Regina Blue

He was a giant Sikh, over seven feet tall, completely bald, wearing only a dirty loincloth, bare-chested, with a large, golden hoop dangling from one pierced ear, and an ugly, jagged scar running the length of his left cheek. In one large hand he carried a huge, curved scimitar. Even from where she was sitting, Regina could detect nicks on the blade, and patches of rust. He strode directly over to the operating table, grabbed Tex’s penis by the tip and stretched it straight up in the air. With his other hand he took a few practice swings through the air with the sword.

“OYYYYYYYYYY—VEYYYYYYYYYY . . . OYYYYYYYYYY—VEYYYYYYYYYY . . . OYYYYYYYYYY-VEYYYYYYYYYY . . .”

Regina had to restrain herself to keep from clapping her hands. She had found out what she wanted to know. In his fear, Tex had instinctively grasped at his one consolation. He’d chanted his mantra!

“OYYYYYYYYYY-VEYYYYYYYYYY . . .”

Scratch one suspect. It was not the mantra of the killer. Her trip to Pakistan had been worthwhile. Regina settled back to watch the operation. The anesthetist was approaching Tex with the mask.

OYYYYYYYYYY-VEYYYYYYYYYY . . . OYYYYYYYYYY—VEYYYYYYYYYY . . . OYYYYYYYYYY-VEYYYYYYYYYY . . . OY . . .”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dogstyle!

When Tex came out of the anesthetic, Regina was sitting beside his bed. She hadn’t wanted to leave without wishing him a speedy recovery. As it turned out, she was glad she waited for a quite different reason. Tex, as if trying. to reassure himself that the operation had been worthwhile, babbled freely to Regina about the wonders of Transcendental Meditation. “Ah come to Dacca from New York by way of Spain. Got an up-an’-cornin’ business there, you know. On the plane Ah run into this Spanish-American feller, an’ we got to talkin’, an’ it turns out he’s one of Sister Faith’s disciples, same as me. Name of José de Galindez,” he told Regina.

Her ears perked up. José de Galindez’ name was on the list. The word from ATOMICS was that he’d vanished the day after the murder and the police had been unable to locate him.

“This de Galindez feller, he raved to me ’bout how helpful Transcendental Meditation was in his line of work. Never did get around to sayin’ what it was he did though. Later, in Bilbao, Spain, Ah run into him again by chance, an’ it turns out he’s a bona fide Basque revolutionary. That young feller is up to his whatsis in the Basque separatist movement. Bought a shipment of grenades from me, he did, an’ paid in hot money from a bank robbery. Ah’m tellin’ you this to show how it don’t matter what a feller does, even revolution. Transcendental Meditation’ll show him the way.”

After she bid Tex goodbye, Regina wasted no time following up on what he’d told her. She located a telegraph office and shot off a wire to Angus MacTeague in New York. Decoded, it read as follows:

NEED CONTACT BASQUE UNDERGROUND, BILBAO, SPAIN. CAN ATOMICS SUPPLY? REPLY C/O AMERICAN EXPRESS, BILBAO.—REGINA BLUE.

The telegram sent, Regina set about making arrangements to get out of Dacca. It took two days before she was able to get on a flight to New Delhi. There she had to wait another two days before getting a seat on a plane to Barcelona. She spent a day in Barcelona replenishing the wardrobe lost in the Dacca plane crash. Altogether it was almost a week before she finally arrived in Bilbao.

MacTeague’s answer was waiting for her. She decoded it:

AFFIRMATIVE. REGISTER HOTEL EL MIRADOR. ATOMICS AGENT WILL CONTACT YOU. MEETING YOU REQUEST BEING ARRANGED.——MACTEAGUE.

Regina checked into the El Mirador Hotel. She unpacked her new clothes and laid them out in the bureau and hung them in the closet. She took a hot bath, soaking in it for a long time. Then she selected one of her new outfits and got dressed. She was combing her hair when the knock sounded at the door of her room.

Regina admitted a small man, darkly Spanish, not too friendly. “I came before, Senorita,” he told her, annoyed. “You did not answer my knock.”

‘Tm sorry,” Regina apologized. “I didn’t hear it. I was in the tub.”

“In the tub?” Disgust. Contempt. Indignation. Americans! Women! “And you are supposed to be a detective! At least that is what the message from New York said.”

“Now look here, Senõr—” Regina paused angrily, waiting for him to fill in the name.

“My name is of no matter. You shall not be contacting me again, nor I you. I want no part of the trouble in which you shall most surely become involved. Should the local authorities connect me with someone like you, it could jeopardize the whole ATOMICS operation here. Then MacTeague will send me to Poland, or some other damn place to freeze the blood. Thank you very much, but no thank you. I’ll tell you what I came to tell you, and then I shall leave. Nothing more need pass between us, and we need not meet again.”

“Ships that pass in the night,” Regina murmured.

“You wish to contact the Basque revolutionary movement.” He got down to business.

“That's right. I’m trying to locate a man named—”

“Do not tell me!” He held up a firm hand. “What I do not know cannot be squeezed out of me with hot pincers. Now I have here an address for you.” He handed her a torn piece of wrapping paper. It was the kind used locally to package bread. The name and address of a bakery were scrawled on it. “Ask for a loaf of Silvercup,” he told Regina.

“Silvercup?” She looked at him, surprised.

“Silvercup!” he repeated with emphasis. “Good day to you, Senorita.” He turned on his heel quickly and was gone.

His abrupt departure left Regina with unasked questions crowding her tongue-tip. No matter. She was sure he wouldn’t have answered them anyway. She donned the trenchcoat she had bought-it had started to drizzle outside-—pulled the belt tight, and set out for the address he had given her.

It was twilight and the drizzle had turned into a steady rain when she reached the bakery. She stood outside, under the awning, until the two customers being waited on had departed. Then she entered.

“I’d like a loaf of Silvercup,” Regina told the young girl behind the counter.

The girl’s dark eyes flashed briefly. She tossed her long black hair, nodding towards the rear of the shop. Regina passed through the curtain separating the two areas.

She found herself in a heated area lined with ovens. The smell of fresh-baked bread filled her nostrils. A fat man wearing a baker’s cap, his face white with flour, smiled at her questioningly.

“I’m looking for a loaf of Silvereup,” Regina told him.

He led her behind one of the ovens, picked up a section of flooring and revealed a trapdoor. “Watch yourself, Señorita,” he cautioned. “It is dark and the ladder is shaky.”

Regina was four or five steps down the ladder when the trapdoor was closed over her head. It was pitchblack. She had to feel for each rung of the ladder with her foot. There was no way of telling how far down the bottom might be.

Finally she felt the cement of a basement floor under her feet. A moment later there was a hand on her arm, gently pulling her. She was ushered to a door and gently pushed into another room. The door closed swiftly behind her.

Flickering oil lamps lit — or, rather, half-lit—the basement room. Shadows danced eerily on the chalk walls. It took Regina a moment for her eyes to adjust.

There were four people in the room, two men and two women. No one of the four could have been over eighteen years old. One of the boys was cleaning a rather old-fashioned submachinegun, a tommygun of the kind used in the Chicago gang wars in the ’twenties. The other boy was lying on a cot, listening to a headset attached to a makeshift wireless radio. The plumper of the two girls was pouring liquid-—gasoline, from the smell of it—-into milk bottles and attaching wicks to them. The second girl was sorting leaflets.

The boy with the tommygun looked at Regina. “Have you brought us word from Headquarters?” he asked.

‘Tm afraid not,” Regina confessed. “You see, I haven’t come from Headquarters—Whatever that is. I’m here to—” She stopped talking when she saw the pistol in the hand of the boy with the headset. It was pointing straight at her. The click of the safety sounded very loud in the small, underground room.

“How did you know where to find us?” he demanded.

“A friend gave me this address.”

“And did he give you the password as well?”

“Yes.”

“Caramba!” The boy with the tommygun swore.

“State your business and quickly, Señorita,” the girl with the leaflets told Regina.

“Well, I’ve come over from America, New York —” Regina found herself babbling.

“America?” The boy with the tommygun smiled broadly. “Then you have brought us money for La Causa. Is that it?”

“I’m afraid not. You see—”

“The Americans give money only to Franco!” The plump girl spat. “They care nothing for freedom! Nothing for the Basques!”

“I’m looking for a man named José de Galindez,” Regina said in a small voice.

“Captain de Galindez of the Basque Liberation Army?”

“I imagine that’s the man.”

“Then you are too late,” the plump girl told Regina. “The government pigs arrested him three days ago.”

“He shall be missed mucho,” the wireless operator added. “He was very brave. He had mucho machismo.”

“Machismo,” the other boy agreed. “But too impetuous. If he had not been a little loco, he would still be with us now.”

“Should he have let the Falangist swine kill women and children with their bullets and done nothing?” the girl with the leaflets asked acidly. .

“No. But it was loco fighting them alone with only pistol and two grenades. Loco!”

“Magnificent!” The plump girl ended the argument firmlv. “He killed four of the bastidos—may their souls rot in hell before they took him prisoner.”

“And now he rots in a Franco prison cell at the mercy of the Beast of Bilbao,” the other girl sighed.

“Who’s the Beast of Bilbao?” Regina asked.

“Colonel Don Hermano Diego del Campion of the Spanish Army of Occupation, also known as the Duke de Mula, cousin thrice removed to the now dead Spanish tyrant, King Alfonso. He is in charge of Intelligence in Bilbao for the Franco dogs. A sadist! torturer! A true fiend! May the Lord God curse his hellish soul through all eternity!” The wireless operator crossed himself.

“Dogstyle!” Regina exclaimed. Her voice echoed quite loudly.

The four Basque rebels stared at Regina, puzzled by her response, wondering what it had to do with the Beast of Bilbao. Dogstyle? What did it mean?

They never got the chance to voice the question. At that very moment there came a scream from just outside the door to the little basement room. It was followed by a short burst of submachinegun fire mingled with other piercing screams.

What followed was chaos — but chaos with purpose. The girl with the leaflets set fire to them and then doused the oil lamps. The wireless operator started frantically transmitting a message. The plump girl lit one of the homemade bombs and flung it at the door just as the Spanish soldiers came charging through it. Behind her the lad with the tommygun retumed the fire of the uniformed raiders.

“The Americana has betrayed us!” he shouted, turning the gun towards Regina.

Regina dived under the table, narrowly avoiding the bullets aimed at her. From there she saw a Spanish bayonet plunged into the hack of the wireless operator and the chattering key fell silent. The plump girl was flinging Molotov cocktails wildly and the room was in flames. Four or five Spanish soldiers lay about, wounded, bleeding, groaning. The second Basque lad took a bullet in the shoulder and the tommygun went flying from his grasp. The thinner girl dived under the table, a large kitchen knife in her hand, and attacked Regina. “Traitor!” she sobbed.

It was all Regina could do to hold onto the wrist of the hand wielding the knife with both of her own hands. The tip of the murderous blade was scant inches from her throat and coining closer. She jerked her neck aside and pulled hard on the wrist, using the momentum of the thrust to throw her assailant off balance. The blade snapped against the concrete floor and the table over them was upended as Regina kicked the Basque girl in the midriff with enough force to shift her weight off her. They thrashed about on the floor and rolled into the crackling flames. Their clothes were on fire now, but still they wrestled.

Rough hands pulled them apart. Regina felt herself being pummeled as two Spanish soldiers beat out the fire threatening to engulf her. Then, along with the Basque rebels, she was dragged out of the cellar, through the bakery, and thrown into a truck waiting at the curb.

Four soldiers, their rifles at the ready, climbed into the back of the truck with them. The two Basque girls and their wounded comrade glared at them. But the strongest part of their hatred was directed viciously at Regina.

“You are a marked woman, Señorita!” the plump girl hissed at her. “With the wireless, Pablo—may his soul rest in peace!--informed Headquarters of your treachery. Every Basque in Bilbao will have a knife for the American woman, the Yankee traitor. The Spanish swine will not be able to save you! You will never leave Bilbao alive!”

“I didn’t betray you,” Regina protested. “I had nothing to do with this raid.”

“Liar!” The second girl’s voice was filled with contempt. “Did you not call out the word to signal the soldiers? That strange word . . .”

“Dogstyle!” The wounded Basque rebel remembered. “She called it out and the vultures appeared! Dogstyle! The word of the informer! Dogstyle!”

“That wasn’t a signal. Dogstyle means —”

“I puke in your rnother’s milk!” the plump girl told her.

“Informer!” The wounded Basque boy pronounced the word with utmost disgust.

“Traitor!” The second girl spat a huge glob of saliva full in Regina’s face.

Regina wiped it away. The truck rumbled through the cobbled streets of Bilbao towards the Spanish military prison. Regina groaned inwardly. A Basque rebel conspirator to her captors, a traitor marked for death to the Basques—-how had she ever gotten herself into such a mess?

How?

Dogstyle!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Double-Jointed Joint

Dogstyle!

To Regina Blue it summed up Don Hermano Diego del Campion, third cousin to the dead King of Spain, fourth cousin to the Spanish royal heir apparent to Franco, descendant of Russian Tsars, German Kaisers, Austrian Archdukes, French Kings, and -- strongest bloodline of all — Spanish nobility. The Duke de Mula, Colonel del Campion of Spanish Intelligence . . . Falangist Gestapo Head of the Basque Provinces . . . The Beast of Bilbao . . .

But he hadn’t been the Beast of Bilbao in the days when Regina knew him. He’d been the playboy Duke back then, Spanish nobility’s gift to the jet set, a gay dog who popped up in more gossip columns than Liz and Dick. Besides the accident of birth, racing cars and roué romance were his main claims to fame. Workingmen envied him both cars and paramours; shopgirls sighed over his good looks.

Not that he was really handsome. His body was too slight, too aristocratically small-boned, too delicate to measure up to conventional standards of masculine good looks. But his haughtily chiseled features, his cultivated, upper-class Castilian accent, his carefully nurtured reputation—not to mention his wealth-— more than made up for any lack of brawn and insured his status as a sex-and-romance symbol.

There was more to the symbol than to the reality. True, a constant procession of beautiful girls passed through Don Hermano’s boudoir portals. True, he did make love to them. But never more than once!

That was the clinker. Nor was it his choice. It was the girls, each of them, who turned their back on seconds.

The reason?

Dogstyle!

Which was also the reason the playboy Duke sought out professional companionship.

Dogstyle!

Not, perhaps, what one might imagine it to be.

Dogstyle!

A perversity of rank—a rank perversity—which Regina Blue was not likely to forget.

“Put up your Dukes!” Regina had challenged the man who had lured her to Biarritz with promises of introductions to wealthy nobles who would pay lavishly for her favors. He had. And foremost among them was Don Hermano, Duke de Mula.

Don Hermano had paid handsomely for the privilege of taking her to the Riviera for a week. He had a secluded villa there, in the hills overlooking the sea. It was staffed by discreet servants—locals who went home when their day’s work was over. Thus Regina and the Duke spent their evenings alone.

It was on the very first of those evenings that Regina became aware that the Duke possessed a certain anatomical peculiarity. Perhaps it was the result of some stray Romanoff gene handed down to him. (They do say the Romanoffs were peculiar.) Or perhaps it was a deformity—if such it could be termed-—-passed on by the Hanovers. (There was more than hemophilia to the House of Hanover.) Or maybe it was a Windsor forebear, or a Tudor ancestor who was responsible for it. (Royal English inbreeding has produced many a mutant, Crookback Richard among them.) On the other hand, it could have been pure Spanish—-or just a fluke.

To Regina, who had once played Eliza Doolittle to an anthropologist lover with delusions of Professor Higgins, the Duke’s physical oddity was the mark of a throwback to an evolutionary era which preceded the Spanish Royal Family by at least a few hundred thousand years. The anthropologist, who had kept her in high style for three months before leaving for Bora Bora, had amused himself by instructing Regina in the development of the male sex organ in mammals and then humans. In particular, he had explained the evolution of copulation from back-to-back to front-to-front.

“Most four-legged mammals, including most breeds of dogs, find it natural to make love back-to-back,” the anthropologist had told her. “True, observing dogs in our society, the most common lovemaking position would seem to be front-to-back—the male mounting the female. But this is misleading. Front-to-back is really a courtship maneuver. For actual copulation, the most natural position is back-to-back. Ask any dog-breeder.”

“Oh, I will, I will,” Regina promised.

“Now there’s a very good reason for this,” the anthropologist continued. “For one thing, in most four-legged female animals, the vagina is placed well to the rear. In the male, the angle of erection is also naturally rearwards. More important, the genitalia in four-legged males is different in one important aspect from that of humans, who walk on two legs.”

“And what would that be?” Regina successfully hid a yawn.

“The penis pivots.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s as if the organ were double-jointed. When erect, it’s capable of full three-hundred-sixty degree mobility-—almost double that of modern man. That’s the sacrifice Man made to become civilized.”

“Well, we all have to make sacrifices.”

“Yes. Way back there when Man evolved from a four-legged crawler to a two-legged thinker, he mutated into a face-to-face lover. Once his penis was as freewheeling as the dog's. But—-alas!-—no more.”

“And that’s what they call penal reform,” Regina had summed up.

But Don Hermano, Duke de Mula, was unreformed. His masculine organ was as freewheeling as any Cro-Magnon cooker spaniel. In short, what Regina was quick to notice that first night in his Riviera Villa, was that the Duke had a double-jointed joint!

“My dear,” said the Duke, arranging various furry animal hides in front of opposing mirrors angled to-wards the floor, “you’re in for a rare treat.” The Duke had never been able to bring himself to accept the fact that the ladies to whom he made love did not look on the experience as a “treat.”

“Oh?” said Regina, stretching her nude body languidly. “And what would that be?”

“We’re going to make love dogstyle.”

“I’ve done that before.”

“Not like this you haven’t,” he assured her.

He was right. Regina had never before experienced anything like “dogstyle” with the Duke. And when the eternity of that week was over, she vowed she never would again. The man who would become the Beast of Bilbao would always remain the Cur of Cannes in her memory.

He bade her get down on all fours and then assumed the same position himself. He circled her, sniffing, poking his cold, wet nose into the most intimate orifices. He drooled openly, and his rough, wet tongue rasped over her skin and under her body. It was-—Regina never thought she’d have occasion to use the word professionally, even to herself—uindignified. But there was worse to come.

The Duke backed off on all fours behind her, and then suddenly pounced. He nipped her derriere with sharp teeth. Regina yipped and scrambled away. “Behave yourself, Duke!” she admonished. “Be a good clog.”

“Grrrr!” He dived low and snapped at her breast.

Regina made low, whining sounds, trying to placate him.

“Arf-Arf!” He bit her on the thigh.

“Gloryosky, Duke!” Regina bounded away.

Growling low in his throat, he cornered her. Regina sat up and begged. He tossed her a yummy. “Roll over,” he instructed.

She rolled on her back, arms and legs stuck up in the air and bent at the elbow and knee. The Duke circled in on all fours and licked the entire surface of her body.

“I never made it with an Irish Setter before,” he told her, nuzzling her reddish hair.

“I’ve known lots of wolves,” she replied, “but never one like you!”

He made her turn over on all fours again. Then he sprawled over her, his front paws squeezing the firm globes of her free-hanging breasts. Regina told herself this was it, but she was wrong.

He bit her ear and bounded away again. He came in behind her, sniffing and licking the entire area of her hindquarters. Then Regina, watching the multiple images in the facing mirrors, saw him turn around and back up until his backside was pressed solidly against hers.

This really was it!

The multiple mirror images showed an infinite number of couples on their hands and knees, facing away from each other, their haunches tightly juxtaposed. And then they revealed the largest organ Regina had ever experienced poking its fierce head, and then its awesome length, straight back from the base of the Duke’s derriere. The Duke had shifted into reverse! Regina would never be able to say whether it was the size or the angle, but the penetration was the most uncomfortable she had ever known. The sensation was of being locked together. She knew without trying that it would have been impossible to pull free. And when the Duke started to move, whining, growling, letting out an occasional yelp, it became downright painful.

Still, Regina was nothing if not a pro. A prostitute, she was fond of saying, had a professional obligation, like a doctor. One couldn’t leave a patient in the lurch just because his ailment was offensive. The profession had its ethics. They had to be followed, even if one was put in the unpleasant position of practising veterinary medicine.

What followed, however, would have strained the most dedicated physicians Hippocratic Oath. The Duke, who was a lot stronger than he looked, contrived to strain forward in such a way that Regina, still on all fours, was lifted completely up in the air. She hung suspended there, impaled, while the Duke bayed at the Mediterranean moon outside the window.

All of Regina’s weight seemed concentrated on the overstuffed fulcrum of her body. Far from being erotically stimulated, the area was numb with the strain. She yelped to be let down, but the Duke simply ignored her and kept on howling.

When he finally did allow her to descend, she whimpered with relief. But the relief was premature. The Duke had still another innovation on the determinedly back-to-back copulation.

He rolled over on his back, his swollen organ so tight inside her that Regina was forced to roll over with him. Then he stretched his legs straight up and forced her to do the same. Lying this way, their bottoms glued together, he forced his way still deeper into her.

Regina almost fainted. Before she had been fearful for her intestinal tract. Now she was terrified for her respiratory system. That giant swivel-stick seemed damn well capable of puncturing a lung!

Finally the Duke shifted them back again to the original position. His behind started moving faster and faster against hers in rhythmic, erotic circles. In the mirror Regina saw ten thousand of her derrieres reddening and growing raw from the friction. Then the image dissolved into multiple blurs as the Duke moved faster still.

He was panting. His tongue was hanging out. Regina felt the swelling inside her grow. The sensation was as peculiar as the Duke’s reversed organ. “Are you coming, or going?” Regina couldn’t help asking.

“Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow! WOW!” The Duke barked. His rear end slammed hard against Regina’s. Once! . . . Twice! . . . Three times! And then he released his passion so copiously that Regina hallucinated the taste of it gushing upwards into her throat.

At least it was over now, she consoled herself. But the consolation was premature. Despite the release, rigidity prevailed. Despite her efforts to wriggle free, Regina was as securely impaled as she had been before the Duke climaxed.

Furthermore, he showed no intention of bringing the connection to an end. On the contrary, he was starting to move again, more slowly, but rhythmically, his behind once again chafing her already fever-red nether-cheeks. Regina whimpered pitifully, but he simply ignored her.

They would never come unstuck! She was convinced of it! She was doomed to spend the rest of her life on all fours attached to this would-be canine freak like some obscene Siamese twin permanently and incestuously joined to a sibling of the opposite sex.

Whining to herself, Regina gazed into the mirror. She yelped and looked again. Then she closed her eyes. She just didn’t believe the thousand new images appearing on the scene.

When she opened her eyes, the images were still there, only coming closer. Ominously closer! Regina twisted her head. She had to make sure it wasn’t some trick played on her vision by the mirrors.

It wasn’t.

Coming towards them, slowly, was a large old English sheepdog. “I picked him up as a pup from the American comic, Boob Roper,” the Duke remarked. “He breeds them.”

The dog walked proudly, head high, as if performing some trick for which it had been carefully trained. Firmly clamped in its jaws was the metal handle of a large kettle!

The kettle was shaped like a deep soup pot. It steamed like a soup pot. It made a gurgling noise like a soup pot filled with still-simmering soup.

Or boiling water!

The dog came to a halt with the soup pot poised directly over their cemented behinds. He raised one paw and carefully started to tilt the kettle.

“OOOOO!” Regina wailed. Too late. The boiling water cascaded over their most intimate parts.

Howling, they came unstuck and bounded away from one another. The sheepdog turned and carried the now empty kettle out of the room. He departed with the righteous air of an Anthony Comstock who has seen every last print of September Morn torn to shreds.

Such was Dogstyle. Regina had endured one solid week of it. When it was over, she had more than had it. “I never want to see you again,” she told the Duke.

“You’re distraught, my dear,” he replied. “I shall be in New York in April. I assure you it will be worth your while.” He mentioned a whopping figure.

“No!” Regina, seated in the limousine which would take her to the airport, had slammed the door in his face. “I never want to see that inhuman, backwards, contortionist, misdirected, acrobatic, rotating dingus of yours again!” As the car pulled away, she stuck her head out the window and shouted one last admonition to him: “Go fuck yourself!”

He did . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Spanish Hospitality

Regina never expected to see Don Hermano, Duke de Mula again. But when the soldiers herded her and her hostile fellow prisoners from the truck into the Spanish jail, the official to whom they reported was none other than Colonel Don Hermano del Campion of Spanish Army Intelligence. His eyes widened with recognition when Regina was pushed into his office. He got up from behind his desk and strode over to confront her.

Thus she found herself face-to-face with the Beast of Bilbao. It was a helluva lot better than being back-to-back with him! Anything was better than—

“Dogstyle!”

It was the first thing he said to her.

“Sure now, and he’s giving her the password!” the plump Basque girl rebel sneered to her companions.

“Traitor!” The other girl spat at Regina again.

“You will never leave Bilbao alive!” the wounded rebel declared.

“Get them out of here,” the Beast instructed the soldiers. “I’ll interrogate them later.”

“Interrogation or Inquisition? With hot slivers under the fingernails! But you will find out nothing from us, Señor Beast!” The plump girl was dragged out after the others by the guards.

They returned and started to lay hands on Regina. “Not this one,” the Beast told them. “You can leave her here with me.”

When they were alone, the Beast looked at Regina in bewilderment. “You’re the last person in the world I would have expected to find mixed up with Basque rebel scum,” he told her.

‘Tm not mixed up with them,” she said firmly. “It’s all a misunderstanding.”

“You were apprehended at a rebel hideout. There were munitions on the premises. Propaganda leaflets. An illegal radio transmitter. That is all the evidence We need.”

“I’m an American citizen,” Regina reminded him.

“And I suppose you have papers to prove it?”

Regina produced her passport and handed it to him. He took it, put it in a desk drawer, locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket. “If you can’t pro- duce proof of your American citizenship,” he said deadpan, “you can hardly expect us to believe you. You Reds always try to crawl out from under with some cock-and-bull story like that. We are holding a leader of the Basque underground right now, a rebel Captain who had the temerity to attack Spanish soldiers in broad daylight. He keeps whining he’s an American citizen, too. Perhaps he is.” The Beast shrugged. “But he has no proof.”

“Jose de Galindez!” Regina exclaimed.

“You know him? Then you are mixed up in this business!”

“It has nothing to do with the rebellion. I came to Bilbao to see him about another matter entirely.”

“To ply your trade, perhaps? No, I suppose not. The rebel beggars don’t have that kind of money.”

“I’m not in that line of work any more,” Regina told him stiffly.

The Beast smiled his disbelief.

“Give me back my passport!” Regina demanded.

The Beast just kept smiling.

“I demand to see the American Consul!”

“Now, my dear—” The Beast turned on the old play- boy charm. “That won’t be necessary. You don’t have to convince me you’re a Yankee. I know that. After all, we’re old friends, aren’t we?”

“Well, yes. But then why—?”

“Still, appearances can be deceiving,” the Beast reflected. “It has been some time since last I saw you. Perhaps it would be best to make a positive identification.”

“What do you mean?”

He showed her. He walked behind her, turned around abruptly, bent over, dropped his pants and underpants, and pressed his hindquarters cozily against hers. His unique penis swung backwards and upwards, groping under Regina’s skirt.

She stepped away quickly and turned on him. When he straightened up and faced her, she glared at him defiantly. “No!” Regina said. It was final.

“You are a foolish girl!” He squelchcd his display of anger. “And, unfortunately, I can’t vouch for your identity or your citizenship!”

Before Regina could protest, there was a knock at the door of the Beast’s office. He pulled up his pants, called out “Come in,” and a man entered, closing the door behind him. He didn’t immediately see Regina, Who was standing oft to one side.

But Regina saw him. To her surprise, she recognized him. It was the ATOMICS agent who had come to her hotel room, the dour little Spaniard who had sent her to the bakery to establish contact with the Basque rebel underground.

“I have come for my pay,” he told the Beast respectfully. “I understand that the raid on the bakery went very well.” He spied Regina. “So it is you, Señorita. I warned you that you would come to no good end in Bilbao.”

“Fink!” Regina was furious. “You knew about that raid! You let me walk right into the trap! You never even warned me!”

“But Señorita! How long do you think that I would last as an informer if I went around warning people?”

“You’re supposed to be working for ATOMICS!”

“How does she know that?” the Beast demanded.

“Curse your wagging tongue, woman!” He tugged a forelock humbly to the Beast. “She is in the employ of ATO-—the organization.”

“Is ATOMIC S Working for the Spanish?” Regina was confused.

Her question was ignored. “Caramba!” The Beast was disgruntled. “I suppose they’ll be looking for her.”

“Our mutual employer does seem to be taking a personal interest in this woman.”

“Caramba!” The Beast paid the man and dismissed him. Then he unlocked the desk drawer, removed Regina’s passport and handed it to her. “You are free to leave,” he told her, not sounding happy about it.

“First I Want to talk to José de Galindez.” Regina pressed her sudden luck.

“The gentleman is a maximum security prisoner. No visitors.”

“If I don’t get to see José de Galindez,” Regina said sweetly, “my first stop after I leave Spain will be the London Daily Mirror office. They’ve expressed interest in printing my memoirs.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me, Señorita?” The Beast laughed a nasty laugh. “It is no secret that I like the ladies.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind my revealing your taste for canine copulation. And my detailed description of your doggy dingbat won’t bother you.”

“Now see here—!” The Beast wasn’t laughing any more.

“Of course the Royal Family might feel embarrassed. People just might draw certain genetic inferences from your blood relationship with the Crown Prince. Generalissimo Franco has named him as his successor, hasn’t he? But if you don’t mind the publicity—-”

“What do you want?” the Beast asked through clenched teeth.

“To see José de Galindez. To speak to him.”

“All right. You can see him. But he’s being interrogated at the moment. I don’t think you will find him very talkative, Señorita.”

The Beast led her from his office and down a narrow corridor of the jail building. Several gates were unlocked by turnkeys and relocked as they passed through them. Then they went down a steep, stone staircase and were passed through a heavy steel door which clanged shut behind them. The Beast guided Regina through another door into a dungeon-like room.

Here, two men in Spanish Army uniforms stood over a third man who was strapped to a low, flat bench. A powerful spotlight was angled directly over the prisoner’s face, shining straight into his eyes. A large canteen was suspended over his forehead in such a way as to spill one drop of water on it at a time. The drops fell with an exquisitely slow, steady, monotonous rhythm.

The intense light forced his eyes open, making it impossible for him to avoid watching each separate drop form on the lip of the canteen. This created a horrible suspense as he waited for each liquid bead to pink down on the exact center of his forehead. The drops hit on exactly the same spot every time. The skin was already raw from the process. It was like the erosion of a rock by a small, slow, steadily dripping rivulet. Eventually the skin would be worn away and the drops would strike bare hone.

“The Chinese Water Torture,” the Beast explained. “Old-fashioned, but still effective.”

“He has fainted again,” one of the uniformed inquisitors noticed. “His eyes are rolled back in the sockets.”

“Bring him around,” the Beast instructed.

The prisoner’s face was slapped several times in rapid succession. Finally his arms jerked spasmodically against the leather thongs holding them. His eyes refocused and squinted, trying to relieve the strain of the penetrating light.

“Where is your headquarters?” the first interrogator demanded.

No answer.

“Who is your leader?” the second asked.

No answer.

“Were you in on the Barcelona bank job?”

“What’s your connection with Bernadette Devlin?”

“Who’s your contact with Moscow?”

Still no answer.

“Let’s have him show a little life,” the Beast directed.

The first inquisitor inserted four kitchen matches between the toes of the prisoner’s bare feet. The second soldier lit the matches. They burned steadily and then flared up as the flames reached the heads of the matches in the crevices between the toes. The prisoner screamed.

“Oh my God!” Regina felt sick.

“Where is the Red Bishop hiding?”

“W ho is your Peking contact?”

“Talk, you Basque dog!”

Drip...Drip...Drip...

No answer.

Drip...Drip...Drip...

“Again,” the Beast directed.

Four more matches were inserted between the toes of José de Galindez’ other foot and lit. This time he didn’t scream when the heads flared up. Instead, he made a strange, keening sound. It rose in volume steadily, and then trailed off. It was repeated over and over again.

“What the devil is that?” the Beast wanted to know.

“That’s what he does whenever the pain gets particularly intense, Colonel.”

“It’s eerie!" The Beast shuddered.

“Yes sir. It makes my skin crawl.”

“Some sort of Basque lament, sir,” the second soldier suggested.

“If it’s a lament, then why is he smiling?” the Beast wondered.

Then Regina realized, in a flash! Because it’s not a lament! José de Galindez was chanting his mantra! He was fighting their inhuman tortures with Transcendental Meditation! He was using his mantra to empty his mind of the pain welling up from his tormented hody, to transport himself to a sphere where the agonies of the flesh could not reach him!

Horrible as the situation was, Regina recognized that the mantra being chanted bore no resemblance to the “AHHHH LOO-OO-OO” mantra tied in—-perhaps—with the murderer of Faith Venable. She eliminated José de Galindez from the list of suspects. That left two names on the list—-plus the one suspect whose name had been torn off it.

“Go ahead and talk to him,” the Beast was telling Regina. “That is if you think you can get any coherent answers.” His tone was jeering.

“You’re right. It’s hopeless,” Regina granted. She had found out what she wanted to know, and now she just wanted to get as far away from this vile torture chamber as she could.

“He’s giving me a headache,” the Beast complained. “Shut him up.”

One of the Spanish guards brought his fist down hard on José de Galindez’ solar plexus. The mantra stopped abruptly. The prisoner fainted again.

“Let’s get out of here.” Regina was really feeling sick now.

She started for the door. The Beast reached around in front of her to open it. But before he touched it, the door was suddenly flung violently open from the outside.

It caught Regina in such a way that she was thrown behind it, flattened between its heavy metal and the cement wall. This fluke saved her life. The men who came charging through the door entered shooting. The first burst caught the Beast in the chest and sent him reeling backwards. A second spate of bullets blew off his head. Fleshpulp and blood spattered in every direction.

The Spanish soldiers had no chance to return the fire. One died with his hand still struggling to pull the gun from his holster. The second might have been about to surrender, but he never had the chance. A single pistol shot went neatly through his heart and he flopped to the floor with a look on his face that said death had taken him by surprise.

The Basque commandos quickly untied José de Galindez. One of them slung him over his shoulder. The four others led the way out with their guns held at the ready.

It all happened so fast that it took Regina a moment to realize that they hadn’t even seen her. The next thing she realized was that she had better get out of there herself-—and fast. Any number of Spanish guards had seen her coming down here with the Beast. As far as they knew, she was a prisoner. Under the circumstances, if they found her here still alive, they’d be pretty likely to shoot first and ask questions later.

She slipped into the corridor, almost tripping over the body of a dead guard slumped against the wall. Ahead of her she could make out a bunch of shadows all bunched up at the heavy steel door leading to the stone staircase. Regina guessed that the Basque commandos had liberated all of the prisoners in the jail.

By the time she reached the door, they were hurrying up the stairs ahead of her. The door was a mass of jagged steel. The air was heavy with smoke and dust. The liberators must have dynamited it. Three more Spanish corpses blocked the short passage between the door and the staircase.

Regina stepped over them and hurried up the stairs. The door at the top had also been blown away. A Spanish soldier’s corpse marked each of the open gates in the long corridor in front of her. She started to run to catch up with the group in front of her. But then she slowed down when she recognized the plump girl rebel from the bakery bringing up the rear of the group.

“You’ll never leave Bilbao alive!” That’s what the rebels Regina was arrested with had told her. She was marked “Traitor” by the Basques. She didn’t dare catch up with the fleeing rebels. They were as apt to kill her as the Spanish soldiers were!

So Regina trailed behind as they made their way down the corridor and finally out of the jail. Just as she reached the outside, a fresh band of Spanish soldiers rounded the corner of the building on the run. They spotted the Basque rebels piling into a waiting truck, spread out kneeling, and opened fire. A machinegun chattered back from the truck, trying to cover the retreat. Regina was caught in the crossfire.

She spotted another truck, off to the side, and raced for it. The Spaniards spied her, and a fusillade of bullets kicked up the dirt at her heels. Just as she reached the truck, three or four rifles poked out of the back of it and began returning the barrage.

Regina hesitated. There were Basque rebels in the truck. If she boarded it, she’d be in the hands of the underground. She might be delivering herself to her executioners! Yet behind her, the Spaniards were getting the range.

Then the decision was made for her. Hands reached out from the back of the truck, grasped her under the armpits, and pulled her aboard before she could object. She was thrown to the floor with the weight of another body pinning her. Bullets pinged oil the tailgate of the truck as it pulled away, engine roaring.

A moment later the weight shifted off Regina and she was able to sit up. She found herself surrounded by Basque faces. One of them was familiar.

“You!” Regina stared at him in confusion.

“Perhaps you were expecting Generalissimo Franco, Señorita?’ The undersized ATOMICS agent scowled at her.

“I thought you were working for the enemy,” Regina blurted out.

“I am a Basque!” He was haughty.

“Then you’re really working for the rebels?”

“My presence here speaks for itself, Señorita.”

“Then you’re a Basque rebel!”

“I suppose that you will tell that to Señor Mac-Teague back in New York and so I shall be out of work.”

“Not a word,” Regina promised.

“Then I shall help you to leave Bilbao alive, Señorita. It is a good thing that you are aboard this truck and not the other. They have marked you as a traitor, you know. Every Basque in Bilbao would consider it a privilege to put a bullet in your heart, Senorita.”

“The Spanish soldiers aren’t too chummy, either,” Regina sighed.

“I shall take you to the airport. Get on the first plane out of Bilbao if you wish to survive.”

About a half-hour later the truck pulled off a road on the outskirts of Bilbao and rolled to a stop behind some shrubbery. The ATOMICS agent helped Regina down from the van and guided her to a path to the left of the bushes. He pointed. “The lights you see in the distance, Señorita, are the airport terminal,” he told her.

Regina peered through the fog. She could barely make out the glow.

“Follow the path about a mile and you will come to a barbed wire fence. Do not try to cross it where the path is. There is a Spanish sentry there. Follow the fence for one quarter-mile and you will come to a break in the wire. Crawl through it. Then keep walking towards the lights. Only watch for the Spanish patrols. They are posted to keep us from sabotaging the airport.” Without so much as a “Good luck,’ he was gone.

A moment later Regina heard the truck roll away. She set off down the path. She’d gone about three-quarters of a mile when she heard a rustle in the bushes off to one side. She crouched down behind a tree, her heart pounding.

Two men came into view on the trail. Both carried tommyguns. One held a pistol at the ready in his other hand. “. . . wearing a raincoat,” one of them was saying. “An American Señorita. A redhead, blondish. Beautiful, they say. But a traitor all the same. She informed on the bakery to the Beast!”

“Then she will make a beautiful corpse,” the other replied. “If we can but find her before she reaches the airport.”

They passed out of sight. Regina waited a long time before she continued down the path. Then she went quickly, stopping only when she came to the barbed wire fence.

“Follow the fence,” she’d been told. But which way? She squinted through the haze. It extended out in both directions from the path as far as she was able to see.

Regina guessed and set off to the right. About five minutes later she tripped and went to her knees. The hand she’d flung out for support sank into naked flesh.

There was a grunt. From somewhere under the grunter there was an immediate giggle. By then Regina realized she’d grabbed hold of a man’s bare behind.

The haze lifted for a moment as the man rolled over, cursing. Regina saw the uniform shirt of a Spanish soldier. The pants that went with it were bunched down around his ankles. The skirts of the still giggling girl were up around her Waist. It was obvious to Regina that she’d interrupted them at an inauspicious moment.

“Caramba!” The soldier had gotten a good look at Regina. “It is the American Señorita, the one we are supposed to shoot on sight!” Saying which he started for the rifle he’d left propped beside a nearby tree.

Luckily for Regina, he moved too fast. He’d forgotten about the pants tangling his feet. He tripped and fell and Regina beat him to the gun.

She aimed it at the two of them. Then, without a word, she backed away. The girl was still giggling.

Carrying the rifle, Regina retraced her stops back to the point where the fence met the trail. Then she set out in the other direction. Finally she came to the break in the fence.

Once through it, she quickened her pace, eager to reach the terminal. Even through the thickening fog the lights were a good deal closer when a figure loomed up in front of her. It was a very stout figure.

“Informer!” It was the plump girl rebel with whom Regina had been arrested. She dived at Regina with a long knife.

Regina raised the rifle and the muzzle caught the Basque girl in the breadbasket. A whoosh of air went out of her and she sat down hard. The knife was still clutched in her hand but, momentarily at least, the fight had gone out of her.

Regina pointed the rifle threateningly and once again backed away, disappearing into the darkness. Once the girl was behind her, she started to run. The result was that she ran smack into the other girl with whom she’d been arrested.

“Traitor!” The rebel girl jerked up her pistol and fired!

She missed. Before she could fire again, Regina had straight-armed her and kept running. But when a second shot whistled past her ear, she whirled around, aimed the rifle at the girl and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened! Only then did Regina realize that she never had cocked the rifle! The chamber was empty! Cursing to herself, she struggled with the bolt.

Before she could work it, however, her adversary fired again. The bullet shattered against the firing mechanism of the rifle. If it hadn’t been there, the bullet would have gone right through Regina’s heart. The impact sent the gun spinning from her hands. Not about to give the girl yet another shot, Regina took off at top speed!

Perhaps a quarter-hour later, Regina slipped into the terminal by a side entrance. She purchased a ticket on the next plane leaving for Barcelona. There would be about an hour wait before it was scheduled to depart.

It occurred to Regina that the clothes she’d bought were back in her hotel room and once again she was left with only what was on her back. She went into the Ladies’ Room, stripped off her raincoat, skirt and blouse, and tried to scrub off the grime she’d accumulated during her escape. She soaped her face, filled the basin with warm water, and bent low over it to rinse off the lather. She was in that position when she heard the door to the lavatory open and close, signifying that another woman had entered.

“Traitor!”

“Informer!”

There was a sudden steel band of pressure on the back of Regina’s neck as her head was shoved down in the basin, under the water, and held there. Her karate and judo training made Regina’s reaction automatic. Her foot shot back and hooked the leg planted behind her. Both her elbows snapped into reverse, slamming into the ribs of her assailant. The woman was jerked off balance and thrown sidewards. By the time she straightened up, Regina had turned around. A karate chop to the throat sent the woman spinning and gasping to the tiled floor. A short kick to the temple knocked her unconscious.

Regina dressed quickly and left the Ladies’ Room. Outside she straight-armed another Basque girl who pulled a pistol on her. A few moments later she was running a zigzag course across the terminal with two Spanish soldiers in hot pursuit. When she finally lost them by circling the building and reentering it, a rebel leaped on her from behind with a garrote. Regina kicked him in the groin, took away his strangler’s cord, and registered the fact that the p. a. system was announcing that her plane was boarding.

She raced up the ramp, entered the cabin of the airliner, and slipped into a window-seat, panting. The other passengers filed on board and the section filled up quickly. Soon the door was closed and the craft was taxiing down the field for takeoff.

Two American tourist ladies, schoolteacher types, were seated beside Regina. “Isn’t Spain lovely?” one of them was saying. “So peaceful.”

Glancing out the window, Regina saw a Basque rebel chasing the plane with a hand grenade. He pulled the pin and threw it. Fortunately it fell short.

“I know what you mean,” the other lady replied. “I just hate to go home to all the violence.”

A squad of Spanish soldiers piled out of a truck further down the field and began shooting at the bomb-thrower. Regina saw the two soldiers who’d been chasing her in the terminal run up to them and gesticulate wildly towards the plane. The riflemen swung around and began shooting at the jet as it rose in the air.

“N ext year let’s go to Greece,” the first lady said. “I understand it’s even more relaxed than Spain.”

“Let’s. . . . There’s so much we Americans could learn about serenity from the Old World,” the second lady sighed.

Regina echoed the sigh. As the plane climbed, she settled back in her seat. She told herself that at least she’d accomplished her objective. She’d narrowed down the list of suspects. Next stop Barcelona, then on to New York, a hot bath, and a good night’s sleep. After which she’d be ready for the next name on the list: Zelda Quinn.

Zelda Quinn, the most forgettable character she ever met!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cranks for the Memory

Every few years, a girl who’s smart enough to be convincingly dumb makes it big on the boob-tube. First there was Dagmar, whose luscious bosom and pur- poseful bloopers sent the ratings of the Jerry Lester Show skyrocketing in the early days of television. More recently there was Goldie Hawn, who parlayed a nymphette figure and a twisting tongue from top Laugh-In billing to Oscar-winning stardom. And now there was Zelda Quinn.

Zelda Quinn’s face was too small. When it peeped out from behind her mouse-brown, long, scraggly, ever disheveled hair, it seemed even smaller. It was the face of a gamin, a magnet for pathos. The snub nose and over-large eyes communicated a mixture of trust and skittishness reminiscent of a tame deer. Zelda seemed always about to nuzzle and bolt.

Her body was Twiggy-style, stuffed with two strategically placed olives. Thin legs, hips unpronounced even in the hot pants she favored, bottom tightly packed and cute but undeniably sparse—on the whole her build was decidedly fragile, rather than voluptuous. It would have taken two of her to begin construction on one Raquel Welch.

So, naturally—go figure it!—-Zelda Quinn became a top TV sex symbol!

Not that this was any stranger than the vehicle which transported Zelda to stardom. It started out as a quite ordinary midafternoon recipe show aimed at the young housewife. A low-budget, one-girl program, for which Zelda had been selected to demonstrate the preparation of fairly standard dishes because it was felt she was low-key enough for the plain Janes to identify with her.

When Zelda goofed on the very first show, leaving the almonds out of the String Beans Almondine and humming a little tune because—as she explained to her audience—“I always sin for my supper,” the producers put it down to opening night nervousness and excused her. But the following week she neglected to grease the pan for her Apple Pandowdy, and the week after that she announced that one of her greatest pleasures was “getting scrod in Boston.” By then her bosses were looking frantically around for a replacement.

They stopped looking when the mail began pouring in. Zelda’s flubs, far from turning viewers off, were building an audience. The young housewives, it seemed, were only the smallest part of that audience. Two other groups made up the bulk of it. The first group was older women. They saw Zelda as the epitome of the inept young bride, and she brought out all their authoritarian motherliness. Her mistakes were confirmation of their life-style. Each time she messed up a dish, it gave them an ego boost. She left them with the feeling of wanting to pat her on the cheek and take over preparing the dinner for her.

The second group consisted of men—mostly single men. Their response was fantastic. Evidently there were a lot of bachelors who fancied themselves gourmet cooks. Zelda was living proof of male superiority in the culinary art. Her little girl sexiness sparked a mass love-in. Letter after letter invited her to dinner with the men offering to do the cooking, and many of the recipes mentioned smacked of the aphrodisiac.

Her show was switched over to prime time and the ratings zoomed upwards. A poll revealed that now over half her audience were single men. More surprisingly, they rated Zelda one of the sexiest girls on TV.

Regina Blue could understand it. Watching Zelda Quinn’s show on her TV set two nights after her return to New York from Bilbao, Regina reflected that many times a girl’s sex appeal was in direct proportion to how much it built up a man’s self-concept of his masculinity. Zelda’s confused, fluttery personality, abetted by hot pants and a tight sweater that showed the outlines of the nipples of her small, bra-less breasts, would definitely make a man feel protective and manly in relationship to her. Zelda was capitalizing on the image most loathed by Women’s Lib.

The question in Regina’s mind was whether that image was strictly put on for TV or was a reflection of Zelda’s true personality. Regina’s reason for being interested, of course, was that Zelda Quinn’s name appeared on the list which the dying Faith Venable had indicated would reveal her murderer.

Could Zelda Quinn be the killer? Regina had been assuming that the murderer was a man. Faith had said “Brother,” and the voice Regina had heard from the shower had sounded like a man’s voice. Still, with the bathroom door closed and the water running, she could have been mistaken. It could have been a deep female voice. Zelda Quinn had a very husky voice for a girl. But why would Faith have called her “Brother?” Regina sighed. She just wasn’t sure she could identify the voice even if she did hear it again. Too much had happened in between.

But there was also another possibility. “Brother” and the murderer might not be the same person. Dwight Venable had gotten in and out of Regina's apartment undetected by her. The killer might have done the same. The killer might have been a woman. The killer just might be Zelda Quinn!

When the broadcast was over, Regina turned off the TV set and left her apartment. She was on her way to interview Zelda Quinn in person. The TV star had readily agreed to the meeting when Regina had called her earlier that day. If she was the murderess, Zelda was smart enough to be cooperative, to act as if she had nothing to hide.

Zelda still had her poncho on when Regina arrived. She greeted the redhead in a flurry of friendly confusion, ushering Regina into the living-room, trying to wriggle free of the poncho, take Regina’s coat, and talk, all at the same time. “I wanted to make us some martinis, but I can never remember whether to shake or stir.” Zelda’s voice came out muffled from somewhere inside the folds of the poncho.

Regina hung up her coat; Regina helped Zelda out of the poncho; Regina mixed the martinis. Zelda had that effect on people. She seemed so muddled and helpless that they always ended up doing things for her that she had started to do for them.

Finally seated and sipping her drink, Regina got right to the point. “You were a disciple of Faith Venables?” she said.

“Faith who? . . . Oh! You mean Sister Faith. The Mantra Lady.”

“That’s right. She gave you a mantra, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“How did you happen to go to her in the first place?”

“This man I met suggested it. You see, I have this problem remembering things and he thought Transcen—-whatchamacallit could help me.”

“Who was the man?” Regina asked.

“Oh, dear! Now what was his name?” Zelda pondered. “I remember that when we were introduced I thought he was telling me his religion. I said he must be devoted to it, and he asked me why, and I said because people didn’t usually tell you their religion the first time you met them, and he said no, it wasn’t his religion, it was his name. Gee!” Zelda frowned. “It I could just think of what religion it was. . . .”

“Jewish? Lutheran? Catholic?” Regina tried to be helpful.

“Judah? No. Luther? That wasn’t it. Catherine? No, that’s a girl’s name.” Zelda bit her lip. “Calvin!” she exclaimed suddenly. “That’s it! Something Calvin. . . . Or was it Calvin Something? . . .”

“Not Calvin Cabot!” Regina stared at the girl.

“That’s it! Calvin Cabot. That’s his name. How did you know?”

Regina didn’t answer. Her mind was racing. Calvin Cabot! Faith’s guardian! The man who had retained ATOMICS to prove Dwight Venables innocence! He was definitely involved in the case! How deeply involved? Regina filed the question away for future consideration.

“Was Sister Faith any help with your memory problem?” Regina asked Zelda.

Before Zelda could answer, the doorbell rang and she went to answer it. She returned white-faced and trembling, an unopened telegram clutched in her hand. “I’m so scared,” she confessed. “You never know what kind of bad news—”

“Maybe it’s not bad news. Why not just open it and find out,” Regina suggested.

“I’m too frightened!”

“Here. Let me.” Regina opened the telegram. “Okay if I read it?”

Still shaking, Zelda nodded.

“ZELDA STOP DON’T FORGET TO TAKE BIRTH CONTROL PILL STOP,” Regina read. The message was signed ZELDA.

“Is that all?” Zelda breathed easy. “What a relief!”

“I don’t get it,” Regina said. “If you sent the telegram to yourself, why be so apprehensive?”

“I forgot I sent it.”

“Oh.” Regina considered the answer. “Well, I guess you’d better do what it says,” she decided.

“What’s that?” Zelda was puzzled.

“Take your pill.”

“What pill?”

“Your birth control pill!”

“Golly! Thanks for reminding me. I always forget.”

“That’s probably why you sent yourself the telegram.”

“What telegram?”

“Never mind. Just take the pill.” If she says “What pill?” again, Regina thought, I’m going to scream!

But Zelda downed the pill with a gulp of martini without further comment.

“So Transcendental Meditation,” Regina continued, “didn’t help you with your memory problem.”

“Not really. You see, I was supposed to chant this mantra to myself for twenty minutes every morning and twenty minutes every night. I was supposed to empty my mind and meditate while I was doing it. But it didn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“When I emptied my mind, instead of meditating, I’d fall asleep.”

“I can see how that would be sort of self-defeating.”

“Then it got worse,” Zelda continued. “I’d sit down to meditate and I wouldn’t be able for the life of me to remember my mantra.”

“What did you do?” Regina asked.

“I went back to Sister Faith. She was very patient. I had to go back several times. And each time she’d give me the mantra again.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“The afternoon of the day she was murdered. A few hours before. That’s what I told the police, and that’s the truth.”

“And she repeated your mantra for you?”

“Yes.”

“And you remembered it?”

“No.” Zelda hung her head. “I forgot it before I even got home.”

“And I don’t suppose you remember it now?” Regina asked with a sigh.

“No. But I’m working hard to bring it back. You see, after Sister Faith’s death, I went to this man who’s a memory expert. He’s got this perfectly marvelous system for remembering things. It’s based on giving yourself rewards. You see, whenever I do remember something, I immediately reward myself. Subconsciously, the remembering gets tied in with the reward and that makes it easier to remember the next time. Oh!” Zelda was momentarily crestfallen. “I forgot!”

“What did you forget now?” Regina inquired patiently.

“My reward for taking the pill. Oh, dear! If I don’t reward myself immediately, it will screw up the whole system. Golly! This is embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t wait to reward myself, but I don’t want to shock you.”

“I don't shock,” Regina assured her. “Go ahead and have your reward.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind . . .” Zelda’s voice trailed off as she went into the bedroom. Regina hesitated a few seconds, and then followed her.

Zelda had taken off her hot pants and sweater. Her slender, childlike body was stretched out naked on the bed. As Regina entered, she was just reaching into the drawer of the night table beside the bed to take out a small electric vibrator. She plugged it into a wall-socket and applied the throbbing instrument to her small, round, tightly-packed derriere.

A blush of pink appeared and darkened as the vibrator moved over the cheeks. Sharp little breasts heaving, Zelda traced the cleft bisecting her bottom. Then she probed deeper and her body bucked, thin legs kicking, as the vibrator touched her sensitive anus.

“The theory is,” Zelda panted to Regina, “that immediate sensual satisfaction will set up a subliminal memory pattern so that next time I’ll want to take the pill so I can have the reward.” She writhed ecstatically, touching the vibrator first to one long, quivering nipple, and then to the other. “I can imagine what you must be thinking of me,” she gasped. “I’m really sorry. But if I wait too long after taking the pill it’s no good.”

“Don’t apologize,” Regina told her. ‘Tm really completely detached. Just think of me as a clinical observer.

Plainly, Zelda was not now thinking of Regina at all. Aroused beyond thought, she turned over violently and pulled herself up on the pillows so that she was in a sitting position. She ran the vibrator over her flat belly, probing the navel, throwing back her head, eyes wild and unfocused, laughing mindlessly at the erotically tickling sensation this produced.

The vibrator moved down to the light brown triangle of curls at the base of her stomach. The triangular mound jumped rhythmically in response to the vibrations. Zelda reached further down to the juncture of the V formed by her thin thighs. Her clitoris, red, erect, straining, twanged into view. Its first contact with the vibrator elicited a prolonged moan, half a soft scream, from Zelda’s lips. The vibrator burrowed deeper and Zelda bounced frantically on the bed.

Suddenly her body arched and remained taut, the vibrator buried, all but lost to view. She stayed that way for a long, wailing moment. Then she collapsed with a heartfelt sigh of satisfaction. She lay limp now, momentarily exhausted, the vibrator, still buzzing, held loosely at her side.

Before Regina judged the girl had recovered enough to resume questioning her, there was another interruption. A man’s voice sounded from the living-room. “You forgot again!” he yelled accusingly. “I hear that goddam vibrator! I know what you’re doing! You forgot we had a date, didn’t you? And now you’ll be too tired!” He sounded very annoyed.

“Oh, gosh!” Zelda exclaimed. “I did forget! We had a date and it just went out of my mind.”

“Who is he?” Regina inquired. “How did he get in?”

“He’s my boy friend. My lover. I gave him a key.”

“What’s his name?”

“I can never remember,” Zelda confessed.

“Well, I guess you have a lot of men in your life.”

“No. He’s the only one right now. It’s just that I’m terrible on names.”

“Since you’ve already had your allotment of sex for the evening,” the man called sarcastically, “I’ll wait out here. When you’re through, we can play gin rummy or something.”

There was something about the voice that was very familiar to Regina. She tried, but she couldn’t place it. The fleeting sense of familiarity left her mind when Zelda spoke again.

“He’s really mad,” she said. “He’s a Libra, so he doesn’t release his anger easily, but I can tell. Actually, I suppose we’re not really suited to each other,” she mused. “I’m an Aries.”

“You’re an Aries?” Regina was suddenly all attention.

“That’s right. See.” Zelda pointed.

Regina followed her finger. It was aimed at a birth certificate hanging on the wall. The document said that Zelda Quinn had been born on April 8th. She was indeed an Aries!

“I keep it hanging there so I don’t forget my birthday,” Zelda explained.

Regina wasn’t listening. She was off following her own train of logic. She remembered that the Maharishi Unguentinanina had told her that “AHHH LOO-OO- OO” could not have been Faith Venable’s mantra because it would be unthinkable to give that mantra to an Aries. Faith Venable had been an Aries, like Zelda, and because of that, and because she had been the Maharishi’s pupil, she certainly would never have given “AHHH LOO-OO-OO” as a mantra to one of her disciples born under the sign. Which meant that whatever Zelda’s mantra was, it wasn’t “AHHHH LOO-OO-OO!” And that in turn meant that Zelda was not the murderess! Scratch one more suspect!

“I’ll be going now,” Regina told the girl. “You have a date and I have things to do. Don’t bother,” she added as Zelda started to get to her feet. “I can find my own way out.”

“Tell him I’ll be out in a minute,” Zelda called as Regina exited the bedroom.

But when Regina found herself facing the man waiting in the living-room, she was speechless. There was a good reason why his voice had sounded familiar before. Zelda Quinn’s “lover” was Lieutenant Raoul Rodriguez of the Homicide Division!

Regina quickly put two and two together. It added up to the fact that Rodriguez must be following the same trail she was. He was checking out the names on the murder victim’s list. Regina wondered if he knew about the incompatibility of Aries and “AHH-LOO-OO-OO.” Probably not, she decided. If he had known, he would have eliminated Zelda Quinn from the list of suspects, in which case he wouldn’t be here. Unless, of course, his relationship with Zelda really was unrelated to his professional function.

Strangely, Regina found herself hoping the relationship was strictly business on Rodriguez’ part. She was frank enough to admit to herself that the swarthily handsome detective was attractive to her. But if the feeling was mutual, Rodriguez certainly managed to hide it!

“You’re playing detective again!” he said accusingly. Regina didn’t deny it.

“And without a license!”

The redhead shrugged.

“That’s a felony,” he informed her. “I warned you once. You didn’t listen. Now I’m taking action!” He took her arm firmly and steered her out of the apartment.

“What kind of action?” Regina wanted to know.

“Official action,” he told her. “You’re under arrest!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Liquid Sounds of Love

New York City Police Department procedures allow a suspect, when booked, to make one telephone call. Usually the call is to a close relative, an employer, or a lawyer. Regina Blue, when she had been officially charged by Lieutenant Rodriguez, chose to ring up none of these. Instead, she called Irving Nicholas.

Regina had gotten to know Irving Nicholas, and his wife Inez, during the early days of her professional career. She had gotten to know the couple intimately. Quite intimately! . . .

When Irving and Inez Nicholas were in their early thirties, and had been married about eight years, they were still very much in love. This made it all the harder for them to face the fact that they had a problem. A sex problem.

Then came the night when they wrestled with it mightily and finally acknowledged it to each other. After an hour of the most intimate foreplay they found themselves lying side-by-side, exhausted, frustrated, too worn out to continue pursuing the orgasm which had eluded them both. It was Inez who summed up their predicament.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Couldn’t you think of anybody either?”

Emotionally they had enough going for them so that they were able to laugh together—albeit ruefully -—at the sad truth summed up in her words. They had grown used to each other. Some new stimulus was required. So—

First Irving had an affair. The girl he chose was his secretary. The result was office chaos. His inamorata started coming in late, leaving early, and cornering him during the busiest part of the day with hysterical demands for reiterations of his love for her. Finally Irving realized that he not only didn’t love her, he didn’t even like her. He much preferred his wife, and their relationship was far more satisfying, even with the sex problems it entailed. Irving ended the romance.

Then Inez had an affair. Her lover was a married friend of theirs. From the very first it was unsatisfying. They met, by prearrangement, at a local motel. He signed the register, then showed it to Inez and stood there chortling. “The Marquis DeSade and Friend,” she read to herself. She could feel herself turning red as the desk clerk stared impassively at her guffawing lover.

From there it went downhill. The “Marquis” was in all ways as subtle as a crotch. Inez found herself constantly comparing him to Irving, and—sex or no sex — there was no way Irving could come out second. After some six rather unpleasant weeks of clandestine meetings, Inez sent him packing back to his wife.

But Inez and Irving still had their problem. Irving bought an 8 mm. movie projector and a dozen reels of pornographic film. For a while that turned them on, but eventually it palled.

They read Fanny Hill aloud to one another, but that too had only a limited effect. They tried necking and petting in a parked car, and it got them very excited, but when a cop shined his flashlight in on them, they were so abashed that they were unable to pick up where they’d left off when they got home. Finally they bought a round, king-size water bed, complete with heating unit, built-in stereo and light show.

The water bed worked for a little while. But then the unusual sensations it provided wore oft and Inez and Irving were once again left with their problem. Drastic measures were indicated. They discussed the possibilities. And from that discussion came the decision to call upon the services of Regina Blue.

Irving had a friend who had a friend . . . Well, it doesn’t really matter how the contact was made. Suffice it to say that Regina Blue arrived at the Nicholas home one evening for the specific purpose of helping them with their problem.

“If I can watch Irving make it with another girl, I think it will really turn me on,” Inez told Regina frankly.

“Just the idea of being in bed with my wife and another woman arouses me.” Irving was equally frank.

Regina had admired the honesty of their approach. They were young and she found them not at all unattractive. Irving was tall and thin—a stringbean—and balding a little, and had a pronounced Adam’s apple, but compared to some of the men Regina had known professionally, he was quite likeable. There was an aura of good humor and politeness about him that was really very winning.

Inez was also tall, but, though by no means fat, she was perhaps five or ten pounds overweight. The excess weight was distributed over her thighs and bosom, and the heaviness was really quite sensual. Her large breasts hung a little low, but they were round and wide-nippled and the way they swayed when she moved was really very enticing. She had short black hair and a pretty round face, and her demeanor was as open and friendly as that of her husbands

There was a natural awkwardness among the three of them as they sipped the drinks Irving had made. It persisted when Inez led the way into the bedroom. But when Regina saw the water bed and bounced up and down on it, commenting on the tactile thrills it produced, her lack of inhibition put them all at ease.

Irving went into the bathroom to put on his pajamas. Inez produced a slinky, full-length black silk nightgown for Regina to wear. She herself donned yellow Baby-Dolls with a transparent gauze top that accentuated her heavy breasts. The yellow bikini panties likewise showed off her strong thighs to advantage.

Irving re-entered. He set the thermostat so that the water bed glowed warmly. He put a recording of the love music from Tristan and Isolde on the stereo. He turned out the bedroom lights and set up the water bed light show so that the transparent mattress was reflected on the ceiling and walls, lending a soft, sensual ambience. Then he joined Regina and Inez on the round, king-size water bed.

The bed rippled under his weight. The three of them lay there quietly for a few moments, rocking with the gentle slosh of the water in the mattress upon which they rested. Multi-colored patterns blended one into another over their heads, projections of the ever-changing ripple of the water.

Regina was the first to make an overt move. She slipped her hand under the top of Irving’s pajamas and caressed his chest. After a moment she reached across him with her other hand and fondled Inez’s breast. The water-bed rocked rhythmically with her movements: Slurp-slosh; Slosh-slurp; Slurp-slosh . . .

“Yo-ho-ho, the wind blows free! Oh for a life on the roaring sea!” Irving sang softly.

The three of them laughed.

Slurp-slurp; Slosh-slosh . . . Inez had turned on her side, causing a liquid response. She stroked Irving’s thigh and watched him and Regina intently. Regina had unbuttoned his pajama shirt now and was leaning over him, kissing one of his nipples. Her red hair tumbled over his moderately hairy chest. His arms were stretched out so that his hands could clasp her buttocks, which he found to be excitingly warmed from the heating apparatus of the bed. Under the silk of the black nightgown they quivered to his touch.

Gurgle-slosh-slurp; Slash-gurgle-slurp; Slurp-gurgle-slosh . . .

Regina and Inez had moved simultaneously, pressing closer against Irving. He was very aware of the hardness of Regina’s nipples under the soft silk as her breasts pressed against his side. He was also aware of the trembling warmth of his wife’s thigh as she wriggled to wedge it under his own leg.

Irving shifted position and grabbed at one of Regina’s breasts and one of Inez’s breasts simultaneously. He’d moved too violently and the water-bed responded noticeably. For a moment it was like being in an open boat on a choppy sea.

“I should have taken my Dramamine.” Inez reacted to the pitching and rolling. But a moment later she forgot her momentarily queasy feeling when Regina stretched across Irving to kiss her breasts.

Slosh-slurp; Slosh-slurp . . . With the three of them relatively still now, the waters subsided. Inez’s body was taut as Regina stayed in position and sucked at the wide nipple. Irving watched quietly, not moving. His excitement mounted as he observed Regina stimulating his wife. Since the redhead was also gently stroking his groin at the same time, his arousal was physical as well as mental.

Regina well knew what she was about. It would never do for either of her two “patrons” to feel left out. Whatever activity she devised must include both of them. With this in mind, she gently guided Irving’s mouth to Inez’s bosom. Then she slid down the bed until her silk-covered breasts had captured his erect penis in the cleft between them. At the same time she slid her hand under Inez’s bikini panties and played with the butter-soft flesh of her buttocks.

After a moment, Irving reached down with both his hands and pulled off his pajama pants. SLOP-SLOSH; SLOP-SLURP . . . The water beneath them pounded against the transparent mattress. “Don’t make waves!” Inez protested.

Regina removed her nightgown less vigorously. Inez followed suit, pulling off the tops of the Baby-Dolls. Regina slid the bottoms off for her.

Waves of light poured over them now as they began moving erotically to the rhythm of the music. The water bed was a pounding surf setting the cadence for the pounding of their blood. Their hot bodies clung and clawed and probed and experimented, each movement bringing two responses, each response prompting two more movements.

Regina’s tongue licked lightly up the length of Inez’s fleshy thigh. Her hand reached behind Irving and lightly tickled his balls. Inez squeezed Regina’s breasts and kissed her husband, a long, deep, tongue-clashing kiss. Irving stabbed at Inez’s wide nipples with the tip of his straining passion-rod while simultaneously digging his fingernails into Regina’s plump buttocks.

SLOSH-SLOP-GURGLE~SLURP! . . . They shifted position again. Regina lay fiat on her back, arms and legs spread wide, red hair fanned out over the mattress, an open invitation to Inez and Irving to improvise as they wished. Irving knelt and kissed the soft, curly mound just above where her legs met. Inez squatted over Regina’s head, her straining clitoris poised just within reach of the redhead’s tongue. When she bent forward, the large, round nipples of her full breasts moved back and forth over her husband’s shoulders.

SLOSH-SLURP-GURGLE; SLOSH-SLURP-GURGLE; SLOSH-SLURP-GURGLE . . . Irving’s lips were glued to the quivering nether-lips of the redhead. Regina’s tongue played havoc with Inez’s swollen clitoris. Inez stretched further and beat her fists on her husband’s naked haunches.

Shift! Irving usurped Inez’s position at Regina’s mouth. Inez manipulated Regina’s clitoris with her hand. Regina, her mouth stretched to an “O,” flicked the nipples of Inez’s swaying breasts.

When they moved again, Irving was impatient. He flung his wife over on her back and propped her legs on his shoulders. Kneeling, he thrust forward and entered her. Regina knelt behind them. Her searching tongue laved his scrotum and Inez’s nether-lips. After a few moments of this, she swung around so that the eager Inez could lick her while Irving fondled her breasts. Such was the situation—Irving pounding away at Inez; Inez lapping avidly at Regina; Regina clutching and being clutched by Irving while she watched the lascivious movements of their joined organs—when all three finally arrived at their simultaneous climax.

Irving and Regina collapsed on the mattress on either side of Inez. The stereo began a replay of Tristan and Isolde. The colored patterns swam overhead. The water bed sloshed gently. “Anchors aweigh,” Irving remarked.

Slosh-slosh; slosh-slosh . . .

“You qualify as a Senior Lifesaver!” Inez told Regina.

Slash-slurp; slash-slurp; slash-slurp . . .

That had been the first time Regina shared the water bed with Irving and Inez Nicholas. There were a dozen or more repeat performances. But it was the last time that Regina would never forget. . . .

Bubble-bubble-gurgle-slurp; Bubble-bubble-gurgle-slurp . . .

“It sounds different tonight,” Regina had remarked at the beginning of that last evening.

“It is different,” Irving told her. “I hit on an innovation. I’ll bet you can’t guess.”

“Irving never can leave well enough alone,” Inez sighed.

“I give up,” Regina said.

“I drained off the water and filled it with champagne.” Irving was obviously pleased as champagne punch with himself.

“And that’s not all,” Inez added.

“What else?”

“Look.” Irving led Regina over to the bed. “See.” There was a metal plate inset into the mattress near the mahogany headboard with three glass straws sticking up from it. The straws were shaped at right angles.

“Now the damn thing doesn’t just gurgle,” Inez remarked. “It fizzes.”

“All aboard!” Irving flung himself down on the bed. The girls joined him there. All three were naked. They fell to fondling one another immediately, occasionally taking time out to sip champagne from the straws.

All three had progressed since their first session together. The foreplay now was more knowing, more sophisticated. The three-way positions they attempted were more experimental, more intricate. And the champagne both fired them with energy and aroused their inventiveness still further.

Thus they arrived at a situation as strenuous as it was ingenious. Irving sat up in the round bed, propped against the curved headboard. Inez was impaled on his lap with her back to him. Irving had reached around in front of her to squeeze the large nipples of her breasts, each in turn. His other hand was under her, delicately stimulating her anus in a way that was setting the rhythm for the rise and fall of her derriere. This made a slapping sound as Inez came down on his thighs, and each “Slap!” was echoed by a “FIZZLE- SLOSH!” from the water-bed as her weight compressed the champagne.

At the same time, Regina was — literally—-standing on her head. Her thighs were locked, scissor-fashion, around Inez’s neck. Inez’s tongue was deep in her palpitating honeypot. Regina’s hands were braced on either side of Inez and Irving’s spread thighs. Suspended upside down, her globular breasts rested on Inez’s thigh-tops, while her head was buried in the double-V where the couple’s bodies were joined. Dizzy as she was from the position and the champagne, Regina nevertheless was enthusiastically kissing and licking and sucking their joined and writhing organs.

Her ministrations were a part of the rhythm the three had established. Each beat of the cadence called for a simultaneous prod of Irving’s finger, an upthrust of his joystick, a squeeze of Inez’s wide nipples, a rise-squeeze-and-fall of Inez’s lower parts, a thrust of her tongue to the core of Regina, a tensing and then a relaxation of Regina’s thigh muscles, and an oral caress by Regina which encompassed as much as possible of their gyrating genitals. A part of her tempo was to shift the upside down weight on her arms and hands forwards and backwards in a sort of rowing motion.

“Row faster!” Irving commanded, breathing hard. “GURGLE-FIZZLE-SLOSH; FIZZLE-GURGLE-SLOSH!” With their increased rhythm, the champagne surf pounded against the sides of the mattress. “Faster!” Irving gasped. “BUBBLE-VA-ROOM; GURGLE-VOOM-OOM!” “I’m coming!” Irving announced. ‘Me too!” Inez bounced. Regina moved harder and Faster, not wanting to be left behind. “SLURP-VOOM; SLOSH-VOOM; VA-VA-VA-VOOM!”

Irving came. Inez climaxed. Regina attained orgasm. . . “SLOSH-SLURP-VA-VOOM-VOOM-VOOM!” . . . And the water bed burst!

Their final exertions had been too much for it. The champagne had reacted to the final shakeup like soda pop agitated until it expands beyond the capacity of :he bottle to contain it. Still in the throes of triple or-gasm, the trio found themselves riding the waves of a flood of champagne. It was as if a dam had broken and they were helpless in the whirling current. A sea of champagne-—more than five hundred gallons — scattered their lust and tossed them about like the debris of a shipwreck caught in a howling ocean.

The door to the bedroom was open. Regina was propelled through it on the crest of a bubbling wave of wine and washed up on the grand piano in the living-room. Inez, who couldn’t swim, was going under for he third time when Irving managed to get a grip on her and tow her to the safety of a bedroom bureau. Before he could pull himself up alongside her however, a bubbling undertow pulled his feet out from under him and he was carried, flailing, back to the wreck of the bed.

Here, the electrical apparatus which heated the bed had been short-circuited by the violent flood in half a dozen places. Sparks were flying over the champagne froth; live wires were crackling amidst the bubbles. Irving slammed into the frame of the bed and his foot caught, holding him there for a moment. One of the live wires imbedded itself firmly in his groin. It was-—as they say—quite a shock! By the time he was able to pull loose and swim to safety, his gonads were glowing like a neon sign.

The flood brought the Superintendent of the Nicholas’ apartment building on the run. Concerned neighbors crowded in behind him. One of these had the presence of mind to reverse his field, go back to his own apartment and call the Fire Department. Most of them stayed to gawk at the three nude victims while murmuring guesses as to the orgy which must have taken place. The firemen, when they arrived, were equally curious.

That was the last time Regina was at the Nicholas’. But Irving Nicholas had called her once after that fateful evening. He told her that they had, of course, been forced to move. But neither he nor Inez were particularly unhappy about that since they had found other compensations. Whether due to the sessions with Regina, or due to the electric shock he’d received, or due to the relaxation of their inhibitions, or perhaps because of a combination of all three, their sex life had improved immeasurably. They would, therefore, have no further need of Regina’s services. But Irving wanted her to know how much they appreciated what she had done for them. “And,” he added, “if there’s ever anything I can do for you, just call me.” There was no doubting the sincerity behind those words. . . .

And so it was Irving Nicholas whom Regina called when Lieutenant Rodriguez booked her for practising as a private detective without a license. Why Irving? Simple. He was one of several official Commissioners of Licenses of the State of New York.

Irving Nicholas’ gratitude had not abated. He had meant what he said to Regina when he said it, and he stuck by it now. When he understood the problem, he told Regina not to worry, hung up on her and immediately dialed the Police Commissioner. A few months back he had paved the way for the Police Commissioner's brother-in-law, a restaurant owner, to get a liquor license. When Irving explained that Regina’s license to practise as a private investigator had been held up because of an unfortunate clerical error, the Police Commissioner was quick to return the favor. He agreed with Irving that the whole affair was a teapot-tempest and assured him he’d have the charge dropped within the hour. Then Irving called a sub-commissioner he knew and arranged to have a license properly issued to Regina first thing in the morning. After which Irving returned to bed—a standard, water-less, champagne-less bed—and Inez.

The result was that Regina had been in custody only a little more than an hour when she was summoned to Lieutenant Rodriguez’ office. “I thought you said you didn’t have a license!” He greeted her angrily.

“I don’t.”

“Well, the Police Commissioner says you do!”

“Then I guess I do.”

“I guess you do!” He glared at her.

He was still glaring when the telephone rang. He answered it and listened for a couple of minutes. Then he said “I’ll be right there,” and hung up. “You come along with me,” he instructed Regina, taking her by the arm and leading her from the office.

“Why should I?” Regina protested.

“Because if you’re licensed, I’d a damn sight rather have you where I can keep track of you than have you popping up when I least expect it, or find myself tripping over you where I least want to. So come on, Lady Sherlock! This is right up your alley.”

“Where are we going?” He was pulling her down the hall and out of the building so fast that Regina was breathless.

“Dwight Venable’s house.”

“But why there?”

“Because somebody has bashed our fey friend’s skull in with what we in the trade like to call a blunt instrument’

Regina’s head was spinning. First Faith Venablee, and now her brother Dwight Venable. Murdered!

Murdered!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

An Arresting Situation

“Where’s the corpse?”

The cop stationed in the foyer of Dwight Venable’s sumptuous Greenwich Village pad reluctantly turned his attention from Regina’s legs and focused on Lieutenant Rodriguez. “What corpse, Lieutenant?”

“The murder victim, you ninny!”

The PBA ain’t gonna like you talking to me like that, Lieutenant.”

“I m sorry. I’m sorry.” Rodriguez simmered down.

“Anyway, there ain’t no corpse. The victim’s still alive, in a coma. They took him to Roosevelt Hospital.”

“Then why did you call it a murder?” Rodriguez gritted his teeth. Can’t you guys get anything straight?”

“Don’t holler at me, Lieutenant. I may be just a patrolman, but I got my dignity. And,” the cop added threateningly, I know my rights!”

“I hate cops!" Rodriguez confided to Regina, muttering so that only she could hear, as he led the way inside.

“But you’re a cop yourself.”

Rodriguez merely grunted.

“Self-hatred is bad news,” Regina told him.

“If I want to be analyzed, I’ll go to a shrink.”

“A little analysis wouldn’t hurt you. Exercising some, I mean. For instance, has it occurred to you that your case against Dwight Venable for his sister’s murder has blown sky-high?”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, he certainly didn’t bash in his own skull,” Regina pointed out.

“Amateurs!” Rodriguez shook his head disgustedly. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that the two crimes might have no connection. Dwight Venable could be the victim this time without necessarily being ruled out as his sister’s murderer.”

“I think they are connected!” Regina insisted.

“And just what the hell do you base that on?”

“Intuition.”

“With that and a token, you can get on the subway.” Rodriguez dismissed her hunch and turned to one of the detectives in the living--room. “Have you found the murder weap— what he was hit with?” he asked.

“Yeah. It was lying right beside him, covered with blood. The boys took it down to the lab.”

“What was it?”

“A crucifix.”

“Huh?”

“That’s right. A large crucifix, about a foot and a half by two feet, made out of bronze with some kind of jewels on it.”

“Jewels?”

“Looked like rubies and emeralds.”

“Real ones?” Rodriguez inquired.

“Search me. I’m no appraiser. I guess the lab boys will find out.”

“One of the bozos inside claims they’re real,” a second detective told Rodriguez. “He says the cross belongs to him, that it was a gift from that Venable queer. A damn expensive gift if he’s telling the truth. Why would Venable give him a present like that?”

“Maybe he’s queer too,” Rodriguez suggested.

“He don’t look it. He’s a pretty brawny guy.”

“Are all cops that naive?” Regina whispered to Rodriguez.

He ignored her. “Any leads?” he wanted to know.

“Just three bona fide suspects. They were all here when the mur—- crime took place. We’re holding them inside.” The detective jerked his thumb towards the doorway.

Regina followed Rodriguez into the next room. It was a sort of combination study and library. A uniformed policeman admitted them. The room was silent. The three men seated in the gloom there, each lost in his own thoughts, weren’t talking.

Rodriguez switched on the light. They looked up at him questioningly. Still nobody said anything.

Regina recognized the man she’d met with Dwight Venable in the steam room during her last visit. Petey-Sweetie, the Reverend Peter Norbert, was naked except for a bath towel knotted around his middle. He adjusted it nervously when his gaze met Regina’s.

The other two men wore business suits, one conservative, one a rather flashy Glen plaid. The man in the gray suit, the older of the two, identified himself as Calvin Cabot. The other man told Rodriguez his name was “Dr. Karl Enright.”

“You’re a physician?” Rodriguez followed up.

“No. A dentist.”

Regina’s ears had perked up. “Dr. Karl Enright” was one of the names on Faith Venable’s list of suspects. With Tex Kincaid, José de Galindez and Zelda Quinn to some extent ruled out, he was the only suspect left. He—-and whoever’s name had been torn off the list.

“When did you get here?” Rodriguez asked.

Dr. Enright told him.

“That would be just before Venable was attacked,” Rodriguez deduced. “Why did you come?”

“Dwight Venable is a patient of mine. He had a toothache.”

“And now he’s got a headache from having his cranium cracked open,” Rodriguez observed. “A dentist who makes house calls,” he continued, musing. “In this day and age? You deserve the Gold Tooth Award of the Year.”

Dr. Enright returned his gaze levelly and remained silent.

“Isn’t that pretty unusual?” the Lieutenant persisted.

“Yes. I don’t usually make house calls. But this was an emergency. He called me at my home and said he was in pain. I live not far from here, so I came over to have a look and maybe give him a shot so he could sleep through the night. Then I could see him in my office in the morning.”

“I see. And where were you when he got his conk bonked?”

“His ‘conk bonked’? Oh. I see. I was in the kitchen sterilizing a hypo needle. You see, I’d examined him in the living-room. When I came back, I found him lying on the floor bleeding from the head. At first I thought he was dead. I called the police. Then I felt for a pulse. It was faint, but still beating.”

“Did you give him medical assistance?”

“No. I may have flunked out of medical school before I settled on dentistry, but I know enough not to fool around with a head injury. I just waited for the cops to get here. The police doctor treated him and sent for an ambulance.”

“Where were these two fellows while all this was going on?” Rodriguez indicated Calvin Cabot and Petey-Sweetie.

“You’ll have to ask them that.”

“You didn’t see them?”

“No.”

“Not before, or after the crime was committed?”

“No. The first I saw of him”—-Dr. Enright pointed to Petey-sweetie-—“was when he came into the living-room in that towel just as the police were coming through the front door. And I didn’t see Mr. Cabot until a few minutes later when a policeman brought him in here.”

“You know Mr. Cabot?”

“Yes. He’s also a patient of mine.”

“Well, Mr. Cabot, that would seem to bring us to you.” Rodriguez turned towards him.

Cabot was calm and frosty. “As far as I know, what Dr. Enright has told you is true,” he said. “At least insofar as it pertains to me. I am a patient of his. We did not meet on these premises until the police escorted me into this room.”

“And how long have you been in the house?”

“Since about an hour before Dwight was attacked.”

“What were you doing here?”

“There were some business matters to be gone over. Dwight is negligent about coming to my office and I frequently have to come here—-once a month on the average, I’d say — to go over with him papers pertaining to the Venable estate.” Calvin Cabot produced a piece of dental floss from his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said. He ran it quickly through his teeth. “I had mutton for dinner and it was stringy,” he explained.

“You should brush after every meal,” Dr. Enright told him.

“I had no opportunity.” Cabot’s tone was icy.

“Where were you when the attack took place?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked Cabot.

“In the upstairs parlor. That’s where Dwight and I had been going over the papers. I remained there when he went down to admit Dr. Enright. He’d told me of his toothache. I’m super-sensitive to such things and I have an empathetic reaction. My own teeth start to hurt. So I saw no reason to go down with him and subject myself to the experience.”

“It’s psychosomatic.” Dr. Enright’s diagnosis was meant to be informative. “Mr. Cabot has no teeth of his own to hurt. He wears dentures.”

Calvin Cabot glared at him. He took out the dental floss and worked it around his false teeth again. “Since you know Dr. Enright,” Rodriguez ventured idly, “Wouldn’t it have been natural for you to go down and say hello?”

“I do not socialize with my dentist.” Cabot said icily from around the dental floss.

Dr. Enright pouted.

“When Venable didn’t return, didn’t you wonder what happened to him?” Rodriguez asked.

“No. I simply assumed he was with the dentist. I didn’t know anything had happened until the police-man walked into the upstairs parlor.”

“Then of course it wasn’t you who bashed in his brains.”

“That question doesn’t deserve an answer.” Cabot sawed savagely with the dental floss, his anger obvious.

“How about you?” Rodriguez turned to Petey-Sweetie.

“Me? I wouldn’t harm a hair on Dwight’s head. I love him. What reason would I have to hurt him?”

“Disgusting!” Cabot bit down hard on the dental floss.

“A lover’s quarrel, maybe,” Rodriguez suggested to Petey-Sweetie.

He flushed. “No.”

“Well, let’s hear your story then.”

“I first got the call when I was sixteen. I was ordained a Minister of the Gospel at twenty-one. My first parish—”

“Could you just skip up to the present, Reverend,”

Rodriguez interrupted him. “Like how long have you been on the premises?”

“Since last night. Dwight and I always sleep together on Thursdays and—”

“Disgusting!” Cabot bit the dental floss in two.

“To each his own,” Regina remarked.

“Including to each his own his?” Rodriguez was disapproving. “Go on,” he told Petey-Sweetie.

“Anyway, when Mr. Cabot came, Dwight wanted to introduce me. He said it would shake the old man up. Dwight has a slightly sadistic sense of humor, but he doesn’t really mean anything by it. Still, that’s not my sort of thing. So I refused to meet his guardian. I went into the steam room. I fell asleep there. The next thing I know, this officer was waking me up and I was dragged in here. It was all I could do to grab this towel.”

“So you didn't see either Dr. Enright or Mr. Cabot?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you know Dr. Enright was here?”

“I knew he was expected. Dwight had this simply awful toothache. It simply raised havoc with our relationship earlier in the day.”

“I’ll bet,” Rodriguez murmured.

“He could barely open his mouth,” Petey-Sweetie remembered.

“And you a clergyman!” Cabot attacked a second piece of dental floss. “Revolting!”

“What it boils down to is that one of you has to be lying,” Lieutenant Rodriguez told them. “All three of you were in the house. No one of you saw either of the other two. But one of you is the murderer!” He stared intimidatingly at each of them in turn.

Regina tugged at Rodriguez’ sleeve. He bent so that she could whisper in his ear. “Not necessarily,” she hissed. “It could have been an outside job. Maybe the assailant slipped in, struck the blow, and slipped out without any of them seeing him.”

“Is that some more of your intuition?” Rodriguez whispered back.

“No,” Regina admitted reluctantly. “It’s not really a hunch. Just a possibility. I thought I should mention it.”

“I’m glad. Because, you see, when the first policeman got here, both the front door and the foyer door were locked from the inside. Dr. Enright had to unlatch them to let the officers in.”

“That’s just like what happened when Faith was murdered in my apartment,” Regina hissed urgently. “I told you there was a connection.”

“I could drive a Mack truck through the holes in that particular piece of logic!”

Just then there was a discreet tapping at the door. A policeman opened it halfway and beckoned to Lieutenant Rodriguez. He went out, closing the door behind him.

“Mr. Cabot.” Regina took advantage of the Lieutenant’s absence to ask her question. “Do you know Zelda Quinn?”

“No.”

“Well, she knows you. She says you sent her to Faith Venable to get a mantra.”

“Oh, yes. Now I remember her. The obnoxious young girl with the memory problem.”

“Did you often recommend people to Faith Venable?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“He recommended me.” Dr. Enright got even for having been socially snubbed before.

“Were you one of Faith Venable’s disciples yourself, Mr. Cabot?” Regina tried a shot in the dark.

“I don’t see what bearing my religious affiliation has on anything,” Cabot told Regina icily.

“Were you?” she persisted.

“Yes. But it’s really none of your business. Just who are you anyway? What gives you the right to question me?”

‘Tm Regina Blue. I work for ATOMICS. I’m assigned to the Faith Venable case.”

“Well, I shall certainly talk to Mr. MacTeague about changing that assignment. Since I’m the one who hired his organization’s services, I hardly think it fitting that a subordinate should try to question me!”

Before Regina could respond, Lieutenant Rodriguez re-entered. “Mr. Cabot, Dr. Enright, you’re free to leave,” he announced.

“What about me?” Petey-Sweetie’s voice quavered.

“I’m holding you on suspicion of attempted murder.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?” Regina echoed Petey-Sweetie’s cry.

“The lab called,” Rodriguez told her. “His fingerprints are on the murder weapon. No others. Just his.”

“Naturally my prints are on it!” Petey-Sweetie was very agitated. “It’s my crucifix! It was a present from Dwight.”

“Is that all?” Regina asked Rodriguez.

“No, it’s not. Dwight Venable came out of his coma. The police inspector stationed at his bedside asked him if he could identify his assailant. Venable answered with one word: ‘Petey’.”

“He must have been hallucinating!” Petey-Sweetie protested. “He was thinking of me, that’s all. We’re always thinking of each other! Ask him again!”

“No can do,” Rodriguez said. “He slipped back into the coma.”

“Well, when he’s conscious again, he’ll tell you I had nothing to do with it!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The doctor says there’s a three-to-one chance he’ll never regain consciousness.”

“You mean Dwight’s going to die?” Petey-Sweetie burst into tears.

Rodriguez led him sobbing from the room. “See you later,” he called over his shoulder to Regina. “I’ve got to take him down to the station and book him.”

Calvin Cabot followed them out. Dr. Enright checked his wristwatch. When he saw the time, he reacted like a man who’d forgotten to do something very important. He muttered something about having to wash his hands and headed towards the rear of the house where the bathroom was. Momentarily, Regina was left alone.

She mulled over what had transpired. It didn’t add up to her. Why would Petey-Sweetie have attacked Dwight Venable? And even if there was a reason, a lover’s quarrel as Rodriguez had suggested, or something else, that still didn’t explain what connection he could have had with Faith Venable’s murder. There was nothing to connect Petey-Sweetie up with Faith Venable at all. Calvin Cabot, on the other hand-—or Dr. Karl Enright . . .

Without having anything definite in mind, Regina decided it might pay to talk to the dentist. She headed towards the back of the house where the bathroom was. Halfway down the hall, she bumped into a policeman. “Have you seen Dr. Enright?” she asked.

“In there.” He jerked his thumb at a door further down the hallway. “Said he had to wash his hands. Some of these medical guys are real nuts about cleanliness, ain’t they? I never seen nobody in such a hurry to wash their hands. And you know it sounds more like he’s taking a bath.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just listen.”

Regina listened. A strange sound was coming from behind the bathroom door. For a moment it did indeed sound like someone singing in the tub.

“I don’t go for his choice of tunes though,” the cop remarked.

Regina could understand that. She had realized that Dr. Karl Enright wasn’t singing a song at all. He was chanting a mantra!

His mantra!

Regina knew now why he’d been so concerned with the time. The efficacy of Transcendental Meditation depended in part upon one’s mantra being chanted at regular intervals, once in the morning, and once in the evening. Dr. Enright had been thrown off schedule. Now he was making up for it by chanting his mantra intensely, wholeheartedly, loudly, oblivious to the fact that it was being overheard, unaware even of its being identified as his mantra by Regina.

But Regina had identified it. And with the identification came more than mere recognition. With it came a whole new slant on the murder of Faith Venable and the assault on her brother.

The mantra was like an accusing finger pointing at Dr. Karl Enright. That’s what Regina thought as she listened to it from the other side of the door. That’s what she thought as she listened to the hollow bath- room echo of-

“AHHHHHHH-LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It‘s the Tooth, By Gum!

Back in the heyday of Chicago, as reported in Ben Hecht’s memoirs of his days as a reporter, a prominent dentist was arrested and charged with having raped a female patient while she was under the influence of nitrous oxide. The nitrous oxide, more familiarly known as “laughing gas,” had been administered on the pretext of rendering painless the excavation of a seriously decayed tooth. Which prompted one headline writer of the era to caption the news story as follows:

“Dentist Fills Wrong Cavity!”

Dr. Karl Enright practiced well within the dental tradition established by the Windy City Gas-anova. His brand of dentistry was as intimate as a lascivious tailor testing the crotch-fit on the pants-suit on a voluptuously wriggling teeny-bopper. Dr. Enright was just about that subtle. Such was the evaluation by his newest patient, Regina Blue.

Regina had called Dr. Enright’s office the morning after the arrest of Petey-Sweetie—the Rev. Peter Norbert—on suspicion of committing the heresy of anointing his lover’s noggin with a religious relic, otherwise known as a crucifix. She told Dr. Enright’s receptionist she was in agony from a toothache and required an immediate appointment. In answer to the query as to who had recommended her, Regina, on impulse, gave the name of Calvin Cabot.

It cleared the path. Nursey told her to come right on down and “Doctor would squeeze her in.” (Her in, as Regina found out, wasn’t all that “Doctor would squeeze”) When she got there, one of Dr. Enright’s dental assistants X-rayed her mouth from molar to molar and sent her back to the reception room to wait for the toothy snapshots to be developed. Following which, she was told, “Doctor will see you personally.”

(Personally turned out to be the most understated diagnosis of the medical century. As a dentist, “Doctor” would have made a great gynecologist!)

Of course Dr. Enright recognized her immediately. But he didn’t voice any suspicions about her visit; he didn’t question the “coincidence”; indeed, seeing Regina didn't seem to bother him at all. His blasé attitude persisted even after he’d studied the X-rays, which clearly showed him that her toothache story was a canard. Rcgina’s teeth would have done a two-year-old filly proud.

Slowly, the reason for his attitude dawned on her. Dr. Karl Enright, conceited lecher that he was, had all too willingly pogo-sticked to the conclusion that Regina’s visit was a response to his irresistible charm. She realized that he actually thought she’d come because she was attracted to him. The realization so startled her that Regina almost forgot why she had come-—which was to raise certain questions about Faith Venable’s murder.

Making sure by his arch demeanor that she knew he'd seen through her toothache ploy, Dr. Enright played the game. He seated her in the dental chair, arranged her feet so they were propped up on the footrest, sat himself down on a stool in front of her, and went through the motions of studying the X-rays in detail. What he was really doing, Regina quickly perceived, was peering up her mini-skirt. And, thanks to the position he’d arranged, she guessed he had a clear view all the way to her bicuspids. (Ah well, every dentist to his own diagnostic procedures.)

Regina stared back down at him. In the professional white coat which had replaced the previous evening’s Glen plaid, Dr. Karl Enright looked more like what Grandma would have called a lounge lizard than ever. It wouldn’t have surprised Regina to learn that he waxed his moustache. With its sharp, flaring ends, it certainly looked waxed. But if he was aiming at an early David Niven image, he was betrayed by the small, round pot belly not quite hidden by his white jacket. It was particularly noticeable since the rest of him was quite scrawny, including his shoulders and chest. But it was his eyes ,which most bothered Regina. They were yellow, cats eyes, and they conveyed the feeling of drawn claws about to pounce on a helpless pigeon.

“Well, my little Pigeon,” Dr. Enright said, startling the hell out of Regina, “let’s just have a look-see.” He got to his feet and strutted around to the back of the dental chair. He went over the tools of his trade laid out there, selecting those he intended to use and setting them to one side.

Regina took advantage of the interlude to frame a question in her mind. “You were a disciple of Faith Venable’s, weren’t you?” she intended to ask as an opener.

But she didn’t get to ask it. Just as she opened her mouth, he reached around with a wad of cotton and wedged it between her upper gum and her cheek. More cotton quickly followed, as did two clamps to hold it in place. Regina, who had no pain at all before, felt sharp pangs as the clamps bit into her lips.

Dr. Enright came around in front of her and peered into the over-stretched orifice which was her mouth. “The X-rays were sort of inconclusive,” he confided to her. “Can you point to the tooth that bothers you?”

Regina stuck her finger in her mouth and randomly indicated a back tooth.

“Hinmmm.” Dr. Enright poked at it with an instrument that looked like a crochet hook. The hook point skidded off the tooth and into Regina’s gum.

If Regina had been afraid she’d forget which tooth was supposed to be the problem, the sharp probe removed all doubt. Now it hurt!

Dr. Enright was behind her again. “It’s a little difficult to see,” he told her. He pressed a button and the back of the chair reclined. Regina reclined with it. “Let’s just slide up a little,” he suggested. And with the words he reached under her as if to help. His hand squeezed her left buttock greedily. Regina slapped the hand. “Ahh, touched a nerve, did I?” He leered.

Regina glared back at him.

He averted his eyes and stared into her mouth again. “Do you always salivate like that?” he inquired.

Regina, her mouth full of cotton and metal, of course couldn’t answer.

“Over-salivation is the sign of a passionate woman.” He tested the resiliency of her breast with his elbow —-the Enright Version of a nudge in the ribs.

Regina closed her eyes. Behind the lids she took the crochet hook and tatted a garotte for Dr. Enright’s over-ambitious testicles.

“Excessive salivary action indicates erotic arousal,” Dr. Enright added blithely. As if to demonstrate, he rubbed against Regina’s bare thigh where the mini-skirt had ridden up. If “erotic arousal” caused salivation, then Dr. Enright should have been spitting up a typhoon!

Regina’s knee shot out and caught his erection on the upsweep.

Dr. Enright doubled over. When he straightened up, he made an attempt to regain his professional dignity. He removed the clamps and cotton from Reginas mouth. “You can rinse now,” he told her curtly.

Regina sucked in half a cupful of mouthwash and swished it around in her mouth.

“That’s enough,” he told her after a moment. Calmly, he reached out and started to unbutton her blouse. “You can empty your mouth in the basin.”

Regina spit—a geyser!-—right in his eye!

“In the basin!” he spluttered, groping for a paper towel to dry his face. “I said to spit in the basin!”

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Angrily, Regina re-buttoned her blouse.

“My dear girl. There’s no need for alarm. I simply want to check your heartbeat.”

“Since when is a dentist a cardiac specialist?”

“If I’m to examine that tooth properly, I’ll have to administer an anaesthetic. And I never give an anaesthetic without checking the patient’s heart action first.”

“Then where’s your stethoscope?” Regina demanded.

“I don’t really need one. I can feel the heart-pulse perfectly adequately with my hand. Still, if you insist—”

“I insist!” Regina insisted.

“Very well then.” Dr. Enright reached into a cabinet drawer and produced a stethoscope.

Of course Regina neither believed his explanation, nor trusted him. Under other circumstances, she might simply have flounced out. In all her experiences as a prostitute—even including “dogstyle” with the Beast —she had never met a man who made her feel as skin-crawly as Dr. Enright did. It wasn’t his lust so much; it was his sneakiness and his conceit. He reminded her of a frog croaking braggadocio while masturbating surreptitiously on a lily pad.

Still, there were all those questions she wanted to ask him. “W here were you on the night Faith Venable was murdered?” Once again she framed a query in her mind. Once again he forestalled its utterance by his actions.

The stethoscope was inside Regina’s blouse now. So was the hand that was holding it. It had neatly captured the nipple of her left breast in the crease of the palm and was squeezing it rhythmically. The headset of the stethoscope had slipped down around Dr. Enright’s neck and he was staring vacantly into space while his other hand fiddled out of sight below his waist.

“I thought you were checking my heartbeatl” Regina’s harsh tone interrupted his reverie.

“I am.”

“The heart is lower down,” she reminded him acidly.

“I’m checking your respiration too.”

“And do you have to fondle me that way to do it?”

“Breast lumps,” he muttered, removing his hand with a sigh. “As long as I was examining you anyway, it’s just as well to check for cancer.”

“I’ll give you cancer!” Regina gritted her teeth and started to button her blouse again.

“Might as well leave it open, my dear,” he told her, still not discouraged. “I’m going to give you a whiff of gas so we can get at that tooth, and I may have to check your heart again.”

“Gas? Now wait just a mi—-” Regina started to protest.

Too late! Dr. Enright had slid around behind her with the practised movements of a dentist used to nailing down reluctant patients. Even as she had started to speak he was inserting a nitrous oxide canister and adjusting dials. He cut oil her sentence by firmly pressing the anaesthetic mask over her face.

When he removed it, Regina started laughing. She’d never felt like this before in her life—-tranquil and excited at the same time, sharply perceptive and yet dizzy, weak and giddy, but the giddiness was erupting in strong bellows of laughter.

She was numb all over, which is why she probably didn’t notice when Dr. Enright plunged both his hands inside her blouse and began to knead her large, firm breasts with the fervor of a prospector raking gold nuggets. When he withdrew one hand and slid it under her bikini panties, she merely guffawed louder. “Wrong end!” she chortled as he investigated the cleft of her derriere.

“You’re hallucinating, my dear,” he told her smoothly, continuing to probe.

“If I am, then you’d better look out. I’ll bite your hand off!” Regina roared out another spasm of uncontrollable laughter.

This must be what an LSD trip is like. The thought flitted hilariously through her mind. It wasn’t far off the mark. Nitrous oxide-—laughing gas—is a hallucinogenic derived from chemical components very similar to those from which LSD is derived.

The difference is that the effect usually wears oft much more quickly. Dr. Enright hadn’t dared to give Regina more than the merest whiff of the gas. Although she was still guffawing uncontrollably, her mind was slowing down enough for her to recover a modicum of judgment.

She comprehended that Dr. Enright had taken off his pants. She could see through her tears of laughter that her own bikini panties were lying on the floor. Slowly, her brain absorbed and weighed the import of these perceptions.

“To tell the tooth,” she mispronounced without being aware of it, “I’m not sure I can afford the price you’re asking for your services.” She giggled.

“I’m really very reasonable,” Dr. Enright panted, strumming her erect clitoris.

“You’re wanton too much.” Regina gasped with glee.

“Not really. The tooth shall set the fee.” He punned back deliberately.

Regina howled with hilarity. “You’re quite a wit,” she told him. “Will you charge me half-price?”

“Why should I?”

“Because then you’ll be a half-wit!” Regina chortled merrily.

“Open wide please.” Dr. Enright pried Regina’s thighs apart and started to climb up on top of her in the dental chair. “Wider!” he panted, probing with his penis.

“Oh no!” Thrashing about, Regina’s arm hailed out behind her and inadvertently pushed the button that sprang the chair into an upright position.

Dr. Enright was propelled backwards towards one corner of the office. Still laughing wildly, Regina leaped from the chair and ran towards the door set in the wall near the opposite corner. And that’s when it happened!

The office door had a metal lock on it which was manipulated by an oval-shaped knob about the size of Regina’s index finger. When the knob was in a vertical position, the door was locked. There was a small key-hole set into the knob. It could be locked by turning it, but a key was required to open it.

By the time Regina got her hand on the knob, it was in a horizontal position and the door was locked. But it hadn’t been that way when she started towards it. Then it had been vertical-—the door unlocked. The slow-motion camera of Regina’s gassed mind had recorded the images clearly.

Now, with laughter still babbling out of her, it recorded two more images. The first was the tail-end of a length of something that looked like fuzzy string retreating snakelike across the office floor. The second was of Dr. Enright, his erect penis exposed and pointing brazenly in her direction, leering at her as he reeled in the white string.

“What’s that?” Regina asked through her giggles.

“Uncut dental floss.”

“It was tied to the lock-handle,” Regina realized, chortling.

“That’s right, my dear.”

“But why?”

“A trick of the trade,” Dr. Enright explained. “You'd be amazed how many dental patients panic and try to bolt. So I simply tie the dental floss to the knob of the lock with a slipknot, and when they try to escape I yank the floss and it turns the knob and locks the door.”

“Why a slipknot?” Regina cackled.

“Dental floss isn’t cheap, my dear. This way I can use the same piece over and over again.”

“I can’t believe it’s that expensive,” Regina whooped.

“Do you have any idea what it cost to put me through dental school?” Dr. Enright whined, momentarily forgetting his lust. “And all you patients do is complain about my fees and keep me waiting months before you pay me. And now you’re even making a fuss because I want to save a few cents on dental floss!”

‘Tm sorry,” Regina laughed. “But why don’t you just lock the door when the patient comes in and let it go at that?” she asked.

“Bad psychology, my dear. Most patients are so nervous it’s all they can do to come through the door in the first place. If I locked it behind them, I’d be dealing with hysteria all the time the patient was here, instead of just when he pushes the panic button.”

“But don’t they ever get wise to the gimmick?” Regina hee-hawed.

“Oh, sure. But they keep coming back. What choice do they have? I’ve got them by the bicuspids! Old Man Cabot for instance-—I must have pulled that floss trick on him half-a-dozen times before I yanked out the last of his teeth. But enough about that.” Dr. Enright moved towards her, his erection stabbing the air threateningly. “We haven’t finished our examination,” he said insinuatingly.

“Maybe you haven’t, but I have!” Regina guffawed. “Give me the key so I can unlock the door.”

“My professional conscience would never rest easy if I let a patient leave without completing treatment.” He closed in on her.

“The hell with your professional conscience!” Regina giggled. “Give me that key, you rapist!”

“Now, my dear, this is going to hurt me more than it is you!” He had her by the shoulders now.

As if reacting to the pressure on her shoulders, Regina sank to her knees. Surprised at this seeming compliance, and mistaking the reason for it, Dr. Enright presented his genitals to her. He waited expectantly.

Regina didn’t keep him waiting long. She reached out and grasped his erect penis firmly. With her other hand she grabbed his ankle. Then she shifted her weight—-just the way she’d been taught in her judo class.

Yelling blue murder, Dr. Enright found himself in the air. His slight weight was spread across Regina’s shoulders. Tilting him so that he was upside down, maintaining the grips of both of her hands, Regina whirled him like a top. The contents of his pockets came tumbling out and scattered over the floor.

Regina tossed him aside in a heap. She bent over and picked up his keyring from the floor. She unlocked the door. “Ta-ta,” she said, still laughing merrily as the door closed behind her.

Seeing Regina appear in the outer office, the receptionist turned to an aging dowager who was waiting. “Doctor will see you now,” she told her.

“Or vice versa,” Regina guffawed, startling them both. She was thinking that Dr. Enright was probably too stunned to replace his swollen manhood in his trousers before the dowager entered.

Regina left then, and found a phone booth. She called Angus MacTeague. “I want you to send one of ATOMICS’ lab technicians up to my place,” she told him, giggling.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” She laughed again.

“What kind of technician?”

“I’m not sure. . . . Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! . . .”

“Is somebody tickling you?”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! . . . Of course not! . . . Hee- hee! . . .”

“What do you want the technician for?”

Regina told him, chortling.

“All right. I have just the man. . . . And Regina, whatever it is you’re smoking, send me a kilo.” Mac-Teague hung up.

Regina took a cab home. About an hour after she got there, the lab technician arrived. By then she had her hilarity under control. She told him what she wanted and he set about his work with brisk professionalism. It didn’t take him long. “I’ll have to go back to the lab and check this out,” he told her. “You’ll have a report first thing in the morning.” Regina thanked him, saw him out, and went straight to bed. It had been an exhausting day, and she slept like the proverbial log.

It was morning when the messenger delivering the lab report woke her with the doorbell. She read it with her first cup of coffee. Sipping at a second cup, she called MacTcague again. Overcoming his protests, she got him to agree to come straight down to her apartment.

When MacTcague arrived, he wasn’t alone. Calvin Cabot was with him. He had been in MacTeague’s office when Regina called. The purpose of his visit had been to fulfill the threat he’d made to Regina to have her taken off the case. MacTcague, hoping Regina might really have stumbled onto something that would change Cabot’s mind, had persuaded the banker to come along with him.

“Laughing Girl, this had better be good,” Mac-Teague told Regina out of earshot of Cabot.

“Don’t worry. It is,” she whispered back.

Cabot was openly hostile. Regina wasted no time trying to mollify him. She got right down to the evidence.

“The ATOMICS technician went over the edge of the front door to my apartment, and the door’s frame, with a high-powered magnifying glass,” she began.

“Magnifying glass indeed!” Cabot snorted. “I’m not paying ATOMICS so this girl can play Sherlock Holmes!”

“Give her a chance, Mr. Cabot,” MacTeague said soothingly.

“His examination revealed miniscule traces of a foreign substance clinging to the door-edge and the frame at a point just above where the lock is set into the door,” Regina continued. “The way it’s positioned, there’s a tiny space, little bigger than a pinhole, between door and frame when the door is closed. The substance found in this space was taken back to the lab and analyzed. The report identifies it as a kind of compressed fuzz which could only have been left behind by the abrading of dental floss.”

“Get to the point!” Cabot was irritable. “What’s all this supposed to prove?”

“Just this,” Regina told him evenly. “The reason I was arrested for Faith Venable’s murder in the first place was that I was the only one in the apartment when the police arrived. And the door was locked from the inside.”

“I don’t understand why they let you go,” Cabot told her bluntly. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still the major suspect.”

“They let her go because it was proved to them that she couldn’t have committed the murder,” MacTeague interjected.

“The thing nobody could figure out,” Regina went on, “including the police, was how the murderer could have committed the crime, let himself out of the apartment, and locked the door from the inside.”

“Unless you were the killer,” Cabot persisted nastily.

“But I wasn’t.” Regina kept her cool. “Still, even I couldn’t imagine how the murderer did it. Until yesterday, when I came up against a lock very similar to the one on my front door. The only difference was that that one had a keyhole set into the knob. But the principle is the same. I saw how it could be locked from a distance without touching it.”

“From the outside?” MacTeague asked.

“No,” Regina admitted. “That one was locked that way from the inside. But it can be locked from the outside, and my door was.”

“How?” Cabot asked sarcastically. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“I shan’t. Come with me to the door and I’ll show you how.”

MacTeague and the reluctant Cabot followed her to the front door. Regina produced a long piece of dental floss. Using a slipknot, she tied it to the upper part of the oblong knob by which the lock was turned. She set the knob in a vertical position. “It’s off the latch now,” she told them. “If you close the door, it can still be opened from the outside.”

MacTeague, trailed by Cabot, put it to the test. They went out into the hall and closed the door behind them. MacTeague opened it easily by turning the outside doorknob. They re-entered. MacTeague nodded to Regina.

Now she ran the dental floss carefully around the door-edge. She stepped out into the hall, motioning them to come with her. She closed the door and pulled the dental floss. Then she reeled it in and, holding both ends in her hand, she invited them to try the door. First MacTeague did, and then Cabot. The door was locked.

Regina opened it with a key. She re-tied the dental floss to the knob of the lock, set it at the vertical -- open—position once again, and invited them to watch the results from the inside. Then she exited, closing the door behind her.

Inside, the two men saw the dental floss pulled taut. The oblong knob snapped to a horizontal—locked-— position, the slipknot came out with the sudden yank, and the dental floss was pulled through between the door and the frame. A moment later, using her key, Regina rejoined them. “And that,” she announced proudly, “is how it was made to look as if the murder took place in a locked apartment.”

“But why would the killer go to all that trouble?” MacTeague wondered.

“Because he wanted it to look like I was the guilty one.” Regina had thought it all out. “I don’t think it was that he had anything against me particularly,” she said. “It was just that if the police had an open-and-shut case with only one suspect, he’d be home free.”

“You’re implying premeditation.” MacTeague was trying to look at all the angles. “Nobody would carry around a piece of dental floss that long unless he figured to have some use for it.”

“Not necessarily,” Regina disagreed. “I’m not saying he killed Faith Venable on the spur of the moment, but the dental floss doesn’t prove it was premeditated, either. A normal length would do the trick. Lots of people carry dental floss around with them. Why, even Mr. Cabot had some with him the other night.”

“Do you have a piece with you now?” MacTeague asked Cabot.

“Yes.” Still looking disdainful, Cabot produced it.

MacTeague took it and handed it to Regina. “One more time,” he instructed her. “To make sure you can do it with a piece this short.”

Regina went through the procedure again. It left no doubt. An ordinary piece of floss was just long enough to be pulled through the door. “Convinced?” she asked when she was back inside again.

“Convinced.” MacTeague nodded.

“I don’t see how all this brings you any closer to proving Dwight Venable’s innocence,” Cabot said impatiently. “And that’s what I hired you for. I’d like to see some results!”

“I think I have some results for you, Mr. Cabot,” Regina said softly. “You see, I know who the real murderer is.”

They both stared at her.

“'Who?” MacTeague said finally.

Regina laid it on them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Laid in the Grave!

“Dr. Karl Enright?”

MacTeague had repeated the name after Regina. Cabot remained silent, his face impenetrably stony. Now MacTeague was obviously waiting for Regina to explain.

She explained. “One. Yesterday, in his office, Enright pulled that trick with the dental floss on me. Two. His name appears on the list which, according to Dwight Venable, his dying sister indicated had the murderer’s name on it. Three. Just before she died in her brother’s arms, after the bit with the list, Faith Veable chanted a mantra. At first I thought it was her own mantra. But when I determined that it wasn’t, I realized that she’d chanted the mantra of the murderer. The mantra she chanted went like this; ‘AHHH-HHH—LOO—OO-OO’,” Regina keened softly.

Cabot looked startled.

“That mantra,” Regina finished triumphantly, “is the same one I heard Dr. Karl Enright chanting the other night! It’s his mantra!”

“What about motive?” MacTeague raised the question.

“It was a sex crime!”

Cabot snorted.

“I can’t prove it,” Regina admitted. “But Dr. Enright is a really sick lecher. My guess is that he tried to seduce Faith that night in my apartment and failed.”

“That wouldn’t be any reason to kill her," Mac-Teague pointed out.

“It might be if he’d been trying to make her all along and she kept rejecting him. The cumulative effect on his ego just might have pushed him off the deep end. Remember, she told me on the phone that she wanted to come up to my place because there was someone she was trying to avoid. From personal experience I can tell you there’s no man a girl would be more likely to want to avoid than Dr. Karl Enright!”

“It’s circumstantial,” MacTeague said thoughtfully. “But it’s strong. We just might have a case.”

“You have no case at all.” Cabot’s voice was icy.

“Why do you say that, Mr. Cabot?”

“Because, as you’d have learned if you’d taken the trouble to find out why the police dismissed him as a suspect, he has an unimpeachable alibi! He was in his office at the time of the murder, and I was there with him, having my dentures adjusted.” Calvin Cabot looked contemptuously at Regina. “Your irresponsible charge against Dr. Enright is completely unjustified,” he told her. “And,” he added to MacTeague, “it merely substantiates my doubts about this girl’s ability.”

“That’s not fair,” MacTeague answered. “She may be wrong about Enright, but the lab tests prove she’s right about the locked door. That’s a big break- through, Mr. Cabot. I think Regina deserves credit for it.”

“I don’t!” Cabot said curtly. “I want her oil the case, MacTeague! And that’s final!”

“I’m sorry, Cabot.” MacTeague purposely omitted the “Mister,” just as Cabot had done to him, and was rewarded by seeing his client’s face go red with anger. “I don’t let customers dictate personnel policy to me.”

“Either you fire this girl, or I’ll take ATOMICS off the case altogether,” Cabot threatened.

“You can’t. I have your retainer", and you signed a contract. It’s ironclad. I know, because I had it written that way.”

“My lawyers will see about that!” Cabot slammed out of Regina’s apartment.

“I’m sorry, Angus,” Regina said in the silence that followed. “I really thought I had it sewed up.”

“Well, tomorrow is another day.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek and left.

After moping around the apartment, Regina curled up in an armchair with an Agatha Christie whodunit. She figured maybe she’d find some ideas there. She was just at the part where the suspiciously nervous valet—whom she’d decided was the murderer—was murdered himself when her phone rang.

“Good evening, my dear.” It was Dr. Karl Enright.

“What do you want?” Killer or not, Regina still couldn’t stand him.

“I’m concerned about that sore tooth of yours. You left so abruptly yesterday that we never did finish with it. It just happens that I’m in the neighborhood and I thought I might drop by and — ahh — have another look.” He laughed insinuatingly.

“You’ve seen all you’re going to see!” Regina told him firmly. “I wouldn’t let you treat my pet goldfish! And he’s been dead three years!”

“Well, if that’s your attitude—”

“Just a minute!” On impulse, Regina stopped him from hanging up. “I want to ask you something.”

“Why not ask me in person, my dear?”

“Maybe if I get the right answer,” Regina crooned, playing the game, “I’ll think of another question to ask you in person.”

“Now that’s more like it, my sweet. What is it you want to ask?”

“Where were you the night Faith Venable was murdered?”

“What--?” The question obviously took Dr. Enright by surprise. He tried to cover up with a nervous laugh. “I was in my office treating Calvin Cabot,” he said just a little too quickly. “Tricky thing, his dentures. He had to come back the next night so I could finish up.”

“The night after the murder?”

“That’s right. I remember because he tied up my phone for almost an hour.” Dr. Enright babbled on. “He was making arrangements with some funeral director about Faith’s body. It was creepy. He got into all kinds of details about embalming and everything. He seemed to know more about it than the mortician did. Kept insisting he wanted to be sure the body would keep. Now what difference would that make? When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“Did he make any other arrangements?” Regina asked.

“He had the remains shipped to his place in the Adirondacks. I guess she was buried there.”

“I guess so,” Regina said doubtfully. She fell quiet for a moment, thinking.

Dr. Enright broke into her thoughts. “Now about that other question you’re going to think of, my dear,” he said in the slithering tones he mistook for sexy. “What say I drop by so you can ask it?”

“That won’t be necessary. I can ask it over the phone right now. It’s just this:” Regina took a deep breath. “Why don’t you drop dead?!” She slammed the phone down.

But she didn’t go back to Agatha Christie. What Enright had told her kept nagging at her mind. Why had Cabot been so concerned about embalming Faith’s body? Why had he had it shipped to the Adironclacks when there were so many graveyards close at hand?

There was only one place to look for the answers. Regina called her building garage and told the attendant to get her car ready. “And put the top down for me, please,” she added responding to the sun shining brightly outside her window.

She changed to a thin summer blouse and hot pants. If it was as warm as it looked, she might as well be comfortable. Then she slipped on leather thongs and went down to pick up the car. The sun was still beaming awhile later when she pulled onto the Thruway and headed upstate.

But she was still an hour from her destination when it stopped shining. One of those summer storms which sometimes darken the Adirondacks and make the mountain woodlands seem as ominous as the Black Forest had blown up so suddenly that the effect was like that of an eclipse. Regina was forced to pull off to the side of the highway and engage in the usual struggle it took to put up the top of the Mercedes roadster.

Cursing at the stubbornness of the convertible top in refusing to fit into place, and at herself for having neglected to take along a raincoat, Regina finished the task under a deluge of summer raindrops. She scrambled back into the car and rolled up the windows. She was soaked. The blouse was plastered over her bra-less breasts. The chill of the rain made her nipples stand erect against the thin material; they ached from the strain. Her tight hot pants were clammy against her skin. She was afraid to turn on the heater in the car to dry them because then they would only become tighter and even more uncomfortable.

Resigned but shivering, Regina pulled the car back onto the Thruway. About twenty minutes later she exited onto an East-West highway. By then it was dusk, the storm was worsening, and it was growing darker quickly. Regina turned on her headlights.

It was pitch black when the beams picked out the dirt road which would lead her to Calvin Cabot’s sprawling estate. She ignored the signs cautioning that it was a private road, that she was trespassing on private property, that trespassers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, that she risked a fine, or imprisonment, or both. The Mercedes followed the winding road up a steep hill, and through dense woodlands, straining against the thick mud and the deep puddles collecting in the downpour.

Finally Regina came to a fork in the road. She could just barely make out a large house—a mansion really -—looming up out of the storm in one direction. The narrowing road in the other direction wound around and down the hill and into the woods.

Regina decided to bypass the house for the time being. Later, perhaps, she would seek an interview there, but first there was something she wanted to locate. It was an off-chance, but if luck was with her . . .

The river of mud which was the road ended in a small clearing deep in the woods. A footpath ran off at an angle from the clearing. The rain was still beating down, a full-fledged summer storm now, complete with mounting rumbles of thunder and intermittent flashes of lightning.

Regina sat in the car a moment and thought. She didn’t really know how big the estate was, and she wasn’t even sure that what she was looking for was within its boundaries. If she did get out of the ear and brave the storm, she might wander around all night and never find what she was seeking. There was a limit to how far she could follow a hunch.

She decided to go back to the house. But just as she reached for the ignition key to restart the car, something happened to change her mind. She spied a light moving down the trail through the underbrush. It was moving away from her, deeper into the woods.

Regina took a flashlight from the glove compartment. She stepped out of the car and found herself knee-deep in a puddle. By the time she’d slogged the few steps to the beginning of the trail, she was once again soaking wet. She turned on the flashlight, pointing it at the muddy ground and shielding it so that the rays wouldn’t betray her, and she set off down the path.

After about a quarter-mile, she spied the other light again and doused her own. Moving as furtively as she could, she continued on the path, following the light which was well ahead of her. Finally the light came to a standstill. Cautiously, Regina kept going until she came to another clearing. The path ended there.

The clearing was dark. Regina could only see a few feet in front of her. She was afraid to turn on her own flashlight again. She stood there a moment, undecided what to do next, the rain drenching her. Already soaked to the skin, she ignored the rain.

A prolonged bolt of lightning lit up the clearing. Regina saw a lean-to — three sides of shingles and a tin roof—of the type used for stacking firewood, on the far side of the clearing. A figure in oilskins — slicker and rain-hat-—-was silhouetted inside the lean-to, its back to Regina.

Skirting the edge of the clearing, moving in a wide circle, Regina made for the structure. She’d gone about three-quarters of the distance when the doused flashlight in her hand bumped against something metallic. Kneeling to examine it, Regina found a wrought iron fence, waist-high, spiked on top, rusted with age. Her hand trembled as she touched it. Had she inadvertently stumbled on what she’d been seeking?

She followed the fence, moving away from the clearing. When it cornered, she kept following it. She was out of sight of the lean-to now, shielded from it by the trees. She risked turning on her flashlight again.

The beam swept over the fence to a gate. Regina went up to it. It was locked. She sighed. There was nothing else to do. She climbed over the fence.

It was easy enough, except for the spikes. But just as she was poised carefully on top of it, about to jump into the muck on the other side, a sudden loud clap of thunder startled her. Instead of jumping, she lost her balance and dived head-first into the mire. The flash of lightning which followed revealed her stuck momentarily, ostrich-like, her head in the mud, her bare derriere jutting out from the wide rip where her hot pants had split.

Muttering curses, Regina got to her feet. The rain was cold on her rear end. She retrieved her flashlight, moved some distance away from the fence, and swept the beam in a wide arc over the area.

It was as Regina had hoped. The rays lit up several tombstones. She was in a small graveyard!

Examining a few of the gravestones, Regina determined that it was a family cemetery. Most of them were very old, going back to colonial times. Even the ones from Civil War days were crumbling with decay. And then her light picked up a gravestone set apart from the others. It shone white even in the rain, not weather-beaten like the others. Regina moved to examine it more closely.

This was it! What Regina had been seeking! Carved neatly over the dates on the headstone was the name of Faith Venable!

A sudden clang of metal against metal pierced the steady patter of falling raindrops and echoed over the graveyard. Startled, Regina doused her flashlight. She saw another light moving from the now-open gate in the fence and picking its way through the tombstones. It was moving steadily towards her.

Regina looked about her wildly for some sort of cover. She made out the outline of a large tombstone a dozen yards to her left. She ran behind it and hid.

Just in time. A bright streak of lightning lit up the graveyard. It illuminated the figure in the oilskins heading straight for Faith Venable’s grave. In one hand the figure held a small shovel. In the other was the flashlight, and a hatchet, the kind of tool used by Boy Scouts.

The figure knelt beside the grave, propping the flashlight and the axe against the tombstone. Then it started digging, clearing away the wet mud on the surface of the burial plot. The digging didn’t go on for very long. The shovel was set aside and the figure crouched down on hands and knees to brush excess dirt away.

Watching, Regina saw the surface of an ornate coffin revealed. She was startled at the shallowness of the grave. The coffin couldn’t have been more than a few inches below the surface of the ground.

The hatchet was being used now to pry the lid off the coffin. It took a few moments, and then the cover was lifted out of the shallow grave and set to one side. Regina caught a quick glimpse of the contents of the coffin before another oilcloth was produced from the folds of the slicker and spread over the cadaver to guard it against the torrential rain.

Despite the dim light, Regina made out the body of Faith Venable. She was dressed in a simple white linen dress. Her arms were crossed over her small breasts. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were flushed in a remarkable simulation of life. There was a half-smile on her lips.

Completely wrapped in the oilcloth now, the body was removed from the coffin. It was slung over one shoulder, the tools and flashlight were retrieved, and the burdened figure in the slicker and rain-hat started back towards the graveyard gate.

Regina was shaking with cold horror. She was so sick with it that she didn’t even notice that she’d planted her exposed bottom in a puddle. Nevertheless, a moment after the light vanished from sight, she slowly started after it.

She spied it again when she reached the clearing. It was obvious that the figure’s destination was the lean-to. Regina circled to approach it from a different direction. She wanted to get as close as possible.

Luck was with her. She found a small clump of bushes to conceal herself behind only a few yards from the structure. From this vantage point, she had a clear view into its interior.

The view was made possible by the fact that two large candelabras, each containing six large lit candles, had been arranged on a long, low table set up there, one at either end. They were set in such a way that the corners of the lean-to shielded them from the howling wind blowing from the other direction. The body of Faith Venable was stretched out between them. It was no longer covered by the oilcloth. The figure in the slicker stood over it, facing the bushes behind which Regina was hiding.

A flash of lightning spotlighted a head that was thrown back, wildly unfocused eyes, muscles standing out on neck and jaw, a face as chalk-white and bloodless as that of the corpse over which it poised. The mouth was open, but the sounds coming from it were drowned out by rapid claps of thunder which increased in volume until it seemed as if not only the skies, but the Earth itself must split asunder from the explosions. Hands like claws, the fingers spread, moved back and forth over the body of the young girl; the tufts of hair on the backs of the hands glinted with raindrops in the candlelight.

The thunder subsided. The rain fell more softly, no longer drumming on the tin roof of the lean-to, but striking it with a more modest pitter-patter. And then Regina heard for the first time the sounds that were being made by the grave-robber.

“AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—-OO—OO—OO—OQ! . . . AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO! . . . AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO! . . .”

Regina’s skin crawled, until, almost, horror made her bolt. But she got hold of herself and made herself stay where she was. If she had foreseen what was coming, she might not have.

The mantra wailed to a close. The claw-like hands were on the body now. The white linen dress was removed, folded neatly, and laid to one side. Shoes, stockings and underclothes followed. Another streak of lightning accented the nudity of Faith Venable’s dead body.

Hairy hands unfolded the arms of the corpse to reveal the small breasts. The breasts were squeezed. The cleavage was investigated with long fingernails. The embalmed flesh was fondled. The nipples were caressed. The slight scar where the knife had pierced the heart was traced and retraced by each hirsute hand in turn.

The figure discarded its oilskins. A black turtleneck and black pants were revealed. The pants were unzippered. An obscenely grey-white length of tumescent flesh stood out vilely against the blackness of the clothing.

Regina fought to keep her gorge down. She turned her head away as Faith Venable’s legs were forced apart. When she looked back again, the figure in black was sprawled over the corpse, moving up and down slowly, rhythmically, and once again starting to chant: “AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO . . .”

(There had been no epitaph on Faith Venable’s tombstone. Now one was being provided. It was this: “Born A Virgin - Died A Virgin - Laid In The Grave!”)

Now the figure in black scrambled off the victimized corpse. The body was turned over. It was obvious that the cadaver was to be spared no indignity. The alternate target was also to be assaulted. It was almost as if, with orgasm imminent, the corpse-raper was taking no chances.

(Rumor hath it that should a necrophiliac impregnate his victim, the results are a dead issue!)

It was too much for Regina. She had to get out of there. She jumped to her feet and bolted across the clearing. But this time luck was not with her.

Lightning lit up the sky. It also lit up the open field the way a wartime flare illuminates no-man’s-land. Just before the thunderclap which followed, she heard the startled yell which came from the lean-to. She whirled around with the roar of the thunder and saw the figure in black already charging towards her.

He was swinging the small hatchet from one hand as he came. His fly was still open and the white cylinder of flesh preceded him. Obscene murder on the loose!

Regina fled. She reached the edge of the clearing and plunged wildly into the woods. There was no path there. She scrambled through the underbrush, terrified. A moment later she could hear him thrashing about. He was close. Too close.

Regina stumbled onto the path. She ran as fast as she could. Behind her she heard the pounding of feet—a hard sound, yet squishy—as he too raced through the mud.

There was a bend in the trail. Regina didn’t see the root sticking out there. She went head over heels and slammed into a tree-trunk with her skull. She was momentarily stunned. It was half a moment at least before she recovered her senses.

Too long!

Too late!

He was over her now. The axe, held high, was already beginning its descent. There was no time to avoid the deadly blade. There was no place to hide from the death it brought. There was no chance even to fight back!

It was too late!

Too late!

There was only an instant to regret Regina’s life lost!

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Fresh Lieutenant’s Domain

The axe was a blur of motion on the downswing when the blinding flashlight beam hit the necrophile in the eyes. The first shot sounded a split second later. It hit the wrist of the hand wielding the blade. The axe was detoured from Regina’s jugular; it went spinning off to one side and landed in the mud.

The second shot followed the first without a pause. The bullet caught the assailant from the side, spinning him around. His feet skidded out from under him and he crumpled to the wet ground. He came to rest face-down, his head on a patch of slime-green moss. He lay absolutely still.

The light was in Regina’s eyes now, growing pain-fully stronger as it came closer. Just to one side of it she could make out the revolver, the muzzle still smoking in the heavy rain. Behind it was a vague silhouette of a man.

Then he was bending over her. Strong arms pulled her to her feet. “Are you okay?” Lieutenant Raoul Rodriguez peered anxiously into her face.

Regina started to answer. She wanted to answer. She wanted to tell him that she was all right. But her tongue was all twisted up and the only sounds which got past her lips were wracking sobs. She buried her face against Rodriguez’ chest and he held her tightly, stroking her, murmuring reassuring words, soothing her until her sobs had subsided.

Then he pushed her gently away and walked over to where the figure lay in the mud. Timidly, Regina followed. The body in the mud wasn’t moving. Rodriguez knelt and turned it over on its face. His flashlight illuminated the features.

Calvin Cabot!

He was unconscious. Rodriguez examined him. Regina watched for a moment. Then—-“Is he dead?” she asked.

“No. The bullet’s in his gut. He’s bleeding internally. I can’t really tell how bad it is. But we’d better get him to a doctor as fast as we can.”

“I passed a hospital on the highway, just before I turned off.”

“Right.” Rodriguez hefted Cabot’s unconscious body in his arms. “Let’s go.”

Regina followed him back to the clearing where she’d left the Mercedes. Rodriguez’ car was beside it. He put Cabot beside him on the driver’s seat and drove in the wake of the sports car back down the dirt road. About a quarter of an hour later both cars pulled up in the parking lot alongside the entrance to the emergency ward of the hospital.

Rodriguez carried Cabot inside. An intern spotted them coming and called for a stretcher on wheels. Cabot was rolled the rest of the way into the emergency room and Regina and Rodriguez sat in the waiting room while the wounded man was examined.

“I really dig these new fashions.” Rodriguez spotted the gap in the seat of Regina’s hot pants before she had a chance to sit down.

“I tore them climbing a fence before.” Regina blushed and headed for a chair.

“Sauce for the gander,” Rodriguez said, ogling to demonstrate the double entendre, “is sauce for the goose.” He suited the action to the words.

“Look if you must,” Regina answered, slapping his hand away, “but don’t touch.” She arranged herself as modestly as possible in a chair.

“Cops are human too.”

“I know.” Regina couldn’t be angry with him. She owed him too much. Besides, she didn’t find him unappealing. “But like they say, there’s a time and a place. . . .”

“Then maybe you could give me a lift back to the city,” he said meaningfully. “My car is rented and I can arrange with somebody here to turn it in for me.”

“You mean you didn’t drive up?”

“No, I flew up in a police ’copter. Rented the car at the airport.”

“You must have been in a hurry.”

“I was.”

“Why? You didn’t know I was here. You couldn’t have,” Regina realized.

“True. But I did know that Cabot was here. I found that out from his secretary.”

“Lucky for me you did. But why were you after Cabot?”

“To explain that, I’ll have to start back with Zelda Quinn,” he told Regina. “Her alibi was that she was on TV when Faith Venable’s murder took place. At first it checked out. Her show was on all right. It’s done live — usually—so I accepted her alibi. However, further investigation turned up the fact that the show for that particular night had been prerecorded. Zelda wasn’t in the studio when it was broadcast.”

“But what has that got to do with Calvin Cabot?” Regina wondered.

“I’m coming to it. You see, despite the phony alibi, I had a hunch that Zelda Quinn wasn’t the guilty one. She didn’t seem the type, and there was no reason for her to kill Faith Venable. So instead of confronting her with the lie, I did a little snooping. I had a talk with the elevator operator in her building. He said she’d come in around four that afternoon and hadn’t gone out again that night. He also remembered she’d had a visitor, a man who got there about seven and left after three in the ayem.”

“But why would she bother making up an alibi? I mean, if she had a legitimate one with two people to back it up-”

“That’s what I had to find out. So I made it my business to get cozy with Zelda, figuring I could worm the truth out of her.”

“I didn’t think she was your type,” Regina said smugly, hiding the fact that she was relieved.

“She isn’t. You are.” There was nothing coy about Rodriguez. “Anyway, I succeeded. I found out she was covering for a boyfriend who was married. And I found out who the boyfriend was.”

“Not Calvin Cabot! She’s got too much life for him!”

“Nope. Not Calvin Cabot.”

“Then who?” Regina asked.

“Dr. Karl Enright!”

“Enright!” Regina shuddered. “Zelda must have a strong stomach.”

“Bad teeth is what she has. She got five grand worth of orthodonture cut-rate for hitting the sack with that dental Romeo. But the important thing to realize is that if Enright was with Zelda when the murder took place, then his alibi was a lie too. Of course he lied to keep his wife from finding out he was playing around. And--”

“I see!” Regina clapped her hands. “Enright’s alibi was that he was in his office treating Calvin Cabot’s dentures. And Cabot backed up his story. So if En- right wasn’t there, then neither was Cabot!”

“Right. And when I confronted Enright, he broke down and admitted the truth. He said the phony alibi had been Cabot’s idea, that Cabot had suggested it the night after the murder, when he really was in Enright’s office.”

“But how did Cabot know enough about Enright and Zelda to make the suggestion?”

“While Cabot was on the phone in the outer office talking to the mortician about the arrangements for Faith, Enright was on a different line in his own office talking to Zelda. When Cabot was through with his call, he inadvertently cut in on them. He overheard them discussing what Enright should do if the police questioned him about his whereabouts the previous night. When Enright got off the phone, Cabot made the offer to alibi him. Of course what Cabot was really doing was setting up an alibi for himself. As soon as I understood that,” Rodriguez concluded, “I made tracks up here to confront Mr. Calvin Cabot.”

Before Regina could voice any of the questions tumbling through her mind, a doctor entered the hospital waiting room. “He’ll be all right,” the medico announced. “He’s lost some blood, but the slug missed all the vital organs. He’s conscious now if you want to see him.”

Rodriguez was on his feet and moving towards the door. He paused when he reached it and turned to look at Regina inquiringly. She was still sitting in the chair, the rent in her hot pants hidden beneath her.

“I’m not budging an inch,” she told him. “And you know why."

Rodriguez laughed and exited. He was gone a long time. When he returned, he told Regina he’d made arrangements with the local police to have Calvin Cabot kept in custody. Furthermore, one of the sheriff’s deputies would return his rented car. He gave Regina his jacket to wrap around her waist. She returned it when they were seated in her Mercedes. Rodriguez offered to drive, and she readily agreed.

“It’s all tied up in a nice, neat package,” Rodriguez told her when they were on the highway leading to the Thruway. “Cabot seemed almost glad to get it all out of his system. He’s a shattered man.”

“A shattered ghoul you mean!” Regina shuddered. “Killing an innocent girl so he could commit unspeakable acts on her dead body!”

“He’s a ghoul all right,” Rodriguez agreed. “He’s been a necrophile for years. He confessed he even had a deal with some upstate mortuary to provide him with the corpses of women that weren’t claimed for burial. I’ll see that a stop is put to that game!” Rodriguez said grimly. “But you’re wrong about him murdering Faith so he could rape her dead body. It’s true that he’d been lusting after her since she was a little girl, but that’s not why he killed her. It was strictly an afterthought.”

“Then why did he kill her?”

“Money. Cabot had been taking a beating on the stock market. To cover his losses, he’d been dipping into the Venable estate. As trustee, nobody ever questioned his handling of the trust fund. Evidently it had been going on for years, and he got himself in deeper and deeper. Then, a few months before she was killed, Faith Venable told Cabot she wanted her share of the estate in cash. She wanted to build centers for Transcendental Meditation in cities around the country. Cabot tried to talk her out of it, but it was no soap. She had religion and she wanted to pass it on to Others.”

“Poor Faith.” Regina sighed.

“She was of age. It was her money. She had every right to do with it what she chose. Cabot was stymied. You see, to convert the estate into liquid funds, there would have to be an audit. And an audit would reveal how Cabot had been milking the trust fund. So he stalled. He told Faith it would take time to arrange things. In the meantime, he came up with a desperate scheme to try to change her mind.”

“What sort of scheme?”

“He pretended to have seen the Transcendental light himself. He became one of Faith’s disciples — complete with mantra.”

Remembering Cabot chanting his mantra over Faith’s body, Regina felt nauseous. She squelched the feeling. “How come Cabot and Enright had the same mantra?” she asked.

“As I get it, there are only a limited number of mantras to be handed out. Some duplication is bound to occur. It was just a coincidence.”

“It certainly threw me off,” Regina admitted.

“Anyway,” Rodriguez continued, “once Cabot had convinced Faith of his Transcendental sincerity, he started working her over from the religious angle. He tried to convince her that instead of using the money to build meditation centers, she should really renounce her claim to it. Inner Peace, he claimed, would only be hers if she gave up the ego trip. But this approach backfired on him. Faith didn’t want to hear it. Patient as she usually was, Cabot became aware that she was going out of her way to avoid him. This really drove him frantic. And that’s where it was at on the night of the murder. When he called Faith and said he wanted to see her, she told him she was going to be busy. But he went to her apartment anyway."

“Then Cabot was the one Faith told me she wanted to avoid that night,” Regina realized.

“Right. But she didn’t avoid him. He showed up just as she was going out the door. Rather than be alone with him and have to listen to his arguments again, but too tenderhearted to hurt his feelings, Faith brought him along to your place.”

“And Cabot was the one she introduced as ‘Brother’ when I was in the shower.”

“Right again. All the disciples were called ‘Brother’. Also, if you hadn’t been in the shower, Faith might not have been killed.”

“How’s that?”

“Despite everything, I don’t think the killing was premeditated,” Rodriguez said thoughtfully. “At least he says he didn’t plan it, and there’s no reason not to believe him. What happened was that your being in the shower gave him a chance to start in on Faith again about the money. But this time she told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t buying it. She demanded that he speed things up so she could start in on her project. Cabot saw that she really meant it. They were alone. You were in the shower. He went into the kitchen for a glass of water and the knife was lying on the table there. So he picked it up, went back into the living-room, and stabbed her.”

“Just like that,” Regina murmured.

“Just like that. She put up a little fight, but not much. When she fell to the rug, he saw the list of names in her hand. She must have been looking at it while he was in the kitchen. On impulse, he tore his name off the top of the list and left the rest of it. He figured-—and as it turned out he was right—that the list would direct suspicion away from him and towards the people whose names were on it. Just about then, he noticed that Faith was still alive. He was about to pull the knife out and stab her again—-finish the job—when he heard the front door open. He ducked behind a drapery and that’s where he was when Dwight came in.”

“Why did Dwight run away?” Regina wondered aloud. “Why didn’t he call the police?”

“I only know why he told us he ran away. I didn’t buy it myself at first, but now I’m inclined to believe it. He panicked, but it wasn’t just that. It went deeper. As a homosexual, Dwight had tangled with the police before. I gather they’d been pretty rough with him. He’s convinced cops hate gay people, and from what I’ve seen, he’s right. He ran away because he was convinced that if he stayed the cops would pin his sister’s murder on him.”

“That’s still pretty thin,” Regina objected.

“Real-life motives usually are,” Rodriguez told her. “Anyway, the interruption gave Cabot a few minutes to think. That’s when he revised his scheme and came up with the idea of using the dental floss to lock the door behind him. He figured that if the door was locked, there’d be nobody to pin it on but you.”

“And he would have been right if it hadn't been for that voyeur,” Regina recalled. “Which shows how smart you are!”

“Sorry about that.” Rodriguez shrugged.

Regina didn’t pursue the point. Her mind had gone off on another tangent. “Instead of the bit with the list and the mantra,” she asked, “why didn’t Faith simply tell Dwight that Cabot was the killer? She could still talk a little. She said ‘the murderer’ when she pointed at the list.”

“The way I figure it, she was protecting Dwight. She knew Cabot was still there. She was probably afraid that if she mentioned his name, he’d pop out and kill Dwight too.”

“But he didn’t. At least not that night. What changed his mind?” Regina wanted to know. “Why did he bash in Dwight’s skull later?”

“For the same reason he killed Faith. You see, Dwight didn’t like Cabot. It had something to do with something that happened when he and his sister were kids. With Faith gone, Dwight was free to decide that he didn’t want Cabot managing his estate. Before her death, Faith being a softie, she’d always managed to talk him out of ditching Cabot on the grounds of sentiment. Anyway, he told Cabot he was getting rid of him that night down at his house in the Village. He told him nastily, and in no uncertain terms. So Cabot bashed his skull in when he had the chance. See, he thought the dentist had already left and he knew that Petey-Sweetie would be the patsy.”

“And so he was,” Regina reminded Rodriguez. “I told you he was innocent.”

“I called New York from the hospital. They’re letting him go.”

Regina thought of something else. “Then the reason Cabot hired ATOMICS to prove Dwight’s innocence was that if Dwight was convicted, he’d face life imprisonment and that would mean all sorts of appeals, and that would take a lot of money, and that would mean he’d have to convert some of his assets to cash, and that would mean—”

“Cabot would face an audit,” Rodriguez finished for her. “Right.”

“And Cabot was so eager to get me off the case because I was getting too close,” Regina added. “I’d come close to breaking down his alibi—not quite as close as he thought, maybe, but he couldn’t know for sure—when I interviewed Zelda and Enright. And when I figured out the dental floss trick, it was only a matter of time before I would have realized he could have picked it up from Enright. The pieces would have fallen into place. That’s why he was so afraid of me.”

They fell silent. Regina dozed through the rest of the drive. She opened her eyes as Rodriguez was pulling the Mercedes into the garage under her building.

“One thing I don’t understand,” she remarked as they walked from the car to the elevator. “Why did Dwight Venable finger Petey-Sweetie when he came out of the coma in the hospital?”

“I’ll check it out, but my guess is that Petey-Sweetie was right.”

“Right?”

“Yeah. He said that Dwight was hallucinating and must have mentioned him because he was uppermost in his mind. That’s how it goes with lovers, baby, regardless of race, religion, or gender. That’s love!”

“You sound like you think you’re an expert,” Regina murmured as they got off the elevator and she started to unlock the door to her apartment.

“Try me.” He patted her bared fanny and followed her inside.

“I just might do that.”

“No ‘might’ about it!” Rodriguez took her in his aims and kissed her thoroughly. His hands kneaded the exposed flesh.

“Do you have a fetish?” Regina inquired breathlessly. “You seem fixated on that spot.”

“It’s available. Or maybe I’m just keeping my hand in,” he punned.

“Well get your hand out and try finding another target.”

“Okay.” He kissed her again and slipped his hand inside her blouse.

Regina’s breasts swelled agreeably to his touch. It had been a long time, she realized. Too long! And with all her varied professional experience, there had been very few men who appealed to her as much as Rodriguez did. She unbuttoned her blouse and guided his mouth to the straining nipple. “Ahh, that feels good!” she exclaimed. But when his hands slipped to the zipper at the side of her hot pants, she pulled back. “There’s no point in staying in the foyer,” she said breathlessly. “Not when there’s a perfectly good bed inside.” She took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

Rodriguez left a trail of clothes in his wake. By the time they reached the bed, all he had on were his shoes, socks and underwear. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off the shoes and socks.

Regina stood in front of him and wriggled free of her blouse and hot pants. She started to turn out the light, but he stopped her. “I really dig the scenery,” he said, devouring her naked body with his eyes. He stood up and let his shorts drop.

“Oh, my!” Regina’s eyes returned the compliment. Obviously she also “dug the scenery.”

He picked her up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and dropped her there. She held out her arms to him. He fell on her like a hungry adolescent, kissing her ears, her neck, her lips, licking his way from her full, round, rose-tipped breasts down to the triangle of red curls at the base of her flat belly, squeezing her firm, plump bottom and trailing his fingers over the tremblingly erect red clitoris and moist lips at the entrance to her honeypot. Regina responded with a barrage of expertly erotic kisses and caresses which ranged from his mouth to his chest and then down to his fiercely erect penis.

“Wow! Do you ever turn me on!” Rodriguez panted.

“You turn me on too, Lieutenant! I want you!”

“I want you!”

“Now!” Regina’s fists beat an urgent tattoo on his buttocks.

“Now!” He pushed her quivering thighs apart and swung his body over hers.

And that—when else?--was the moment that the telephone rang!

“Damn!” Holding onto the Lieutenant with the grip of a farm worker plucking celery stalks from the ground, Regina answered the phone.

It was Angus MacTeague. “They’ve arrested Calvin Cabot for the murder of Faith Venable!” he howled to Regina.

“I know all about it,” she told him.

“Did you have anything to do with it?”

“Yes,” Regina confessed. “I guess I had a lot to do with it.”

“But Cabot is a client of ATOMICS!”

“I know that. But he’s also the man who killed Faith Venable! Besides, ATOMICS was hired to prove Dwight Venable’s innocence. Well, it’s been proven. The police are dropping the charges against him.” Regina looked to Rodriguez for confirmation. He nodded. “Hurry it up!” he hissed. “Or I’ll go on without you!”

Regina stuck her tongue out at him. It got an immediate and noticeable erotic response. Rodriguez groaned.

“Cabot is the one who’s paying the bill!” Mac-Teague was protesting. “You don’t think he’s going to pay ATOMICS to prove he’s the murderer, do you?”

“You’ve got a point there,” Regina admitted, trailing her fingers over Rodriguez’ groin. “I suppose not.”

“You solve any more cases like that and ATOMICS will go broke!”

“Are you firing me?” Regina asked.

There was a moment of silence. Rodriguez’ breathing sounded very loud during it. Regina pressed his mouth to her breast to muffle the sound.

“No,” MaeTeague said finally. “I guess you did a good job even if it has turned out to be a financial failure. You’re still on the payroll. Come into the office tomorrow and I'll give you your next assignment. And Regina--”

“Yes?”

“You worked pretty hard on this case. I realize that. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. So get a good night’s sleep. You need the rest.”

“I’ll do my best,” Regina lied. With Rodriguez’ erection rudely staring her in the face, she really didn't think she’d be getting much rest that night.

MaeTeague said “Good night” and hung up. Regina replaced the phone on the cradle and turned to Rodriguez. He grabbed her roughly and pulled her over on her back on the bed.

“I don’t like being kept waiting!” he snarled.

“Oh, don’t you?” Regina dug her nails into his shoulders.

“Bitch!” He kissed her savagely. His tongue went berserk inside her mouth. His teeth bit her underlip hard.

“Ouch!” Regina’s breasts bobbled as she struggled playfully against him.

He grabbed them with both hands.

“Don’t be greedy!” She wrapped her legs around his hips and locked the ankles behind him.

“I’ll be any damn way I want to be!” He got his hands under her and squeezed her plump bottom with relish. “And you’ll be any damn way I want you to be!” he added.

“The hell I will!” Regina told him. “I don’t have to cater to any man! Not any more!” She was very aroused now, and the words came tumbling out of her. “I’ve got a respectable job! I’m not your plaything! I intend to get as good as I give!”

“Don’t worry, baby! You will!” His hands were busy between her thighs again.

“Orgasm is woman’s inalienable right just as much as it is a man’s!”

“You bet your bippy, baby! And you’ll get yours!”

“Damn right I will! Women’s Lib says—”

“This for Women’s Lib!” Rodriguez plunged to the core of her with all his strength.

It put an end to the conversation. Locked together, bodies burning, they writhed rhythmically, panting, straining, letting the thrills mount in unison until neither of them could contain themselves. There was one, final, long drawn out moment of ecstatic release, and then they fell apart.

“Well, baby?” Rodriguez’ voice was unexpectedly gentle. “Was that okay?”

“Perfect,” Regina sighed contentedly. She thought to herself that one of the things that made it so perfect was the fact that for the first time in her life, she wasn’t going to be paid for it. Maybe I ought to pay him! She giggled. No, that’s carrying Women’s Lib too far! She giggled again.

“What’s funny?”

Regina didn’t tell him. Instead, she reached over and touched the instrument which had provided her with such joy. “I’ll be damned!” She was both surprised and impressed. And also receptive.

“Ambitious so-and-so.” Rodriguez grinned down at himself.

“Mmmm!” Regina glanced up at his face. Inadvertently, her eyes looked over his shoulder. “Oh, hell!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I forgot to pull down the shade.” Regina got up and walked over to the window. She stood there brazenly naked for a moment and blew a kiss in the direction of Hubert Knotts’ apartment.

At his Window, binoculars trained on Regina Blue, Hubert Knotts returned the kiss. He was disappointed, but optimistic when Regina pulled the shade. The show might have been over for that night, but he was sure he hadn’t seen the last of Regina Blue.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY