Noel

                                                 by  Christopher  Leeson

1.  Chapter



Lee "Dandyman" Scarp studied the fat man across the table.  Somebody
had ratted.  Now Guido Gurina, the boss of bosses, knew that certain of
Scarp's boy were dealing in joy powder.  That had earned Scarp a visit
from Gurina's underboss, "Joe Jelly" Madagino, to "talk."

Scarp had mostly listened.  Joe was saying that Big Guido didn't like
drugs.  "If you deal, you die." A simple rule.  Guido Gurina liked
simple rules.  Numbers were okay, juice, too.  Hijacking, gambling,
labor extortion, that was just business.  But drugs made the soldiers
too rich too quickly -- and that caused them to "lose respect," as the
old men put it.  And too many of those who dealt in hocus started using
it themselves.  And that made even for worse discipline problems.

"Your boys who've done this," the fat man said in the patois of the
Italian ghetto, "they're dead men, right." Scarp knew that was a
statement, not a question.

"Right, Mr.  Madagino," agreed the young capo, his feint of respect as
cold as the ice floating in his water glass.  Scarp had an accent, too,
but it was the dialect of Kansas City's rough neighborhoods, of the gin
joints and the pool halls, not of Sicily.

"You'll give them up?  Just like that?  No trouble?" Joe Jelly asked,
his little pig eyes slitted.

"They knew the rule."

"You are being reasonable then.  Good.  You will take care of it
yourself."

Again, Joe was not asking a question.  "I'll take care of business,"
Scarp promised.  "You can count on it."

"Benny, he is your cousin, I know.  It is hard to kill family."

Scarp bit his thumb to demonstrate his contempt for his underling.  "If
he's done wrong, if he's broke the rule, I'll kill him myself."

"You are one mean son of a bitch, Dandyman," Madagino laughed,
mimicking the slang of the younger men.

Scarp would have promised the underboss anything just then, but it was
the fat man and Guido that he knew he had to take out.  Even now the
capo was only waiting for the right moment to ice them -- both
together, if possible.  Benny and his pals in dope would be glad to
take care of it.  They had to take care of it, if any of them wanted to
live.

"Ughh!" grunted the fat man, gripping his spare tire with both hands.

"Indigestion, sir?" asked Scarp politely.

"Si!" laughed Joe Jelly, "Maybe we should hit Strollo!"

Scarp laughed, too.  "That would be too bad.  The old man makes the
best ravioli in Kansas City."

Madagino heaved his bulk up from his chair.  "I got to take a crap!" he
mumbled.  "I will be right back."

Scarp was left sitting at the table, lost in thought.  He glanced
absently across the room.  The Christmas decorations were up -- big
phoney candy canes and rubber holly.  A cute number was sitting at a
corner table holding hands with a pasty-faced accountant type.
Normally Scarp wouldn't have hesitated to push the maggot out the door
and introduce himself to his frail, but this was not the night for fun
and games.  There were funerals to think about.

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.  Lee Scarp, born Leon
Scarpatto, was an up and comer, everyone knew it and everyone was
scared.  He even gave Guido the creeps, that was why the old man was
riding him so hard.  No solider had risen to capo as quickly as Scarp
since Bugsy Siegel.  And why not?  Scarp was quick to see the smart
dodges, like the murder for hire, like the narcotics.  It was just too
bad if Guido Gurina had his rules.  Scarp had rules, too, and rule
number one was that you don't get into Scarp's face with your rules.
Not even a Guido Gurina was getting a free ticket for that ride.  Not
for long, anyway.

The mobster stared into the ruby sheen of his wine glass.  The
reflected chandelier looked like the Star of Bethlehem.  He took that
as a lucky sign.  He had ambition, Scarp did, and he'd been cutting
deals -- big sweet deals -- with the top bosses in the other families.
If he took out Guido and his lieutenant now, the territory was his.  It
wouldn't be war.  This was 1947, not 1929.  The other families knew
that he had brains and that he was good people.  They'd accommodate
him.  But war or not, Scarp had to take over the whole East Side, or
get whacked himself.  There was no way he could tap-dance around the
drug scam for long, even if he made his lieutenants the fall guys for
now.  Rule or ruin, that was the game of the game.

Scarp glanced up at the picture frame on the wall, the red and green
lights from the street spangling the polished brass.  The owner,
Strollo, had put his son's Purple Heart on public display.  The
gangster smirked.  The boy had gone to Tunisia and all he had to show
for it was a metal on his chest and a wheelchair under his ass.  Scarp
had spent the war years in combat, too, but right here in Kansas City.
The war "over there" had been for saps, and the Purple Heart was a
laugh anyway.  It only meant that the younger Strollo had schmucked
into a bath of shrapnel.  That was just plain stupid.  What were
American Italians doing fighting with Italian Italians for some
frigging piece of Africa anyway?  It would have made more sense to pin
metals on those smart boys who fragged officers when they tried to send
them into the meat grinder.

Just then two beefy men slouched in from 27th.  Scarp glanced their way
and knew them right off.  They were good people -- soldiers from the
Caszo family.  Strollo's was popular with the mob, but he wondered
whether the cuisine was the only thing that had brought the two top
bumpmen to this end of town.

"Georgio, Mike.  What's up?" Scarp asked coolly, taking in their hard,
prison-pale faces.  As the two moved closer, they separated a little.
A kind of bell went off in the capo's head.

"What's up is the payoff, Dandyman," grunted Mike as both men drew
their revolvers.

As quick as lightning Scarp went for his own piece.  Not quick enough.
The slugs tore into his chest like railroad spikes.  Things went dark.
He fell face-first into his platter of ravioli, but the guns kept
roaring, emptying themselves into his head and back.

Then the pair pocketed their heaters and tramped out of the restaurant
as quickly as they had entered.  The help and diners had been frozen in
place while the bullets were flying, but gave vent to their panic as
soon as the killers were out of sight.  Somebody said, "Let's get out
of here before the police come!"

Nobody wanted to be a court witness.  The customers gushed into the
street like blood from a hemorrhaging wound and the staff disappeared
into the kitchen.

Joe Jelly waddled out of the men's room and plucked his fedora from the
hat rack.  He sneered down at the man he whose Judas he had been.

"Nice Christmas present, huh, Dandyman?" he mumbled.  "The color suits
you!" His puffy face twisted with laughter as he walked to the door.

                                   #

Scarp's head began to clear, but his first breath got him a noseful of
ravioli.  Cursing, the gangster pushed himself up from the table with
both hands and cleared his eyes with his cuffs.  For a few seconds he
couldn't remember where he was.  The room was dark; there was just the
street lamps and the Christmas lights outside.  Then, with a jolt, he
flashed back to the hit and his hands went to his chest.  There weren't
any wounds, not even blood.

He fell back into his chair.  "What in hell is going on?" he muttered
half-audibly.

"You look a sight, Lee," someone said.  "Here, let me help you out."

A woman's voice.  Scarp turned sharply and saw her svelte silhouette in
the faint street light.  Jumpy, his hand reached for the .38 on the
floor.

"Are you going to drill me for drawing a napkin on you, tough guy?" the
shadowy woman asked teasingly, without a trace of fear.

"Who are you?" Scarp demanded.  "Come out where I can see you!"

She stepped closer and pressed the button of a wall lamp.  The sixty
watt bulb instantly cast its yellow glow over the velvety-voiced
speaker.  Silver sequin on her form-fitting, blue-green dress shimmered
like neon.  She looked about twenty-five -- tall, slim, with cleavage
like the Grand Canyon.  Her hair was long and dark.  The neckline of
her slit-to-the-thigh evening dress couldn't have covered any less
without catching the eye of some of the precinct boys.  The lipstick on
her mouth was bright ruby, her azure eyes were made up like she was
going to a party.

"What are you, babe, a torch singer?"

She approached nearer, her hips swaying like a Christmas bell.  "I can
be, if you really want a torch singer," she said, reaching for his
sauce-smeared face.  The gangster jerked his head back, then snatched
the cloth from her hand.

"Cut the comedy, sister," he snarled as he mopped his map.  "Who in
hell are you anyway?"

"Let's just say that I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, Lee
Scarp." Then she added with an ironic lilt, "By the way, we're not in
Hell."

The mobster stood up, his dark eyes narrowing.  "You look sort of
familiar.  You talk familiar.  Do I know you?"

Without answering directly, the young woman tossed her head, letting
her long hair bounce.  "You can call me Noel."

"Noel, huh?  You don't look like anything I ever found under my
Christmas tree." But the gangster knew that he couldn't waste time on a
frill -- at least not tonight.

"I've got to get back to my own digs, doll," Scarp grumbled, standing
up.  "When Joe Jelly figures out that his boys missed, my life won't be
worth a whore's piss."

The woman didn't say anything immediately; instead she just stood
there, one hand resting upon her hip and the other upon her cheek.
"Now how do you suppose a couple of top bumpmen like Mike and Georgio
missed at that range?" she asked sardonically.

It surprised Scarp that the dame knew those names.  "Fuck, I don't know
how!  Those bums were the best in the business.  Where do you know them
from?"

"I know a lot of people.  But there's no use chewing the fat in this
dump, Lee.  I can take you anywhere you want to go."

Now it dawned on Scarp that something else was wrong.  There were no
other people around.  The restaurant was empty, 27th deserted.  And
where were the cops?  Any penny-ante shooting drew cops like horse
apples drew flies.

Suddenly the sharp-eyed gangster saw motion in the big wall mirror.
Two people, a man and a woman, were watching from behind.  Even before
Scarp could look over his shoulder, the eavesdroppers had ducked out of
sight, vanishing down the aisle that led to Strollo's kitchen.

"There's somebody back there!" the capo blurted, not sure if it was
important or not.  Probably it was only the restaurant help.  "Anyone
with you?"

"Not a soul."

Noel had given the last word an ironic accent.  Scarp sized her up
again.  He didn't like the bimbo's attitude, like she knew something
that he didn't.  "Don't worry about it, Lover," the brunette went on.
"There's lots of people around, if you know where to look."

Without another word the woman walked -- slinked -- up close to the
wall mirror.  She took a compact from her spangly purse and started
fixing her lipstick.  The mobster followed and stood behind her.

"Dames and their make-up," Scarp scoffed.

She looked up at his reflection with a tight little smile.  "Like what
you see, tough guy?"

"What if I do?"

"Since we'll be shacking up for a long time, I decided that I should
look like the girl of your dreams.  That's why you think I seem
familiar.  Nice touch, huh?"

"How do you know you look familiar?  What do you know about my dreams?"
He grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.  "And who says we're
going to shack up?  I decide those things, get it?"

"Let's go for a drive, hon.  We've got a lot to talk about."

"Like what, for instance?"

Noel pointed to the table where Scarp had been sitting.

"Like that, Dandyman."

The bullet-riddled corpse of Lee Scarp still lay face-down in a platter
of Italian food that dripped with a thick sauce of his own blood.

                                   #

In his state, Scarp didn't make much protest as Noel led him to the
asphalt lot behind the restaurant.  He didn't even notice that the
December weather had yielded to June-like mildness.  A couple minutes
later the woman was driving him through the empty streets in her Ford
convertible.

"Where are we going?"

"Your place."

He looked around.  Seeing Gilham Road this empty was eerie.

"Where are all the people?"

"Do you really want people?" Noel asked.

"Yeh, I want people!"

The glare of headlights up ahead dazzled Scarp for just an instant.
When his eyes cleared the streets were full of cars, the sidewalks
burgeoned with pedestrians.

"What you ask for, you get.  But I never figured you for a people sort
of person," remarked Noel.

He didn't answer.  After all the woman had told him, his mind was
caroming like a pool ball.  Noel pulled over to the curb suddenly.  To
Scarp's surprise, "his place" really was his place, the Hotel Addison
where he'd been living ever since he'd hit the big time and moved
uptown.  Even the Christmas lights in the lobby were the same.  But
there were differences that he noticed.  He'd always had a couple of
his boys hanging around, watching the traffic in and out, but everyone
he saw in the lobby now was a stranger, even the clerk at the desk.
Things just weren't adding up and, his mind buzzing, the capo let Noel
escort him into the elevator like a somnambulist.

When they reached his apartment, Scarp cased it anxiously.  Nothing
looked out of place.

"You bitch!  You told me I was dead.  If I'm dead and this is Hell,
what's my apartment doing here?"

"I said it's Purgatory, not Hell," Noel corrected him, giving no
reaction to the word "bitch." "A good Italian boy like you should know
the difference.  As for this apartment, it's not really your old one.
It's just your idea of what your old apartment was.  That's how this
place works.  You want it, you get it."

"Purgatory, huh?  Things haven't looked that bad so far.  When's the
rough stuff start?"

Noel shook her head.  "Why do you think there should be rough stuff?"

The man grabbed her by the chin and squeezed.  "Listen, bimbo -- don't
talk to me like I'm stupid or something.  If you won't tell me what I
want to know, get the fuck out of here before I paste you!"

"I've got no problem," Noel said without batting an eye.  "What do you
want to know?"

Her choice of words pacified Scarp, if just a little.  He didn't like
knowing zip about this dame while she obviously knew so much about him.
Since he was already half-buying in to the idea that he was dead, the
mobster had a hunch that she might even be a demon.  But the fact that
she had done nothing in self-defense when he had grabbed her stiffened
his sagging confidence.

He let her go without grace and she stepped back rubbing her jaw.

"Who are you?  What's your angle?" he growled.

"I'm someone just like you, Dandyman," she replied simply.  "But I've
been here a long time.  Too long.  My angle is that I want out, and
there's only one way for me to get out."

"How?  By finding some mug like me to take your place?"

"No.  It's a lot harder than that.  I've got to clean up my act."

"What are you talking about?"

"I was like you.  I threw my weight around.  I was out for Number One.
I thought I was smart, but there were a few things that I didn't know."

"Like?"

"Like when I hurt other people, I was only hurting myself.  And that
people who help other people are doing more for themselves than for
anybody else.  Now that I've been here long enough to know where I went
wrong, I'm doing something about it."

"You're going to join the Salvation Army or something?"

"No, Lee, I'm going to be your girl Friday.  You can use me.  I know
the ropes.  I'm going to take care of you."

"How can you take care of me?" the capo sneered.

"I can get you anything you need.  Food, recreation, women.  Anything.
Getting what you want is my job.  It's what I do from now on."

"Just so you can bust out of this joint?"

"That's one reason."

"If you're pressing so much weight around here, why play waitress?  Why
not just sit back and enjoy things?"

"I don't like it here, Lee.  Period."

"You said this wasn't Hell."

"Purgatory is a little like Heaven and a little like Hell."

"Yeh?  Which comes first?"

"It's up to you.  You're finally the big man you always wanted to be.
You're the lord of all you survey for as long as you like.  Nobody from
the mayor down to the garbage collector is ever going to try to cross
you -- unless you want him to."

"Why would I want some ginzo to cross me?"

"For variety."

"Fuck variety!" he snapped.  Some of the things that the skirt said
made him think she was crazy, but as he mulled it over, most of what
she was telling him actually sounded pretty good.  If the dame was on
the level, that is.  "What you're describing has got to be Heaven,
babe."

"There's a difference, believe me."

He glowered in anger.  "I don't like that smart aleck attitude of
yours.  Who are you, really?  Satan?"

Noel laughed.  "You're the closest thing to Satan that either of us is
ever going to find in Purgatory, Lee.  Like I said, I used to be
mortal.  I was sent here like you, to be wised up.  Now I've graduated
to be a kind of trustee.  Like in prison.  You remember State Pen,
don't you, Dandyman?"

"I remember.  But get this straight, Gams:  The only reason I'm letting
you hang around is because you look like a good fuck.  Is fucking part
of your job description?"

"It is, if you say it is."

"Oh, baby, I do.  You're built like a brick shithouse."

"You really know how to flatter a girl."

"There's no percentage in flattery, toots.  Now, either get out of that
dress, or make tracks for the exit."

"Maybe I'll do both," Noel came back grinning.  "Ciao!"

To Scarp's surprise, the brunette sashayed out the door and then he
heard her stiletto heels clicking on the cement of the stairwell.  The
mobster snorted contemptuously.  She had left too soon; there was still
a whole lot he didn't know.  Also, he really had wanted to fuck her.

Once alone in his familiar apartment, all the talk about death and
Purgatory began to sound nuts.  Scarp had stopped believing in either
Heaven or Hell after leaving the orphanage.  But if they were real,
what did a guy have to do to go to Hell that Scarp hadn't already done
in spades?  Well, maybe the Boss of Bosses, the Big Guy who ran this
territory, was good people.  Maybe He wasn't the goody-goody that the
priests said He was.  Maybe He respected a man who could handle
himself, could go to the top against the odds.  So what if Scarp had
killed some dozen or two pricks along the way?  They'd deserved it, so
maybe he was just an avenger.  And, besides, if no one ever really
died, what did it matter who you killed?

Okay, if really had this Purgatory setup figured out, Scarp wondered
how was he going to make the most out of what had happened to him.

But what, exactly, had happened to him?



2.  Chapter



Now alone, Scarp began to wonder if he wasn't still alive,
hallucinating in some hospital emergency room with a bullet in his
brain.

"Are you just going to stand out there all night, Lover Boy?" a woman
called from the bedroom.  Surprised, Scarp stopped and stared at door.
Who could be on the other side?  Annette?  No, it wasn't!  The capo
drew his .38, stood aside, and pushed the door in with his heel.  No
reaction.  He took a quick glance, then sucked in his breath; Noel was
in bed, naked except for a pair of lace panties.

"How did you do that?!" he demanded, stepping into the room.

"You ain't seen nothing yet, tough guy," she promised with a wink.
"I'm the genie and you're the man holding the bottle."

Scarp got hold of himself.  It was just a magician's stunt, that's all.
Hell, he'd seen a lot better in Vegas lounge acts.  Lowering his gun
slightly, the gangster advanced toward her.

"Speaking of bottles --" she remarked just as a bottle and two
long-stemmed glasses appeared on a silver tray.  Scarp froze in his
tracks, dumbstruck.  If this was a stage trick, it was a damned good
one!  She hadn't even used smoke or a silk scarf.

Noel filled two glasses with champagne.  Scarp, sitting down on the
edge of the bed, reached for a glass.  He felt the cold, solid reality
of the brimming crystal.  "I don't believe it.  Maybe I am dead."

"I could get to like this," the brunette purred.

"What?  Me dead?"

"No.  Having someone who needs me."

"You're screwy!  Why go giddy just because you get to serve drinks like
some fucking maid in a cat house!"

"I'll drink to that!" Noel lifted her glass in a pretended toast.  When
her host didn't respond in the same spirit she shrugged and took a sip.

"Get that glass out of your face," Scarp ordered abruptly.

As soon as Noel had obeyed, Scarp grabbed her, kissed her hard on the
mouth.

When he eased up, she shook her head.  "You might not like doing it
with me."

"Why not?  Are you frigid?"

"Mister, I can come like a satchel charge."

"So?"

"So since when did Lee Scarp have eyes for my kind of woman?"

"What kind of woman are you?"

"A woman who you can't hurt or scare.  I'm no frail, Lee.  You have to
understand that about me.  If you want a frail, no sweat.  I can find
you plenty of frails."

"I'll get to them, Gams, don't worry.  Right now what I need is a
genie."

"I don't have to guess what your wish is," she remarked as she slipped
her panties off and flipped them away with her toe.

Scarp stood up and likewise stripped to the skin.  He was a strong,
lean, hard-bodied man.  He worked out in the gym a lot, worried about
becoming a tub of lard like most of the big boys.  Then he reached out
and touched Noel's breast like a shopper checking out a ripe tomato.
It felt damned good.

"Let's make it a real party," he said as he plucked the bottle from the
tray.  He poured some of its contents over his cock and balls.

"Now why don't you just lick it off?" Scarp now suggested.

"You've got style, Dandyman."

"Only my friends call me Dandyman?"

"I'd be your friend."

"I don't need friends."

"Well, you've got one now, whether you like it or not."

He scoffed.  "Friendship just means you want something."

"Don't ever give me anything you don't want to."

"You can count on that!  You told me you're just doing a job because
you want to get sprung.  Okay, so do your job!" He took a handful of
her black hair and pulled her nearer.  "Start sucking, babe, and don't
stop till I say so!"

Noel looked up into his face, but she only appeared pensive.  This
broad was a cool one, that was for sure, Scarp thought.  Who was she
really?  She had offered to procure girls for him.  Had she been a
madame back on earth?  Most madams started out as whores themselves.
Maybe that was how she got to purgatory.  Bad girl, he chuckled
silently, breathing in her florid perfume, anticipating the warm, wet
feel of her mouth.

Noel grasped the base of his straining penis between her fingers.
Holding his tool securely, she began licking the long, blood-engorged
shaft.

Scarp felt his balls begin to stir.  Everything about Noel gave him a
hard-on.  Whoever had sent her his way sure knew what he wanted in a
woman.  But that was what set him on edge.  He couldn't let any broad
get more of him than his cock, no matter what.  "It's time for more
bubbly," he growled.

Noel pulled backed a little, allowing Scarp to reanoint his cock and
balls.  "This time get it all.  I hate feeling sticky."

Compliant, Noel licked off Scarp's scrotum.  Then taking hold of his
doused penis with a thumb and forefinger, she ovaled her lips and
engulfed him, sliding his erection all the way down her throat, like a
sword-swallower.  Scarp gasped; it was a technique that he had only
lucked upon a couple times before.  Women were only good for
cock-sucking, he'd always said, and most of them weren't even good for
that.  This dame was something special.  Noel began sliding his prick
in and out of her warm mouth; he let her keep at it as long as he
dared.

"Cut it out!" muttered Scarp.  "I don't want to shoot the works without
the payoff."

He pushed the girl down to her back and then flung her knees apart.
From a kneeling position, Scarp casually guided his cock to its dock.
Then he shoved his hips forward, driving himself into the warmth of her
interior body.

It felt fine.  The gangster pumped irregularly a few times until he
found his stride, then fell into a natural rhythm of long, piston-like
strokes.  Noel, by no means passive, timed her own counter-thrusts to
his movement.  It was just too good; Scarp had wanted to make the fun
last, but the woman's mouth had already put him on a hair trigger.  He
yelled as a shudder ripped through him and a river of hot sperm jetted
into her pussy.  Noel went up, too.  The mobster had to admit that she
really could come like a satchel charge.

Scarp pulled away, not tired, but needing something to drink.  Once
he'd downed another glass of champagne, he felt like he could fuck like
sixty all over again.  The capo tossed the empty crystal away and it
shattered on the wall.

"Fresh glass, genie!" he ordered.  In another wink, the glass came to
be.

"I'm going to like this place," Scarp chuckled as he took it from her
hand.

                                   #

Noel, watching from a chair, shook her head.  "I can see why they call
you the Dandyman."

"When I was a kid," the gangster reminisced, "I wore rags from the
parish donation drive and didn't have a nickel to my name.  I'd still
take ritzy clothes over a broad.  -- Well, doll, what do you do for
kicks around this burg?"

Scarp had earlier asked about some of his old chums -- the "good
people" who had already "gone over," usually riddled with bullets.
Noel had had to nix that.  Nobody that he knew was around, she had told
him.  Every man had his own Purgatory.

"But we can get some people to impersonate your old pals," Noel had
suggested off-handedly.

"You're kidding?"

"No, I'm not."

"Actors?"

"No, just people who want to help you."

"Why use strangers?  I want the real thing!"

"Come on, Lee, do you really think that any of your chums would sink to
playing second banana to you now that they've got territories of their
own?"

"No, they wouldn't," Scarp agreed reluctantly.  "-- But, hey, Gams,
can't you pull some strings and get the S.O.B.'s over to my turf
whether they like it or not?"

"I'm a trustee, Lee, not God Almighty."

Scarp didn't like the idea of having any kind of limits at all.  It
seemed to contradict the whole notion that he could have "anything."

"Well," he had asked irritably, "are you going to recommend a nightspot
or not?"

"How about a casino?  Duke's."

Duke's was a hangout that Scarp knew well.  A Gurina family business.
"Duke's here?  Hah!  I always said that that joint was going to Hell!"

"You can have anything, go anyplace.  I could take you to the Taj Mahal
if you wanted."

"Don't like Indian booze," Scarp quipped.  "Let's just check out
Duke's." He suddenly frowned, bothered by second thoughts.  "The only
thing is, that place is like a snake -- shiny but dangerous.  I feel
kind of naked without my backups."

"We could get you some trigger men, Lee, but why bother?  Nobody here
wants to hurt you, unless you want them to."

"There you go again, you nutty broad!  Why the fuck do you suppose that
I'd want to get bumped off?"

"You can't be bumped off; you're already dead.  Besides, there's no
percentage in causing you trouble.  The people here can't get ahead
unless they make you happy.  You're very important to everybody."

Scarp understood self-interest, but why should he believe everything he
was told?  He'd gotten where he was by not trusting anybody.  "Let's
go, Gams," he said, cutting off further discussion.

A limo met them in front of the hotel and soon was breezing them along
Prospect to Duke's.  Despite his gag about Duke's going to Hell, the
casino had always had "class," more like a posh club than an illegal
gambling house.  There were blackjack tables, craps pits, and roulette
wheels, everything high-stakes and all crowded with the uptown set.
Scarp noticed that the men looked like top-draw players, and the women
models or hired escorts.  Busy, short-skirted cocktail waitresses
catered drinks and cigarettes to one and all.

"These bums aren't for real?" Scarp asked, amazed.  "They're all
faking?"

"That's right."

"I don't get it.  How can anyone expect to earn a ticket to the Pearly
Gates by shooting the works in a creep joint?  By pushing hooch to
stewbums?"

"This is the world you want, Lee.  The day you want Sunday school
classes and church ladies, you'll get Sunday school classes and church
ladies."

"I got a bellyful of Sunday school back at the orphanage, Dollface."

"It must have done you some good.  You gave that parish a lot of dough
over the last twenty years."

"Nobody knew that!" Scarp snapped.

"I know it, and the Big Boss knows it."

"You guys are worse than the feds.  Just don't get any wrong ideas
about me.  What I did was no big deal.  I just wanted those kids to
have the chance I never had."

"You're getting your chance now."

"Here's order number two, genie:  Button your lip!"

Noel sighed.

Scarp spent a couple minutes looking around the casino, then got the
itch to play.  "Hey, beautiful," he called back to Noel, "I don't have
any scratch on me.  What do you do for bread around here?"

"Just ask for it."

"Ask who?"

"Anybody."

Scarp liked that idea.  He made for the cashier's window and demanded
ten thousand dollars in chits, giving nothing in exchange except a
snarling, "Make it snappy!" The middle-aged woman piled up several
stacks of colored disks and shoved them at him through the bars.  Scarp
felt good enough to toss one ten dollar chit back for a tip.

"Thank you, Sir," she said, tapping the rubber disk on the counter as a
sign to her supervisor, before dropping through her tip slot.

Scarp was starting to like the city better and better.  He elbowed
himself up to a crowded blackjack table and pushed a old banker type
out of his way.

"Hey!" the man protested angrily.  But as he turned and saw Scarp's
sneering face the gambler choked up as if he had run into a ghost.

"What are you looking at, bum?" the mobster snarled.

"You're -- uh -- I mean --" Scarp didn't like the duffer's puss, so he
slammed a fist into his pot belly.  As the gambler went down like a
sack of oatmeal, a floor man barged up to calm things down.  "Sorry,
Mr.  Scarp," the casino employee apologized, "the old fart just had a
few too many.  We'll toss him out!"

"Yeh, you just do that, buddy," Scarp said through a curled lip.

The gangster turned around, feeling good after the exercise.  He placed
his first bet and the dealer dealt him twenty-one right off.  After
that, Scarp got twenty- one every deal.  In what seemed like no more
than an hour he had stacks of thousand dollar chits and a half dozen
hero-worshiping show girls were cheering him on.  It was fun for a
while, but finally Scarp stopped paying attention because he'd caught
on that he was going to win every hand.  If he could have all the money
he wanted just by asking for it, if he couldn't lose no matter how
recklessly he bet, if the game was fixed in his favor, it was just
garbage -- it was like playing for toothpicks.

"Having a good time, hon?" Noel asked, edging her way between the show
girls.

"Shit fuck!  I've never been so bored in my life!"

"Why, Dandyman?  You're winning!"

"Winning, hell!  The fix is in!"

"Don't sweat it, lover," she said encouragingly.  "I can get you a
little excitement."

"Anything's better than this!"

Suddenly a snooty-looking debutante tapped the Scarp on the shoulder.
"You're holding up the game, wop!" she informed him in chilly tones.
"The people they let in here!" The young woman turned, looked around.
"Where's the manager?"

Scarp turned angrily.  "Shut your trap, you lousy whore!"

The woman reacted with shock, then she slapped his face -- hard.  The
big diamond ring on her finger hurt like a brass knuckle.  "Watch who
you're calling a whore, you two-bit hoodlum!"

No body had dared to talk down to Scarp since he'd been a kid.  The
insult stung even worse than the ring.  He would have killed her if she
had been a man, but Scarp was always turned on to beautiful women with
nerve.  It was always a hoot to take them down a peg, rub their faces
in the dirt.

"You sure look like a whore to me," Scarp said, a bright idea coming to
mind.

"Well, I never!" sniffed the debutante as she picked up her purse and
turned away.  Scarp grabbed her roughly and spun her around.

"Maybe you never, bitch, but you're going to start.  Right, Gams?"

"I know where you're coming from, tough guy," Noel responded slyly.

Suddenly the offending woman was no longer expensively dressed and
coiffured, but wearing a cheap bar-hopping outfit with acres of
cleavage and a tight skirt that ended at the knees.  Her hair and
make-up was trashy and provocative, her perfume sweet but cheap.

The transformed society girl looked incredulously at her clothing.
"Did you do this?" she gasped.

"Yeh," said Scarp, "and it suits you to a T. Where's your sugar man?"

"Sugar man!  You barbarian!" She looked excitedly around, shouting:
"Arthur!"

"So Arthur's your pimp?  Good deal.  Give us Arthur, Gams."

"I'm right on it, Dandyman."

At that instant a big man stomped up in a flashy cocked hat and
tasteless suit.  His hair was slicked down and his cologne would have
choked a honey bee.

"Arthur?!" the new-minted streetwalker whispered at the sight of her
now-metamorphosed escort.

"What are you hanging around here for, bitch!" the pimp snarled.  "Did
I tell you to start losing my money at the card table?!"

The hooker stared incredulously.  "You're money?  It's mine!"

Arthur grabbed her shoulders and shook her.  "What are you saying,
bitch?!  You've got nothing!  I found you, I made you." He snatched
away her purse and took what cash he found in it.  "Is this all you've
got left?  Come here, floozie, we're going somewhere to talk!" He
seized her arm.

"Let go of me!" his captive cried, looking frantically to the security
guard.  But the employee remained impassive as Arthur dragged her
toward the exit.

Scarp laughing, turned to Noel.  "Can you keep here that way, doll?  I
mean, really turning tricks on the boulevard?"

"Nothing to it.  But do you think it's really fair?"

"Sure I think it's fair.  The bitch deserves it."

Noel sighed again.  "Don't we all?"



3.  Chapter



For the next several months, if it wasn't in fact several years, or
even several decades or several centuries, Lee Scarp enjoyed being a
ten-ton gorilla in a world that marched to his personal drum beat.  He
sloshed down whole warehouse inventories of imported liquor and never
got drunk.  He punched out strangers, even cops, whenever he felt like
it.  He did what he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it.  And he
did it with a vengeance.

He was lionized by the staffs of the swankiest restaurants and fawned
over by beautiful women -- scores of the latter.  Whenever the capo
eyeballed one he liked, he had only to say, "Come on, babe, let's
fuck," and she'd slip her hand into his pocket.  Purgatory was a
satyr's dream.  Once Scarp took a whole chorus line home with him.  He
had the energy to jazz every waking hour never get tired.  Or, for
variety, he sometimes told a couple at random, or a even whole crowd of
people, to start screwing while he just sat back and watched.  It was
better than a stag film.

And it all got to him as time went on.  It would have gotten to a
bronze statue.

                                    #

The boss of bosses, Guido Gurina, sat across from "Joe Jelly" Madagino,
with the two top bumpmen of Kansas City, Georgio Pizoli and Mike
Feinberg, on his left and right respectively.  The four men examined
their new-dealt cards with faces of stone.  "Two," Gurina rumbled and
Mike peeled a couple cards for him off the top of the Bicycle deck.
The room was dark, except for a single light bulb swaying slowly with
the vibrations of the East Side traffic.

"I woulda given anything to see Scarp lying there," laughed the big
boss as he took his cards.  "You shoulda taken a picture, Joe!  Ida
have it framed!" Gurina had a face like Santa Claus, and a laugh like a
rusty hinge.

"I wish I had a camera with me," chuckled his porky underboss.  "-- One
card for me, Mike," he called over his shoulder.

The bumpman flipped him a card.

"You boys did a good job," nodded Gurina, glancing up at the hit men.
"I take care of good boys."

"We know you do," grinned Georgio servilely.

Suddenly the door flew open with a crash.  A man in black charged in,
swinging the barrel of a chopper toward the quartette.  "I take care of
good boys, too!" he sneered.

"It's Scarp!" yelled Gurina.  "He's alive!" The poker players grabbed
for their automatics, but the assassin cut loose with a deafening
chatter.  The thugs jumped like minnows as the bullets bit into their
beefy bodies.

Then they were down.  Gurina was still twitching, apparently the last
one left alive.  Scarp strode toward him, paused, then emptied his
magazine into his face and rib cage, turning the old man's body into
bloody hamburger.  As soon as the hit was finished, Noel stepped up
behind the killer.

"Did that feel good, hon?" she asked.

"It felt good the first fifty times," rasped Scarp.  "Now it's just
crap!  Can't these bozos change their lines?  The same schtick every
time.  Fuck it!  -- Tell these idiots to get up."

"You know the rules, Lee.  You'll have to leave before they can come
back to life."

"This place has more rules than San Quentin!  Shit!"

"I suppose it does.  Well, what should we do next, Dandyman?"

"I don't know!" Scarp shouted as he stormed from the room.  Noel looked
back sympathetically at the slaughtered card players, shook her head,
and then closed the door.

                                    #

One could never tell how time passed in Purgatory.  It was later.  It
seemed much later, but possibly it was no more than the very next day.
Scarp had gone out for a night on the town, but instead of enjoying
either the cuisine or the chorus line of Club Le Blanc, he sat
glowering at the tablecloth, oblivious to all around him.  Noel leaned
forward.  "Lee, I'm getting worried about you.  Every place we've gone
lately has been almost empty."

"Is that my fault?"

"In a way it is.  What you want is what you get.  Have you gotten tired
of people already?"

"Already?  It seems like a million years.  Anyhow, they're not real
people.  Those phonies give me the creeps."

"There's nothing phoney about them, Lee.  They're as real as you or I.
Don't you appreciate how hard they work to make you happy?"

"Appreciate?  Appreciate what?  They're zombies!  You can shoot them,
strangle them, you can cut them in half, and they just keep coming!"

Scarp know of what he spoke.  He'd tried it all, bloody mayhem with
every vicious twist of imagination.  But murder was like eating
bananas.  Unless you were a nut case, you always reached a point when
you felt like barfing at the sight of one more banana.

"And something else is funny," he put in.

"What?" asked Noel seriously, her elbow on the table and her chin
resting upon her hand.

"I just realized that since I hit town, I haven't seen daylight once.
Isn't there any sun in Purgatory?  Is it supposed to be some kind of
punishment?"

"This isn't about punishment, Lee.  Like I told you, what you don't
want or don't need, you don't get."

"You're always saying that!" Scarp exclaimed.  "Do you think I'm some
kind of feeb?  You've been treating me like a sap since I got here!
Maybe I ought to stuff something into that smart mouth of yours."

"Did you have anything special in mind, big guy?" she smiled
whimsically.

Scarp glared.  He could terrify anybody, both before or after he was
dead, except for Noel.  Nothing fazed Noel.  What did she know that he
didn't?  What gave her the power to endure all the boredom of Hell, all
the insults and abuse?  He felt like beating her head against the wall,
but hesitated.  Somehow he knew that doing so would be wrong.  Even
dangerous.

Just then the waiter came over, a big ugly bald man with large, bushy
eyebrows.  His repulsiveness gave Scarp an idea.

"Would you like dessert now, Mr.  Scarp?" the employee asked politely.

Noel glanced down at the plastic-coated menu in front of her.  Scarp
pulled it away suddenly and the girl regarded him quizzically.

"I'll order for the lady.  Give her some `le prong de creme.'"

"I don't follow you, sir," remarked the waiter.  "It's not on the menu.
It is French?"

"French is exactly what it is.  Get your dick out, stupid."

"M-My dick?" the waiter stammered with disbelief.  "Really, sir, I -- "

"Do you know me, bum?  I run this city.  I run you, just like I run
this bimbo here.  Capice?

The big man looked askance at Noel.  Her face was steady, unbothered, a
faint smile curled her lips.

"Don't ask for her permission, you piece of crap!  You do what I tell
you!"

"Mr.  Scarp is right," Noel said.  "It's okay."

The man, despite his clear misgivings, unzipped his pants.  "Cheer up,
punk," Scarp smirked.  "Gams has a mouth like a cesspool pump.  You'll
love it."

Noel hung her ermine stole upon an empty chair.  "Where do you want us
to do it?" the young woman inquired, as if asking the time of day.

"Here.  Right in front of everybody."

Noel lifted her head and surveyed the dining room, which was
practically empty except for the help.  "All right," she shrugged,
motioning the waiter closer.  He did, reluctantly.  She carefully
fished his equipment out of his open fly and then, with delicate
fingers, began to stroke its length.  As the man's cock rose to excited
life, Noel parted her teeth and brought her tongue into contact with
its quickening head.  She began licking it lightly, like a lollipop.
The club employee steadied himself by grasping her bare shoulders.

"Now, take his pecker in your mouth, bitch," Scarp ordered, enjoying
the prank.  Anticipation brought an uncomfortable stiffness to his own
crotch.

The penis continued to grow between Noel's nimble fingers.  The head
was inflating rapidly, its end becoming pink.  Slowly, Noel brought the
organ to her lips, opening her mouth to receive it.  Scarp whistled
softly.  He'd been where the waiter was now too many times to remember.

"That's better," the capo grinned evilly.  "Now the payoff."

Compliant and patient, Noel began moving her lips up and down the
length of his hard, thick cock, coloring it with her lipstick.  The
waiter moaned.  Scarp knew how the dude's balls must be aching.  Noel
was the only woman whose fucking he'd never gotten tired of.  His heart
pounded rapidly and he had to fight the urge to take hold of his own
rod.  But Lee Scarp would never stoop to making himself look like a
pervert in public exposure.

"Okay, change positions!" barked the gangster.  "Lick her cunt while
she sucks you off."

The waiter shot the girl a pained glance, but Noel smiled
encouragingly.  "It's all right," she seemed to say.  "You're not
hurting me."

"Crazy broad," thought Scarp.  No matter what he did to bring her down,
she still had class.  In fact, she was about the classiest broad that
he'd ever known.  But that only made him the more determined to get a
rise out of her.

Noel and the waiter took their positions on the floor and Noel slipped
off her panties.  Then, lifting her skirts, she settled herself astride
the man's face.

Scarp could read the instant in which the waiter's tongue found her
slit.  Her expression was like a cat's face when you stroke its belly.
But now, he saw, she was leaning forward to take the penis into her
hands.

"That's it," Scarp said approvingly.  "Now suck."

Noel teased the organ until she felt its trembling response.  Then she
advanced down along its length until her nose was buried in tawny pubic
hair.  Then she began bobbing her head up and down, so that her velvety
lips caressed every inch of him.

Noel held on when the waiter's hips began to jerk and her mouth was
flooded with a thick, heavy juice.  She went into spasms as her own
come rushed upon her.

Scarp, shivering, swallowed the rest of his drink with a single gulp.
Noel glanced his way and, sensing that he wanted no more from her, sat
up, took a napkin from the table, and wiped her mouth.  She pushed the
cloth into the waiter's hand when she was finished and he gratefully
mopped his entire face with it.  Then rising wearily, the bald man
zipped his pants.

The high-spirited gangster handed his date a glass of sparkling
Burgundy.  "Wash the gism down with this, baby," he offered, his voice
throaty.  Noel accepted the proffered crystal and took a sip.

"What now, tough guy?" she asked Scarp.  "Second course?"

The capo stared into her deep, sardonic eyes.  If he had wanted to get
to Noel where it mattered, there was no sign that he had succeeded.
"Do what you want to do?"

She reclaimed the menu and regarded it thoughtfully.  "Waiter," she
said finally, "I believe I'll have baked Alaska."

                                    #

"When's Christmas?" Scarp asked one night.  Noel looked up from her
book.  "Any time you like."

"Fuck it!  You never give me a straight answer."

"I give you nothing but straight answers, Lee.  There's no time here.
Or if there is, it doesn't run in a straight line like you're used to.
It's more like a ball of string.  Everything touches everything else."

"So tomorrow can be Christmas, right?"

"Right!" Noel nodded affirmatively.  She got up smoothly and went to
the window.  "It's a beautiful night, Lee.  It's snowing."

"Snowing?  It was seventy degrees an hour ago!  It's always seventy
degrees." Scarp pushed up from his easy chair and joined her.  It was
snowing outside all right.  It was already getting deep.  The seasonal
decorations had gone up since the last time he had looked -- wreaths,
giant striped candy canes, fake holly, Santa Clauses, and reindeers.
And blinking lights of every hue.

"Do you want Christmas carols?" she asked.

"Yeh."

Noel crossed to the radio and turned the knob.

"Noel, Noel, the angles did say, To certain poor shepherds in fields
where they lay...  ."

The doorbell rang.

"Who the hell is that now?" grumbled Scarp.

It turned out to be Scarp's first well-wisher, and it wasn't the last.
The doorbell rang constantly as neighbors and persons whom he had never
seen before dropped in holding large wrapped boxes in their arms.  The
capo tore the gifts open like a revenue agent going at a beer keg.  And
the loot wasn't chintzy.  He cleaned up on art work, on men's jewelry,
on clothes, even on rare additions to his Roman coin collection.  He
listened to his callers' chatter for a while, then got testy as it all
started to sound the same.  After that he started rushing his callers
out the door as quickly as they came, at first politely, but then,
before long, rudely.

"Ease up, Dandyman," Noel urged as Scarp bounced another man's glad
tidings off the wall of the outer corridor.  "It's Christmas!"

"The fuck it is!  I don't feel Christmasy!"

"Not Christmasy?  There's no pleasing you.  Look at all the beautiful
presents you got!"

"Trash!  What good is it?  You could genie up this kind of junk in five
seconds flat if I asked you to." He turned sharply, stomped to the
radio, and switched off the caroling.

"That's true," she admitted, settling herself upon a divan littered
with wrapping paper.  "But if you don't really want presents, what was
it that you used to like about Christmas?"

"I don't know anymore!  I can't remember."

"What about all those people wishing you well?"

"Zombies!  I don't care about them and they don't care about me."

"Well, would you like to go to Mass?"

"Mass?  Cut the comedy, Gams!"

He leaned over the bar, holding a glass of gin in his tight fist but
not drinking it.  Noel got up again, slipped behind him, and put her
arms around his waist.

"Maybe it's just that we're forgetting something."

"I just said that!  Don't turn stupid on me."

"Try to remember the best Christmas you ever had, Lee.  Try to think
what made it special?"

He shrugged.  "I think it was at the orphanage."

"The orphanage?  Lee, you couldn't have gotten a lot of fancy presents
in a place like that."

"Of course not!  All I ever got was a few old toys and some new used
hand-me-downs."

"Then maybe it was something else.  What other people were there?"

"Just my pals, and the nuns -- and Father O'Brian." Scarp smiled,
remembering.  "Hey, he was a good old bird.  There was this time --"
Then the gangster caught himself and his mood changed.  "Why don't you
just get out of here?"

"I couldn't leave you alone on Christmas."

He raised a fist in exasperation.  "This isn't Christmas!"

"Of course it is." She touched his chest, undaunted by his temper.  "If
it's Christmas in here, it's Christmas everywhere."

"You really are turning stupid!"

"Let me ask a stupid question then."

"Another one?"

"Who are you going to give presents to this Christmas?"

"Me give presents?  Why would I want to do an idiotic thing like that
for?"

"It's an important part of Christmas.  The loving and sharing part.
Isn't there anybody you care about?  Anyone who'd you'd like to help
feel just a little better?"

"No," he said, looking coldly into her eyes.  "Nobody."



4.  Chapter



Thrill followed thrill.  Scarp tried out everything.  Whatever he
liked, he did a thousand times over, until it, too, grew stale.  More
and more, without even realizing it, he simply hung around his
apartment and drank alone.  He couldn't even get drunk -- unless he
wanted to, of course.  But Scarp's pride would never let him admit that
he wasn't a man who could hold his liquor.

Even when the don bestirred himself enough to go out, he usually would
just slouch around the restaurants and night clubs morosely.  One night
Noel found him sitting by himself in a dark corner of Duke's.

"What's wrong?" she asked concernedly.

"What do you mean, what's wrong?" he growled back.

"I mean, what's eating you?  Why are you hanging around this dump?
You've got it all!  You can do anything, have anything!  The world is
your oyster, Lee, just like you always wanted."

"I'd rather do a stretch in Leavenworth.'

"You could!"

"I mean the real Leavenworth, not some zombie imitation!"

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to wish for something else."

"I've had everything else, I've done everything else!  I'm sick of it
all!"

She regarded him keenly.  "Your only problem is your lack of
imagination!" she suggested.  "Why be satisfied with this two bit town?
Why not crash Paris, or Rome?  Why not rule a country of your own?  You
could be a god!"

"I'm not cut out to be a god!"

"Come on, Lee.  Godhood would be a new kick, wouldn't it?"

"I'm doing what I want to do, okay?  So quit nagging me!

"Okay, Lee, so you're bored.  Why not unwind with a little blackjack?"

He gritted his teeth.  "Aren't you listening, stupid!  I'm sick of
blackjack, and craps, and roulette, and poker!  I always win."

"You win because you want to win."

"I hate losing!"

She gave him a coquettish wink.  "You still like sex, don't you?  You
haven't even banged me in quite a while.  You used to think I was a
pretty good piece."

"I don't want you.  You've gotten to be too much like a wife."

"You mean you're starting to respect me?"

"I just mean that you've gotten boring, too!"

"How can you be bored by someone who cares about you?" she asked
seriously.

"Don't care!  I hate caring!"

"Well, if you don't want me anymore, there's always somebody else."

"I've had somebody else!  I've had everybody else!  I'm sick of
jellybeans.  I want something different.  Aren't there any uptight
virgins in this fucking place?  Somebody who'd be scared, somebody
who'd hate it?"

"Nobody could hate it with you, Lee!" she teased.

"Get lost!"

"Don't be so hasty, tough guy.  I can get you somebody who'll fake
hating it."

"No!  Everything here is fake.  I've had it with fakes!"

"The trouble is that there was only one virgin who ever came here, Lee,
but she's not a virgin any more."

"Oh, that's just great!" he grumbled sarcastically.  "Is she one of
those I already had?"

"No, it wasn't you.  But she's only did it once, and that was for
love."

"For love, huh?  That ain't bad.  Who is it?"

"That new cigarette girl," she said, pointing at a slim, short-skirted
figure working the tables.

Scarp peered at the pretty young woman as if she was an item in a shop.
She had wavy brown hair and big, innocent, fawn-like eyes.  Her legs
were almost perfect.  Despite his weary satiety, Scarp couldn't help
but be interested.

"That's somebody new," he admitted with a smirk.

"Old wine in a new bottle, actually," Noel replied enigmatically.

"She had only one man?  She can't be trying very hard -- not with a
body like that," judged the gangster.

"Before him, she'd always preferred girls," the brunette explained
briefly.  Scarp grinned at the thought.  It would be an charge to
straighten out a lez the hard way.

"Okay, I'm game," he said.

Noel waved the cigarette girl over.  "Cigars?  Cigarettes?  Matches?"
the scantily-clad beauty inquired with detached professionalism.

"What's your name?" Scarp asked gruffly.

"Mary," she replied.

"Mary.  Like the Virgin?  I like that."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're off work," he stated bluntly.

"What do you mean, sir?" she replied with a perplexed frown.

Scarp got up suddenly.  He took the cigarette tray from her, tossed it
aside, and then grabbed the girl by the wrist.  She looked with
horrified appeal toward Noel.

"Do what the gentleman says," the svelte woman instructed the cigarette
girl with a steady glance.  "He's the big boss."

Mary turned her entreaties back toward Scarp.  "Let me go!" she cried,
trying to twist away.

"The only place you're going is back to your dressing room -- with me!"

"No!"

The capo dragged her along behind him against all protest.  The girl, a
unsophisticated kid unused to her spiked pumps, apparently, just
stumbled along, unable to offer any resistance to his greater strength.
The restaurant help looked on without reaction, without much interest
even.  Suddenly, as Scarp pulled her past a large mirror, the girl
caught a sight of herself and released a gasp of shock.  Her own
reflection seemed to stun her so much that all the fight seemed to go
out of her.  Scarp sensed it instantly and scooped Mary up under his
arm, moving her along without any more fuss.

Scarp knew where the dressing rooms were -- he had screwed plenty of
Duke's show girls and waitresses before this.  It was empty, as it
always was when he wanted privacy.

He swung the girl around in front of him.  "Listen, baby -- don't
pretend you don't want it.  Any frill who dresses like you in public is
looking for a good fuck."

"It's only a costume.  I'm just doing a job!"

"Then I've got a new job for you.  Take off your duds and your panties,
but keep the stockings and the heels.  You'll look good that way."

"Please, I'm not ready for this.  Let me go!"

"You dumb twat!  Stop stalling and get those panties off!"

She bit her lip, but her body language communicated a reluctant
capitulation.  She drew the frilly costume off over her head, then
slipped her silk briefs down her legs, stepping out of them with a deft
motion.  Mostly naked now, she looked every bit as good as the don had
hoped she would.

"They told me that you were a lesbo," Scarp said contemptuously, taking
her small chin in his rough hand.  "When I'm through with you, you'll
never want to be with another girl as long as you live."

"You don't understand!"

Yeh, I know.  You've had a man one time, didn't you?  Tell me, did you
suck him off?"

The horror in her beautiful face told him that she hadn't.  "Good,"
said Scarp.  "When you go back to the schmuck, you'll be able to give
him a nice surprise."

He unzipped his fly and brought out his penis.  The girl looked at it
as if it were a tool of execution.

"Take it in your hand and kiss it," Scarp ordered.

"I -- I can't," Mary pleaded.

Scarp grabbed a handful of her hair, shaking hard, leaving no doubt
that he meant to be obeyed.

"Ow!  That hurts!  Stop it, please!"

"Then do what you're told!" Releasing his grip, he forced her down to
her knees.  He felt a quickening in his crotch.  Just the sight of the
pure and frightened girl on her knees before him was giving him a rush
that he hadn't experienced in a long while.

Reluctantly, Mary took his thick trunk-like organ in her hand.  "Now
start kissing and licking my wanger," Scarp ordered, "or I'll tie you
down and do whatever I want with you."

Mary drew back for just an instant, then closed her eyes.  Against her
every instinct, she gave it a feather-light kiss, though her mouth was
twisted with disgust.

"Lick it!" Scarp barked, taking a new handful of her hair.  He yanked
it hard enough to wrest a cry from her, just to drive home the command.

Her face a mask of pain and her eyes full of tears, Mary stuck out her
tongue and touched it to the throbbing cock.  She immediately drew
back, repulsed.  Scarp expected her to gag then and was, in fact, a
little let down when she didn't.  "Get with it!  I haven't got all
day!" he snapped.  Under compulsion, the girl began trailing her tongue
up and down his long member looking like she was being subjected to
torture.

"Not bad.  You've got hidden talent, babe.  Now take it into your
mouth!" he commanded.

Slowly, her loathing plain, Mary brought his eager, swollen organ to
her open mouth.  When she glanced up with an appeal for mercy in her
eyes, his scowl warned her to get cracking.

Mary slipped her lips around the head of his penis as if she were
taking poison.  Her face screwed up, as if she was again fighting back
the impulse to vomit.

"That's better!" Scarp said breathily, jerking his hips to shove his
cock deeper down the girl's warm throat.  She panicked at the sudden
deep intrusion and tried to escape, but Scarp held her fast.  The fear
and disgust he smelled was like perfume in his nostrils.

"Here's the secret of being a real pro, jugs:  move your head back and
forth, like your mouth was a pussy!"

With a face of trembling hate, Mary did as told.  Scarp savored her
humiliation as his testicles began to ache.  Her technique was
primitive, but that was part of the thrill.  It showed him how green
and unspoiled she was.

Scarp could feel his heart pounding and he had to fight back the urge
to let himself go into her mouth.  But he didn't want Mary to get away
without an bona fide oil change.  There was something just too sweet
and squeaky clean about the young cigarette girl.  The biggest part of
the kick he was having was in making her as dirty as everything else
around him.

He suddenly put his palm on her forehead and pushed so hard that she
landed on her back.  "Okay, spread your legs," he told her.

By the time Scarp finished with the girl, she was every bit as soiled
as he had ever needed to make her.

But now that he had exhausted the last novelty that Purgatory had to
offer, what else was left?

                                    #

Scarp heard heels clicking on the asphalt rooftop behind him.  He knew,
even without turning, that it was Noel.

She stopped when she was close enough to touch him.  He glanced over
his shoulder and saw that the young woman was looking up into the
heavens.  There were no stars.  Not even clouds.  There was simply --
nothing.  A few tiny lights burned in otherwise darkened high-rises but
beyond them there was nothing except the blackness of the abyss.

"Lee.  You okay?" she whispered.  He turned listlessly, his face drawn
and bewhiskered.

"The lights are going out all over the city, Lee," she said.  This is
bad."

He shrugged.  "How bad can it be?"

"It means you've got a death wish the size of Yankee Stadium."

"So what if I do?"

"Don't you remember?  What you want, you'll get."

"That's great.  I want to die."

"You can't die, Lee, not the way you want -- but everything else can.
You'll be left all alone, living in a world the size of a casket, like
Count Dracula.

"What are you talking about, Gams?"

"Don't you get it?  This city is you!  It's your mind.  It's your soul.
When you wanted a city of your own, this place gave you a city.  If you
want nothing, there is nothing.  Everything gets stuffed out, like a
lamp at bedtime."

"You're crazy."

"I've been out on the streets.  They're empty, Lee!  There are no
people anymore!  There's just you and me."

He turned away.  "Well, we've all got to go sometime."

She grasped his shoulders, turned him back around with all her
strength.  "Lee, don't you really understand?  That darkness out there
is Hell, and it's coming this way!"

Even that couldn't get a rise out of him.  "There's nothing coming."

"That's exactly what I said!  Hell isn't a place, Lee.  It's what's
left over when the soul gets as empty as a spent cartridge.  Hell is a
stretch in stir that never ends!  It's coming for you, but you can
still stop it!"

"How?"

"Fight it!"

"I can't fight anything anymore, babe.  I've got nothing to fight for.
How do you do it?  How do you hang so tough all the time?  Why aren't
you going crazy like I am?"

Her glance was urgent but still compassionate.  "If I'm not crazy, Lee,
it's because I've got somebody.  I'm working for something, while
you're just spinning your wheels."

"What else can I do?"

"Just admit there's something bigger than yourself.  Accept the awe of
it."

"There's nothing I'm in awe of, except --"

Something stopped his words, but the appeal in Noel's eyes forced him
to finish:

"-- except you."

"Me?  That's nice, Lee," she said with a grave smile.  "I care about
you, too.  -- So can't you stop this just for us?"

He shook his head.  "I wish I could.  But the best thing I could do for
you is to get myself out of your life."

"No!" she exclaimed.  "That's not how this place works.  If you're
taken out, I'm taken out, too!"

He looked puzzled.  "Why?  You've done everything you could for me.
How could your boss blame you?"

"I'll blame myself."

"You're too good to be true, Gams.  I just want to say that if I get
what's coming to me, it's nobody's fault but my own."

"Well, sure, but --," she began haltingly.  Scarp looked at her
carefully.  He hadn't often seen her flustered, at a lost for words.
It made her seem a little less like a genie and a little more like a
woman.  He liked that.

"I've treated you like shit all along and you still keep coming back
for more," he told her.  "Why?  There are plenty of crazy, masochistic
bitches in the world, but somehow I don't think that you're one of
them."

"I don't like being hurt anymore than you do, Lee," she agreed with a
grave nod.  "But don't lose any sleep about the way you've treated me.
I can take it." She became coaxing, ironic:  "I'm a pretty tough mug."

He put his hands upon her bare shoulders.  "Yeh, I know you are.  If
you can put up with me, you've got to be made of cast iron.  Just in
case this is curtains and I don't see you again, Noel, I wanted you to
know that -- that you've been swell.  I'd have been awfully lonely if
you hadn't been here with me."

Her blue eyes turned dewy.  It was the first time she had heard him
call her "Noel." A tear tickled her eye and she brushed it away as if
embarrassed by it.  "Don't give up, Lee!" she urged, now more
determined than ever to win.  "I know you're not a quitter.  This isn't
the time to cash in.  That time never has to come!"

Maybe the sight of Hell coming up the track like a diesel locomotive
concentrated the mind like a hanging would have, but Noel looked so
beautiful to Scarp just then.  Wherever he was going, it suddenly
became the most the important thing in the world that she would be all
right.

"You know, Gams, I finally figured out who you are."

The woman blinked with surprise.  Then, as if remembering something
from the far past, her surprise gracefully transformed into tenderness.
"You have?  Then tell me who am I, big guy."

He touched her soft cheek, breaking the tiny liquid diamond in the
corner of her eye.  The droplet felt cool on his finger.  "You're an
angel, aren't you.  You've come from Heaven to help me."

She laughed and shook her head sorrowfully.  "I told you who I am, Lee.
An angel doesn't lie, right?  If I'm not who I said I was, then I'm a
liar and I can't be an angel.  And if I'm shooting square, then I still
can't be an angel."

"Okay, Beautiful, then I'm wrong about you.  I guess I'm not such a
smart guy after all."

She gave him a hug, pressed her cheek against his chest.  "I've known
that all along, you dope.  But now you know it, too, and that calls for
a celebration." She released him and looked up into his unshaven face.
"Can I conjure you up a chorus line or something, Dandyman?"

He shook his head.  "Nah, I've O.D.'ed on pussy.  It's not any kind of
kick anymore."

"There are still plenty of new kicks," she said eagerly.  "Can't you
see them?"

"I guess not.  I can't think of anything."

"You have to!  You have to fill that void inside you, or -- or it's all
over."

"Okay, help me out.  Suggest something."

She looked at him strangely.  He had never asked her for help before
and it seemed to deeply touch her.

"Sex is always a good kick," she suggested hopefully.

He turned away again, hopeless.  "Now it's you who can't see things,
Gams.  Sex is old news.  I couldn't bring myself to bang another woman
even if I wanted to."

"I know that.  But you've never done it with a man.  Wouldn't that be a
new kick?"

Scarp suddenly flared, frowning, his teeth baring.  "What are you
saying?  You want to lose those pearly whites, doll?  I'm no fag!  I'd
rather have that coffin you told me about than cuddle up to some hairy
prick."

"You don't have to be a fag, Lee.  It can be strictly on the up and up.
Just take a woman's shape for an hour or so.  You have to admit that
you've never tried anything like that before."

"Shit!  I never done it because I never wanted to!  You've got a leak
in your think tank!"

Noel touched his arm, encouragingly.  "I'm serious.  I'll even make it
easy for you.  I'll be the man."

Scarp looked a little dazed.  "You could do that?"

"Of course I can.  Both of us are only what we think we are.  You've
called me a genie, but there's nothing I can do that you couldn't do
for yourself.  All your limits are the ones you've been putting on
yourself."

"Turn into a girl and let you pork me?" He screwed up his face.  Saying
it out loud didn't make it sound any less nutty.  "I still think you're
crazy!  If I ever let you talk me into doing something like that I
couldn't look at myself in the mirror for the rest of my life!"

"You don't have a rest of your life, Lee.  I figure you've got about
half an hour."

His look of incredulity suddenly changed to one of suspicion.  "I smell
a rat, babe," he said.  "If I were suddenly some little skirt and you
were a big tough stud, you could rough me up pretty good."

She ran her fingertips over the stubble of his chin.  "I wouldn't do
that.  A minute ago you were telling me that I was an angel.  Don't you
trust me now?"

"You convinced me that you weren't an angel, and I don't trust anybody!
Maybe you're Satan, like I used to think you were.  Maybe all this has
been a long con, with you trying to get me to do myself in."

She turned to look at the darkness.  "You have to trust somebody, Lee.
Looking out for number one isn't enough, because --" she shuddered at
the sight of the nothingness that was still drifting toward Hotel
Addison like a billow of toxic smoke "-- because when somebody doesn't
know anything except how to it alone, his heart and his mind are
running on empty."

"Becoming a skirt is supposed to save me?"

"No," she explained anxiously.  "This is about your heart, not your
shape.  I'm just saying that when you can trust someone else enough to
do what you're afraid to do, to make yourself weak and vulnerable in
another person's hands, than you're going to become a whole new
person.'

"I'm not scared of anything, doll.  It's just that it's too crazy,"
Scarp said with a shake of his head.

"Listen, I'll make a deal with you.  Give up all the power you have for
just a little while and in the morning you can have it all back again,
if you still want it."

He thought he smelled a rat.  "Morning never comes.  You're talking
about forever!" He thought about the powerless zombies in the city.  He
didn't want to be like them.

"No, you're wrong," Noel said, touching his breast with her index
finger.  "The night is in here, Dandyman.  Everywhere else it's
morning, but you've never been able to see it.  Please trust me.  You'd
be giving up nothing because you don't have anything.  At least nothing
that you can treasure, nothing that you prize."

"Nothing except --" He looked away, some stubborn part of him refusing
to let out what was inside.

"Nah --" he said suddenly, "I got to be what I am, even if I hate it,
even if it kills me."

Scarp turned again toward the parapet.  The Wesco building across the
avenue was turning dark, not disappearing into the smoke, but seeming
to dissolve into it.  Hotel Addison had become like the last palm tree
left upon a small tropical atoll.

The gangster was thinking hard.

Even in his state of mind Scarp knew that what a lot of what Noel was
saying was true.  He had nothing.  He wanted nothing.  So what if it
was all a scam?  If he let this woman trick him into letting her become
his jailer, his torturer, torture was at least something to fill the
emptiness, something to hold back the night.  It had been a long time
since he had felt like a man anyway.  What did anything really matter
anymore?  At least he didn't want to be swallowed by the darkness -- of
that he was damned sure.

"Okay, Gams.  I'll do things your way.  I'll be a skirt.  Anything's
better than what's out there.  Do what you want with me."

He waited, expecting something to change.  He felt nothing.  He stared
at Noel.  She was not changing.  He looked at himself.  Ditto.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, almost disappointed.  Noel's
scheme was a loony out, but there's no denying that it would have been
a fresh kick.  Now there was nothing left but that coffin.

The brunette's voice was almost despairing.  "You're not offering me
trust, Lee.  All you're doing is asking for punishment.  This isn't
about punishment.  It's about trust.  Trust can stop the night.
Nothing else can."

"I can't trust," Scarp sighed with miserable resignation.  "I never
have.  I never could."

She took his hands; hers were soft, warm, firm -- and surprisingly
strong.  "No, Lee," she promised him, "you can trust, you can even
love.  I know because I've been through what you're going through now
and I found out that it was true."

"You're not like me.  You never could have been.  You're a lot better."

"No, I'm not."

"Look, I'd like to say that I trust you, but --"

"But what?"

"But I'm afraid that it'd be just words.  .  .  ."

"Words are good, Lee, as long as they come from the heart."

Scarp gazed down into her azure eyes, as if into the deep blue ocean.
Damn it.  It was all over, so why not say it?

"This is from the heart, Gams, you've been starting to get to me.
You've got class.  You've got patience.  You never get sore, no matter
what I put you through.  You're everything I ever wanted, but I was too
stupid to know it."

"Only people who feel helpless need to get angry, Lee.  I've never felt
helpless."

He took her into his arms.  "I wish I could change a few things."

"For instance?" she coaxed.

"Like the way I've always tried to hurt you.  I don't even remember why
I wanted to.  Before it's too late, I want to say that -- that, well,
I'm sorry and --"

"Sorry's good," Noel grinned through teary eyes.  "What else do you
want to get off your chest, tough guy?"

"Just that -- I sort of love you."

And that made all the difference.

                                   #

The world shimmered and when Lee's eyes cleared again he was standing
on the rooftop holding hands with a big, blond, heavily-tanned man.  He
stepped back in startlement and then, with a terrible thought, he
looked down at himself.

Herself.

Lee saw a girl's body under his chin, just as if he was looking down
over some dame's shoulder.  Her arms were willowy, her hands small.
She was wearing some sort of black frock of light, thin material over a
slender body.  Lee had never minded ogling a girl's cleavage before,
but this time it was from an entirely new perspective.

Astonished, the girl touched her face, ran her fingertips down along a
long, slim neck, felt her eyes, touched her long, light brown hair.
She was wearing small earrings and a necklace of pearls.

Shaken and a little scared, Lee looked up into the man's face.  He was
big, strong, tall, a real Adonis.  "Noel?" Lee asked unbelievingly.

"It's me," the male said with a boyish grin.

"You're a blond!" The girl laughed nervously, not sure why it was worth
commenting upon what had to be the least amazing part of her
transformation.

"What color would you like?"

Lee winced.  "Any color you want.  You're --" she looked jumpy,
hesitant.  "-- You're the boss."

"Yeh, I am, aren't I?"

Lee turn away apprehensively, wondering what she had gotten herself
into.

Noel touched her cheek, brought her face around.  "And you're very
beautiful, Lee.  I always knew there was beauty in you."

The girl swallowed hard, worried.  "That's real nice, but the world is
being eaten up like a pastrami sandwich.  What are we going to do about
it?"

With laugh like Johnny Westmeuller's Tarzan, Noel swept the girl up
into arms which were as strong as the bronze metal they resembled.

"I'm going to give you a kick like you never had before," the blond man
said.

TO BE CONTINUED. .  .  .

Okay, now you've got a clue why this story is in this newsgroup.  But
there's a lot more to it.  Until next time, C.L