Room at the topless

“I don't think I can at the moment,” I said, the mouthly ministrations building a lust which was mounting beyond my control.

“Very well, then. We don't have much time, so just do exactly as I say.” A hand reached around in front of me and held a small, opened box of chocolates under my nose. “Open your mouth!” the voice ordered.

I opened my mouth. A large chocolate was popped into it. Coconut! I hate coconut! I managed to chew and swallow it anyway. '“I don’t understa-” I started to say. Another large chocolate popped into my mouth shut me up. Maraschino cherry. Better! I have a sweet tooth for chocolate-covered cherries.

I felt the hand shoving the wrapper from the candy into the breast pocket, of my jacket. Whatever message I was going to receive from Castor Oil, whatever instructions, must be on the wrappers, I guessed. I munched on chocolatey pineapple now, my thighs clutching frantically at the head between them.

All in all, about eight chocolates slid down my gullet and eight wrappers were deposited in my pocket. Then the box of chocolates, the hand holding it, and the faceless voice vanished back into the darkness as mysteriously as they'd come. The timing was fortunate. My brain had skidded very far away from espionage by now. It was centered on the onrushing reaction to the tongue and lips driving my manhood berserk.

My eyes darted wildly with the reaction. They saw without really absorbing what they were seeing. They focussed on the blonde on the screen as she massaged her calves with a hand-vibrator which continued upward to the juncture of her legs. They spotted the old man, who seemed to be having a stroke in motion. They lit on the two girls thrashing like a lineman and a tackle with the ball on the one-yard line. They fell on the teenagers just as they slid to the floor with the boy on top and moving so hard and fast that the girl slid out from under him and they continued moving up the aisle in this fashion. I lost them-—all of them—as my own reaction ended with a long, drawn-out explosion that had the poor housewife choking and sputtering and trying in vain to pull free from the grip of my thighs.

Finally I let her go. She swallowed hard a few times, smiled, and returned to her seat. A moment later she turned to me. “I have to be going now," she said, her voice a little too formal under the circumstances. “It certainly has been a pleasure making your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” I assured her.

“The show changes tomorrow,” she told me. “I'll be catching it. Do you think you'll be here?”

“I'm afraid not. Business . . .” I didn’t explain any further.

“Too bad. Just a case of ships that bash in the night.” She giggled.

“Sorry. I hope you won't be too lonely.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I find it very easy to make friends. It’s important to a person’s development to make contact with others, and I think I’ve really developed the knack.”

“I’ll say," I murmured.

“Well, so long now.”

“So long.”

I waited a few minutes after she'd left, and then I left also. I stopped at the exit to let my eyes get used to the sunlight. There was a ticket-taker standing there.

“Enjoy the show?” he asked conversationally.

“Yes,” I answered, “and so did the rest of the audience. So much so that I have the feeling some of them may never leave.”

He was still grinning at my back as I strode to the curb and hailed a cab to take me back to my hotel. I wanted to be alone in my room to look at the candy wrappers and see if I could decipher the message on them. I waited until I'd locked the door behind me before I fished them out of my breast pocket.

But they weren’t candy wrappers! They were tinfoil wrappers from Ex-Lax packages! What the hell?

What did it mean? There was no message of any sort that I could detect. W'hy Ex-Lax wrappers? It was Castor Oil who was supposed to have contacted me. It couldn't have been Ex-Lax, could it?

Oh, yes it could! I knew that a few seconds later as the first spasm hit my gut. I dived for the bathroom. It had been Ex-Lax who slipped me the candy. The candy had been doctored!

And Ex-Lax was proving as good as his name!

CHAPTER SIX

FIENDISH! Diabolical! Horrendous!

Only a sadistic Communist devil like Ex-Lax could have contrived a means whereby his victim might die that way. It was horribly clever. Death by laxative would most certainly have appeared accidental. There would be no trace of poison and it would appear that I had inadvertently taken an overdose. It would seem too outlandish to think that I might have been murdered by a Red agent in this manner.

It would have worked had it not been for two things about the Beverly Topless which made me forgive all its flubs, past, present and future. The first of these was the telephone in the john. The second was the fact that the hotel still had a doctor and stomach pump on twenty-four-hour call.

This particular service was a holdover from the halcyon days when the Beverly Topless had been the Casa Elite. In those Hollywood heydays, it had been common practice for celebrities to check in for the express purpose of swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills. It was well known that the hotel press agent would leak the story to key columnists. It was also well known that the hotel could truthfully boast that it had never lost a guest by suicide. In those days, the hostelry maintained six pumps and six doctors to run them-—and there were times when all six were in use. Now they only had one. Fortunately, one was all I needed.

A prisoner on the rack in the john at the moment, I needed it in a hurry. I picked up the phone, and my knuckles were white around it. I started to speak through agonizingly clenched teeth. “Get me the -” I started to say to the operator.

“Well, hello, Mr. Victor,” she interrupted. “Enjoying your stay with us, I hope.”

“I need--”

“Have you taken our special Disneyland tour yet?"

“This is an emer-”

“And we’re having a special croquet tourna—"

“LISTEN!” I shouted, interrupting her for a change. “I NEED A STOMACH PUMP AND A DOCTOR UP HERE FAST!"

“There’s no need to shout, Mr. Victor! I have feelings too, you know." Her voice was injured, then haughtily formal. “I'll see that Room Service fills your order immediately.” The phone clicked in my ear.

To my surprise, she was as good as her word. Stomach pump and doctor arrived within a few minutes. It was typical of the Beverly Topless that you could get this kind of service with a figurative snap of your fingers, while a request for clean towels might result in such frustration as borders on madness.

When the doctor knocked at the door, I was in no condition to get up and admit him. So I called out to him to let himself in. I heard a rumble through the closed bathroom door as the stomach pump was wheeled into the bed-sitting room.

“Mr. Victor?” the doctor called.

“In here," I answered weakly.

“Well, you’ll have to come out, please,” he called in a professional tone.

“I can’t. Can’t you come in here?"

“No. You have to lie down. Come out here.”

“All right." I was too weak to argue. I reached for the toilet paper. The roller was bare. I cursed the Beverly Topless in spades. “Have you got any toilet paper?” I called out to the doctor.

“Certainly not!” He sounded offended. “Why would I be carrying toilet paper around with me?”

“Just an outside hope,” I said feebly. “There's none in here.”

“That’s not my department. Why don’t you try calling Room Service?”

I didn’t feel up to coping with that, and anyway, another spasm told me that the time it might take just could be the difference between life and death—my life and death. Instead, I fished my wallet out of my pants pocket. I studied the contents a moment and then called out to the doctor again. “Do you have five singles for a five?” I asked plaintively.

“No. And I do hope you haven’t gotten me up here for that, Mr. Victor. I came to pump your stomach, not to make change.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. The hell with it! It isn't often one has the opportunity to feel like a millionaire with money to burn. That’s how I felt then, as I flushed eight five-dollar bills and three tens down the toilet.

I tottered into the other room. The doctor and his machine were waiting. The stomach pump looked dusty, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. The doctor looked much the same. I felt a moment’s sympathy as I got a vision of him sitting beside the pump in some subterranean basement of the hotel, waiting, waiting for a call it must have seemed to him would never come, feeling superfluous and filled with self-doubts about is role in life. But now the call had come; at last his existence was justified; he rubbed his hands together and got down to work.

I’ll skip the messy details. When the stomach pumping was over, the doctor turned to me and delivered his professional advice. “You shouldn't use strong laxatives without consulting your family physician first,” he clucked. “I myself always advise my patients against any but the mildest purgatives.”

“Ex-Lax,” I muttered weakly, still groggy from the ordeal.

“No.” He shook his head. “You took something about fifty times stronger than Ex-Lax and you must have taken a lot of it in some concentrated form. However, in future I would recommend one dose of Ex-Lax for regularity. No more, however. Your intestinal tract has a lot of recovering to do before it’s back to normal. Also, if you should attempt suicide again—”

“It wasn’t a suicide attempt,” I protested in a voice that was still shaky.

“No? Well, if that’s the way you want it, Mr. Victor. Still, in future I'd personally appreciate it if you'd stick to the usual sleeping pills. It's a lot less messy. I'm not as young as I used to be and I have a nervous stomach myself, and I really can’t take this sort of thing."

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “But it really wasn’t suicide.”

“Of course not,” he said soothingly. “All the same, I'm going to see to it that you have a ‘round-the-clock nurse to stay with you for the next couple of days. I’ll see that she’s sent up right away,” he said over his shoulder as he wheeled his apparatus out of the room.

The nurse arrived soon after he left, and she was a pleasant surprise. She was a Beverly Topless staff nurse. She wore a crisp, starched white uniform and cap—with the upper part of the uniform topless. I could see why many of her patients might take a turn for the nurse.

“Well, how are we?” she asked in that chicken-soupy plural bye which all nurses put their patients in their proper place—-a place somewhere between infancy and pre-nursery where toilet training is a way of life.

“We’re just fine,” I told her enthusiastically, my voice not quite so weak any more as I ogled her pink and white blossoms.

“Are we ready for our bedpan now?” she inquired.

“Never again!” I groaned at the thought.

“All right. Then we’ll have our sedative and we'll tuck us in and we’ll go sleepy-bye.” She produced a hypodermic needle the size of a sidewalk drill.

“What’s that?” I panicked.

“That’s our sedative. Now, We’re not going to be silly, are we? We know it isn’t going to hurt. We’re going to be a man, aren’t we?"

“We’ll never make it,” I opined, as her breast bounced off my nose when she bent over to give me the injection

“Now, we’re not going to be frisky, either,” she said firmly. “And remember, this isn't going to hurt us a bit.” She jabbed the needle into the alcohol-daubed target area of my upper arms.

“OUCH!” The hell it wasn’t going to hurt! She had the light and tender touch of a stabbing Ghurka gone berserk with a kris!

She ignored my reaction. “That’s a nasty sunburn we have there,” she observed.

“It’s not a sunburn. I scalded myself.”

“Well, we certainly are self-destructive, aren’t we? And I must say that our suicide attempts make up in originality what they may lack in stick-to-itiveness."

It was something, I suppose. Also, it was the sort of thing I was to get used to during the next few days. Nursey’s pluralisms were a constant stream of dubious praise-the sort of golly-gees a nanny uses to encourage a not-too-bright child to remember what the potty chair is, there for. In truth, Nursey did have a thing for the bedpan and her most enthusiastically editorial “we” was reserved for my performance of the most basic functions. Indeed, sometimes it seemed that my eliminations were her entire raison d’être.

Her services only came to an end when circumstances arose that made it necessary for me to leave the security of bed and her topless ministrations and once again confront the hostile world of double-double agenting. This happened when the hotel barber showed up one afternoon to give me a shave. I hadn't called for him, but by now I realized that he was my contact with Castor Oil.

He nicked my jaw neatly while slicing off my two-day growth. He slapped a large Band-Aid over the wound and departed without apology. As soon as Nursey left me alone I peeled off the Band-Aid. As I’d suspected there was a coded message between the gauze and the adhesive.

I called Putnam and arranged to have the message picked up and decoded. Another day passed before he got back to me with the results. “EX-LAX ELIMINATION SET UP TELETHON” was what the message said. Telethon? What telethon? It didn't make any sense to me.

But within a matter of hours, it did make sense. It started with a phone call from Donna Carper, the unattractive leg-girl for the queen of the Hollywood columnists, Ella Hooper. “Hello, Steve,” she greeted me, “how’s your acne?”

“Huh?”

“Your acne? All cleared up?”

“Acne is not exactly what I’ve been suffering from," I told Donna.

“Sure it is. You had acne and now it's cured. Right?"

“Wrong. I never had acne.”

“Yes, you did. But thanks to the researches and treatments of the Acne Foundation, you're all cured now. And you’re going on TV to tell the world at large about their wonderful work.”

“I am?”

“Yep. It’s one of Ella’s pet charities, and she needs a man who’s not too well-known to the public to get on the squawk-box and show how he was cured. He should be a good-looking man with a clear complexion so the difference can be appreciated. I told Ella about you and she agreed that you’d be just perfect.”

I got the message. In Hollywood you had to be pretty big to take a chance on turning down a request from Ella Hooper. There was nothing tangible that she might do for me at the moment, but I knew that a word from her would be enough to turn off most of the important people in Hollywood where I was concerned. Besides, it was obvious that this must be the telethon referred to in the message.

“All right,” I agreed. “So I’ve recovered from my terrible acne condition. But what’s this about showing the difference?”

“Louis Ching will be at the studio to take a picture of you before the show. He'll blow it up and doctor it so that your face is covered with pimples. Later in the show the picture will be shown and then you’ll come out and describe your miraculous recovery thanks to the Acne Foundation.”

“How will I know what to say?”

“Idiot cards. There’ll be a prompter to one side of the camera flipping them for you. All you have to do is read them out loud. Will you do it?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Fine. I’ll tell Ella. She won't forget.” Donna went on to tell me where the studio was and what time I was to be there.

“Okay,” I repeated again when she was finished. “I'll see you there.”

“I’m not sure if I can make it or not,” Donna replied. “But don’t worry. Most of the gang will be there. You won’t be lonely.”

After she'd hung up, another telephone call confirmed what she said. It was from Misty Milo. “Hello, you slob,” she greeted me. “Do you know you left my shower on the other night and my bathroom was flooded! Why did you run off that way?”

“Things were getting a bit too hot for me,” I said cryptically.

“And you call yourself the man from O. R. G. Y.!” Misty took it the wrong way.

“I was referring to the shower, not my libido."

“I wondered about that. Why on earth did you have it so hot? That water was positively scalding when I got back. And why did you run out on me?”

“You ran out on me,” I reminded her.

“Well, I had to. Something came up. But you could have waited.”

“If I was a lobster, maybe I would have. But let’s skip it, shall we? Let’s just say we got our signals crossed.”

“All right. Hey,” she changed the subject, “I hear you’re joining us on that acne telethon."

“That's right. You know me. I’ll do anything for charity.”

“That’s a laugh. What’s your vigorish?”

“Huh?”

“The vigorish. The angle. The kickback, or whatever. How are they paying you off?”

“Oh. Well, actually they’re not. It's sort of as a favor to Ella Hooper.”

“Aha! Then you're really getting a bigger payoff than any of us. I'm getting five Gs and top billing, but the Hooper return’s probably worth more. And poor Happy’s only getting to share the second spot with April Wilder for two Gs apiece."

“You mean you’re getting paid? I thought performers donated their services to these charity telethons.”

“You've got to be kidding!” Misty snorted. “You've been around Hollywood enough not to be so naive as that. Of course we’re getting paid. Under the table, natch. Where it won’t show on the tax returns. Why shouldn't we? You think all the rest of those sobbers at the Acne Foundation aren’t getting theirs? Well, they are! In spades! They all milk the public for whatever the racket’s worth. Only some of us don't take it in cash. For’ instance, Voluptua’ll do a bit and she'll have a new Mustang to show for it next week. Likewise the Prince.”

“The Prince? Is he going to be there, too? What’s he going to do?"

“Point out that this is an international problem and that Acne Foundation carries on its work all over the world. He'll probably give some spiel about the clinic they've set up in Poversia. Maybe he'll show some before-and-after shots of pimply Poversian kids.”

“Sounds heart-rending,” I granted.

“It will be. And for about sixteen hours at that. A heartstring-tugging marathon. Well, at least we'll be among friends. I'll see you there, Steve."

“See you there.” I hung up, got out of bed and started fishing some clothes out of the closet.

“And where do we think we're going?” Nursey was back, topless and clucking her disapproval.

I explained about the telethon for the Acne Foundation.

Her disapproval changed to a dishrag-weepy “sort of sympathy. “It’s a very worthy cause,” she said. “Those poor people! How they suffer! But don't let it depress us now, hear? We have to be careful not to get depressed and do anything foolish.”

I assured her that “we” wouldn’t do anything of the sort and finished dressing. Then I cast one last fond look at her bobbling mammaries, went down to the lobby, and had the doorman call me a cab. Twenty minutes later I arrived at the studio.

Louis Ching was there, but the others hadn't arrived yet. They straggled in while he was taking the shots of me that were to be used on the program later. A darkroom had been set up for Louis where he could develop, enlarge and doctor the shots, and when he went to work there, I turned my attention to the others and greeted them.

They were a disparate group. April Wilder was in pony-tail and blue jeans with her shirttails hanging out, while Voluptua wore a low-cut gold lamé evening gown that accentuated her Amazonian proportions. Happy Daze wore the loud checked suit and baggy pants which had come to be associated with him, a marked contrast to the velvet dinner jacket and frilled dress shirt the Prince sported. Misty hadn't shown up yet. She came in a little later while we were being briefed.

The briefing was conducted by a network yoyo with narrow lapels running up his vocal chords to his company brain. Enthusiasm gushed out from under his clipped moustache in a diarrhea of “belief in the product.” He might have been peddling acne at the moment, but you knew he’d be just as reverent with toothpaste, or beer, or arsenic. He’d keep the faith if he was setting up a show performed by concentration-camp guards to market lamp-shades made of human skin. Adolf Eichmann isn't dead; he lives on in the absolute obedience and fervent dedication of such program warmer-uppers.

“Now, I’m sure that everybody here is as impressed by the humanitarian works of the Acne Foundation as I am,” he announced for openers. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be donating your services.”

Voluptua snickered.

“Now, those of you who have been involved in telethons before know that the idea is to move the viewing audience to phone in pledges for contributions . . .”

“Sixty percent of which will never be collected,” April Wilder muttered.

“I heard that!” His voice was hurt, almost a whine, “Now, I'm not going to deny it. But the forty percent we do collect will still serve a worthwhile humanitarian purpose.”

“Like paying your salary among other network costs,” April sneered.

“There will still be ample funds left over for the Acne Foundation if we all pull our weight on the program.”

“Sure there will.” April wouldn’t let go. “The boon-dogglers at the Foundation and the ad agency driving the Foundation bandwagon all have to get theirs, too."

“The Foundation is staffed by reputable medical men!” he protested hotly. “Some of the top dermatologists in the country are involved in its work."

“Nuts!” April disagreed. “The Foundation is staffed by so-called skin specialists who graduated in the lowest tenth of their classes from med school. With a few shining exceptions, that’s true of all of these charity research-treatment operations, They fall into the hands of the best medical politicians, not the best doctors. Almost all doctors who attain a degree of excellence go into private practice. They may contribute a little of their time and effort to outfits like the Acne Foundation, but they leave the actual running of it to a combination of p. r. carny spielers and inept quacks. The best research men work for the drug companies who can afford to pay them. If a cure for acne is ever developed, you can be sure it’ll come out of some outfit like Squibb, or American Pharmaceutical, not out of the insufficient resources of the Acne Foundation. And the same is true of most other diseases with only maybe one or two exceptions. Let’s face it. Acne victims will be lucky if they see even five percent of the money we raise here tonight. Between ourselves, the network, the ad agency, the fund raisers and the administrators and quacks, ninety-five percent gets skimmed off the top. If the acne sufferer depends on the Acne Foundation to help him, he'll go on suffering for a long time.”

“I simply can't abide such cynicism!” The yoyo was apoplectic. “What about the coffee and doughnuts the Foundation provides acne sufferers?"

“Doughnuts? For acne? But I thought sweets—” Misty Milo had just come in and she was puzzled.

“Well, never mind that," the network man said quickly. “We really don’t have time for any more abstract argument. I have to fill in all of you on the setup for this telethon. Now . . .”

He explained how the telethon would be conducted. When the program opened, a panel of eight volunteers from the Acne Foundation would be seated at a long table, each with a telephone at his or her elbow. Behind the scenes there was a switchboard so that people calling in with pledges might be connected with the telephone answerer of their choice. As the program progressed, this would become important. Each of the performers would do a bit in turn. After each bit the performer would relieve one of the volunteers at the telephone. The idea was that someone calling in would be able to talk directly, on the air, with the celebrity of his choice. A running count would be kept of the amount of money pledged to each celebrity. This would go up on a ruled blackboard in back of the table and within easy camera range. Periodically one or another of the half-dozen shapely girls in tights who had been hired for the show would empty the pledge baskets used by those on the telephones, add up the amounts, and post the totals on the blackboard. At the top of the blackboard, in large block letters, was the goal for the telethon: $100,000.

The sequence in which our group, plus others who were collecting around us, would appear was worked out so that pathos would alternate with entertainment. The idea was to hit all the emotional chords, with sympathy the main theme and comedy, love songs, dancing, etc., hitting the minor notes. Now an emcee appeared to get the show started.

He was indistinguishable from Bud Collier and Art Linkletter in the same way in which they’re indistinguishable from each other and all the other professional hail-fellows-well-met of that TV ilk. He started out high-key and went higher. His good humor was a whine to give-give-give working up to a promise of fabulous entertainment to come and ending with a whimper that introduced the evidence of the heinous effects of acne.

The camera took over the stage then. A screen was dropped and a short-short motion picture began. The film was of various sufferers who’d been laid low by acne and the emcee kept up a running bath of bathos in the background.

A pimple-face child in a playground was shown being shunned by his playmates. “Childhood's fondest memories destroyed by the psychological impact of this dread disease . . .” intoned the emcee.

The scene switched to a high-school dance. A young girl with a cratered face right out of All Quiet on the Western Front was shown sitting alone on the sidelines while all around her youngsters were having a good time. A handsome boy approached her, looked, shook his head sadly and turned away and asked another girl to dance instead. “Adolescents who are social under-achievers frequently trace their deprivation to the all-too-visible symptoms of America’s number one skin disease. . . ." the emcee commented solemnly.

Again the scene changed. A groom was shown carrying his bride across the threshold into their new-home. They embraced, simpered, and then the bride left him for the privacy of her bathroom where, presumably, she was getting herself ready for their wedding night. But the bathroom wasn’t that all private since the camera followed her inside. Dissolve to show her in negligee and robe -- demure, but suggestive. Then close-up to see her removing her make-up with cold cream. Revelation! The bride has a pox on her. Acne from ear to ear. She leaves the bathroom and there’s another dissolve to a close-up of the groom's face, horror-struck as the acne’d truth is revealed to him. “Three out of four marriages end in divorce,” the emcee said in a quavery voice. “And who knows how often acne has been the culprit behind the destruction of connubial bliss? . . ."

A lonely old man sitting on at park bench came next. He was trying to feed the pigeons. But when one flew up to accept the old man's breadcrumbs, the bird took one look at the acne-cragged face and took off without a nibble. “No segment of our society-is spared the effects of this dread disease, no age group, no economic bracket,” the emcee pointed out as the film ended. “But it can be licked through your contribution to the Acne Foundation. Now, I can tell by the cash-register-jingle of those telephones that those contributions are already beginning to be phoned in. Do we have a total yet, girls? . . . Well, while the girls are figuring the total, the early total attesting to your generosity, let’s listen for a few moments to Dr. Alphonse B. Scabrous, head and guiding light of the Acne Foundation. Dr. Scabrous, the floor is yours.”

A slight man with the furtive appearance of a floor-walker given to pinching salesgirls materialized in front of the hanging mike. His voice as he spoke was official AMA bedside manner all the way.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to be able to talk to you tonight about the great strides being made by the Acne Foundation in fighting America’s number one skin disease. Before I get into facts and figures about our activities, I'd like to tell you a little anecdote which, I think, will serve to illustrate the human side of our work. Not so very long ago in the remote mountain country of the Ozarks there was born to a family of twelve children a thirteenth child. Now, within a very short time it became obvious that this thirteenth child was different from the others. The first twelve were all clear of skin and erect of posture. But this thirteenth child, a girl, early developed a mottled flesh and hung her head and stooped and shuffled her feet because of it. As she grew older, her condition worsened and the family began to take notice of it. Her father whispered to her mother ‘How come the brat’s so pimply?’ and the poor child overheard and that night sprouted a dozen new pustules and developed a tic in her left eye and tripped over her feet even more than she had been doing. Her mother sighed and shook her head and tried to embrace the poor child with a mother’s love, but always she had to close her eyes because she could not bear to look at the ravaged skin of her youngest offspring. And the child was aware of this and tried to hide her face from her mother and ate sweets compulsively to make up for the lack of love she felt, which only made her skin worse and gave her cramps and resulted in an embarrassing flatulence. Her brothers and sisters noticed the flatulence and, on top of her blotchy condition, this made them view her even more askance and poke fun at her. So she trailed along at the end of the family line whenever they went places, and she hung her head, and she sniveled, and her tic quickened, and she tripped over her feet, and her stomach growled in public. In short, by the time she reached adolescence, this child's self-concept was so low that her ego envied worms--at least, worms without acne. She looked at her brothers and sisters with their clear skins, their untwitching eyes, their silent stomachs, their graceful gaits, their confidence in their own attractiveness, and then she looked at herself and life stretched before her as an unending series of pimples waiting to be squeezed. So it was when she was sixteen years of age, and then came a miracle. A team of specialists from the Acne Foundation set up an out-patient clinic in the Ozarks not far from where the girl lived. One day one of the doctors spied her slinking past and seized upon her as a subject in need of help. And help she got! Within a year her tic was gone, her flatulence reduced to a dull rumble, her posture proud and straight, and—miracle of miracles—her skin was as clear as the petals of a water lily. Her father looked at her with new eyes -- almost Oedipal eyes, if I may be permitted a small witticism by way of illustrating the difference in attitude. Her mother recognized that her ugly duckling had become a swan and perceived that she was ready for the world—and the sooner the better, because her mother didn’t really like the look, in the father's eyes. Her brothers and sisters stopped poking fun at her; indeed, they were jealous of her new, swanlike beauty which was so pronounced as to relegate them all to the shadows by comparison. Yes, she was ready for the world, and the world embraced her with open arms. Now I would like you to meet that little girl, grown to flowering clear-skinned womanhood thanks to the Acne Foundation. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to present the one and only Voluptua!”

There was a pause. Backstage Voluptua was hissing a final demand at the network man. “Flatulence indeed!” she snarled. “Now, hear this! I either get four-wheel disk brakes and electric windows, or the whole deal is off!”

“All right! All right!” he agreed hastily. “Only get out there before anybody notices the dead air.”

Voluptua’s outsize frame swept onstage and paused surely in front of the cameras. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “The story you’ve told is completely true. I know, because I lived it. And if it weren’t for Acne Foundation, I’d still be the victim of my overstuffed derma back in the hills. That’s why I’d like to urge all those looking in to give until it hurts to this worthy cause. Just think, thanks to your contribution, some poor, unfortunate little tyke with acne may be cured and freed to develop normally just as I have.” She tossed half of her 46-inch bosom by way of stressing the point. “Yes, thank God for the Acne Foundation. But I’m not here to cry about my pimply past. No, indeed. I’m here to entertain you. And I've written a poem to show that acne and amusement can go hand-in-hand. I call it ‘Dimples, Not Pimples'."

Voluptua curtseyed like a little girl and began reciting in a purposefully childlike tone:

“All the men admire my dimples.

’Twasn’t always thus.

Once my dimples all were pimples,

Large and filled with pus.

"Adolescence was quite gruesome.

Candy was a vice!

Boys who looked above my bosom

Never ogled twice!

“Life, it seemed, was one long itching,

’Til that lucky day

Acne experts cured my twitching,

Chased my spots away.

“Now my face is milk-and-honey,

Skin you love to touch!

Yet it’s lower—Ooh! How funny!-.

Skin men yearn to clutch!

“I've been cured and others can be;

Kids don't have to live

Heckish lives because of acne.

Stamp out acne! GIVE!”

“ ‘Heckish lives’?” I whispered to Misty.

“Can’t use ‘hellish’ early in the evening,” she whispered back. “Kids might be watching and repeat and then their mothers raise heck.”

“Speaking of kids--" I motioned, and Misty looked.

Backstage there was a quiet flurry as the network man attempted to extricate the next guest, a little girl, from the clutch of her mother. “I don’t want any more ggrrmmpphh-” The child’s protest was cut off by the mother’s cramming a large handful of gooey chocolate candy into her mouth.

“We’ve got less than a mi—” the network man was protesting.

“Peacock color,” the mother was muttering anxiously.

“In color, we’ve got to bring out the acne. You’ll see. The more candy she eats, the more purple the bumps turn. Central Casting didn’t tell me it was color. They should have told me. I would have given her some chocolate-colored marshmallows with the jelly in them for break fast.” She jammed another large glob of chocolatey goo into the little girl’s mouth.

“Glomph!” The little girl swallowed hard. “No more!” She backed away from her mother. “No more, or I’ll throw up. I will! No more!”

“Just finish what I've got here,” the mother wheedled. “You want to be good and purple, don’t you, sweetie? You want Central Casting to be pleased, don’t you?”

“I don’t give a --- about Central Casting!”

“I see what you mean about kids and language," I whispered to Misty. “Why, they’ll repeat anything.”

“Sure. Except she knows what she said. And I don’t blame her, either.”

“I slave to make a career for you, Janie, and this is how you repay me!” The mother’ s voice was quavering now. “Is it for my sake I want you to eat the candy? No! It’s for you! So you should be nice and pimply and purple so they’ll want you for that big East Coast benefit next month. Come on.” The whine changed to a wheedle again. “Just one more mouthful, you should break out.”

“No time!” The network man wrenched the little girl away from the mother and pushed her towards the stage where Voluptua was waiting in front of the cameras to introduce her.

The emcee and the doctor slobbered over the kid, and then Voluptua gagged over a few words assuring the child that she’d grow up to be just like Voluptua if only folks out there in TV-land would give, give, GIVE! This over, the kid was whisked oft-stage and returned to her mother while Voluptua sat down at the table and took over one of the telephones from the volunteer who’d been manning it.

Now the emcee introduced another acne victim. This one was a gangling adolescent boy with a face like Bikini Atoll after an H-bomb test. The intro consisted of a recitation of the boy’s troubles, a list worthy of Job and -- it seemed to me—apt to snap the heartstrings it was tugging. It concluded with the fact that this messed up teenster had one overwhelming desire and with the request that he now tell the audience what it was. The juvenile Job peered nearsightedly at the cue cards held up for his benefit off-camera and began to speak in a squeaky monotone:

“THROUGH ALL MY TRA

VAIL, I’VE BEEN SU

STAINED BY ONE HOPE.

IT IS THAT ONE DAY

I MIGHT HAVE THE HO

NOR OF MEETING PER

SON TO PERSON MISS A

PRIL WILDER. MISS A

PRIL WILDER IS MY I

DEAL. I THINK SHE IS

LOVELY, TALENTED, BEAU

TIFUL. SHE WOULD NEVER

LOOK AT A POOR UNFOR

TUNATE ACNE VICTIM

LIKE I AM. I’VE AL

WAYS KNOWN MY CONDI

TION WOULD DISGUST

HER. BUT I DREAM A

BOUT MEETING HER ALL

THE TIME. I WOULD GIVE

ANYTHING IF MY DREAM

OF MEETING APRIL WIL

DER COULD COME TRUE.”

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the emcee zinged in, “here is one of the most rewarding moments which may ever take place in the medium of television. In our studio, at this very moment, Miss April Wilder is waiting to meet this young man, to make his dream come true. What have you got to say to that, Billy?” He asked the juvenile acne victim.

“IT IS TOO MUCH TO BE

LIEVE. I FEEL LIKE CRY

ING.”

“Well, you just go right ahead and cry, Billy.” April swept onstage and came up to him. “Here I am, and you and I are going to stay together all night, our chairs together side by side while we answer those calls from all those wonderful people out there in TV-land who want to help you and the countless victims like you. But before we do that, isn’t there something you want from me?” Billy peered at the cue-card.

“WOULD YOU AUTO

GRAPH A PICTURE

JUST FOR ME?”

That’s how the card read. But Billy just blinked his eyes and ignored it. “Would you give me a great big kiss just to show that my unfortunate condition shouldn't turn people off?” he said instead.

April’s jaw dropped open and she looked around quickly for some sign from those running the show. The network man looked back at her and shrugged. There was no way to avoid the kiss.

She approached the leering Billy cautiously, seeking some facial terrain which, might be relatively free of pustules for the osculatory maneuver. But Billy gave her no chance to pick her spot. He grabbed her with both arms and kissed her full on the lips, one of his hands sliding down to cup her left breast, the other descending to grapple with her right buttock. Quickly, the camera zoomed away from them to the emcee.

“Heh-heh,” he ad-libbed. “The exuberance of youth, eh, folks? And how about a big hand for April Wilder for demonstrating that acne sufferers are no different from you and I. Yessir, just treat them like anybody else and why not? After all, acne is not a communicable disease. I always say—” He kept talking desperately while three technicians descended on the couple and extricated the wildly flailing April from the octopuslike clutch of the eager youth.

April fled to her seat at the table. Billy followed instructions and stood where he was. He was still wiping off lipstick as the camera re-focussed on him. The emcee joined him there.

“Now, Billy, before you join Miss Wilder at our pledge-phones, do you have a word for other juvenile acne sufferers like yourself?”

“YES.” Billy managed to read the word on the cue-card.

“And what is that word?”

Again Billy ignored the speech written on the card. “The word is sex,” he said instead.

“Huh?” The emcee was caught off-guard.

“Sex. You see, for most kids, acne begins with puberty. All their juices are stirred up and they have no outlet. So it all comes out as acne. If the Foundation really wanted to help, it’d provide sex for all us kids and—"

“Yes. Yes, I see.” The emcee interrupted hastily. “Well, it’s been touching and informative to talk with you, Billy. But now we have to continue with our show. All those personalities waiting in the wings to lend their talents to this wonderful cause. So, if you’ll just go sit down next to Miss Wilder, we’ll continue with the rest of our show.” Billy sat down next to April. “Ouch!” She reacted as he pinched her. He leered, and she moved her chair as far away from him as she could get it.

Happy Daze was on next. He came on with a punny patter routine—half comedy, half pathos—laden with hackneyed acne anecdotes and zingy one-liners. I only caught a little of the beginning of his routine because I was to follow him and the network man had some last-minute words for me.

The words were a rehash of where to stand, where to look for the prompter with the cue-cards, where the camera would be, etc. Louis Ching stood by quietly while the instructions were given, and the network man took the pictures he’d developed from him, checked the sequence and handed them to me. I took a quick look through them. Louis had done a good job. The blowups were clear, the face as authentically cratered as the La Brea tar-pits. It was a bit of a shocker to see myself as I might have looked after the ravages of a plague or a smallpox epidemic.

Now the emcee applauded Happy to his seat at the table and introduced me. I was, according to him, the living proof of how in less than a year the Acne Foundation could effect a miraculous cure. I came out, exchanged a few words with him, and then was left alone in the spotlight to tell my story and illustrate it with the photos.

The way the lights were set up, the only thing I wasn’t blinded to was the cuecards being flipped just to the left of the camera. Because of the glare, even the prompter holding them was invisible to me.

‘This is how I used to look,” I read from the idiot cards. I held up one of the pictures and the camera rolled in for a close-up.

“WAIT!” the idiot card instructed me.

I waited. Another card was flipped:

“DON’T READ ALOUD!

PUSH BUTTON UNDER

TABLE TO KILL EX-

LAX WHEN PHONE CALL

SAYS TO PROCEED.”

I blinked. The camera was pulling back. Another card was waiting to be read. “Thanks to the doctors at the Acne Foundation, I don’t look that way any more.” I stammered the words, my brain in a whirl. “As you can see, my condition has been completely cleared up. But what is it like to go around with a face the way mine was? One thing it's like is the feeling of constant rejection because the non-acned part of the population turns away from those marked by this dread disease. But, fellows, I’m here. to say that such an attitude is mistaken. When faced with a choice between the girl with facial blemishes and the girl who is clear of skin, don’t turn your back on the former. Instead, think about the latter this way: She may look clean, but—! Remember that you can see what the girl with acne is suffering from! And the other girl? Well, who can say what terrible and secret affliction she may be hiding? Yes, people with acne are so conscious of their appearance that they tend to be the cleanest people in the world. So I say to you—”

I listened to my voice droning on, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying. Twice more when there were pauses between my reading of the cue-cards, the one referring to the murder of Ex-Lax was flashed before my eyes again. Finally my stint was over and I took my seat at the table.

I found myself between Happy Daze and the lecherous adolescent who was slyly stroking April Wilder’s thigh under the table. Prince Juv Satir was in the spotlight now with a young Poversian girl whose sensational figure was spoiled by a face lumpy with acne. The Prince launched into a description of the Acne Foundation’s work in Poversia as Happy Daze leaned across to me to whisper.

“Would you say that acne strikes so indiscriminately as to be called a rash rash?” Happy asked. His immediate chortling told me he didn’t really expect an answer.

I wasn’t really paying much attention to Happy anyway. Nor was I concentrating on the Prince and his fellow Poversian. My hand was under the table, gingerly seeking out the button mentioned on the planted cue-card.

My fingers found it without too much trouble. I touched it lightly and then immediately pulled away. My eyes focused blindly on the Prince and the acne victim, but my mind was focused on the call which might be coming and how I should prepare myself to respond to it.

I didn’t want to murder anybody. That was the first point. The second one was more involved. I’d been double-crossed once already. How could I be sure this wasn't another double-cross? How could I be sure that my instructions were really coming from Castor Oil, and not from Ex-Lax? How did I know that when I pushed that button I might not be committing suicide instead of killing Ex-Lax? What was supposed to happen when the button was pushed, anyway? ‘What would happen if I didn't push it? I decided not to push it and find out.

The Prince was still on-stage when the phone at my elbow rang. I jumped. I let it ring a second time. The network man in the wings was signaling to me frantically to pick it up. I did-on the third ring and with shaking fingers.

“Proceed!” a voice said in my ear. My heart hit my windpipe and struggled to. get through it.

There was a click in my ear. Then another voice, and only then did I realize that the first one had been the network operator clearing the call. “You the fellow cured his acne?” the second voice asked.

“Y-Yes.” I managed to get my voice under control.

“You really believe a girl can go for a fellow with acne like for a fellow without?"

“I don’t see why not.”

“You dig pimple-faced girls?”

“Well, not exactly, but—”

“Then whatta you pushing?”

“I'm not pushing anything. I just think a girl with acne can be truly beautiful inside. After all,” I improvised inanely, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Ahh! In your eye! You don’t dig pimply girls, why should a girl without dig a fellow with? Huh? Answer me that!”

“Pimples shouldn’t be the determining factors in man-woman relationships, maybe,” I offered hesitantly. “Anyway,” I added, “there are other calls coming in, sir. So if you’ll tell me what you care to contribute --”

“Ten thousand dollars.” He laughed nastily and hung up.

I dutifully wrote the figure on a slip of paper and put it in the basket in front of me on the table. Beside me the pimply Romeo was fielding another call while trying to work his free hand between April Wilder’ s tightly clenched knees. On my other side Happy Daze was wisecracking into the phone. Prince Juv Satir was just coming off-stage and taking a seat at the far end of the table when my phone rang again.

“Death!” the voice said in my ear when the connection was made.

This was‘ it! That's all I could think. I couldn’t answer.

“It’s the only way,” the voice continued. “A kindness, really. Why can't you people see that? All this research and treatment by outfits like the Acne Foundation is only prolonging the problem. Euthanasia for acne sufferers. That’s what my organization believes in! What have you got to say to that?”

“Maybe your organization and the Acne Foundation should join forces and combine activities,” I suggested weakly. . .

“If they’ll agree to our method, I think my group might go along with that. How much does the Acne Foundation have in its treasury?”

“Offhand, I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, we’ll need money to buy mass-extermination equipment. Perhaps second-hand from the German government,” he mused. “Anyway ,our organization’s treasury stands at eleven hundred thirty-nine dollars and forty-two cents.”

I jotted down the figure, thanked him, hung up, and threw the slip of paper in the basket. The calls were picking up now as we got into prime time and Voluptua, April, Happy and the Prince were all busy on the telephone. On-stage Misty Milo was making a dramatic appeal with pronounced--if subliminal—sex overtones. To one side of her, in the wings, an old man with a truly horrible skin condition was seated on a chair. Three make-up personnel hovered over him. They were busily engaged in disguising his acned face.

Like a man with a sore tooth, I couldn’t stop my fingers from seeking out the button again. I just barely touched it when my phone rang again. I jerked away from the button and answered it.

“Strike now!”

I gulped. I didn’t answer. It was getting to be a habit, not answering.

“Acnes of the world, unite!” the voice continued. “You have nothing to lose but your shame!”

“I beg your pardon?” I found my voice.

“J’accuse!” The tone was righteous. “You stand accused! The Acne Foundation and all of you bigots stand accused of spreading the poison of prejudice!”

“Prejudice? Prejudice against who?”

“Against those of us with acne. Strike now! That’ s what we’re going to do! Strike now! Before you succeed in your diabolical campaign to wipe acne from the face of the earth. It’s war! It’s us, or you! And it must be us! If humanity is to progress, it must be us. For we are the fittest! Darwin! The fittest must survive!”

“How do you figure people with acne are more fit than people without acne?"

“It’s been proven historically. It’s as old and established a fact as the non-acne race’s campaign to wipe us out. Look at the greatest minds in the history of mankind. All acned! Socrates—a pimple-faced genius!”

“I never heard that before. Are you sure he had a skin condition?”

“Of course! Why do you think they gave him the hemlock?”

“For his acne?”

“Because of it! Acne was the sign of his superiority. They had to destroy it. And Marat! Look at Marat! Another genius! His skin condition was so excruciatingly itchy he had to spend almost all of his last years immersed in a bathtub. Now, I ask you, where would mankind be without that itch? I’ll tell you where! Nowhere, that’s where! Without an itch there can be no scratching. Symbolically, the itch is mankind's thirst to improve itself and the scratching is progress. But always there are the forces of reaction -- in Marat’s case the murderess Charlotte Corday—who prefer to kill the itch rather than watch it scratched. Yes, just as they killed Lincoln. He too had severe acne, you know.

“I always wondered what was under that beard.”

“So did Washington. All the great minds in history. All were acnes. All reached acmes. Get it? It’s not mere chance that the two words are so close together. Once, before the reactionary propagandists rewrote history, they were synonymous. Acne-acme! We are the future! And all your telethons and other foul propaganda won’t be able to stop us. In the end we shall destroy you. Your campaign is worth no more than a plugged nickel!“

I scrawled “5¢” on a slip of paper, threw it in the basket, and hung up. Misty was just taking her seat at the table. The others were busy with their phones. The old man, his acne completely covered with make-up now, was approaching center stage from the wings.

After eliciting his name, the emcee asked his age.

“Ninety-two years old," the old man told him.

“And you were an acne sufferer?” the emcee inquired.

“YES I WAS.” The old man was peering at the cue-cards and having difficulty making them out. “I HAD A VERY SEVERE ACNE CONDITION.”

“At what age did this condition begin?”

“When I was eleven years old.” The old man evidently knew the answer without having to scrutinize the cards.

“And how long did it last?”

“Until about a year go.” Still sure of himself, the old man didn’t bother giving the cue-cards more than a glance.

“And how was this condition alleviated?” the emcee wanted to know.

“I WENT TO THE ACNE FOUNDATION AND—” The old man leaned so far forward to see the cue-cards that his spectacles slid right off the end of his nose and landed on the floor. Desperately, he took a step forward to peer at the cue-cards. It was the wrong step. His foot came down solidly on the eyeglasses and crunched them to bits. The old man gave up and answered in his own words. “They gave me treatments and now, as anybody can see, my acne is all gone,” he said, his face stiff from the caked make-up concealing his true condition.

“Did they indicate what caused the acne in the first place?” the emcee prompted him.

“They didn’t have to.” The old man was completely on his own now and seemed to be enjoying it. “I always knew what caused it. Puberty! That's what!”

“I don’t think—” The emcee was beginning to worry a little now.

“Course not! You’re too young to think. Get to be my age, then you’ll think. But it was puberty all right. I ’member it like it was yesterday. My old man says to me, he says, Philbert, you be naughty and play with yourself and you’re gonna get warts on your hands!”

“But that’s an old wives’ tale!” the emcee protested.

“Is that so? Well, maybe! But the fact is I touched myself where I wasn't supposed to and danged if I didn’t get warts on my hands!”

“Coincidence—”

“Maybe. But then come the acne and I never could get rid—"

My telephone rang again and I lost track of what the old man was saying as I answered it. “Stevkovsky!” The voice was clipped and authoritative. “Push the button! Push it now!” The receiver clicked.

I didn’t push the button. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance -- the chance of murder, the chance of suicide! I just sat there, frozen, my mind blank of any plan of action.

A moment, perhaps two, passed like that. Then I felt something brush-against my knee under the table. I was slow in responding. Finally I reached under the table to the spot where the button had been. It was gone! So were the wires leading from it.

I glance around the table. They were all there—Voluptua, April Wilder, Happy Daze, Misty Milo -- all busy on their respective telephones. Only Prince Juv Satir was blocked from my view by Misty’s shoulder as she leaned forward. But I could see a partial Oriental silhouette where the Prince was sitting.

That left only Louis Ching, the Chinese photographer, He was nowhere in sight; he was the only one of the group unaccounted for. Was he Castor Oil, then? And which of the rest of them was Ex-Lax? Which of them faced death any second?

The answer to the last question came almost as the thought entered my mind. There was a sudden sharp crackling of electricity. A small puff of smoke rose over one of the chairs at the table. The victim shot straight up in the air and then slumped over the table, face purple, mouth open, eyes staring.

The electrocution was over. The victim was quite dead!

CHAPTER, SEVEN

“IT’s the Prince!"

April Wilder’s voice was the one which emerged clearly from the hubbub in the wake of the shocked silence that followed the murder. April was sitting to my right, even farther removed from the death seat than I was. Her view was more obscured than mine, or any of the others, So the identification she made was more a matter of having known who was sitting on the hot spot than of actually being able to see the victim.

I could see a little more, but not much. Like April, I knew the Prince had been sitting there. And the little more I could see looked decidedly Oriental, so I leaped to the same conclusion.

But we were both wrong. Prince Juv Satir was not the victim. As I rose up and got a clearer view of the purple, staring face, I saw that for myself. The dead man was Louis Ching!

The ensuing hubbub was frantic. The telethon was ended, of course. I don’t know how the network filled the time. I didn’t have much time to wonder about it what with cops crawling out of the woodwork and turning the studio into a homicidal quiz show.

The big question in my mind was how come Louis Ching had been sitting in Prince Juv Satir’s chair when the frying took place. The cops elicited an answer of sorts to that one. Coincidence, according to the Prince, and the network man and a couple of the technicians who’d been standing in the wings backed him up. It seems nature had called just a moment before the murder and the Prince had found it necessary to leave his telephone post. He’d signaled his need to the network man, who had asked Louis Ching to fill in for a couple of minutes because Louis was the only one around who hadn’t been busy with anything else. Louis had obliged—and it had been the death of him!

Now his corpse lay stretched out with the coroner bending over it. The electricity had done terrible things to his face, contorted and mottled it and turned it a greenish shade of purple. The cynical thought crossed my mind that he looked like the worst acne victim possible, and I wondered how come the programming vultures hadn't thought to capitalize on it. If I'd been an acne researcher, the appearance of the corpse would have made me pause and ponder the possibility of electricity as a cause for the disease.

I realized my mind was concerning itself with irrelevancies because the events were dizzying. I made myself stop and take a look at the implications. The victim was to have been Ex-Lax. I wasn’t positive of that, but it seemed a reasonable assumption. The timing of the murder, therefore, raised some doubts. Had the murderer been waiting for Louis Ching to sit in the death seat because Louis was Ex-Lax? Had there been a slip-up, and was Prince Juv Satir really the intended victim? In which case was the Prince really Ex-Lax? Or could the Prince be the murderer—either Castor Oil, or a henchman of Castor Oil’s—who had set up Louis Ching (Ex-Lax?) for the killing? Or was one of my other “friends” behind it?

The police found no trace of the death-button or of the wires which must have led from it to the chair. Evidently it had been connected very loosely and disconnected by simply yanking it after the crime was committed. I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if I’d pressed the button. I wouldn’t have known how to disconnect it. Would I then have been the patsy with the evidence pointing straight at me? Or would my unknown “colla- borator” have removed the evidence?

The next day and a half provided no answers to any of these questions. They were still buzzing around my mind on the sunshiny morning I set out to attend the funeral and burial services for Louis Ching. The rites were to take place at that funeral park; even if you don't live in Los Angeles, I'm sure you know the one.

It’s the John Birchy burial grounds where super-patriotic murals combine with some of the worst religious art ever created to make an atmosphere where “death” is a dirty word and “Eternal Life” may be purchased on the installment plan. The statuary strewn about the funeral park, the architecture of its mausoleums, crypts, and more commercial buildings, is so literally designed as to allow only the most hidebound Fundamentalist to R.I.P. But worse than that is the deliberate aura hanging over the grounds which negates even the act of dying—those being interred haven't “died”; they have only “passed away"; indeed, if they happen to have been old soldiers on the right side of the Right, they haven't even “passed away,” but only “faded away,” as befits those who “never die.” It’s unsettling in this atmosphere where “death” has been semanticized into “sleep” ‘to reflect that one such old soldier might waken and carry through his once-famous boast of “I shall return!”

Of course that particular old soldier isn’t buried in this particular cemetery. I only make the connection to demonstrate the feelings engendered by the place. Such feelings spring naturally from coming up against a philosophy which is right-wing and religiously rigid and anti-life, pro-death. The combination seems all too natural. One almost expects to see “Bomb Hanoi!” signs floating over the graves.

The cab dropped me right smack in front of a bit of Colonial America. This was the administration building, angel-white, portico-plump and pilloried with pillars. It was just the spot for Ol’ Massa to have his mint julep while his happy, carefree cotton-pickers hummed a carefree, happy spiritual in the fields of the plantation. But there was no mint julep-liquor wasn't allowed on the premises—and the cotton fields were all plowed under with cadavers, and the pickers were the wrong shade to be allowed to fertilize them. (Indeed, Louis Ching was almost the wrong hue, but not quite.) The fact was that the Early American style of the building was simply in keeping with the unchanging philosophy of the place; death, it seemed to say, is eternal and eternally the same, and unless you’re some kinda Commie beatnik or something, so are politics.

I went inside. The musty aroma confirmed the dedication to what passed for tradition here. But the man who came up to greet me didn't quite make it.

His conservative dress and professionally sorrowful demeanor fit in all right, but his manner was more Chamber of Commerce than Sons of Liberty. Like the place itself, he’d managed to rationalize a two-hundred-year-old status quo viewpoint with the go-getter techniques of modern American business. He came on like a Babbitty Paul Revere, and as he spoke a small, sticky pool of sympathy began to form at his feet.

“Howdy-do,” he murmured. “Have you come to consult about a resting place?”

“No. I’m here to attend a funeral.”

“Ahh. My condolences. But remember that your loss is the dear departed’s eternal gain. The one who passed over—is it someone very close to you?” he asked delicately.

“Not really. A friend. Louis Ching. Can you tell me where the services are being held?”

“Louis Ching? Ah, yes. You’re early.” It was a gentle rebuke. “That would be the Chinese gentleman.” His voice oozed tolerance; the tone said he was willing to be big about it and overlook his disapproval of allowing “the Chinese gentleman” to be buried here. “Services will be held in the East Chapel, but I’m afraid they won’t begin for another twenty minutes. The dear departed is not quite ready to be viewed yet. While you're waiting, why don’t you let me arrange a consultation for you with one if of our interment experts?”

“Sorry. I'm not interested. I can’t afford to die just yet.”

“Ahh, so many people think they can't afford our services. But that’s simply because they don’t know how easy—financially, I mean—our low-budget payment plans can make one’s passing over. You owe it to yourself to make arrangements now. Think how much easier you’ll be in your mind if you know that your funeral and interment have been all planned. Think of these you love, the ones you leave behind. Do you want them to be faced with the emotional strain of having to arrange things hurriedly and to feel that they haven't the time to act in accordance with your wishes? Wouldn’t it be better to make sure all the loose ends are taken care of before you leave this earth of ours?”

“Frankly, I don’t give a damn."

“Please, sir! You forget where you are. Surely if profanity is out of place anywhere, it’s out of place here."

“You’re right. Out-and-out obscenity would be more in keeping.” I walked away from him, following a sign with an arrow that said “East Chapel.” I could feel his eyes boring a Ku Klux shotgun blast in my back by way of punishment for my heresy.

The doors to the chapel were closed. I stood in the hallway and smoked a cigarette. After a moment or two the twin brother of the character who'd greeted me made an appearance. Picking invisible lint off his blue serge uniform, he sidled over and determined that I was waiting for the next services to begin. “Perhaps you’d like to look at our private display of caskets while you’re waiting,” he suggested.

It was something to do. I followed him back down the hallway to a pair of doors. He swung them wide and ushered me inside, carefully closing them behind us.

“Most people prefer to consider their final bed privately," he explained.

“I’m not really in the market -” I started to reply.

But he ignored me. “Here’s a model that's exclusive with us.” He rattled off the spiel like a well-rehearsed encyclopedia salesman who isn’t about to remove his foot from the door until he’s finished. “Genuine mahogany. Oversized, you’ll notice. Silk-lined in purple and white. And notice the scrollwork on the lid—that’s a special feature. Even the hinges are genuine bronze. We’re having a special on this casket this month. Only twenty-four hundred dollars³ .”

“That is a bargain!” I put him on. “Why, it’s almost worth dropping dead for!”

“Of course, that’s just for the casket, you understand," he continued blithely. “It doesn’t include funeral arrangements, or interment costs, or the cost of a plot, or a crypt, or a mausoleum. As a matter of fact, I can’t even guarantee you space, I’m afraid. We have quite a long waiting list, you know.”

“Yeah. I hear people are dying to get in here."

“Heh-heh.” His laugh was a dry, polite rebuke. It said he’d heard it before; it said it had been in bad taste then and it still was.

“Dying to get in here! Get it?” I slapped him on the back. I couldn’t resist it. “Isn’t that a gasser?" I chortled. “A gasser! Get it?”

“Very amusing, sir. Now, as I was saying, this deluxe model is really a steal at the price. Still, if your financial situation is such that a more moderately priced casket is desirable, let me show you some of the more inexpensive models.”

“Well, I’ll look at them. But I want you to know right now that if I can’t die with status, I’m just not gonna die.”

“Here’s a slightly cheaper model for only two thousand dollars.” The coffin echoed hollowly as he rapped on the side of it.

“What's the difference between them?”

“It’s six inches shorter . . .”

“Well, I’m not that tall.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you’d be cramped” sir.

“Are you sure? Maybe I should try it out to be on the, safe side.

“If you like, sir.” He obviously disapproved, but a sale was a sale.

I climbed into the coffin and stretched out full-length. “Not much room to turn over,” I observed.

'“Well now, that won’t be concerning you when you embark on the Long Sleep, will it sir?”

“I don't know. I’m a pretty restless sleeper. And I suspect there might be some activity around here that just could make me want to turn over in my grave.”

“Heh-heh. Well, you will have your little joke, sir. Here, let me help you out.” He gave me his hand and I pulled myself up out of the coffin. “Still, if you feel the lack of length might bother you, let me show you this model. It’s the same length as the first, but six hundred dollars cheaper.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The wood is cedar, not mahogany. The lining is only imitation silk. The lid is unadorned, no scrollwork. And the hinges are iron, instead of bronze.”

“Iron? Won’t they rust?”

“In time I’m afraid they will, sir."

“Make it kind of hard to open, won’t it?”

“Well . . . That really won’t be concerning you, will it, sir?”

“Why not?” .

“The Etemal Sleep . . .” He paused delicately.

“You mean death?”

“We don't like to use that word, sir.”

“Sorry. But if the hinges won’t be concerning me, then I guess that for the same reason it shouldn’t make much difference if the lining isn’t real silk and the lid has no scrollwork.”

“There are those who prefer to look at it that way, sir,” he said cautiously.

“And it really doesn’t matter if the wood is cedar instead of mahogany, does it?” I persisted.

“Mahogany will last longer.”

“But it won’t last for Eternity, right?”

“That is true.”

“So what difference will a few years make?”

“Well, sir,” he floundered and then flubbed badly. “The worms -”

“-- crawl in, the worms crawl out,” I finished for him. “Yeah, I know. But the fact is that when we’re dealing with Eternity, the fact that cedar may last twenty years less than mahogany is kind of a minor point, don't you agree?”

“Well, I suppose so. Certainly if you feel that the cedar will be adequate to your needs -”

“What needs? I’ll be dead, won’t I?”

He winced. “You’ll have passed over; that's true, sir. But out of consideration for those you leave behind -”

“The hell with ’em!"

“Sir!”

“That’s right. If they’re stupid enough to give a damn whether I’m buried in a cedar coffin, or a mahogany coffin-—" .

“Casket! We prefer to refer to them as caskets!” he remonstrated desperately.

“Coffin!” I insisted. “If they’re that stupid, then the hell with them.”

“I know that a consideration of one’s inevitable future may frequently prove upsetting, sir.” He tried to soothe me. “Still, once you've made your plans, you will find yourself filled with a great tranquility, a great peace, a great calm.”

“I’m already filled. I’ve made my plans."

“You have?" His eyes said the sale was slipping through his fingers.

“Yes. I'm to be buried in a plain pine box in Potter's Field. And I refuse to pay one nickel for the privilege!”

“You can't be serious, sir. Morally -"

“Morally!" I exploded. “What the hell would you people know about morals?”

“Enough to know that it's not moral to rely on charity to pay for your burial!" he fired back. “And that’s what’ll happen. If you don't make arrangements, and your heirs don’t, then the state will have to pay for burying you."

“Tough! The pine box and the gravediggers shouldn't come to more than a hundred bucks. As a matter of fact, they can skip the box and just shovel me under. Anyway, whatever it costs, I figure I've already paid for it with my taxes. All they have to do is incinerate one less Viet Cong and my burial’s paid for."

“They'll probably give your body to the vivisectionists!" he said viciously.

“Fine. As long as I'm dead, what difference does it make?”

“But how can you be sure you'll be completely dead?" he asked nastily. “Think of it! Them cutting you up when you're only sleeping!"

“It's no worse than suffocating in one of your fancy coffins six feet under the fertilizer!”

“You attitude—!” he sputtered. “You people—! You're an atheistic Communist! That's what you are!" He turned on his heel and left me, shaking with indignation as he went.

A moment later I started to follow him out. But the fellow was triplets. The third of the trio filled the doorway before I could get through it.

“Ahh, I see you've been looking over our caskets, sir." He rubbed his hands together, squeezing a little unction over his shoe tops. “And now, you’ll be wanting to discuss your final resting place."

“I will?”

“Of course. Now, what did you have in mind? A mausoleum, perhaps? Something in marble with a suitable inscription? A place where your loved ones may visit comfortably without regard to the weather? There are three different styles available on our easy payment plan—"

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Gothic. Baroque. And Ante-bellum."

“That's not quite it. We also have a very modern mausoleum available. Free-style with stained glass on all four sides. The interior lighting is neon so that there's an ethereal effect of sunlight shining through the glass even when there is no sun."

“And a perpetual-motion stereo record playing ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’," I guessed.

“Of course." He beamed. “If you'd like. Although we do have other selections available. All inspirational, of course. Such patriotic hymns as ‘God Bless America’-the Kate Smith rendition, of course. Or something more religious -- ‘Onward Christian Soldiers,’ perhaps. But then you're not limited to one selection. You can have a variety if you like."

I closed my eyes. “I can hear it now. That heavenly choir."

"Yes." He beamed.

“And a good thing, too," I continued. “Because I sure as hell won't be hearing it then!"

“But those who wish to visit with you -"

“Had damn well better do it while I'm alive!" I told him. “If they come around bugging me after I'm dead, I'll haunt them, I swear.”

“Well, perhaps not a mausoleum then, sir," he said hastily.

“No perhaps about it!”

“Yes. A crypt, then? Something private and underground, yet accessible? We have those available in sculptured marble, too.”

“Sounds gloomy.”

“Not at all, sir. Why, our catacombs are as cheerful as Disneyland.”

“Just a barrel of fun, hey?”

“Well, our belief is that sadness need not be a part of the process of passing over if the rites are handled correctly. We like to think of our park as a joyous place filled with those who have attained a happy Eternal Life.”

“I see what you mean about Disneyland.”

“If not a crypt, then a simple plot, sir? There is a long waiting list, but—"

“So I've been told.”

“But you are still a young man, sir, and if I put your name down on it, I’m sure something will open up in time.”

“I'm not sure I’d care to be buried in a cemetery where graves open up.”

“I didn’t mean that, sir. Oh, I see. You were only having your little joke. Now, even with a simple grave, you'll be wanting a monument. Have you anything in mind?”

“How about a giant phallus?"

“I think not, sir. I'd strongly advise against it. Might I suggest instead something more in keeping with your life.”

“Offhand I can’t think of anything that would be more in keeping with my life. It would suit my vocation, my avocation, and my leisure periods.”

“Perhaps an angel, sir."

“Male or female?”

“Angels have no sex, sir.”

“And they call that heaven?”

“Perhaps a military design? Crossed rifles in bronze? A small cannon? A nuclear warhead?”

“A nuclear warhead?”

“We try to keep up with things, sir."

“No. No nuclear warhead. I’m afraid not. I think I'll just have to manage to make it through Eternity without a memorial statue.”

“If that’s your preference, sir. We never push people into anything.”

“Except maybe an early grave,” I murmured.

“I beg pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Well, then just a simple bronze tablet with an inscription. Would that suit you, sir? Of course you’ll lose your priority for burial space if you don’t make statuary arrangements—”

“It's nice there's no pressure,” I observed.

“Yes. Well then, a simple memorial in bronze. And the inscription? How would you like it to read, sir?”

“How about ‘Give Me Lechery or Give Me Death,’ " I suggested.

“Upon consideration, I think you might agree that would be a bit too frivolous, sir. Might I suggest some thing more in keeping with the spirit of our memorial park.” He nettled his brow. “Death Is Only Another Way of Life.” He nodded approval at himself. “How does that strike you, sir?”

“Like a limp marshmallow,” I told him. “How about something a little closer to the truth. Like; ‘Of All Sad Spots I Ever Did See/This Is The Spot I’d Rather Not Be.’ “

“I’m afraid our directors would never allow that. They lean more towards homilies like ‘The Right Path Is -”’

“- A Dead End.” I finished it for him.

“—The Path To Salvation!” he insisted grimly.

“Let's just say ‘When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Go’,” I offered wearily. I was tired of the game.

He recognized my apathy. “Perhaps we should wait until the proper frame of mind occurs before deciding,” he said smoothly.

“Yeah. Anyway, right now I have to go to a funeral.”

“Well, remember, we’re here to consult with you at any time. And there’s no obligation. Our motto is ‘Your Only Obligation Is To Yourself’.”

“I’ll buy that,” I shot back over my shoulder as I left the room. “And the best way to oblige myself is to stay alive.” I continued on my way to the East Chapel.

The mourners were already gathered and the services were about to begin. There were a lot of people I didn’t know there, most of them Chinese friends of Louis, I surmised. But there was also a small group of people I did know which included Winthrop Van Ardsdale, Misty Milo, Happy Daze, Voluptua, Dwight Floyd Rank, Donna Carper, and Prince Juv Satir. Of our clique, only April Wilder was conspicuous by her absence.

A professional eulogizer was evidently part of the service provided by the funeral park. Louis’s Chinese friends watched with a stereotyped impassivity for which I couldn’t blame them as the eulogy painted a picture of a Chinese Albert Schweitzer with overtones of Abe Lincoln. I hadn't known Louis that all well, it’s true, but somehow I couldn’t help wondering how I’d missed his reverence for motherhood, his love for little children and small dogs, and his dedication to the American Way of Life as defined by William Jennings Bryan and re-interpreted by Ronald Reagan.

After the pro had finished, an aged Chinese gentleman took the floor and spoke a few words. He managed to rehumanize Louis a bit before the coffin was sealed and the pallbearers toted him out. It had been Louis’s wish, it seemed, to be cremated. Now there would be about an hour’s wait until the crematorium was free for the next ceremony.

I paired off with Winston, and we killed time by wandering into the souvenir shop run by the memorial park. Here funeral knickknacks abounded gayly. There was an ingenious table-lighter which was a replica of the crematorium. There was a dolls’house mausoleum, complete with casket and eternal flames. There were authentic gravediggers’ shovels for ambitious tots. There was a sandbox staked out like a portion of the cemetery, complete with miniature coffins to be buried and headstones to mark them. There were necklaces designed to look like funeral wreaths.

A whole section was set aside for the patriotic death wish. There were bas-reliefs depicting Nathan Hale on the gallows, the Redcoats around him looking strangely Oriental. There were reproductions of Lincoln’s assassination, his beard luminescent, the theater box resting on a cloud while John Wilkes Booth, on the stage below, smoking pistol in hand, bore a marked resemblance to Joe Stalin despite the suggestion of horns over his eyebrows. Just so the other side shouldn’t feel slighted, there were also prints depicting the death of Stonewall Jackson with Yankee Bluecoats coming over the ridge like so many creeping socialists. And there were neckties and shirts and ladies’ blouses silk-screened with martyrdom in bold colors with red, white and blue for the good and the true, and defecation-brown and green-tinged flesh tones for the enemy who might once have been British, or Mexican, or Spanish, but were all Russian or Chinese now. Also multi-color samplers with maxims, over-simplified maxims touting death and the right wing and motherhood and Barry and the Hereafter and the California Chamber of Commerce. Sunshine and suffering abounded in the section devoted to patriotic gore, and all the solutions to all the world's problems were as beautifully simple as the stickers being sold for the bumpers of cars. Yep, Death—unnamed, unmentioned—was the answer to everything!

It sickened me, but it only seemed to amuse Winthrop Van Ardsdale. “Hypocrisy may be horrendous, but in America it’s so frequently hilarious, too,” he remarked. “I’ll grant it’s a sick kind of humor.” He picked up a little gold star. “Consider the predicament of the American Legion Post Commander who runs a notions store on the side and has to decide on just how much markup he's entitled to when he peddles these gold stars to bereaved mothers. Why, it’s a real moral and ethical question -- except that the mother might be cashing in on it in an emotional way just as much as he is in a commercial way. Well, that’s the good old U.S.A.”

“It is like hell!” His cynicism made me mad. “This kind of crap exists—I can’t deny that, not standing in this ghoul market. But it doesn't define the country. The country’s better than that. The real heart of the country is the men who do the dying in Vietnam, not the men who clamor to send them there.”

“You see?” Winthrop sneered. “You’ve bought it. You’re saying death is ennobling. But it isn't. It’s usually just messy.”

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying the country is better than its senseless deaths, better than its funereal foolishness, better than its patriotic provincialism. I’m saying that while Robert Welches and Lester Maddoxes may spring from its soil, so do Adlai Stevensons and Martin Luther Kings. I’m saying there’s always a Walt Whitman waiting in the wings to remind us of what the country really is, always a Thoreau to say it’s really the conscience of each individual, always a Henry Miller to prick the balloon and hold up the mirror to our foolishness and to echo the truth we’ve always known, which is that this country can be whatever we want it to be if only we’ll want it badly enough!”

“Listen to him!” Winthrop was only more amused. “And it isn't even the Fourth of July.”

“Sorry.” I was embarrassed. “I really didn't mean to come on waving the flag. It’s just that the discrepancy between our pettiness and our potential bugs me.” I glanced at my watch. “I guess we’d best be getting over to the crematory,” I told Winthrop.

I used to think burials were bad. The disposal of Louis Ching’s remains proved to me that cremations can be worse. It's the mechanization of the ceremony, I suppose -- as if all man’s scientific ingenuity from the invention of the wheel on up through space technology just naturally resulted in the crematorium. “Ashes to ashes” sort of negates the efforts of the Einsteins, or distorts them, anyway.

The hollow words sounded even more hollow in the large, echoing hall of the crernatorium. The banalities were not for burning, but there was no stopping them. Still, they did stop finally, and there was the dramatic moment of silence before the coffin containing Louis’s body slid down the chute and into the flames shooting up from the incinerator in the bowels of the building. I'd known Louis as a simple man—despite my suspicions that he might indeed have been the Commie agent Ex-Lax -- and his ending seemed all too complex and mechanistic to be in keeping with his simplicity.

When the ceremony was over, I started out with Winthrop. The funeral director was standing at the door like some mournful, never-glutted eater of carrion. Behind us the muted whoosh-roar of the incinerator which had gobbled up Louis could still be heard. Nevertheless, life must go on and natural functions don’t cease as long as it does. So I asked the funeral director where the men’s room might be.

He pointed the way to a long hall, told me which way to turn and which door to look for. I arranged to meet Winthrop outside and started out in the indicated direction. I found the john without any trouble and did what I had to do. It was while finding my way out again that I fouled up.

I must have taken a wrong turn. And then I certainly went through a wrong door. I found myself in a dimly lighted room, the walls of which were lined with deep drawers. In the center of the room were five or six slabs with white shrouds covering them. It took me a moment to realize that I must be in the place where they kept the bodies before preparing them for cremation.

I stood still for a moment, both curious about my surroundings and repelled by them. Curiosity won out. I approach one of the slabs. The outline of a female body was distinguishable under the shroud. I lifted the corner of the sheet. The shoulder of the body was bare. I deduced that the rest of it was probably naked as well. I let the sheet fall and started to turn away. A sudden movement made me turn back.

The sheet falling away from it slowly, the body sat up on the slab and the face grinned at me!

CHAPTER EIGHT

WELL, I mean—! When you’re in a mortuary, you just don’t expect one of the corpses to sit up and laugh in your face. It’s disconcerting. More! It’s traumatic. It’s the kind of trauma that can frazzle your nerves for life. It’s the kind of trauma that might cause a pronounced tic every time you pass a billboard advertising J. Walter Cook. It could even give you a heart attack. It’s very serious! You'd think any corpse—dead or alive--would realize that. You’d think they’d see the seriousness of the situation. But this corpse just went right on laughing . . .

“Shut your mouth, Steve. You look like you should be hanging in the window of a fish store."

“Wha- Wha- Wha—?” I stuttered.

“Very good!” She clapped her hands and the sheet slipped a little farther down. “Now try it in E flat.”

“Just what the hell are you doing here?” I managed to recover my voice.

“I’m here on a lay-in. I thought you were my partner.”

I just stared at her. The words she’d spoken made no sense to me. I was still trying to reconcile the presence of cinema sex kitten April Wilder in a mortuary without her clothes on. “You were playing dead.” I struggled to put the facts in order, one at a time.

“Well, yes.”

“You scared me out of my wits.”

“I’m sorry. I really wasn't expecting you. I was waiting for Dick Potts.”

“Who’s Dick Potts?”

“The fellow I’m laying in with. It was just a sort of a gag on him. It wouldn’t have bothered him so much, because he expected me to be here. I can see how you’d be pretty shook up, though.”

“That’s putting it mildly. But what’s this about a lay-in?”

“It’s the same principal as a sit-in. Only we carry it farther.”

“Oh. Well, that explains everything,” I said sarcastically.

“Look,” April said patiently, “it’s like this. I belong to the League for Life. 'I'hat’s an organization with one simple principle. We’re for life and against death. This place here, we’ve done a lot of thinking and talking and planning about it lately. It's whole reason for existing is pro-death. It was bad enough when it stuck to huckstering death as a marketable commodity, but now it’s pushing death philosophically and politically. It's become a chief and moving force in the dialectic of death. So we’ve decided to strike back. We've decided to demonstrate. And we decided that our demonstration had to be as representative of life as this place is of death. Now, what is it that stands for life more than any other act?”

“I’ll bite. What?” I played straight man.

“Sex! That’s what. And that’s why we set Wednesday of this week, today, for a lay-in!”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“What?”

“I said today is Tuesday,” I repeated.

“Oh, no!” The glow of dedication left April’s face and a look of distress replaced it. “Don’t tell me I got my days mixed up! Damn! No wonder Dick hasn’t shown up. He’s out lying in front of that troop train. And that’s where I should be. Oh! How could I have been so stupid?”

“You can come back tomorrow.” I shrugged off her distress. “Right now you might as well come back to life, get dressed, and get out of here."

“I suppose you’re ri -” April broke off the sentence, held a finger to her lips, and cocked her head to listen. “Someone’s coming!” she whispered urgently. “Quick! Lie down and pull a sheet over you."

“Why?”

“I don’t want them to discover us. That’s why.”

“I thought you wanted publicity.”

“We do. But not today. It would spoil everything for tomorrow. We have to actually go through with the sex part of the lay-in for it to be effective and get nationwide attention. If they catch wise today, they might hush it up and manage to keep us out of here. tomorrow. You see, tomorrow the reporters have been tipped off to be here. Please, Steve, hurry. Lie down and cover yourself up.”

“Why me? I'm not involved.”

“If they find you here, they’ll be suspicious. You could spoil everything. Please! Do as I say.”

The voices were drawing closer, and footsteps could also be heard now. What the hell! I laid down on the empty slab beside the one on which April was lying and pulled the shroud up over me.

There was a rumbling sound mixed with the two voices. It stopped a few feet away from the slab on which I was lying. The voices, both male, were distinguishable now.

“Hey, Boris,” the first voice crowed. “My shrouds are whiter than your shrouds.”

“Now, wait a minute, Zachary, just let me see.” A small rolling sound followed the second voice, and I realized that each of them must have been wheeling some sort of cart of his own. “I’ll be!" Boris resumed talking after a few seconds. “Your shrouds did come out whiter than mine. Now how do you figure that? We both used the same detergent.”

“But we used a different bleach!” Zachary said triumphantly. “You used that old weak bleach, and I used this new, extra-strength kind with embalming fluid in it.”

“Hmpph!” Boris hmpphd. “Hey! Look at this.” He changed the subject. “This stiff hasn’t been stripped down yet.” He slapped his palm against the sole of my shoe.

“Must have just brought him in,” Zachary replied. “We’d better take care of him before we put on the clean shrouds.”

“Okay.” Boris yanked off one of my shoes, then the other one. “He's got a hole in his sock,” he remarked.

“Now, isn’t that something? How can a guy go to his grave like that? You’d think he'd be mortified.”

“It’s hard to be mortified in a mortuary when you’re dead already,” Boris pointed out with what I though was very good sense.

There was a muffled giggle from under the shroud covering April.

“What was that?" Zachary started.

“What was what?” Boris was removing the sock with the hole in it. His fingers tickled the sole of my foot, and I almost bit through my lip to keep from giggling aloud myself.

“I thought I heard something.”

“Oh, come on now, Zachary. After all these years, you’re not going to start developing nervous tension now, are you?”

“I've always had a nervous stomach,” Zachary said defensively.

“It’s an occupational hazard.” Boris pushed the shroud up over my waist and tugged off my trousers and shorts. Then he pulled the shroud back down in place again. “You should really try that new speedy alkalizing agent that soothes the walls of your intestines while it eases headache pain at the same time.”

“Those things never work on me."

“That’s what I used to say, but this one is different. It's got that new wonder-drug in it, a derivative of embalming fluid.”

“I thought that's what was in the detergent.”

“You mean the bleach. But it’s not the same thing.” Boris was beside me now, his fingers under the shroud unbuttoning my shirt. “Give me a hand, Zachary,” he said. “Let’s sit him up so I can pull off his jacket and shirt.”

I held my breath as Zachary supported me. I made my eyes wide and staring as the shroud fell away from my face. It wasn’t necessary. Boris and Zachary were performing their task by rote, and they paid very little attention to me. Except that Zachary did remark that I was still pretty warm.

“They’re always rushing things,” Boris replied as he helped Zachary lay me back down on the slab. “Business is really on the upswing around here. You’d think they’d give us a raise.” He rearranged the shroud over me.

“Might as well put a clean one on him,” Zachary said.

“Okay.” Boris whisked the shroud off.

I felt a sudden chill in the area of my groin. I trembled for an instant before I got control of myself.

“Boris!” Zachary had seen the movement. “He moved.”

“Nonsense!” Boris spread a clean shroud over me. “You just imagined that, Zachary. You always think things are reacting to you because you're self-conscious.”

“Me self-conscious? Why should I be self-conscious?”

“Zachary, I made up my mind I was going to tell you this. You’re self-conscious because you have bad breath!”

“Bad breath! But how could I? I gargle with a mouth-wash every morning!”

“Well, Zachary, your mouthwash is letting you down. You know why the boss never asks you to lunch? I'll tell you why the boss never asks you to lunch. It’s because you’ve got bad breath, that’s why! Bad breath!”

“My mouthwash is letting me down,” Zachary brooded.

“I thought maybe my deodorant, but never my mouth-wash. And that’s why the boss never asks me to lunch. I thought it was just because he knows I don’t like Transylvanian food.”

“You need a new mouthwash, Zachary!” Boris was very positive. “Your breath smells like when the wind’s blowing from the slaughterhouse. You gotta try that great new mouthwash flavored with formaldehyde.”

“Formaldehyde? Isn’t that what they use in embalming fluid?”

“Yeah.”

“Won't my breath smell like a strong bleach, then?”

“So what? Anything would be an improvement.”

“You sure you’re not smelling the stiffs?” Zachary’s voice sounded plaintive.

“Maybe.” Boris relented. “Now you mention it, this place does smell a little gamy. We better put on the fridge.”

A moment later there was the sound of whirring refrigeration machinery. It was followed by the slam of a heavy door being closed. I waited a minute to make sure they were gone, and then chanced poking my head out from under the shroud. The first thing I saw was April sitting up on her slab.

“Alone at last.” She shot me an impish grin.

“This is no time for coyness. We may have real trouble.” I wrapped the shroud around me, got up, and went over to the heavy door by which I’d entered. It was locked. I took a look around. There was no other way out of the place. “We do have real trouble.” I amended my guess.

“It’s chilly in here.” April pulled the shroud more closely around her.

“It’s going to get a damn sight colder,” I opined. “This place is refrigerated like one of those packing-house deep-freeze boxes.”

“But why?” She was shivering.

“So the meat doesn’t spoil.” I made a sweeping gesture that took in all the corpses.

“And we’re locked in?”

“Yep.”

“Then we'd better scream for help,” April said practically. “I’d rather be caught here than freeze to death.”

“Good thinking.”

“Shall I scream, then?”

“Be my guest.”

“HEL-LUP!" April projected. “HELLLLP! HELLLP!”

The sound was dead. I tapped one of the walls, then the door. “Save your breath,” I told April. “The place is too well insulated to keep the cold in. It’s soundproof.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Her teeth were chattering now.

“Stay warm as best we can.” I made my way from slab to slab and collected the shrouds. “Lie back down,” I instructed April. When she complied, I spread out six of the shrouds and piled them on top of her. That left me with four. I picked an adjoining slab and spread them over my own body.

A few moments passed before April spoke again. She poked her nose out from under the pile of shrouds. “They look awfully cold," she observed, indicating the ten naked corpses surrounding us. “Look. They’re turning blue. They must be freezing, they look so stiff.” She pulled the shrouds back up over her head again.

“They’re dead,” I reminded her. “Don’t waste your sympathy on them. If it gets much colder, we’re liable to be just as dead.” Even with the four shrouds over me, I could feel the increasing cold in my bones.

The temperature dropped still lower. The deep-freeze machinery continued humming merrily. April felt it, too.

“Aren’t there any more things to use for covers?” she asked pleadingly.

“Here.” I took two of the shrouds off me and spread them over her.

“Oh, no,” she protested. “That's not fair. You’ll freeze. Wait a minute. I have an idea. Why don’t we bundle? You know, like the pioneers used to do during the long, cold winters. Yes, that’s the only way. Pile all of them over here and crawl under them with me.”

I did as she suggested. Her naked body provided the first real warmth I'd felt since the freezing unit had started operating. We wrapped our arms around each other and snuggled close together.

Under the pile of shrouds the way we were, I couldn’t see April. But I could remember what her face and figure were like. The memory, combined with the proximity of our bodies, was warming in itself.

I remembered red-brown hair and a kittenish face with a light spattering of freckles. The face seemed always to have an expression of innocence mixed with erotic invitation. It was April's face, as well as her body, that made her one of the most promising young sex kittens to have appeared on the movie scene lately.

Not that I’d sell her body short, not even in memory. If her face had the appeal of a nymphet, her body attested to the ample development of a few more years. It was small and compact, but it curved in where a good figure is supposed to curve in, and blossomed out where a sex kitten is supposed to burst out.

Her breasts didn't have the size of a Voluptua, but they were more than adequate. Only slightly larger than average, what they might have lacked in girth they more than made up for in firmness and shapeliness. They were perfect cones, naturally angled upward, round and plump at their bases but tapered to a pair of sharp points at the tips. They were milk-white, the tips a dark, almost purplish red.

Hip-wise, her femininity was accentuated by a tiny waist that made her slender hips seem fleshier than they actually were. But the fleshiness of her derriere was no illusion, and the fact of its naturally being-carried high made it all the more sensual. Its sensuality was in contrast to her legs, which were slim, all-American cheerleader limbs, neat and trim, but not particularly stimulating of themselves.

Except—very much except!—for now, when those legs arched to clutch at my body in an effort to find more warmth. I had my arms around April and her back felt cold under the palms of my hands. But with our legs entwined, the lower points of contact we’d established were far from cold. Indeed, as the fulcrums of our bodies pressed together, the flame we kindled there was blazing hot. I let my hands slide down her back. The farther they descended, the warmer it was.

“I don’t care if the lay-in was supposed to be tomorrow,” she murmured. “We have to be flexible, don’t we?”

“It’s the key to survival,” I assured her, feeling the tips of_her breasts pressing into my chest like twin, sharp-pointed branding irons.

She burrowed her face into the cleft between my neck and shoulder, and her lips turned it into another area of warmth. After a moment I returned the favor, sliding down to bury my mouth in the deep valley between her breasts. The maneuver, however, was a little foolish. It forced my feet out from under the bottom of the shroud, and my toes suddenly felt like someone had dropped a cake of ice on them. Hastily I doubled up my legs to pull them back under the shroud again. The reaction temporarily pinned the lower half of April’s body under my weight.

“Ahh, how nice and warm.” Her voice was husky.

“Am I too heavy?”

“If you could just move your knee -“

'I moved it, and she wriggled out from under me a little. I warmed one of my hands at her breasts. She caught her breath sharply and the breast inflated under my caress. Her nails raked the side of my body and then dug into one of my thighs. She tilted her head back so I could kiss her. I obliged. As our tongues met, her whole body tensed and vibrated against me. We rocked back and forth that way a moment, her body like a drawn bowstring.

When the kiss was over, April's hand slid down my belly. Her fingers encircled me and her lips brushed against my ear as she moaned. I slid my hand around hers and stroked the soft triangle beneath her navel. Her thighs slid apart.

“Oh-oh-oh-oh!” She bounced up and down and then moved her hips in small circles to direct the pressure of my fingertips. Her fist was like a vise now. She sank her teeth into my shoulder. She’d forgotten all about the cold.

So had I. Her warm flesh moving against mine caught me up in its impatience. I moved my hand and the petals of her flower of womanhood parted. A few seconds later a laugh of ecstasy trilled from her lips.

We shifted position again, hurriedly. My hands both slid under her now. She clasped hers around my neck, the nails biting into my flesh. Her back arched and her body rose up to meet me as I lunged to fill her hot, honeyed desire. We moved together then, faster and faster, changing the direction of the motion, rotating and spinning and pounding as though this were some carefully choreographed ritual we’d both timed to perfection.

And it was perfection. Her first little scream of satisfaction urged me not to stop. Her legs locked around my waist. The shrouds covering us went flying and we didn’t even notice. We were flying ourselves. Three more screams came from April before we ran the final race which ended with both of us high in the unthinking clouds of our mutual ecstasy. It was long and drawn-out, that final moment; it was an eternity. And even when it was over, exhausted as we both were, she didn't want to release me.

So we shifted position without breaking the contact. We were side by side now, facing each other. Our legs were crisscrossed to insure the continuance of the afterglow. Awareness crept in as we waited for our passion to rekindle.

“Listen!” April said. “I don’t hear that machinery humming any more.”

I listened. “You’re right. And it’s much warmer, too."

“Are you sure that isn’t just us? April giggled. The giggle had an effect deep inside her, and I felt myself clutched tightly for an instant. It was inspiring. “Mmmmm!” April giggled again in appreciation of my reaction.

“No,” I said’ when we’d subsided a little. “It isn’t just us. It’s really warming up in here.”

“You’re right.” April glanced around her. “Our friends don’t look quite so cold any more, either,” she observed, alluding to the naked corpses, “It must be awful to be dead,” she continued, “and not be able to--” She moved the lower part of her body in a small, tight, grinding circle to finish the sentence. “I’ve never had sex with a bunch of dead people watching before,” she reflected. “It sort of makes it more exciting, don’t you think?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I admitted. But now that she’d brought it up, the truth was it gave me an eerie feeling, rather than an erotic one.

“It really is warm in here now.” April pulled away from me. “Don't worry.” She patted me intimately. “I’ll be back.” She swung her legs over the side of the slab, stood up, and stretched. Her body rippled with contentment. She really did look somewhat like an erotic cat as she moved sinuously across the floor. She paused over one of the naked corpses, a man, and looked down at it curiously. “Is that like that because of the cold?” She pointed.

“No. It’s rigor mortis. It’s because he’s dead.”

“Isn’t that strange? For a man, being dead is just like having sex. And that's sort of making life in a way, isn't it? It’s like the whole process—sex, life, death—is a circle. I don’t know why, but that really excites me." She pointed again. This time her outstretched fingers grazed the surface of what she was pointing at. “Make love to me again, Steve.” She didn’t move from where she was standing.

“Sure. Come here.”

She came. Then she bent over the slab so that her derriere protruded provocatively. “Let’s do it this way.” She wriggled.

I came up behind her, reached around, and cupped her swaying breasts in my hands. She reached behind her with one hand, found me, and guided me to the target.

Her derriere began spinning like a top. She was breathing so fast and so hard that I had difficulty holding onto her breasts. Her heart was going like a triphammer. Her first eruption of passion came quickly, but it was only one of a building series.

Finally I could contain myself no longer. I slammed into her so hard from behind that we rolled to the floor in a tangle as I held the long moment of climax to its peak before releasing my own passion. The two of us stayed on the floor for a moment, too exhausted to move.

We were still so caught up in the aftermath of our love-making that neither of us heard the door swing open. It wasn’t until I heard a low chuckle that my mind dived back into reality. And reality was a .38 pointing clown at me.

The face over the .38 belonged to Prince Juv Satir. The expression on the face didn’t match the chuckle any more than the gun did. It was the kind of expression a cat has just before it devours the mouse between its paws.

“How did you get here?” I asked, trying to adjust to his sudden presence, to the gun, to the look on his face.

“When you didn’t come out,” he told me, “I missed you. So I came inside to find you. It wasn’t easy. I must say that you Americans pick the damnedest places to make love."

“Why did you want to find him, anyway?” April asked, pulling a shroud around herself as she got to her feet.

“To kill him, of course.” The Prince said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Then that's what the gun is for,” April deduced.

“You have a keen, analytical mind which grasps situations quickly, my clear,” the Prince complimented her.

“But why should you want to kill him?” she persisted.

“Because he is so very determined to kill me. You might say it's a matter of self-defense.”

“Then you’re Ex-Lax!” I realized.

“Why do you pretend to be surprised, Stevkovsky?"

“Stevkovsky?” April was becoming more bewildered.

“Yes. This man isn't really Steve Victor,” the Prince explained. “He’s a Russian agent named Stevkovsky. He’s Victor's double. He’s the man who killed Louis Ching. Only he miscalculated. The one he really meant to kill was me.”

“Only I didn’t kill Louis Ching,” I corrected him. “Castor Oil or one of his men did that.”

“Castor Oil?” April wasn’t getting any clearer.

“It’s a code name for a Russian agent,” I told her. “Just as Ex-Lax is the Prince’s code name in the Russian espionage network.”

“Oh.” April’s expression said we were both nuts. “Well, now I understand everything.” She gathered her shroud about her and sidled toward the door. “You boys obviously have things you want to discuss,” she trilled. “So why don't I just get out of your way?”

“You’re not in our way.” Prince Juv Satir waved her back with the gun. “We wouldn’t think of parting with your company.”

“But what do you want with me?” April asked nervously.

“Unfortunately, you’ve been a witness to this little encounter. However, judging from the warm feelings you were displaying for Stevkovsky when I came in, perhaps you won't mind too much sharing his fate.”

“I mind,” April told him succinctly. “I mind very much.”

“That's too bad. But I'm afraid you have no choice.”

The Prince gestured for us to start moving. “That way, and take it slow.” He indicated the door.

When he was sure the hallway was empty, he prodded us toward another door at the end of it. When we went through it, he closed it carefully behind us and maneuvered us to where he wanted us to stand. The room was very sparsely furnished and I noticed that the area of the floor on which April and I were standing was formed out of some sort of metal. Looking closer, I deduced that it was some sort of hinged trapdoor.

“This is the crematory!" April’s voice was shaking. “We’re standing right over the incinerator.”

“Exactly.” The Prince smiled that mirthless smile “And this --” He patted at button or some sort of encased mechanism attached to the wall. “—this is the gadget that will—as the Americans say—really burn you up, Stevkovsky. When I push this down, you and your charming girl friend will really sizzle.” He chuckled.

“You really have a hot sense of humor,” I told him drily.

“I’ll see you in hell, Stevkovsky.” His thumb descended on the button and he started to press it down. The fiery holocaust of the crematory waited beneath our feet!

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS the hottest spot in which I’d ever found myself. The fact that April and I, both clutching our shrouds around ourselves, were dressed for the occasion didn’t really make the upcoming barbecue any more attractive. Even in such lovely company, I couldn't work up any enthusiasm over the prospect of ending up like an overdone potato at a weenie roast. Cremation isn’t really a sport to be recommended for the living.

The ideas were more feelings than thoughts. I had no time to formulate them in my mind. The thumb of Ex-Lax was on the button and the instant of switch-throwing was at hand. There was no time to stop my goose from being cooked, tail-feathers and all. The thumb descended, pressing the button down.

But not all the way! A shot rang out! The hand fell away from the switch! Prince Juv Satir, otherwise known’ as Ex-Lax, clutched at his belly and staggered forward to-ward April and myself. His mouth worked, but no words came from his lips. Two more shots sounded as he reeled toward us. One of them whizzed past my ear. That's when I realized that April and I were marked as targets too.

I yanked April down, trying to keep the Prince between us and whoever was shooting. The Prince pitched to the floor right in front of us. Another slug tore into his body as we crouched behind him. He’d fallen facing us, and there was no doubt that he was dead.

I still couldn’t see who’d done the shooting. It had come off to one side, from the hallway beyond the door. The door had evidently been opened without any of us noticing. Now a small chair was hurled from the same direction. It struck the button operating the crematory trapdoor mechanism with deadly accuracy. I felt the floor give way beneath us. April screamed and clutched at me.

The roar of the flames reached my ears. Sudden heat, as if from a blast oven, assailed me. The body of the Prince slid past me, down into the waiting flames. I felt myself starting to fall.

Waves of heat reached up for me, sucking me down. Somehow I managed to grab at the edge of the opening. It wasn’t so much a handhold as a precarious grip maintained by my fingers. It was too tenuous to allow me to pull myself back up. There was too much weight tugging me downward—-not only my own, but April’s as well. She’d grabbed me for support, and now she was dangling over the flames, her arms wrapped around one of my legs the only thing that was keeping her from being consumed.

My fingers dug into the smooth metal flooring. April tried to pull herself higher, using my body as a ladder. The object of her first grab for support was an unfortunate choice. It almost sent the two of us hurtling down into the fire.

“No!” I yelled. “Don’t try to pull yourself up by that!”

“Sorry. But really, this is no time to worry about your manhood being threatened.”

“Threatened is one thing. Torn off is something else again. Try to get a grip on my hip,” I suggested.

She managed it. Slowly she pulled herself up higher. I felt as if my fingers were about to snap off. She got both arms around my shoulders and clutched at my waist with her knees. Her shroud had slipped away with the initial sucking from the furnace, and now her nude body was as ardently clutching me as it had been before when we’d made love. My own shroud was wrapped around my neck like a muffler. April tried to pull herself farther up by grabbing it and almost choked me to death.

Realizing her mistake, she transferred her grip to my nose. Using it for leverage, she raised her knees to my shoulders and settled there for a moment. Then she flung herself over the edge of the pit to the safety of the solid floor beyond.

With April’s weight off my back, my lungs rediscovered what it was like to breathe. My fingers were still numb and my arm muscles felt like they’d been stretched on the rack, but for the first time now I was able to chance moving one hand farther over the edge to get a grip with the hand itself instead of just the fingers. I inched my other hand up alongside of it. A little more inching and I had the leverage I needed. I pulled myself up so that my shoulders were level with the edge and sprang to safety.

April was still lying there getting her breath. I stretched out beside her for a moment, catching up on my own respiration and circulation. Finally we were both rested enough to get to our feet.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Our clothes—” she reminded me.

“The hell with them.”

“But I don’t even have a shroud to cover myself like you do.”

“Come on. This’ll do for the two of us.” I held my aims wide with the shroud and wrapped it around both of us.

For an exit, it was quite an entrance. The bright sunlight blinded us for a moment as we stepped outside. When I finally was able to focus, the first thing I saw was a whole bunch of faces staring at us with their mouths hanging open. After a while I was able to distinguish Donna Carper and Happy Daze and Misty Milo and Voluptua and Dwight Floyd Rank and Winthrop Van Ardsdale among them.

They had three or four cabs lined up and were evidently about to depart in them. Without asking, I grabbed one of them for myself and April. As it pulled away, I looked at the group standing there from the side window.

One of them, I could be sure now, was Castor Oil. But which one? And why should Castor Oil have tried to kill me? Weren't we supposed to be on the same side? Or, at least, weren’t Castor Oil and Stevkovsky supposed to be on the same side? I could see why he’d killed Ex-Lax, but why me? The question was still in my mind after I dropped off April - taking her up to her flat under cover of the shroud and then coming back down to the cab alone (something we probably couldn't have gotten away with anywhere else, but in Hollywood hardly anyone noticed) - and continued on to my hotel. Yes, why should Castor Oil have tried to kill me?

I learned the answer when I finally gained the privacy of my hotel room. I didn’t even have a chance to discard the shroud when the phone rang. It was Putnam. He had a very interesting little tidbit of news for me. My corpse had been stolen!

It's bad enough being dead without being kidnapped. “Is nothing sacred?” I asked Putnam. Evidently not. My cadaver—really Viktor Stevkovsky’s--had been filched from the Washington graveyard in which it had been buried. Someone had dug it up in the dead of night and now there was only a big hole where once my bones had presumably been laid to rest. “It’s nice to feel wanted,” I told Putnam, “but who -?”

“The Russians! Who else? They probably did a post-mortem on the body, and that means they know now that Stevkovsky is the one who’s dead and that you’re really an impostor impersonating their impostor impersonating you.”

“Come again.”

“They know you’re really Steve Victor and not Stevkovsky pretending to be Steve Victor. That means that Castor Oil knows and is probably out to kill you. I'd be very careful if I were you.”

“How is it you're always just a smidgeon late coming up with these warnings, Putnam?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just that Castor Oil has already been very hostile toward me. Very hostile indeed. Castor Oil killed Ex-Lax and now his mission in life seems to be to make me the burnt toast of the town.”

“And your mission is to get Castor Oil—dead or alive!” Putnam reminded me.

After he’d hung up I pondered the assignment. Before I could “get” Castor Oil, I had to find out who Castor Oil was. The fact that they were dead ruled out Prince Juv Satir (he was Ex-Lax, anyway) and Louis Ching. I could rule out April Wilder, too. She’d come too close to being a victim of Castor Oil to be Castor Oil. That left the following:

Donna Carper. She’d set up the telethon at which an attempt had been made on the life of Ex-Lax. As Ella Hooper’s right hand girl, she wielded a lot of power in Hollywood. Ostensibly she leaned to the right of Reagan, but as Putnam had once pointed out, that might well be an excellent cover-up for Commie espionage and propaganda activities.

Dwight Floyd Rank. The same theory about the right wing applied to him. Also there was that nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that he might somehow have been responsible for that house rolling down the mountain. If he was Castor Oil, could he have spotted my deception even that far back?

Misty Milo. Was it passion? Or was it espionage with her? Certainly she'd been giving me a big play since I'd come to Hollywood. Had it merely been a way of keeping tabs on me until she was ready to dispose of me? I could easily have been scalded to death in that shower. Had Misty set me up for it deliberately?

Happy Daze. Along with Misty, he d been responsible for drawing me back into our little circle of intrigue. Was his boffo buffoonery a cover-up for Castor Oil?

Voluptua. Not much to go on with her. But there had been that affair with the Russian diplomat a year ago. And she had been around each time Castor Oil's presence had been felt.

Winthrop Van Ardsdale. He’d been around, too. Except that he hadn’t been around when Louis Ching was murdered by mistake. But mightn’t that be even more significant? His absence might point more strongly to his being Castor Oil than the presence of the others. After all, mightn’t Castor Oil have wanted to be as far removed as possible from the scene of Ex-Lax’s murder?

So there they were, the six of them. And I was no closer to knowing which one was Castor Oil than I had been the day I arrived in Hollywood. Playing Sherlock, Holmes was getting me nowhere; I might just as well have gone eenie-meenie-minie-mo.

In terms of solving the problem, I only had one thing working for me. That was the fact that Castor Oil was sure to try to kill me. In doing so Castor Oil might find it necessary to reveal his (or her) identity. In other words, I myself was the bait—the only bait—which might lure the Commie killer out into the open.

All I could do now was wait. I waited. The afternoon blurred into early evening. It was about seven o'clock when the phone rang. I answered it.

“Hello. Steve?” It was Donna Carper.

“Hi, Donna.”

There was a click in my ear. It was barely discernible, but I heard it. Then there was an instant where I thought I heard the sound of breathing. It was caught off immediately, as if someone had placed his hand over the mouth- piece. Yet none of these sounds seemed to be coming from Donna’s end of the line. They all seemed apart from our connection. I had the sudden strong knowledge that a third person was listening to our conversation.

“We really haven't seen much of each other since you got to Hollywood,” Donna was saying. “I know this is pretty offhand, but how would you like to come out here and have dinner with me tonight? Informal. Just the two of us.”

“Sounds great. Where are you located?”

“I have a beach house oft the Harbor Freeway.” She gave me directions and hung up.

The second click followed instantaneously and then the line was really dead. I had a hunch. It was a slim chance, but I decided to follow it up. I got the hotel operator back.

“Good evening, Mr. Victor. How are you this fine evening? Is everything satis—"

“Did you cut someone in on the call I just had?” I interrupted her.

“Certainly not, Mr. Victor. It’s not our pol --”

“Someone else was on the line,” I insisted. “Do you have any idea who it might have been?"

“Why, I can’t imagine. Unless, of course, Miss Milo—”,

“Miss Milo? Why would she be on my line?"

“Well, you have a party wire with her, Mr. Victor. You see, we’re short of lines in the hotel. We asked Miss Milo if she’d mind sharing one with you and she said she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, she said it wasn’t even necessary to bother you about it since you and she are old friends and she was sure you wouldn’t mind either.”

“Oh, she said that, did she?”

“Why, yes. It is all right, isn’t it? I mean, we assumed --”

“It's all right,” I assured her. “Just one thing. Does that mean I might cut in on her calls, too?”

“Well, yes. It’s a party line. Either one of you, can listen to the other’s calls. But of course you wouldn’t.”

“Of course not.” I hung up on the operator and got dressed.

Just for the hell of it, when I’d finished dressing, I picked up the phone again. I struck oil! Misty was talking to someone.

“. . . at her beach house,” Misty was saying.

“Where is it?” I recognized the voice! It was Happy Daze.

“I don't know,” Misty told him.

“Then I’ll have to tail him out there. Are you sure you want me to—?”

“I’m sure!” Misty sounded vicious.

“All right, then.” Happy hung up.

So did I. Well, there it was. An arrow pointing at Misty, and at Happy too. From the tone of the conversation it seemed pretty certain that Happy wasn’t Castor Oil. But I moved Misty up to the top of the list of possibilities with Happy as a likely henchman.

Just how likely became a matter of even more concern as I pulled my rented car out of the hotel driveway later and spotted another car tagging me. A block later I caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in my rear-view mirror. It was Happy, all right.

I didn’t try to lose him. If he was a lackey for Castor Oil, then I had to leave the way open for the inevitable confrontation. Of course, Misty wasn’t the only suspect, though. There was Donna Carper herself. The invitation had come out of the blue. A lonely beach house on a deserted sand-strand -- what better setting for Castor Oil to lure a prospective victim to visit?

When I finally arrived at the place, the reality fit the description I’d envisaged. It was lonely and out of the way. It was the perfect setup for a murder. I caressed the small revolver in my jacket pocket for reassurance before I rang the bell.

Donna answered it. Her look hadn’t improved since the last time I'd seen her. She was wearing a shapeless tweed suit and her figure wasn't doing anything to lend it any more shape. Her eyes were pale, lusterless saucers behind the round glasses she always wore. Her hair, a dull brown, was tied in a knot; the strands escaping from the knot made her look a bit disheveled. Dishevelment can be attractive in some girls. It wasn't with Donna; it was merely sloppy.

“Are you hungry?” she asked after she’d ushered me into the living room.

“Not particularly.”

“Good. Then let’s put off dinner and have a drink. Bourbon, isn’t it?” She held up a bottle of Early Times. “See, just for you.”

“I guess you were pretty sure I'd accept your invitation,” I observed.

“Well, I knew we’d get together sooner or later.” She poured me a drink over ice and settled down next to me on the sofa. She sat a lot closer than was necessary. “Now, isn’t this cozy?” she purred.

“Very cozy, Donna,” I agreed, sipping at the bourbon.

“You know, I’ve had a yen for you for a long time, Steve."

“I'm flattered.”

“I know I’m no Misty Milo, but I do have other qualities even if I don’t look like I do. Yes, you might be very surprised.”

“I’m sure I would.” Politeness is one of my strong points.’

“I’m sure, too.” She took off her glasses and leaned her face toward me expectantly.

You know how it is in those movies where the mousy type girl takes off her specs and looks right pretty all of a sudden? A minute later she takes off her shapeless tweed jacket and-whaddayaknow!--it’s Liz Taylor or Jayne Mansfield, after all. You know how those movies go? Well, this wasn’t one of them!

Without her specs, Donna looked more like an owl than ever. She was jowlier without them, as well as bleakly myopic. And after I kissed her, when she took off her jacket, her bosom was revealed as a batch of Playdough sadly sagging at the end of an overly busy school day. It wasn't so much that it was shapeless as that its shape resembled nothing so much as a pair of deflated balloons. The sheer blouse she was wearing revealed her bra in an outline reminiscent of two pancakes, each with a dab of syrup coagulating off-center.

A while later, after she’d been pushing things quite hard, she took off the tweed skirt. Her hips were square blocks, and about the nicest thing I can say about her derriere is that it was undoubtedly utilitarian. Through her transparent slip I could make out legs like ham hocks. The fact that they needed shaving didn’t make them any more appealing. On the whole, it shook my faith in that favorite Hollywood fairy tale. When this unattractive girl divested herself of specs and shapeless garb, she was even more unattractive than she had been!

“Come on in the bedroom,” she panted.

Reluctantly, but still too much a gentleman to demur, I followed her.

“Aren’t you" going to take off your clothes?” she asked huskily.

I took a long look at her and swallowed hard. “Yeah. I guess so.” I felt like telling her it would have been a lot easier on me if she’d stayed dressed and kept her glasses on. I pulled off my jacket and tie, hung them over a chair and started to unbutton my shirt.

That was a mistake. The gun was still in the-jacket pocket. Now Donna was between it and me, nibbling at my ears while I continued to undress. Thus I had no chance to grab for it when the unexpected happened.

The unexpected was Dwight Floyd Rank. He came through the French doors which led from the bedroom to the terrace of the beach house. He came through by hitting the door with his shoulder and crashing into the room. He came through waving a gun. In my eyes the gun made him an A-Number-One candidate for the role of Castor Oil with Donna Carper his stooge for setting me up the way she had. But when he spoke, the conclusion I’d jumped to began sliding out from under my feet.

“I caught you!” he yelled. “I caught you in the act!”

“Not really,” I protested. “We hadn’t even begun to--”

“Dwight!” Donna’s scream overrode my objection. “What are you doing here?”

“Ha!” he sneered. “You didn’t expect me, did you? Of course not! You thought you could be unfaithful and I’d never know."

“Please be careful how you wave that gun around,” I suggested.

“I’m going to kill both of you for this!” he announced.

“He will, too,” Donna sobbed. “He’s my lover and he’s insanely jealous!”

Suddenly the whole situation had an all-too-familiar ring to me. It was a repetition of my first night in Hollywood; that’s what it was! Only now it was Rank and Donna instead of Happy Daze and Misty Milo the way it had been that night. The realization filled me with a sudden suspicion. “Is this another one of Happy’s gags?” I asked angrily.

“This is no gag!” Donna assured me. “He means business!"

“That’s right!” Rank confirmed her words, slipped the safety catch off, and pointed the revolver at us. “But if it’s of any interest to you, Happy Daze did tip me off to your assignation.”

“Why would he do that?” I wondered aloud.

“Please, Dwight, don’t do anything foolish,” Donna pleaded.

“Steve, I always thought you were my friend,” Rank said through clenched lips. “How could you double-cross me like this with the woman I love?”

“It wasn’t easy,” I told him, looking at Donna with distaste.

“Yes,” he granted, following my glance. “I see what you mean. I'm obsessed, but there’s really no excuse for you.”

“Is that any way to talk about the woman you love?" Donna sobbed.

“Yes, my dear. It is. I may be obsessed by you, I may love you, but I’m not blind. Let’s face it. Donna, you're a pig!”

“If she’s such a pig, then how come you care enough about her to commit murder?” I asked.

“Because she’s my pig,” he told me. “She's not much for looks, and no heroine out of books, but she’s my pig. And that’s why I’m going to kill you, Victor!” He leveled the gun at my chest and his finger tightened on the trigger.

CLUNK! '

In the nick of time! A hand had reached through the French doors. It was holding a brick. The “CLUNK!” was the sound the brick made as it connected with the top of Rank’s skull. It was followed by a thud as Rank’s body hit the floor. Happy Daze stepped over it as he entered the room and set the brick down on a table.

“You can say what you want about my routines,” he opened, “but you’ve got to admit my timing is the best in the business.”

"Baby," I told him, “I’m your staunchest fan from here on in.”

“This place is getting like Grand Central Station,” Donna observed. “What are you doing here?"

“Man! How do you like that?” Happy reacted to her indignant tone. “Talk about looking gift horses in the old craw! Is that any way to greet the man who just saved your -life?”

“Not my life,” she told him. ”Steve’s life. Dwight never would have hurt me."

“I’m not sure that distinction is going to add much to our friendship.” I was miffed now myself. “Still-—” I turned to Happy “if you hadn’t sicced him onto us in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to save my hide. What did you want to do that for, anyway?”

“It was Misty’s idea," Happy admitted.

“But why?"

“Well, she convinced me it would be a funny gag,” he said, looking a bit shamefaced. “I mean, she knew about Donna and Rank and she said it would be a gasser to have Dwight catch you with Donna. I never dreamed he’d be mad enough to kill you.”

“But Misty did,” Donna said. “She knows Dwight and she knows how he’d react to finding me with another man. She set it up deliberately.”

“Yeah. I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Happy said. “The way I see it now, she did it out of jealousy. She was jealous of another woman having Steve, so she set me and Dwight up as a pair of patsies to see that Steve got punished. Man! Hell hath no fury--!"

I wasn’t sure he was right about Donna’s motive. It could have been jealousy. I'd known her to be jealous in the past. But jealous enough to kill? I wasn’t sure. There was also the strong possibility that if she was Castor Oil she’d tipped off Dwight as a convenient way of getting rid of me.

Still, the incident had ruled out two of my suspects. Rank couldn't be Castor Oil. He’d never have wasted time pretending to be jealous if he was. He'd simply have killed me without any preliminaries. And Happy was out, too. If he was Castor Oil, or even an underling as I'd suspected before, then he never would have stepped in with that brick to save my life.

Right now Happy stepped out, dragging Rank with him. The three of us had agreed that the best thing by far was to keep the whole incident quiet. Happy obviously felt that Rank and himself had both been used, and now his conscience was bothering him about conking Rank with the brick. He said he'd take him to a doctor he knew and then back to his place to sleep off the blow. Donna and I watched them go, and then, once again, we were alone.

Trouble hadn’t improved her appearance. And it certainly hadn’t increased my ardor. On the contrary, I just wanted to get dressed and get out of there. Right now Misty was the one I wanted to tackle. Right now she looked to be Castor Oil.

“You’re not going!” Donna was distressed.

Well, after what’s happened—"

“But that doesn’t make any difference. Not the slightest. Let’s just pick up where we left off.”

“I don’t think—”

“Now, let’s see!” She overrode my objections. “You were standing here-—” She pushed me back to where I’d been standing when Rank made his entrance. “—and I was right here, nibbling on your ear.” She got between me and my jacket with the gun in it again. And I was just about to—” She stepped back, took the gun out of my jacket and pointed it at me. “—do this. Hands up, Steve.”

“Look, we’ve had enough games with guns already.”

“This is no game. Put your hands up.”

I put my hands up. “Now what?” I asked.

“Now we wait.”

“For Castor Oil?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Or are you Castor Oil?” I persisted.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Just sit down on the edge of the bed quietly and keep your hands over your head.” Donna wiggled the gun at me.

I did what she wanted. “Are you going to kill me?" I inquired. I’ll admit to a certain vested interest in the question.

“Eventually, I suppose." She yawned.

“Why not do it now and get it over with?”

“There may be some questions for you to answer first. I’m not sure.”

“Then you’re not Castor Oil. If you were, you'd be sure.”

“Not necessarily. I could be waiting for further instructions from you-know-where.”

The door from the living room opened silently behind her. When a gun poked through the opening, I assumed it was the confederate for whom she’d seemed to be waiting. I was wrong.

The figure tiptoed up behind her silently and brought the butt of the gun down on her skull. The blow was a lot neater, a lot more expert than the one Happy had delivered to the noggin of Dwight Floyd Rank only a few moments earlier. But the effect was the same. Donna dropped my gun and pitched to the floor, face first.

I picked up the gun and turned to my second rescuer of the evening. “Gee, thanks, Voluptua,” I told her. “When you first came in, I didn't know which side you were on."

“I'm on the same side you’re on,” the Amazonian beauty assured me. “But I must say I don’t really approve of their sending an amateur like you out on this assignment. They should leave these things to the professionals.”

“Are you a professional?”

“How do you mean that?” She couldn’t resist the “in-character” wisecrack. “But I am a professional,” she continued. “I'm CIA.”

“Really?” I was impressed. Most of the CIA agents I'd known were bunglers. Voluptua was a decided improvement. They must have upped their recruiting standards. “How did you know I was here?” I asked her.

“I tailed you. I’ve been tailing you quite a bit lately. But you've had an annoying habit of losing me just when you most need my help. Tonight was different.”

“Thank goodness," I sighed.

“Too much thanks too soon!” The voice came from behind us. “Don't turn around!” it cautioned quickly. “Just toss your guns onto the bed, both of you.”

We did as the voice ordered.

“Now you can turn around—slowly.”

We turned around. It was no surprise to find myself facing Winthrop Van Ardsdale. I’d recognised the voice when he’d first spoken.

“Well, well,” he said. “How nice. Two American agents at one crack.”

“You’re Castor Oil,” I guessed,

“That's right.” He admitted his identity.

“And Donna is one of your people,” I deduced,

“Correct. So now you’ve found out everything you wanted to know, Steve. But what good is it going to do you? Either of you? You realize that you’ll never live to pass on my identity to the CIA or your Mr. Putnam.”

“If you’re going to kill us anyway, how come Donna didn’t kill me before?” I wondered.

“Because she is stupid. And she follows orders with blind stupidity. Her orders were to get you here and keep you here. So she would not have killed you before my arrival. However, now that I’m here -”

“Drop that gun!”

It was getting to be a familiar line. Likewise, it was getting to be a familiar situation. I was getting almost as tired of being rescued in the nick of time as I was of being told I was about to die. Almost, but not quite.

Castor Oil, nee Winthrop Van Ardsdale, dropped the gun. Misty Milo stepped from behind him and picked it up. I was damned glad to see her get away with it. The difference between Misty and my previous rescuers was that they’d had some sort of weapon in their hands when they’d come bouncing onto the scene and Misty hadn’t. She’d really bluffed Van Ardsdale into dropping his gun, and now that was the gun she was holding on him.

“I bluffed you! I bluffed you!” she taunted Winthrop now.

“Damn! How could I have been so dumb?” He leaned against the wall and banged his head against it. “How could I?”

“It was in the cards,” I told him. “You were doomed from the moment you became a Russian agent, Van Ardsdale. Traitors always pay the penalty of their treachery!”

“Who writes your material?” Voluptua wondered.

“That's the American way,” I insisted.

“My gorge won’t take much more of this,” Voluptua said. “Why don’t you two just run along? I’ll clean up things here. Go on. Just toddle on into the sunset.”

“The sun already set,” Misty told her.

“Don’t worry. For you two it’ll set again. After all, this is Hollywood.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And thank goodness for Hollywood endings. They’re always happy. Still—" I was reminded of something. “They have to be explained. Just what brought you down here in that well-worn nick of time?” I asked Misty.

“Well, when I contrived to have Happy sic Rank on you, it was because I was jealous and mad as hell. But when I stopped to think about it later, I began to worry that he might really hurt you. So I came down here to warn you.”

“Very sweet of you. Only you were two threats late. Still, I’m glad you came.” I kissed her gratefully.

I kissed her gratefully again later that evening. But this time my gratitude was for something else entirely. And, with the bed swaying gently beneath us, we were about to embark on still another journey for which we would both have cause to be grateful. But before we could, the phone rang.

“Hello, Victor, this is Charles Putnam!”

“Dammit to hell!” I exploded.

Misty giggled.

“Victor! Have you got a woman in your room? Answer me! Have you!”

Misty took the receiver out of my hand. “Sorry, wrong number!” she cooed into it. “And please don't call us; we’ll call you.”

Putnam was still cursing as she hung the phone up and came back into my arms. “But not tonight we won’t," she added. “We won’t call him tonight.”

And We didn’t!

Notes

[←1 ]

Ex-lax is a powerful laxative. (Bob)

[←2 ]

Not a reference to the Joe Dante movie of 1984, since this work was published in 1967! A gemlin is an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained mechanical or electronic problem or fault. (Bob)

[←3 ]

1967 dollars! About 7 times more in 2016, thus: approx 17000 $

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER NINE

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2

3

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