life together. That was what he hoped for from the future.
If there was to be a future.
He dozed and woke again in a sudden burst of fear and then he slept again and he became conscious of something pushing against his chest. It was hurting him. It was hurting him very badly.
He opened his eyes and the sunshine of a new day blinded him, but only momentarily. Jake was standing in front of him. It was the tip of Jake's rifle that was poking his chest, hurting him. Jake's face wore a harsh, triumphant smile and then he saw the others behind Jake.
He glanced at Drusilla and he could see that she was awake and petrified with fear. Jessie was holding the rifle that he had carried and he realized that they were now unarmed, and they would be killed very quickly.
Jessie said, "We just kept lookin' and guess what we found, lover. We found you. Both of you. We just stumbled onto you, like."
She got down on her knees and she crawled over to him. She began kissing his lips, ignoring Drusilla's presence.
"What the goddam hell you think you're doin', girl?" Jake demanded angrily. "What the goddam hell?"
Jessie stopped kissing Jim long enough to turn and grin up at Jake. "Jake, baby," Jessie said, "this here's a man worth two million dollars. I am kissing me a two million dollar corpse. Now don't you carry on, Jake. You like me to have fun. You know you do. You just let me be for a while."
"Kill the sonsabitches, Jake," Freddy said. "Let's get it over with and then get the hell out of here."
"Freddy," Jake said, with murderous severity, "you just shut the hell up. I am going to have some fun with this young un here. She is real purty in daylight. I aim to have some fun, and you and Peter and Ramon can enjoy, too."
"We'd better go first," Freddy said, sourly. "You alius find some way of killin' 'em while you juicin' 'em. You just ain't too damned handy with girls, Jake. I gotta say it."
Jake took that as a compliment. He laughed and tossed his rifle to Freddy.
"Here," he said, "hold this. I gonna be real gentle the first time with this here little girl. Then you guys can take your turn, too."
Jessie sat up and she glared at Jake. "You leave her the hell alone, Jake," Jessie said. "We gonna live nice from now on. You said so. We can't live nice if you gonna go around fuckin' every girl you see. Now, you just stop it."
Jake reached for Drusilla and Jessie threw herself in the way of his hand. She grabbed his hand and flipped it away from Drusilla's chest. Jake's other hand slapped Jessie's face with tremendous force. She went flying and then she crawled away, blubbering and moaning with pain. Jake reached down for Drusilla's hand. He pulled her up onto her feet and when she screamed, he slapped her face and Drusilla stopped yelling.
Jessie came back to the scene and she had a big hand gun in her fists. She pointed it at Jake and she tried to pull the trigger, but the safety was on. Jake slapped the gun out of her hand and then he grabbed the rifle from Peter's hands. He pointed it at Jessie and the first shot exploded her face and she went flying into the weeds. She kicked around for a time and then was still.
"Goddam bitch," Jake said angrily. "Who the hell she think she is? Anyway?" He reached again for Drusilla.
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was a time of shock as the others realized that Jessie was dead, a shattered thing in the weeds. Drusilla let out a yell of protest as Jake put his hands on her and Jim began to get up onto his feet. He figured that he was just as dead as Drusilla anyway and he had nothing to lose. He was already halfway up onto his feet when Freddy pushed him back down again with a murderous blow from a big fist. Jim went sprawling and his hands splayed out. His fingers touched the big handgun that Jessie had tried to use and he flipped the safety catch off. He rolled and started up onto his feet again just as Freddy brought his rifle up to shoot him dead. He squeezed the trigger of the hand gun and a big hole appeared in Freddy's brow. His eyes took on a startled, amazed expression and then they died out and became absolutely expressionless.
Jake looked on as Freddy fell onto the ground. He rolled a bit and then was still.
"Well, damn me," Jake said. "What the hell is goin' on here? We supposed to stick together. Why didn't you shoot the sonofabitch while he was gunnin' down Freddy? Peter, you shoulda got this bastard. You shoulda done something."
Jake had his rifle in his hands and Drusilla was standing a few feet away from him, shaking, white-faced, still half hysterical with shock and terror. Jake pointed his rifle at Peter and the gun coughed with a sad, sobbing sound and Peter's face disappeared. It became a bloody stalk on his shoulders and he fell down onto the ground and settled down beside Freddy.
Jake glanced at Ramon and he started to train his rifle on the pilot. Ramon threw his gun down in a hurry. He raised his hands and Jake laughed at him, tickled by the man's obvious cowardice or fear.
Jim took advantage of the confusion in a way that was astonishing to him. He threw the gun he held onto the ground and then he jumped at Jake. His hands went around the big man's throat and he began to squeeze. Jake tossed his rifle onto the ground and he put his hands up to deal with Jim's fingers.
Somehow, they fell, and Jake began rolling around and Jim's fingers became dislodged and Jake sat up and laughed at him.
"You silly son of a bitch," he said, "now I'm going to kill you with my bare hands. You been a damned nuisance to me ever since I run into you and I want to make sure that you die slow and as painfully as I can make it. Now, you come on to me, ol' buddy. I gonna give you a real bad time now."
Jake made a savage lunge and his hand caught at Jim's clothing. He felt the cloth ripping but he did not care. Jake's hands were all over him and he felt the big hands closing about his throat, shutting off his wind. He felt the pain in his throat, his head was a ball of living red flame and he knew that he would die very quickly unless he did something. He stifled the urge to panic in his brain and he acted with the cold, calculated efficiency of the trained soldier. He reached up and grasped Jake's little fingers. He snapped both of them and Jake screamed as his fingers broke. He let go of Jim's throat and jumped up, yelping in agony. Jim watched him for a moment, while his head cleared. He saw Drusilla watching him, he saw the terror in her, and he knew that he had to follow up and use the slight advantage he had achieved.
Jake was scrambling around on the ground, whimpering in pain and outrage and Ramon was standing by, watching, not really believing that Jake was in trouble.
Jim fell upon Jake and he was filled with a rage that was beyond control. He was remembering the horrors that Jake had forced upon Gabrielle, he was remembering the vicious killing of Jessie and he was determined to make Jake pay for his sins. He was not behaving rationally, he was not functioning sensibly and he knew it. Jake knew that he was in trouble, facing an adversary who just did not care how it would all come out and he rolled and wriggled and tried to use his good fingers to gouge Jim's eyes out. He did not manage to do it. Jim rolled off Jake, he bounded up onto his feet and he bent to pick up one of the rifles. He pointed the gun at Jake's head as Jake got up and he was very close to pulling the trigger. He decided that he would not shoot Jake. He could not shoot Jake. He simply could not murder, if it could be avoided.
He handed the rifle to Drusilla and she took it, watching him with a dumb, startled look in her eyes. "Shoot him if he tries to get away," he said pointing to Ramon. The pilot was standing still, watching, his hands held up to his shoulders in the traditional posture of surrender.
Jake smashed him in the face with a huge fist while he was trying to get the rifle into Drusilla's hands. He turned and swung and Jake dodged the blow. Jake was able to live with the pain that his broken fingers gave him. He had other things to worry about. He caught Jim with a harsh, roundhouse swing and Jim went flying. He slammed into the ground and almost skidded into Jessie's body. He rolled and jumped up just as Jake's boot almost tore his head from his shoulders.
He pushed up onto his feet again and Jake's big hand caught him in the mouth and he felt the blood spurting, he could see it dribbling down onto his shirt and his chest. Jake was cackling like a demented idiot as he danced around. His big fists began to pepper Jim's face and body at will and Jake was not interested in fighting nicely. He brought his knee up and slammed it into Jim's groin and when he screamed in pain Jake cackled again. Ramon was moving around but not in a way that suggested he was going to get into the fight. He was just trying to stay out of the melee.
Jim went to the ground again as Jake kneed him once more. He rolled and dodged the heavy kick that Jake sent his way. He knew that Jake was going to kill him with his hands and he wondered why he had to accept that from Jake. He had been one of the stars of the boxing team in college and he wondered why that wasn't helping him now. Dimly, he realized that Jake was not fighting according to any rules. Jake was going to kill him, but he was going to enjoy inflicting as much pain and abuse as possible before he finally put his victim out of his misery.
Jake's foot slammed into his skull while he was trying to get up off the ground and he collapsed again. He noticed that Drusilla turned so that she could point the rifle she held at Jake. She was crying, sobbing and she seemed to be trying to shoot Jake but her finger just couldn't manage the actual act. Jake walked to her and he tore the rifle from her hands. He flung it on the ground with contemptuous disregard for Drusilla and Ramon.
"Silly goddam broad," he said disgustedly. "You ain't about to shoot nobody. Your kind can't shoot anyone. You just sit the hell down and wait 'til I get finished with this son of a bitch. Then you and me gonna have some fun. I got lots of money now. I can use a decent broad where I'm goin'. You just sit down and wait."
Drusilla sat down and she was weeping convulsively. She was unable to cope with the situation and it appalled her. She shook her head in helpless despair.
Jake turned back to Jim and he aimed another kick at Jim's head. That one didn't land. Jim rolled and he got up onto his feet. He knew that he had to stay away from Jake's fists so he began to box, dancing around and jabbing at the big man's face with his fists. His left hand began to pepper Jake's face in spite of the beard and Jake kept on walking into him, swinging his fists wildly, laughing as Jim danced and moved around.
"You just keep right on prancin' around, boy," Jake said. "You gonna get it now. I spent all the time I'm gonna spend on you. Now you got me tired of you."
Jake backed away. He bent over and scooped up one of the rifles that was on the ground. He moved with the agility of a dancer as he raised the gun and aimed it at Jim's face. The gun went off and the bullet whistled past Jim's head. He did not give Jake another chance to shoot him.
He flung himself upon the man's chest and Jake went down. Jim began punching his fists into the man's bearded face and he knew that he was not doing much harm. Jake's beard was protecting his face from damage. That infuriated Jim. He knew that he was hysterical, he knew, too, that he was outraged, determined to avange Gabrielle, determined to save Drusilla from the horror and indignities that Jake would inflict upon her. He stopped hitting Jake, and he tried to stay on his chest as Jake rolled around and tried to throw him off. Then Jake put his fingers into Jim's groin, he grasped Jim's balls and he twisted. Jim screamed in sudden agony and his hands buried themselves in Jake's beard. He lifted the big hairy head and slammed it against the ground. He slammed it against the ground again and again and he lost all contact with reality. His fingers had a secure grip in Jake's beard and he was bouncing Jake's skull up and down, slamming it into the hard-packed dirt and then he became aware that Drusilla was screaming and someone was handling him, trying to pull him off Jake's body. It was not an easy thing to do.
Ramon pulled him away and he sprawled in the dirt, sobbing, his hands still curled into murderous talons. Ramon was weeping, too, he noticed and that surprised him. That brought him back to the world at hand. He crawled to Jake and was shocked to find the man's eyes wide open, staring with the vacancy of the dead. He couldn't believe that it was over, that they could live, perhaps. He moved Jake's body and then he saw that most of Jake's brains had spilled out onto the flat stone that was beneath his head.
He got up onto his feet and he went to Drusilla. He put his arms around her and he tried to say things to her that would calm her.
"I'm sorry, Drusilla," he said. "I'm sorry. But he would have hurt you. He would have killed you. And, he hurt someone that I cared about. I told you."
She was inconsolable. He held her in the crook of his arm and he picked up a rifle. He looked at Ramon and the man stared back at him with a white-faced, frightened look. He glanced up at the sky and the buzzards seemed closer, wheeling low in the sky.
He thought of concealing the bodies, but there were other things he had to do. "Where is the money, Ramon?" he said.
Ramon shrugged. A sad smile curved his mouth and made him look like the born loser.
"It is hidden in the plane," he said. "They were going to stay here only long enough to kill you and then we would be on our way to a new life. Now, what happens to me, senor?"
Jim squeezed Drusilla's shoulders and she was getting herself under control again. He backed away from her and looked her over. She lifted her head and her smile was weak but brave.
"Come along, Drusilla," he said. "It is time for us to leave here."
Ramon licked his lips and he stared at the rifles and the guns and the bodies that were on the ground.
"They will be all right, Ramon," Jim said.
"Others will bury them, or the birds will eat them. Let's us get out of here. Do you have gas enough in that plane to fly us out of here?"
"Yes, senor," Ramon said. "I will do what you ask of me."
"All right. Let's get to the plane and out of here before some of the brigands at the hacienda decide to take a hand in this business. Let's go, Ramon."
Drusilla held onto his hand and they walked through the woods and one of them looked up at the sky and the many buzzards that were swooping lower and lower, eager to feast upon the dead.
It was a long walk to the field where Ramon's plane waited. Drusilla stood beside him as Ramon went aboard the plane and got its engines into action. Drusilla gazed at him with a beseeching look in her eyes.
"Please," she said, "take me with you. Please don't leave me here. Please, don't."
He put his arms around her and squeezed her. Then he kissed her.
"You will go with me," he said. "What else did you expect? You love me, Drusilla. I know that. And I'm very much afraid that I love you. That will give us plenty to think about when we get things all straightened out."
She was grinning like a cat who has just seen a flock of birds. She kissed him with very real fervor, then she got into the plane. Ramon had the engine warming up and when Jim got in and closed the door behind him, the plane began to move on the field.
Ramon taxied the plane to the far end of the field and then he started to take off. He was just a bit late, because a jeep filled with rifle shooting men bore down on the plane trying to keep it on the ground. Ramon looked at Jim and he smiled.
"They have heard about the money and they don't want it to get away. We will dodge their bullets. They do not shoot too good."
Jim pushed Drusilla down onto the floor and then he fell on top of her. The plane kept on down the runway, gathering speed and then Ramon let out a Tarzan-like yell and he pulled back on the wheel and the plane left the ground. Several bullets slammed into the cockpit and one of them barely missed his head, but, finally, the smoothness of airborne flight was theirs and Ramon leaned back so that he could light a cigarette and set the course for San Diego airport.
It was a long flight, uneventful, and when Ramon established contact with the airport and was given landing instructions, Jim realized, finally, that it was over. That was hard to accept for a long time.
Ramon put the plane down and he taxied it up to the slot assigned to him by traffic control. He lifted up the floor boards in the freight compartment where Jim had been hidden when he was first taken to Mexico. The money was there, in two suitcases.
Jim got out of the plane and he called a security office. He explained who he was and after that it became bedlam. The police moved in and hustled him off to a plush office, the money was taken into custody and Ramon was handcuffed and arrested as one of the kidnappers. The urge to help Ramon was very strong in him, so Jim explained that Ramon had been an unwilling accomplice and he had been very helpful when it came time to escape.
There was a time of interrogation, the TV cameras and the photographers moved in on him and he told his story over and over again. Drusilla sat in the background and listened without becoming involved. He had gotten a promise from the police to shield her. He was afraid that some of those who knew her in Mexico might try to kill her. They let him go finally and he took Drusilla with him to his own home. He walked in the familiar rooms and touched his familiar things and when Drusilla moved into his arms, he wept.
His partners talked with him on the phone. They were glad that he was safe and they would see him as soon as they could fly out and visit. They were glad that the money had been recovered too. They were just happy about everything.
Drusilla liked his home and she was happy just being with him. She had nothing, but he told her she would have all that gold could buy. He would see to that.
An FBI inspector called on him during the late afternoon and he had to have some facts so that the case could be closed. He reported that Gabrielle's body had been found and there were other bodies found at the rundown farm and that phase of the case was pretty well under control.
"The Mexican government raided that rancho and they found quite a few dead bodies out in the woods. Do you feel that you want to comment about those corpses, Mister Carter?"
Jim shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't have anything at all that I care to say. Not one word."
The FBI man nodded. "Well, of course," he said, "without witnesses, no one can ever be sure of what happened to those people. Well, I've got to be going."
The man left and Drusilla came out of the bedroom and she was in one of his robes. She had showered and her face had the clean scrubbed look that he was beginning to like.
"What is to be done about Ramon?" she asked. "I like him, and I have to remember that he could have hurt us, but he did not."
"Ramon will be all right," he said. He pulled her into his arms and his lips found the soft sweet mouth and he kissed her. "Ramon can come to our wedding," he added. "I think he deserves that, don't you?"
She gazed at him, her eyes dancing. "Oh, yes," she said. "Ramon deserves that. But, do I?"
And then he was overcome by his affection for her and it was not a time for fun or frivolity. He kissed her again and he held her very close. Very, very close.
