The girls from O.R.G.Y

Glory was enjoying the sun on her body. She felt so peaceful here. The warmth flooding over her body was making her drowsy. Yet there was something sensual about it, too, something just a little exciting and naughty in lying out here in the open air without any clothes covering her body. She let herself enjoy the sensation, her mind straying to Don and the way he made love to her.

Realizing that these thoughts were arousing her so that her body was beginning to react, she made herself put them out of her mind. She thought of Wilma. What could be keeping her? It seemed she’d been gone an awfully long time. She was glad she had a friend like Wilma, glad she’d come with her to this idyllic spot. She felt the drowsiness deepen and let herself give in to it.

Glory was still awake when the hands clamped her shoulders and the mouth brutally fastened itself over hers. For a moment, she was too taken by surprise to even struggle. And by the time she felt the weight of his body on top of hers, it was too late.

When the tongue-probing kiss ended, she opened her mouth to scream, but again he closed it with his own. She clawed, at his neck and back wildly, but to no avail. He wouldn’t be budged. His weight and strength were too much for her. His knee worked its way brutally between her legs. She felt his throbbing erection beating at her bare thighs. But her very struggles worked to her disadvantage. They helped him work his lower body between her legs, and the only thing she could do was try to kick at his kidneys and back with her feet. She squeezed herself tight to keep him from successfully raping her. But, strangely, he seemed bent on going no further than he’d already gone. . . .

Don was filled with loathing as he gazed upon the scene beside the pond through his field glasses. The loathing increased as he watched this naked brute approach Glory and kiss her. He saw Glory’s arms go around the man’s neck. He shuddered at the seemingly eager passion with which she clawed at him. He watched her wrap her legs around the man, noted the long kisses which followed one another. They blotted out Glory’s face and he was almost glad he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t have stood seeing the desire he knew must be shining from her eyes directed at another man.

Was this the fiancee he loved? The girl he thought too “pure” and innocent for oral lovemaking? The girl he’d thought could want sex only with him? The girl he’d been so sure would never even look at another man? What a fool he’d been!

“Seen enough?” Wilma’s voice was soft, soothing, understanding.

“Yes.” He didn’t trust himself to say anything else. He thrust the binoculars savagely back in his attache case and turned to leave. Wilma followed behind him.

Halfway through the patch of woods, she called out. “Wait a minute.”

“What for?”

“For this.” She came up to him and put her arms around his neck. Her kiss was hot, deep, insistent. “I showed you what I had to show you,” she told him. “Now I’m going to keep my promise and make you forget.” She sank to her knees on the ground in front of him. Her hands were busy with his pants for a moment. And then her mouth sought out its target, hungrily.

God! She’s kissing me under the balls! Yeah! What a feeling! Right through my whole prick. Brought it right up too. Now she’s licking it! Look at her on her knees there with her blouse open and her tits hanging out. Small. Not like Glory’s. But hot looking with those long nipples. Oh! That tongue! She’s really lapping my balls and cock now! It’s turning her on too. My redheaded cocksucker’s playing with herself. Yeah! She’s got her hand between her legs and she's working her fingers around inside her pussy. Hot little bitch! Feel that hot nipple against my hard-on! She really digs that. Rubbing that red tit all over my balls. Jesus! It’s making her come! That’s it. baby! Wipe your come-juice all over my balls! Yeah! Rub it with those hard nipples. Yeah, get my cock between your breasts and wrap ’em around my hard-on and let me fuck your tits awhile. She’s coming again! It’s got her so out of her skull she can ’t stop coming and she has to get it all in her mouth. Oh, yeah! Open wide! Let me ram my whole dick in there, nuts and all. Suck my nuts! Feel my cock against the back of your throat. Lick it! Lick it! Now suck! Suck! And come again. . . and keep sucking. . . and come with your hand. . . and lick and suck. . . and take it in the head. . . and come some more and now me too, coming with you, coming while you come, shooting all the hot cream I’ve got right down your throat. Suck it dry! Suck it dry! Suck it dry!. . .

Glory’s attacker was gone as quickly as he’d come. Dazed, she realized that he hadn’t raped her. Of his own volition he’d left off his attack and scampered back into the woods.

As the stunned feeling wore off, it was replaced by a great relief. Glory felt that she’d been extremely lucky. Not willing to test her luck any further, she quickly put on her clothes and started back to the house.

An hour or so later she emerged from her shower, confident at last that she’d scrubbed the filth of her attacker from her body. Wilma was waiting in her bedroom when she entered it.

“What happened to you?” Wilma asked before Glory could say anything. “I went back to the pond and you were gone.”

“Wait until I tell you! It was terrible. But first, whatever kept you so long? l thought you were coming right back.”

“While I was getting my cigarettes, Mrs. Henshaw asked me to help her carry some empty jars down to the cellar. She keeps them there for later in the year when she makes preserves. I didn’t think it would take as long as it did. But tell me what happened to you. You look upset.”

Glory described how she’d been attacked.

“Oh, you poor baby,” Wilma said when Glory had finished. “How horrible for you. But at least he didn’t rape you. You were lucky, I guess. What did this fellow look like?”

Glory described Rafe. “Does he sound familiar to you?” she asked when she was through ‘recalling all the details of her assailant’s appearance that she could remember.

Wilma nodded. “It could only be one person Rafe Proctor. I’m sure of it. And that means that you weren’t in any real danger.”

“What do you mean? He tried to rape me!”

Wilma shook her head. “Not really. Rafe’s a little queer in the head, but he’s harmless. He might have tried to nuzzle you a little, but he wouldn’t try to rape you. I don’t think he really knows what sex is all about.”

“It sure felt like he did.” Glory giggled in spite of herself.

“Take my word for it. He’s really harmless.”

“Then you don’t think I should notify the sheriff or anything like that?”

“No. You’ll just leave yourself open to a lot of gossip and embarrassment for no reason. After all, nothing really happened. Take my advice and just forget it.”

Wilma had been tempted for a moment to let Glory take action so that Rafe might suffer the consequences. That bastard would deserve anything he gets, she thought to herself, remembering the indignities and pain of the previous day. But Rafe might prove useful again, and so Wilma resisted the temptation. Her revenge on him would have to wait until she was sure the threat to her father had been removed.

“Ooh, it’s late,” Glory said, noticing the clock on her dressing table. “Daddy will be home soon. I’d better get dressed for dinner.”

“And I’d better get back to work,” Wilma said, “before Mrs. Henshaw comes looking for me.” She left Glory and went down the stairs to attend to her kitchen duties.

Meanwhile, Don had gone back to the plant and straight to the office which had been placed at the disposal of Preston B. Dawes. “If you’re free, I’d like to talk to you alone for a few minutes,” Don said.

“Of course, Don.” Dawes waved the secretary out of the office. “What’s on your mind?” he asked when they were alone.

“Glory.” Don paused, obviously having some difficulty in finding the right words.

“Yes? What about Glory?”

“l want to break our engagement,” Don blurted out.

“I see.” Dawes’s eyes narrowed. His face resumed its habitually cold expression. “This will hurt her very much, you know,” he told Don in an even, precise tone of voice.

“I don’t think so.” The words came out clipped and bitter.

“No? I do. May I ask why you now wish to break your engagement to my daughter?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“I see. You don’t feel you owe me—or, rather, Glory—some explanation of this sudden decision?”

“No sir. I don’t.”

“And you don’t think you owe her the courtesy of informing her of it in person? Or me the courtesy of not being put in the position of inflicting this hurt for you?”

“I don’t want to see her again. Ever!”

“Really? Then you leave me no choice but to do as you ask,” Dawes said icily. “I shall inform my daughter of your decision.” He gave Don a curt nod of dismissal and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk.

But Don didn’t leave. “Sir,” he said, “I just want you to know that this decision in no way affects the respect and gratitude I feel for you.”

Dawes frowned. “I’m afraid, Corrigan, that I cannot reciprocate that feeling. I am not inhuman, however I may appear. What you are doing to my daughter and the way in which you have chosen to do it, both, have decidedly affected any respect I may have granted you.”

“Then perhaps it would be better if I resigned, sir.”

“I would rather you didn’t. Unless, that is, your loyalty to the company has vanished along with the loyalty I should have thought you owed my daughter. The truth, Corrigan, is that your familiarity with the situation here is an asset at the present time. My own loyalty to the firm keeps me from letting my personal antipathy toward you affect my sense of what is best for business. We both owe it to the company to see this situation through. Bitter as my feelings are toward you, I would prefer that you do not resign at this time.”

“Very well, sir, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll stay on here in Glenville until the job is done.” Don left Dawes’s office and went back to his desk.

He worked well into the evening. Then he left the plant, had some dinner, and went into one of the local bars for a few drinks. Finally, he glanced at his watch, judged that it was late enough, left the bar, and got into his car. Fifteen minutes later he pulled the car off the road near the grove of trees where he’d met Wilma that morning.

She was waiting for him. “Here, darling.” She took his hand and led him into the woods.

“Did you have any trouble getting out?” he asked.

“No. They all went to bed early. Here’s a good spot.”

She indicated a clearing and sat down on the soft earth. She wrapped her arms around his legs and settled her head against him. “My, we’re all ready, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” Don was breathing hard.

“You like what I do to you, don’t you, baby?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like anything she ever did, is it?”

“No. Nothing I’ve ever known makes me feel the way you do when you do that to me, Wilma. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy regular sex again after this. Just since this afternoon it’s been like an obsession. It’s all I’ve been thinking about, all I’ve been waiting for.”

“My greedy boy. I told you I’d make you forget all about Glory. Come on now. It’s dinner time and Wilma’s hungry. Feed Wilma. Give her that delicious nectar she craves.”

Like a bee come upon a pollinating flower, Wilma ravaged his genitals. Pure sensation swept over his brain—but not hers. The pleasure she was giving him was really being given mechanically. Throughout, her mind was busy, considering the uses to which she might put this hold she had established over Don, how he might best serve her purposes, what he might be able to tell her, and what he might be able to do for her.

She punctuated the throbbing thrust of his release with her sharp little teeth. He was hers now, hers to hurt, to use, to destroy if necessary. She bit down again, as if to affirm her power. She felt the surge of hot jizzum flowing down her throat.

Don felt the mingling of agony with ecstasy, never guessing the thoughts going through Wiln1a’s mind. He was as innocent of her intentions as a lamb. A lamb being readied for slaughter.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Glory Dawes removed two of the ice cubes from the ice pack, raised her skirt, pushed her panties out of the way, and squeezed them between her burning thighs. She screwed the top back on the ice pack and replaced it on her forehead. She tossed about on the bed for a few moments, unable to get comfortable, then opened her blouse and put the ice pack against the heat of her bare breasts.

None of this helped. Nothing did. This feverish hunger consuming her body would go on forever. There was no relief from it. There seemed no way she might find relief. The week since it had begun seemed a lifetime. The lifetime stretching out before her seemed an eternity.

It started the night her father had told her of Don’s decision. Her lack of comprehension had deepened into a daze which wasn’t washed away by the tears she shed that night. The numbness had remained even after the tears had stopped and been replaced by these uncontrollable waves of desire sweeping over her body.

.Somehow, the knowledge of having lost Don for some inconceivable reason, had made her burn with frustration. More than ever, now that she could no longer have it, she wanted the sex satisfactions to which he’d introduced her. It was as though her body was reacting to his rejection of her by screaming out its womanliness, its need for fulfillment, its proof that it was still alive and eager to receive love despite the rejection.

This unfulfilled yearning had been the thumbscrew of her week of torture. She had fought it with sleeping pills, cold showers, hot baths, long walks, busy work, and now ice cubes—all to no avail. She still could think only of Don, of their making love together, and she would have to bite her hands to keep them from sliding down her body and beginning the rhythmic caresses which contained in the ultimate satisfaction they provided the seeds of still more-insatiable-desire. Glory began to worry that she would indeed drive herself mad—just as her mother had once warned her she might if she continued playing with herself.

Now, frustrated and feverish, but determined not to give in, Glory forced herself to get up off her bed and go downstairs. Perhaps, she thought, talking to Wilma might take her mind off Don -- and sex. She found Wilma out back, hanging up some wash.

“Hi, Wilma,” she greeted her.

“Hi.”

“I thought I’d come down and keep you company.”

“I’m glad. I haven’t seen much of you this past week. I was beginning to think maybe you were mad at me.”

“Why should I be made at you?” Glory asked.

“I thought maybe because of that fellow Rafe bothering you at the pond.”

“Don’t be silly. That wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known he’d stumble on me. I never blamed you. To tell you the truth, with what’s happened since, I’d all but forgotten about it.”

“You mean breaking your engagement?” Wilma asked sympathetically .

“Then you know.”

“Living in the same house,” Wilma explained, “naturally I pieced it together. Why did you break it?” she asked with hypocritical innocence.

“I didn’t. He did.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t give any reason.” Glory’s eyes filled with tears. “I just don’t know.”

“There now,” Wilma comforted her, “let’s not talk about it. She put her arm around Glory’s shoulders and calmed her. You shouldn’t upset yourself. A beautiful girl like you, there will be other boys. There are bound to be. Just don’t think about it anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” Glory quieted down and dabbed the tears from her eyes. You re right, of course. There’s really no sense crying over what might have been.” She managed a smile. “What have You been doing with yourself?” she asked to change the subject.

“Nothing special. Going to the pond. It’s lovely there now.”

“Aren’t you afraid that crazy fellow might come back?”

“No. He’s working as a hand on a farm out near where the factory is. He couldn’t get over this way during the day even if he wanted to.” Wilma looked at Glory calculatingly. “Wouldn’t you like to come down for a swim with me this afternoon?”

“I don’t—” Glory started to say no and then thought better of it. She had to do something to get her mind off Don, off this terrible itch which had possession of her. “Yes,” she said. “I would. I think it would be nice.”

Glory felt her spirits lifting as she frolicked with Wilma in the water later that afternoon. She admired the way Wilma swam, slim body knifing through the water expertly, red hair streaming out behind like a blazing magnet drawing the sun’s rays. Watching her friend, for the first time all week Glory’s mind wasn’t on Don.

But the sex yearning still enveloped her body. Coming out of the water, Glory tried to push her awareness of it out of her mind. The heat of the sun on her naked body, the vaguely erotic perfume of the foliage, the very sight of her own nudity and of Wilma’s -- these things made it difficult to ignore.

She dried herself with a towel, resisting the impulse to let her hands linger over her hungry flesh. Then she lay down atop a large boulder alongside of Wilma. Their shoulders brushed and they exchanged warm smiles.

“You’ve got a sunburn,” Wilma observed.

“I know. It’s from the last time we were here.”

“What a shame. The suntan oil didn’t help?”

“No. Although I guess it might have been worse without it. I always get a burn the first time I’m in the sun. You don’t, Wilma. I can tell. You’re brown as a berry. You just tan. That’s funny.”

“Why funny?”

“Because I always thought red-headed girls were supposed to be very careful in the sun. I thought they always had the kind of skin that blisters.”

“That’s only if they’re fair-skinned.”

“But you are.”

“Yes, but I guess there’s something in the pigmentation or something that keeps me from burning. I go from golden to deep brown. I never get red.”

“That’s wonderful,” Glory sighed. “You’re lucky. I Wish I tanned like that instead of coming out like a lobster.”

“You don’t look like a lobster. But you certainly are peeling.”

“I know. Isn’t it awful. And the worst thing is I can’t really reach around where it’s most annoying to peel it."

“Let me do it for you,” Wilma offered.

“Oh, no. It’s disgusting.”

“Disgusting?” Wilma laughed. “Don’t be a foolish baby. It’s fun peeling skin. Particularly if it isn’t your own. Even more particularly when it’s on a body as lovely as yours is.”

“Well, all right,” agreed Glory innocently. “If you really want to.” She turned over on her stomach.

Wilma knelt beside her and ran her hands lightly over her body.

“Ooh! That tickles!” Glory squealed.

“Sorry.” Wilma started at Glory’s shoulders and expertly picked off the flaking skin tissue. “Let me know if I’m hurting you,” she told the blonde girl.

“That doesn’t hurt. It feels good.” Glory felt her body tingle as the hands worked slowly down her back. The itching of the skin on her back began to subside—but not the itching inside her. That was growing under Wilma’s expert, calculated touch.

“Relax,” Wilma ordered. Glory had flinched as the peeling continued from her waist to the beginning swell of her buttocks.

Glory made herself relax the muscles which had involuntarily contracted. But she couldn’t keep from trembling at the way Wilma’s hands were softly stroking the excess skin from her derriere. As the fingers investigated the cleft, she just couldn’t help squirming. Indeed, it was all she could do not to moan aloud. Wilma smiled to herself and continued on to the shapely legs, peeling them more quickly than she had Glory’s upper body.

“Turn over,” she said when she had finished the backs of Glory’s legs down to the heels.

“Oh, I can do the rest myself,” Glory said.

“No, let me. It’s fun. I’m enjoying it. Don’t you like the way it feels?”

“Oh, yes.” Glory turned over. She leaned back and closed her eyes. She kept herself from reacting as Wilma’s fingers worked nimbly down from her shoulders. But when they began lingering over her breasts, Glory couldn’t stop the reaction which made her legs separate. Nor could she keep the nipples of her breasts from spreading, reddening and hardening, beneath Wilma’s hands.

Wilma noticed and laughed softly. “This is exciting you, isn’t it?” she observed.

“Yes. I’m sorry -- I mean—” Glory was very embarrassed.

“I guess you’d better stop,” she said.

“Why? Doesn’t it feel good?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then just relax and enjoy it and don’t be such a prude. After all, we’re both girls. It’s not as if I was some fellow getting fresh or something.”

“I know, but it makes me feel --”

“Excited. I can see that. But what’s wrong with feeling excited‘? I’m not a man. Nothing can happen. Let yourself go.” Wilma bent over Glory and caught the bright red nipple of one breast gingerly between her teeth.

The blonde girl closed her eyes again and allowed herself to enjoy the sensation. She could feel her breast pulsating at the touch of the flicking tongue. The feelings which swept over her made her writhe with abandon. One hand fluttered to her mouth and she sucked at it unthinkingly.

The breast was released and Glory felt Wi1ma’s hands continuing down her body, peeling the skin from her waist and stomach. Then, instead of going on down her legs, the knowing fingers slipped between them.

“What are you doing?!” Glory was filled with sudden shame at the realization that Wilma must recognize the telltale moisture there.

“Just peeling you, sweetheart. This is one of the most crucial spots of all for sunburn—because it’s so tender.”

Glory tried to stop responding to the probing fingers. But the stroking of the already aroused clitoris proved too much for her. In one short instant she had cried aloud and her hips had thrust upwards and she came, quickly, uncontrollably, violently.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what to say! I --” Glory turned brick red and stammered as Wilma wiped her hand calmly on the towel.

“Don’t be silly. And stop blushing,” Wilma told her. “It was really what you wanted. It gave you pleasure. And it gives me pleasure to give you pleasure.”

“But it’s -- it's not right. Is it?”

“Glory, honey, anything that gives pleasure is right.”

“But isn’t it unnatural?”

“Is it? Let me ask you something. Haven’t you ever touched yourself there? Haven’t you found it pleasant? Haven’t you perhaps gone right on touching yourself until—Well, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” Glory hung her head.

“Well, don’t be ashamed of it. Every woman does that some time or other. Every normal woman, anyway. And lots of women do it regularly. Not that any of them will admit it.”

“But that’s alone,” Glory said, “in private.”

“Pleasure is to be shared with friends,” Wilma told her.

“You know so much, Wilma. The way you say it, it all seems so right. But up until now, all I’ve ever gotten out of sex has been heartbreak. Does it have to be that way?”

“No, honey. Not at all. You just let me show you what joy it can be.”

“All right, Wilma. Show me,” she said hesitantly.

“I will.” Wilma stretched out alongside Glory then and took her in her arms. She kissed her deeply and Glory kissed back eagerly. Wilma’s hands moved over her body and Glory began to caress her in return. This kept on for a while until both girls were whimpering with the heat of their passion. Suddenly, Wilma sat up.

“What’s the matter?” Glory asked.

“Nothing. Just sit the way I show you.” Wilma was panting as hard as Glory now. She spread her legs wide apart and indicated that Glory should sit between them with her knees grasping Wilma’s hips as Wilma’s knees were clutching hers. After a little manipulation they were positioned just as Wilma wanted them, face-to-face, pussy to pussy.

The redhead’s hard nipples stabbed Glory’s large, tender, sunburned breasts. “They’re so hot and hard!” Glory exclaimed.

“My tits? Yes, they are. Because you make them that way. Because you get me so excited, the cream just runs out from between my legs.”

“l can feel it. I can feel it mixing with mine. And I can feel your clitty all hard and wet too!”

“Suck my tits!” Wilma told her.

Glory ducked her head and caught Wilma’s distended nipple between her lips. “Like this?” she asked after a minute.

“Harder!”

Glory pulled as much of Wilma’s small breast as she could into her mouth. She licked the nipple and sucked hard on the breast itself. Soon she was virtually gobbling.

She learns fast. Greedy little bitch. God, she’s stacked. What a pair of jugs. . . Look at her go at it! She really digs sucking titty! It's getting her so hot the juice is pouring out from between her legs, Look at that plump cunt of hers throb against mine. I can feel her clitty jerking. . . Me too. The way she’s eating my tit is gonna make me come. I can feel it in my snatch! All the way up it. I’m creaming now and so is she!

The mutual orgasm was excruciatingly stirring to Glory. As the most sensitive parts of their bodies quivered and grew against one another, Glory felt as if her flesh must explode. And, finally, explode it did, at the same carefully timed moment as Wilma let herself go, and the two bodies rose as one in a long drawn-out moment of searing fulfillment. They collapsed side by side, exhausted. After a while, Wilma lit two cigarettes and handed one to Glory. “Well, my darling?” she asked.

“Oh! There are no words!” said Glory breathlessly. “It was sublime! I never knew—” All traces of embarrassment were gone.

“There are lots of things you never knew. But I’m going to teach them all to you, my sweet.”

“Oh, yes. Please. Teach them to me. Oh, I love you!”

Glory was still too caught up in her own emotions to realize the implications of what she was saying. “You know so much, Wilma,” she said admiringly. “How did you learn it all?” “

“I’ve been around.”

“Really? But I thought you’d spent your whole life in Glenville,” she said, still breathless.

“No. I was away for four years. New Orleans, Miami, other places.”

“Oh, tell me all about it. What did you do? Did you work? What kind of job did you have?”

Wilma told her about how she’d worked as a cigarette girl and later as a stripper. She didn’t say anything about her stint as a “specialty girl” in a brothel. She didn’t want to shock her too much all at once. And what she did tell her had the desired effect of making Glory even more intrigued with her.

That was the start of it. And right from the beginning, Wi1ma’s knowledge of sex gave her dominance over Glory. She called the shots. All except one-one which didn’t matter to her as it did to Glory.

It came up after they’d made love on their next visit to the pond a few days later. “We can’t go on making love here in the open like this,” Glory protested. “I’m afraid someone will see us.”

“All right. How about your room at home then?”

“Oh, no! Suppose the Henshaws found out?”

“You don’t have to worry about the Henshaws.”

“Of course I do! They might tell my father.”

“Don’t worry. They won’t.”

“Don’t be silly, Wilma. Why wouldn’t they?” Glory wanted to know.

Wilma realized that there was no way of explaining to Glory how the Henshaws were under her thumb without giving the rest of her scheme away. She decided it might be better to agree with her. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “But then, where can we go?”

“I was hoping you could think of some place. Some local hotel or motel maybe. I’d be glad to pay for it if it will give us some privacy.”

“We register at a hotel or motel in Glenville, and it’ll be all over town before morning. It don’t matter. Nobody pays any attention to me. But everybody around here’s curious about the New York beauty.”

“I guess you’re right. But how about some roadside place then? Some place not in Glenville, but near enough to be convenient. Some place where they won’t ask any questions.”

Wilma thought about it a moment. Then she snapped her fingers. “Got it!” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it before? The Morton Motor Lodge. That should be perfect.”

“Where is it?”

“About a half hour’s drive from here. Off the road to Little Falls. When they were building the highway about ten years back, Angus Morton put up this bunch of cabins thinking it was going to run right past them. But he goofed. Anyway, the highway’s more than three miles from the lodge. You get to it by a dirt road that runs back through the woods from the highway. It’s cheap, it’s secluded, and the cabins are all separate.”

“It sounds ideal,” Glory said. Then, as an afterthought—“How does he manage to stay in business though. I mean, if he’s so far off the beaten track. Who are his customers?”

“Well, he doesn’t get much tourist trade. That’s for sure. But he runs a roadhouse along with it, and the kids from Glenville and Little Falls both go there to eat and drink and dance.”

“Then isn’t there a chance we might be seen?”

“There’s always that chance, of course. But the way the place is set up, if we’re careful there’s no reason we should be. The roadhouse part is removed from the cabins, and the cabins are spaced fairly widely apart. There’s a lot of rumors about the Morton Lodge. I’ve heard that hookers work the bar in the roadhouse and that sometimes the men from town go there for pickups. And I’ve also heard that the hanky-panky between married couples in Glenville ends up in the cabins. But there are a few things working in our favor that should make it easy to play it safe.”

“What do you mean?” Glory asked.

“First of all, anybody we might bump into there would probably be as anxious not to be recognized as we would. Secondly, I know Angus Morton and I’m sure I can make a deal with him for a cabin that will be ours whenever we want to use it, a cabin as far from the roadhouse as possible. The way things are, he’ll probably agree to this at a pretty low price and no questions asked. Thirdly, neither he nor anybody else has to see you at all. I’ll take the cabin and let you know which one it is and you can just drive straight up to it without seeing a soul. I’ll try to pick one where your car can be parked without being spotted, too.”

“It sounds ideal,” said Glory. “Arrange it as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Wilma promised.

Three evenings later, after her father and the Henshaws had gone to bed, Glory set out to meet Wilma at the motel. It was to be the first of many such liaisons. Now, slipping into the indicated cabin, appreciating the fact that things were pretty much as secluded as Wilma had said they would be, G1ory’s heart was pounding with anticipation.

Had Glory but known the eventual fate awaiting Wilma and herself in the cabin, her anticipation would doubtless have turned to dread. But she didn’t know. She didn’t know that tragedy would light up the corners of this room and turn back the rug to reveal the dirt of both their lives. Glory didn’t know that violent death awaited one of them here! Nor could Glory have foreseen the events which would precede that death. She couldn’t know that one of her visits to the cabin, a week or so later, would trigger these events. Even when it happened, Glory wasn’t aware that it had happened. She didn’t know that her love nest with Wilma had been discovered by Don Corrigan and Beauregard Barker!

From the first, Beauregard Barker had been a key figure in the machinations by Universal Enterprises to acquire the Malden farm so that the Continental Ball Bearing plant could be enlarged. It was his father-in-law’s bank which held the mortgage on the Malden property. And it was Beauregard Barker specifically who handled such mortgages at the bank. Consulting with Barker had been Don’s assignment from the start.

He hadn’t much liked the plump, fawning little man. He didn’t trust him. And Don couldn’t help wondering at the motives behind Barker’s eagerness to help Universal squash Malden. Something personal—that was sure. But if he judged Barker right, there must be some financial advantage in it for him as well.

Now had come this call from Barker asking Don to meet him at the Morton Motor Lodge. Barker had been very mysterious over the telephone. All Don’s questions, he’d insisted, would best be answered by his doing as he asked and meeting him. Finally Don had agreed.

It was about eleven-thirty when Don pulled the company car to a stop in front of the check-in office at the lodge. He went inside and found Barker waiting for him. He was talking to a small, skinny, middle-aged man seated behind the desk.

“Mr. Corrigan, this is Angus Morton.” Barker introduced them and they exchanged hellos. “Angus here’s come up with something that should interest you,” Barker added to Don.

Don looked from Barker to Morton questioningly. Morton cleared his throat nervously. “It’s like this, Mr. Corrigan,” he began. “A week or so ago, this here girl come to see me to rent a cabin exclusive like for a indefinite period of time. Seems funny to me, but renting cabins is my business, so I don’t ask no questions. But a couple nights ago when I see who she‘ got with her, why, the nex’ morning’ I call Mr. Barker here right away.”

“Oh? Why did you do that?” Don asked. He was still mystified, but his tone was patient.

“Well, uh—”

“Mr. Morton here owes me a favor,” Barker interrupted. “Isn’t that right, Angus?”

“Yessir,” Morton agreed, wondering to himself how many more girls he’d have to supply Barker and how much more information on the other Glenville citizens who used his premises for illicit purposes he’d have to pass along to Barker before the “favor” would be marked paid. Judging by the exorbitant interest he was paying on the “favor,” it would be a very long time indeed. The “favor” had been in the form of a personal loan made by Barker-using bank funds—to Morton so that he could continue to stay in business. But, bank funds notwithstanding, the note, constituting a lien on the Morton Motor Lodge, which was locked securely in Barker’s desk at home, was made out to Beau himself, and not to his father-in-law’s bank. Barker had Morton by the short hairs, and Morton knew it. “Yessir,” he said now, “I owe Mr. Barker a lot.”

“I still don’t get it,” Don said.

“Tell him who the girl was that rented the cabin,” Barker instructed.

“It were the Malden girl.”

“So?” Don still managed to hide his impatience.

“Ben Malden’s daughter.” Barker looked at Don shrewdly. “You know her.” It wasn’t a question.

“No, I don’t.” Don corrected him. “I know Malden has a daughter, but I never met her.”

“Mr. Corrigan, if we’re going to cooperate, there’s no point in our lying to each other,” Barker said. “Your private life’s your own business, but when it looks like your girl friend’s out to get in our way businesswise, there’s no point in beating around the bush. We have to be frank about you and the Malden girl if we’re going to accomplish anything.”

“I don’t know the Maiden girl. I told you. What’s more, I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you and Wilma Malden, that’s what,” said Barker, losing patience.

“Wilma Mal -- I know a girl named Wilma, but --”

“You mean you didn’t know she was Wilma Maiden?” Barker was genuinely surprised.

“You mean Wilma, the red-headed maid at the Dawes house? She’s Wilma Malden?” Don was dazed.

“Maid at the Dawes— Well, I’ll be damned! Now that is really very interesting. That I didn’t know.” Barker’s mind was racing.

“Well, that’s the only girl I’ve been seeing. And, by the way, how did you know about her and me? I don’t like people poking around in my private life.”

“I make it my business to know what goes on in this town,” Barker told him. “The desk clerk at your hotel’s a friend of mine, too. I know about every visit she paid you. First I thought you might be dickering with her over the property. But the other day the bellhop there told me otherwise.”

“You’ve got a hell of a nerve, Barker!”

Barker shrugged. “No point in getting mad at me. We handle this right, it’s going to work out to your advantage. The only thing that bothers me is how I could have slipped up on Wilma working for the Daweses. I gather they don’t know who she is. That right?”

“No, they have no more idea than I did.”

“The Henshaws must know,” Barker mused. “I wonder why -- Well, no sense bothering about that now. It’ll all come out in the wash. The thing is that this Malden girl has a cabin here and she uses it to meet another girl. Tell him who the other girl is, Angus.”

“She’s ’at blonde from New York,” Morton told Don.

“Glory Dawes?” Don’s head was spinning.

“That’s right, Glory Dawes,” Barker confirmed Don’s guess. “Now what do you suppose she’s doing with her maid, Ben Malden’s daughter, at a place like this?”

Don had no answer. All he could think was that Glory must be meeting her lover here. But how did Wilma fit in? Ben Malden’s daughter! Suddenly a lot of things about Wilma started to become painfully clear to Don. But Barker began talking again and he had no time to try to sort them out.

“Wilma Malden’s been in her cabin since a little before you came,” he told Don. “If they follow their usual pattern, Glory Dawes should be getting there just about now. I figure we’ll give them a half hour and then mosey over and take a little peek.”

“Why?” Don wanted to know. “Why should we snoop into their personal affairs?”

“Information like that can come in right handy. Believe me,” Barker answered. “Besides, if they’re meeting’ a couple of fellows there like I suspect, don’t you think Mr. Dawes should be told what his daughter’s up to before she gets in even more trouble?”

“No, I don’t!” Don said hotly. “What would be the point in hurting him like that?”

“The point is that she’s with Wilma Malden, the daughter of the man you people are locking horns with. And let me tell you something. I’ve known Wilma all her life. She’s tricky as a copperhead and twice as dangerous. If she’s got the Dawes girl involved in some kind of lovemaking spree, you can bet she isn’t doing it just for kicks. She’s working some kind of angle. She isn’t just fixing her up with a lover out of the goodness of her heart.”

“Ain’t no lover,” Angus Morton interrupted. “Ain’t been no men come to their cabin since the day Wilma took it.”

“You sure of that?” Barker demanded.

“Yessir. I make it my business to know who my customers let in their cabins. Them girls ain’t let nobody in there ’cept theirselves.”

“What do you make of that?” Barker looked at Don, puzzled.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s go find out.” He started for the door. Don hesitated.

“You coming?” Barker asked.

Don sighed. “Yes,” he said, and followed along reluctantly.

The cabin was dark, but the moonlight flooding through the windows gave Don and Barker a clear view of the girls. Glory was lying naked on the bed. Wilma was just coming out of the bathroom with a terry-cloth robe wrapped loosely around her.

Glory stared at Wilma with love and admiration as she came up to the bed. Wilma bent over her and gave her a long, stirring kiss on the mouth. Glory reached inside the robe with both hands and fondled Wilma’s naked breasts. As always when she was with Wilma, Glory’s body was tingling with eagerness.

Her hands slid around Wilma urging her toward her. Wilma straightened for a moment and the terry-cloth robe dropped to the floor. Glory was thrashing about on the bed in her eagerness now. Her hands clawed at Wilma’s buttocks as she pulled her closer and bestowed one kiss after another on the lower half of Wilma’s body. Finally, responding to Glory’s wild urging, Wilma mounted the bed and settled herself atop Glory’s naked body.

Glory’s heart pounded as she felt Wilma’s wet, slavering cunt (yes, that’s what Wilma had taught her to call it: cunt . . . snatch . . . pussy . . . twat. . .) spreading over one hot breast. She felt one of her hard berry nipples slipping inside Wilma. Warm love-syrup oozed over it. Wilma’s clitty — hard, swollen, vibrating — rubbed against the nipple rhythmically. Squeezing Glory’s breast with her vagina this way, Wilma reached behind her and felt between the shivering young blonde’s legs.

The soft blonde curls were damp with the lubrication of Glory’s lust. The vagina lips trembled as Wilma expertly fondled them. When Glory’s clitty was stroked it pulsed in time to the squeezing of her nipple by Wilma’s vagina.

“Shove your fingers all the way up my pussy,” Glory begged, phrasing it the way Wilma had taught her. “Cram my cunt! And jerk it! . . . Jerk it! . . .Jerk it! . . .

Wilma saw that Glory was very close to coming now. The blonde’s hot, stiff nipple was moving like a piston against Wilma’s clitoris. Juice was flowing from her and her groin was jerking violently. Any minute . . . .

Quickly Wihna shifted position. Here it comes, baby! I ’m gonna spread my hot, wet twat out all over your face! That's right! Get your cute little nose way up there! Use your tongue! Lick it! Suck it! Eat it! . . . I can feel you coming now, and me too! Suck harder! Lick! Suck! . . . Suck! . . . Suck! . . .

Through the window Corrigan and Barker saw the blonde’s face completely blotted out by Wilma’s arched and naked haunches. But there could be no mistaking what Glory was doing to Wilma. “Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Barker softly.

Don said nothing. He was feeling physically sick. But his nausea quickly gave way to rage as Wilma squirmed with passion, responding to the eager mouth beneath her. The rage increased until it filled Don completely. He hated them. Both of them. Glory for doing to Wilma what he’d been so sure she was too innocent even to do to him. Wilma for corrupting Glory even more than she’d corrupted him.

Yes, Don was filled with hate for them. He would have liked to have killed them. Both of them. Either of them. He wanted to kill. It seemed the only way of purging the filth before him.

Don wanted to kill! To kill!

CHAPTER NINE

To kill!

Driving back to town, Don was consumed by the rage. And it prodded him into memories of the many times he’d spent with Wilma since the day she’d revealed Glory’s treachery to him. For the first time, Don began to realize the full extent to which he’d been used by the daughter of Ben Malden.

That first night in the woods fringing the hillock overlooking the pond . . . . Teeth piercing his hard, thrashing penis, and then the soft tongue-balm salving the wounds . . . . And between the soft thrills of the afterlicks, the calculated words to render him useful to her . . .

“How come they sent you all the way out here from New York to work for Continental, honey?” How natural; such idle postsex chit-chat. So it had seemed.

“They want to expand. Dawes came out to expedite the expansion, I came out to help him.”

“I hear they’re trying to buy the Malden farm.” Words spoken slowly, timed to fall between the strokes of rhythmic tongue-laving on his spent, but still half-hard organ

“Yes, they are. Matter of fact, that’s what I’ve been working on.”

“The rumor is he doesn’t want to sell.”

“He doesn’t seem to. But I still have the feeling that we’ll bring him around.”

“How?” She sucked gently.

“By getting the town behind us. By showing them that the best thing for the community is if Malden can be persuaded to sell. Once we have public opinion organized on our side, I doubt he’ll be able to hold out against it. He’s only one man, and in the end he’ll have to give in."

“I heard he was already beaten up once.”

“Really? Well, we had nothing to do with that. We don’t countenance that sort of thing. We want pressure brought to bear on him, but not with physical violence.”

“What sort of pressure?” She licked the velvety tip.

“Oh, all sorts. From all the different elements of the community. . . .Hey, look at that!”

“Baby wants its mama again,” Wilma crooned. “Baby getting all excited and mama so-o-o hungry.” She tongued the hardened shaft and then sucked it full-length into her mouth. . . down her throat. . .

The next time, in the back of Don’s car, parked in a deserted glade off the highway . . . . Wilma exciting him to the bursting point and then tieing his erection tightly at the base with a tether of cloth-strap to hold him at this agonizingly ecstatic pitch without allowing him the release for which he ached. . . . Then, finally, freeing him to squeeze the very last drop of hot, spurting nectar from his body and laughing behind her receptive lips. . . . And the aftermath. . . .

“How are you doing on the Malden deal?” Loverly interest—so casual, and with such sweet innocence.

“It’s coming along. I spent the day at Malden’s bank talking to a fellow named Barker. Know him?”

“Yes.”

“Slimy little jerk, isn’t he?”

“Yes. What were you doing with him?”

“Getting him to agree to cut Malden off from any further credit.”

“And did he?”

“Did he ever! I was amazed at how eager he was to agree. He really seems to have it in for Malden for some reason.”

“Doesn’t his bank hold a mortgage on Malden’s farm?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Stands to reason. They hold mortgages on every other farm in the area. Did you persuade him to foreclose?”

“He can’t. Malden’s payments are all up to date. To foreclose, he has to fall behind. I gather that if he does, Barker will fall on him like a ton of bricks. We’re investigating what can be done to push Malden into debt so this will be possible. . . .”

The first time in Don’s hotel room . . . .Wilma’s hair red on the white sheets; Wilma’s mouth voracious; Wilma’s hand on Don’s naked hip, pulling him over on his side. . . . Split-second timing and sharp fingernails poised behind him and striking, plunging home to scar his pleasure with unexpected pain, tearing at the anus, drawing blood, sharp claws all the way up inside his body as if it were female at the very moment that it was being drained of its maleness. ... Then more talk....

“How have things been going with Malden, lover?”

“We’re squeezing him. I spent the day with a fellow name of Birdwell. Prissy, old-maidish sort of guy.”

“He’s a schoolteacher, isn’t he?”

“Used to be. I guess they kicked him upstairs. Typical small-town stuff, I guess. He’s an irascible old bachelor and he seems to hate kids. Kept going off on tangents about how they’ll do anything to make a teacher’s life miserable. Seemed to have a particular mad on against little girls. Kept mumbling things like ‘Seduction and then holler rape, the teacher-teasing little bitches.’ I couldn’t make much sense out of it.”

“What’s he‘ got to do with Malden?”

“Seems he’s a key man on the local school board. Whatever he recommends, the others follow. I guess because he used to be a teacher and maybe because—if what I hear is right—he’s the only one that takes any real interest in the town’s school. Anyway, he seems to call the shots for the board.”

“I still don’t see what it has to do with Malden.”

“Birdwell’s going to propose a reassessment of his property for school taxes. Also, he’s going to push for a districting bill that’ll make taxes higher the closer a man’s property is to town. These two things will hit Malden right in the pocketbook -- where it counts.”

“But the school board doesn’t assess property values.”

“True. But their recommendations are listened to. When it comes to the actual assessment, Barker over at the bank promises he can get the township to appoint someone to do it who’s friendly to our side.”

“Who?”

“I think the name he mentioned was Angus Morton. Anyway, it has to be someone outside the town-ship limits according to law. So it will be a fair appraisal.”

They both laughed. . . .

The second time in Don’s hotel room . . . rather, the private bathroom connecting to it . . . .The large, old-fashioned tub filled with hot water . . . . Don and Wilma facing each other with the steam rising around them; Wilma soaping him and rinsing him, her small, scarlet-tipped breasts bobbling on the surface; Don arching his hips and Wilma bending low, taking a deep breath, and dipping her lips beneath the water as though they were a net set to ensnare a fish. . . . The fish caught, the red hair floating to the surface, a stream of telltale bubbles, and then the translucent white geyser spouting to the surface. . . Later, playful toweling and another kind of fishing . . . .

“What did you do today?”

“Saw Joe Ambler.”

“The fellow who runs the general store?”

“That’s him. Seems he sells a lot of the farmers and workers around on credit—including Ben Malden. Doesn’t like Malden, though. Seemed positively tickled to cooperate in forcing Malden out of business. ”

“What’s he going to do?”

“First cut off his credit altogether. Second demand immediate payment of the bill Malden owes him. Malden can’t pay. We know that. He doesn’t get his check for the hogs he’s sold until the fifteenth of next month. Ambler’s going to sue him and we’re going to push the case into the courts right away. If Ambler can get a lien on Malden’s property, that entitles the bank to foreclose under the terms of the mortgage agreement.”

“It sounds like you’ve got Malden where you want him.”

“Well, we’re closing in on him . . . .”

Another time, one of many, in the hotel room. . . . Pitch black, Don’s face invisible up near the headboard, Wilma pillowed on his stomach. . . . Teeth, lips, tongue; biting, kissing, teasing; thighs trembling, stomach knotting, penis half-fleeing, half-seeking sweet torture. . . a feather transferred from slender fingers to pursed mouth. . . crazed, begging laughter ringing out; body gone mad and thrashing; no escape, except at the crucial moment reached and withheld again and again. . . pleading at the drawn-out and aborted series of sensations. . . and finally the honey-bee lips vacuuming the pollen from the ravaged flower petal. . . . It was excruciating. . . . All to lead up to. . . .

“How’s my Continental Machiavelli making out lately?”

“More Machiavellian than ever. I’ve been working in the cause of labor. Which just goes to show how a junior executive can sacrifice his Republican principles for the good of the firm.”

“Come again?”

“I’ve been helping to organize a union at the Continental Ball Bearing Company.”

“But why?”

“All part of the same thing. We want labor to side with management on this Malden affair. It’s for their own good. But to get labor to take a stand, first they have to be organized. So I’ve been talking to some of the workers who are most popular with their fellows and showing them how to go about forming a union.”

“A company union, you mean.”

“Naturally.”

“And have you been successful?”

“Very. They held their first meeting today and elected a president.”

“Who?”

“A fellow named Luke Partridge. I’ve been talking to him most of the afternoon. Seems he’s another one who has it in for Ben Malden. Used to be a friend of his, but they had a fight or something. Boy, this fellow Malden sure wouldn’t win any popularity contests in this town. Everybody seems to have it in for him.”

“Because everybody knows which side their bread is buttered on. And it isn’t the same side his is buttered on. That’s obvious. But what can this union of yours do to him?”

“Well, it’s involved. But the first thing they’re going to do is circulate a petition which Partridge assures me will get one-hundred percent signatures. This petition will be sent to the unions in the meat-packing industry. In particular, it will be sent to the locals working the plants Malden sells to. We’ve checked it out and his three main customers are all strongly unionized. These locals will be asked to cooperate with their fellow workers in Glenville by protesting to the management of their plant against the buying of hogs from Malden.”

“But will the management let themselves be intimidated that way?”

“The chances are they will for the simple reason that Malden isn’t that important to them. He’s a small supplier. They’re not going to risk a ruckus with their labor force on his account. They’re sure to take the easy way out and comply with the union’s request. That’s just good management-labor relations.”

“I see. . . .”

And the last time, the night before Don discovered the truth about who Wilma really was, the shocking truth about what was going on between Wilma and Glory in that cabin at the Morton Motor Lodge. . . . Again Don’s hotel room. . . . The buzz of an electric razor in her hand, the tickle of it on Don’s body. Wilma ran it over his flesh. She kissed the nipples of his chest, each in turn. She licked them and sucked them. When they stood out red and stiff and hard against his muscular chest, she touched them with the vibrating razor. His nipples were very sensitive and the sensation was agonizing. Wilma shaved the hair matting the aureoles around the nipples. Now the circlets stood out clean and pink and naked. She licked them. Her tongue was like sandpaper on the aroused, abraded aureoles and nipples. Sucking his tender chest-flesh, Wilma glanced down. . . .

Look at that hard-on! This really turns him on all right. With the hair off them, his tits are as sensitive as a woman ’s. They get hot and hard just like a woman’s too. But that stiff prick of his sure isn’t like any woman’s. Look at his balls all swollen with juice and ready to go! And his stiff cock throbbing like it can ’t wait. But first I’m gonna shave him clean as a baby. . . shave the hair off his groin. . . off his balls. . . tickle his jerking cock with the electric razor as if it was a vibrator. . . .

Wilma ran the razor down the line of hair which started at Don’s flat belly and was lost in the thick growth covering his groin. She shaved his groin. His body jerked upward. He was about to come. Wilma reached quickly beneath him with her free hand and jabbed two sharp-nailed fingers all the way up his anus. It stopped his orgasm. Keeping her fingers there, she finished shaving the hair from his groin. His erection stuck straight up from the raw, red, naked flesh, impossibly large and eager, but stalemated by the fingers pressing-his sphincter. She shaved the tight, filled, sac of his scrotum.

What’s she doing now? Oh God! She’s running it over my dick. It nicked me! It hurts. But it’s so damn exciting! My dong never looked so big or felt so hard! What's she doing now?. . .

Wilma unplugged the razor. Her red hair cascaded over Don’s belly. Soft as it was, it smarted where it came in contact with the shaved areas. His groin, shaved clean, looked strangely obscene; the skin burned and stung under her ginger-lips; there was real anguish as Wilma deliberately increased the pressure of her mouth on the raw flesh of his crotch.

My balls! She’s going to lick my nuts now! Ow! That’s sore! All raw from shaving! But sensitive too! So sensitive! Oh, that tongue of hers licking me there! Ahh-Ahh-Ahh! That feels so damn. . . But she won ’t let me come! Her fingers up my ass. . . all the way. . . stopping me. . . but sucking my nuts now. . . first one, then the other. . . sucking them, kissing them, licking them. . . I want to shoot my load! . . . Let me come, baby! . . . It hurts! I can ’t stand it! Dammit! Let me come! Let me come, or I’ll kill you, you sadistic cunt! . . . Oh, she’s taking it in her mouth now! , . . . Christ, it’s tender!. . . All the way down her throat! Sucking and licking and swallowing!. . . Taking her hand out from up my ass now. . . . Sucking!. . .Sucking! . . . Here it goes! I’m coming! . . . All of it. Suck all of it! . . .

And then a scream torn from his lips as release combined with searing pain... then the gentle massage of cold cream over the tormented and abused sac and the limp member... and the crooning interest in how his career was progressing. . . .

“You’re edgy tonight. Did you have a bad day?”

“Yes. That creep Barker pulled something that really got me mad.”

“What?”

“He called in some guy from New Orleans to arrange for a bunch of hoods to bring Malden around.”

“You mean rough him up?”

“Yes. Maybe burn his barn. I don’t know. What I do know is that Universal Enterprises doesn’t conduct its business that way. If Dawes ever found out about this, he’d blow a gasket. And if word of it ever reached the New York office, there’d be all kinds of hell to pay.”

“Did you stop Barker?”

“To tell the truth, I’m not sure. He’s such a slimy rat that there’s no telling what he’ll do. All he’d say was that he understood that neither Universal nor Continental wanted to be in any way involved. He just kept assuring me that it had nothing to do with me and that any action that was taken in that direction would be taken on his own. He also mentioned that this fellow D’Angelo from New Orleans was an expert at handling matters like this discreetly and without any fanfare.”

“What was that name?” Wilma exclaimed.

“D’Angelo. Vito D’Angelo. Why? Do you know him?”

“No,” Wilma lied. “I don’t know him. But you haven’t answered me. Is D’Angelo going to go ahead or not?”

“I just don’t know for sure. . . .”

Driving back from the Morton Motor Lodge now, Don recalled the highlights of these scattered conversations and they filled him with bitterness and rage. He could have killed himself for being such a sucker as to fall into Wilma Malden’s series of conversational traps. He could have killed Glory for descending to the perversions of a tramp like Wilma. He could have killed Wilma for the evil web she’d created, the web enmeshing them all.

Some way, Don wasn’t sure just how, she’d used the information she’d milked from him to break each of the arrows he’d aimed at Ben Malden before it even left his quiver. Somehow, she’d managed to abort each of his plans. But how?

Only Wilma could have told him. Only she knew the truth about each of the actions his loose talk had provoked. Only she knew how far she’d gone to render each of his accomplices useless.

Mr. Birdwell was the first to have his sting removed. Wilma visited her former high school algebra teacher at his small house one night. It was one of a group of houses, all built from the same plan, and strung close together like so many barracks. Wilma had taken the trouble to investigate Birdwell’s neighbors on either side.

The ex-schoolteacher was dressed for bed when he answered the door. He was wearing an old-fashioned full-length man’s nightgown of shapeless flannel. He peered at Wilma, not recognizing her.

“I’m an old student of yours, Mr. Birdwell. May I come in?”

“It’s awfully late --” Before he could finish protesting she had slipped through the doorway and was standing in the hall waiting for him to follow her into the living room. Confused, he let her lead the way.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked when they were both seated.

“I’m afraid not. I had so many students, Miss—”

“Malden. Wilma Malden.”

Birdwell reacted as though he’d sat down on a hot poker.

“What -- what—” he stammered, jumping to his feet.

“Relax, Mr. Birdwell. I came here to do you a favor and to save you a lot of trouble.”

“I remember you now! The Malden girl! You’re no good! You got me in a lot of trouble.”

“Because your eyes kept wandering to where they didn’t belong. And from what I hear, Mr. Birdwell, you’re still having the same difficulty.”

“What do you mean? What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Where do you keep your binoculars, Mr. Birdwell?” Wilma asked conversationally.

How did you -- I—I don’t have any binoculars. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Oh, yes you do. You see, Mr. Birdwell, I have a pair of my own. And do you know what I’ve been doing with them?”

“Of course not. And I don’t care.”

“Yes you do, Mr. Birdwell. Or at least you will. You’re going to care very much. Because I’ve been watching your upstairs bedroom window through my binoculars. For the seven last few nights I’ve been watching, between ten and eleven o’clock—just the time that little Alice Simpkins undresses for bed. She’s such a foolish little girl, don’t you think? Always keeping the lights on and the shades up and primping in front of the mirror. And never dreaming that you’re staring at her from your window with your nightie tucked up so cute above your waist and your hands so busy. What are they busy at, Mr. Birdwell? Trying to find that shriveled-up little do-it-yourself kit of yours? Is that what? And Alice never dreams that she’s giving you your kicks, does he? But she’s so young. Surely not more than sixteen. While you must be at least sixty, Mr. Birdwell. Isn’t that right?”

“Sixty-four,” Birdwell said dully. “But this is all a lot of lies you dreamed up,” he said defensively.

“We both know I’m not lying, Mr. Birdwell. Let’s not waste time.”

“Even if it’s true, you can’t prove it,” he flared up.

“Yes I can. I have a witness. That makes two of us. And what possible reason could either of us have for lying?”

“What witness? Who?” Birdwell was panicky.

“Rafe Proctor. But you don’t have to worry about Rafe. He won’t say anything unless I ask him to back me up. He wouldn’t tell the town council on his own. But I might. And then you’d lose your position on the school board, wouldn’t you, Mr. Birdwell? And Rafe would never think of telling Alice Simpkins’s father. But l would, and Rafe would back me up. He’s an awful big man, Mr. Simpkins is, and awful jealous about his little girl. I’ll bet if he knew you were peeping at her every night and jerking your chain he’d just about kill you. Now you don’t want the school board and Mr. Simpkins to know about your little sport, do you?”

“No.” Birdwell was defeated. “What do you want from me?”

“l want your promise that you’ll see to it there’s no suggestion from the school board that my father’s property be reassessed and that you’ll block any move to up his taxes. You do that, and I’ll see to it that Rafe keeps quiet and your secret won’t go any further than the three of us.”

“This is extortion!”

“Sure. So what? Is it a deal?”

“I have no choice. You’re a wicked, evil girl, Wilma Maiden!”

“And you’re a dirty old man, Mr. Birdwell. Just stick to your end of the bargain and I’ll stick to mine. Happy peeping with Alice Simpkins.” She chuckled and left then.

There was murder in Mr. Birdwell’s heart as he watched her go. . . .

Contrarily, lust was the emotion which stirred in Joe Ambler when he looked up and saw Wilma standing in the doorway to the back room of his general store. It had been a good five years since he’d seen his one-time salesgirl close up, and the time had increased her sex appeal. She sure was a juicy piece of baggage. “Well, hi there, Wilma.” He devoured her with his little pig eyes.

“Hello, Joe. I’ve come to talk to you about this scheme to yank the rug from under my father.” She came directly to the point.

Joe shrugged. “I ain’t denyin’ it. Ben owes me money an’ I aim to get it.”

“Why do you want to help them force him to sell?”

“That ain’t it. I jus’ want my money.”

“Nonsense. You’ve been giving my father credit for years. You know he’s good for it. If you ask me, you’re just doing this as a way of getting back at me because I wouldn’t let you make love to me years back.”

“Suppose that’s true.” Joe looked at her shrewdly. “I got a right to be miffed, ain’t I? You stole me blind an’ outside a coppin’ a few feels, I got nothin’ for it. Why shouldn’t I get some revenge if I can?”

“But it’s me that did all those things, not my father. Why take it out on him?”

“Same thing. What’s his is yours. I’m jus’ gettin’ a little of my own back is all.”

“Why settle for a little, when you can have everything you want?” Wilma cooed.

“What you gettin’ at, Wilma? I’m a frank man. Talk frank an’ maybe we got somethin’ to talk about an’ maybe we ain’t.”

“All right. You want to make love to me. You’ve wanted to for years. You promise to lay off my father and I’ll let you.”

“Now, that’s real interestin’. But it hardly seems like I oughta scotch the whole deal for one lousy roll in the hay. Naw, I want a deal more than that.”

“Like what?”

“First of all, you service me whenever I ask. Two, maybe three times a week at least. Second, it’s no deal till I get me a look at the wares. You strip down now an’ if I like what I see, why I reckon your pa’s bill can set awhile.”

“All right, Joe.” Wilma stepped into the center of the harsh glow from the ceiling light. She kicked off her sandals and raised her skirt to take off her stockings. Staring him straight in the eye, she unzipped‘ her dress and let it crumple to the floor. Her slip followed it and she stood before him in strapless bra and panties. She saw a trickle of drool slide down Joe’s fat chin, unnoticed by him. She reached behind her and unclasped the bra. It fell to the floor and her breasts jutted out firmly toward Ambler. Slowly, she inched the panties down over her hips. She heard him expel his breath as the first tendrils of red hair appeared to his view above the descending garment. She shucked them off altogether and stood naked before him. She turned once, slowly, provocatively, and then faced him. “Well? she asked. “Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal!” he answered hoarsely. “I’ll take the first payment right now.”

“Come and get it.”

“Not here. It’s too risky. Down cellar. Come on.”

Wilma followed him down to the cellar of the store. “You’re crazy,” she said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s f-freezing down here.” Her teeth were chattering.

“’At’s cause I use it to store my meat. Gotta keep it cold, or it’ll spoil. But I’ll fix it. Jus’ lemme turn the temp’ature up an’ we’ll go up an’ wait a few minutes an’ it’ll be fine.”

When they came back downstairs a few minutes later, the cold had indeed dissipated. “That’s better, hey?” Joe said.

“Yes. But, Joe, it stinks to high heaven here. What’s that awful smell?”

“Jus' dead cow an’ pig. I kinda like it. Makes it seem sort o’ more excitin’ somehow.” He squeezed her breast and led her over to a dead side of beef. “Lay down,” he said. “This about the softes’ bed aroun’, I reckon.”

“To each his own.” Wilma did as she was told and concentrated on trying not to notice the stench around her as Joe began to make love to her.

He was a fat man and built very small. With his weight pressing down on her, she couldn’t really tell whether he was performing the act or not. Only his hoarse breathing in her ear was the tip-off. He made noises like a pig. Wilma tried to judge them and made her body writhe so he’d think she was swooning with excitement. But the only thing she could really feel was the clammy beef-flesh enveloping her body. Between it and the stench, by the time Joe gave one final little wriggle to indicate that he was finished, Wilma was busy trying not to vomit.

"You be back here Thursday, same time,” he told her as he led the way back upstairs.

“And you’ll see that my father gets all the credit he needs?”

“Jus’ so long as you keep comin’ back when I want you, I’ll see he gets what he needs within reason.”

Wilma went home and scrubbed the stench from her body. . . .

It was smelling sweet again when she looked up Luke Partridge. She found him at the same bar where he’d fought with her father. “I want to see you alone, Luke,” she told him. “Come on over to one of the booths.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you, Wilma. Nor to nobody else name a Malden. You pa’s takin’ the bread from my kids’ mouths.”

“You’d better listen to me, Luke, or the next one I’ll be talking to is Annie May.” "

“What you talkin’ about? What you got to do with my wife?”

“Come on over to a booth and I’ll explain.”

Looking puzzled, Luke followed her. “Now what you after, Wilma?” he asked when they were seated opposite one another.

“I’m after telling your wife what it really was you and my father fought about if you don’t do what I want.”

“What you mean what it really were? We fought ‘cause they gonna shut the fact’ry down iffen your pa don’t quit bein’ stubborn.”

“Is that what you told Annie May?”

“Sure ’nuf. It’s true, ain’t it?”

Wilma shook her head. “That’s not the way I tell it. The way I tell it, Pa went after you because you took advantage of me and got me into trouble.”

“That’s crazy! I never went near you an’ you an’ your pa both know it. The whole town knows what the fight were ’bout.”

“Annie May’s a jealous woman, Luke.”

“Suppose she is.” Confusion was written all over Luke Partridge’s face.

“When I go weeping to her about how you seduced me and got me pregnant and then beat up my father, she’s going to believe me, Luke.”

“She won’t neither!” But Luke’s tone was shaky. He knew his wife well enough to know that she was always ready to believe the worst of him. “Anyways,” he grabbed at a straw, “you ain’t with chil’, nor had none. Annie May’s smart ’nuf to figger that out.”

“I had an abortion, Luke. It took all my pa’s savings. Now I want money from you to pay for it.”

“I ain’t got no money!”

“I don’t care. You and Annie May will have to get it somewhere. That’s what I’ll tell her, unless—”

“Less what?”

“Unless you do what I ask you to do.”

“I ain’t gonna do nothin’ you want. Annie May ain’t gonna believe nothin’ you tell her. She maybe ain’t so smart, but she ain't that dumb, neither.”

“She’s religious though, Luke. I cry my eyes out and I’ll swear to it on a Bible, you know she’ll believe me. Annie May knows nobody would swear on a Bible to something that wasn’t so. Why, the way she looks at it, if they did, they’d be struck dead on the spot.”

“You jus’ might be!”

“I’ll take the chance. Believe me, Luke, I’m not fooling around. If you don’t do as I want, I’m going straight to Annie May.”

“’Zackly what is it you do want?” Luke’s voice was low, defeated.

“I hear you’re head of the new company union. I hear you’re getting up a petition aimed at driving my father out of business. I want that petition stopped.”

“I couldn’t do that iffen I wanted to, Wilma. More’n halfa the men already signed it. I don’t handle it, they jus’ gonna get another feller to. Feelin’s mighty high ’gin your pa.”

"All right then. Get it all signed. But don’t mail it. When it’s got all the signatures, you bring it straight to me.”

“I do a thing like that, the other men’d scalp me. An’ Continental’d fire me ’sides.”

“You don’t do it, I’ll see to it Annie May scalps you. It will be a long time before anybody realizes that petition never got where it was supposed to go. They may never realize it. They may just think the meat packers’ unions decided not to bother about it. Chances are you’ll get away with nobody knowing about it. Now, are you going to do it the way I say, or am I going to pay Annie May a visit?”

He hesitated, blinking indecision on his face. Then he nodded. “You win, Wilma. I’ll do jus’ like you want.” Luke hung his head.

“Fine. See that you do.” Wilma got up abruptly and left. Luke sat there a long time after she’d gone. There was a mighty hatred building in him. He was a man given to sudden explosions. This hatred was building toward one. Luke Partridge was primed to explode. Luke Partridge’s corner was too tight. Luke Partridge was ready to kill to blast his way out of it!

Such were the events which underlay Don’s certainty of having been used by Wilma. He knew nothing of them, of course. But he did know that somehow she’d managed to thwart him and Universal at every turn. And the knowledge was salt in the wound made by what he’d left behind him at the Morton Motor Lodge. His mind festered with rage.

Back there, Wilma’s mind was racing with still more plans even as her body was responding to the thrill of the mouth beneath her. There were still others to be thwarted before her father would be truly safe. There was Beauregard Barker and Preston B. Dawes and perhaps Vito D’Angelo and Angus Morton, and maybe even the Henshaws and Rafe Proctor, if that proved necessary.

The game was still far from won. She’d taken a few hands, but the big kitty was yet to come. Not that Wilma was sweating it out. Far from it. She was sure of her ability to win. She held all the cards, and she had yet to play her trumps!

CHAPTER TEN

While Glory walked in an unseeing fog of self-conjured, erotic memory images, and Don did nothing because his torture and confusion rendered him temporarily incapable of action, the few days following his visit to the motel were busy ones for Wilma. Unaware as yet that Don had found out about her identity and the relationship between her and Glory, she was following through on the other information she’d pried from Don during their lovemaking sessions. This led her back to the Morton Motor Lodge all by herself one afternoon. Wilma had found out that Vito D’Angelo was staying there.

Knowing Vito and how dangerous he could be, Wilma decided to play it by ear. She let him think her visit was just a case of an old friend hearing he was in town and dropping in to talk over old times. Vito was both surprised and glad to see her. Wilma had mixed emotions.

“This is strictly Squareville.” he told her when they were alone in his cabin. “A guy could go nuts from the boredom. And as far‘ as the women around here are concerned --” He rolled his eyes “Double-ugly each an’ every one. Boy, am I glad to see you, Wilma.”

“I’m glad to see you, too.” She lit a cigarette and relaxed in the armchair. “How are things in New Orleans? Tell me everything that’s been happening.”

“Not much to tell. Same old town. Things settled down after you left an’ nothing much has been happening. Oh!”—he scowled—“except for the beef over Jenny of course.”

“Jenny?”

“Yeah. You remember her—the roly-poly blonde they used to bill as ‘Cuddles Nicely’ at the Peep Show.”

“I remember her.” Wilma closed her eyes for a moment and saw Jenny on her knees in front of her sucking her cunt, at the rehearsal studio. How could she ever forget Jenny? How could she ever forget the first woman with whom she’d ever made love? “What happened with Jenny?” she asked.

“Jeez, it was in all the papers. I thought sure you’d heard.”

“I didn’t. Tell me.”

“The way the papers ran it, or the real story?”

“The truth.”

“Okay. The real lowdown on what happened is this: We get a call from our Detroit branch that some syndicate bigwigs are visiting New Orleans. They’re coming to straighten out a little business, but while they’re in town they also wanna have some fun. By fun, it turns out what they mean is they want some girls to stage a ‘circus’ for them. You know what a ‘circus’ is?”

“I should, after that finishing school you sent me to in Miami,” Wilma told him dryly.

“Yeah. That’s right. Anyway, we assign Rocky Jantzen to set the thing up. You remember Rocky?”

“Sure. He was my boss at the Peep Show.”

“Well, running the Peep Show’s only one of the things Rocky does for the organization. Anyway, Rocky recruits a bunch a tarts to entertain the visiting firemen. But at the las’ minute, one a the broads gets sick -- trench mouth, or somethin’ like that—an’ he’s short a performer for what he considers to be the piece de resistance of the show – you should pardon the pun. Anyway, he asks Jenny if she’d like lo pick up a fast C-note an’ fill in an’ Jenny says yes. He explains jus' what she’s gotta do an’—well, you know Jenny -- it’s pretty far out, but everything’s a kick to her an’ she agrees. Maybe she likes the idea, or maybe it’s the C-note. I don’t know.”

“What was it she was supposed to do?”

“Put on a little exhibition for the boys with a dog.”

“No kidding?” Wilma was amused.

“Wait. You ain’t heard it all yet. See, this dame what got sick had a Labrador retriever she trained herself, special for this kinda act. She’d feed him some—whaddayacallit?— aphrodisiac in his dog food just before the show, an’ then the mutt would make love to her. After that, for a topper, she’d let the dog get in his licks. I seen her do the act once, an’ I swear that was the part she enjoyed the most. An’ the guys watching it used to go wild when they realize she’s really gettin’ her kicks.”

“I’ll bet.” Wilma laughed. The imagery of the thing seemed hilarious to her.

“Anyway, this night that Jenny takes over, the broad gets stubborn an’ absolutely refuses to let her pooch go on with another girl. Well, Rocky figures what-the-hell, an’ goes out an’ recruits another dog— a boxer— which, as it turns out, was a terrible mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“We find out later there’s a big difference between a Labrador an’ a boxer. You see, this dame what trained the Labrador knew lots about dogs, an’ that’s why she picked a Labrador for her act. These Labradors have been special bred for centuries to retrieve birds after hunters shoot ’em on the wing. They been bred to bring the bird back in their mouths without ruffling the feathers. They been bred to have what them as knows dogs call a ‘soft mouth.’ That means they don’t bite an’ when it comes to closing their mouths, they always do it very gentle like. But boxers—they’re another story.”

“Why? What are boxers bred for?”

“They been bred for nothin’ but guard dogs. Actually, a lotta people don’t realize it, but they’re natural-born killers. A boxer’s nature is to attack, to bite, an’ to hold on. An’ they hold on jus’ like a bulldog. Which is jus’ what happened to Jenny.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Rocky dopes the dog up before the show to make him passionate. Jenny comes out, does a strip, whistles for the dog an’ it comes runnin’. She gets the dog to make love to her without no trouble. Then comes the finale an’ she dabs some bacon grease on herself to get the dog to go for the right spot. Well, to make a long story short, he went for her all right. ’Steada what he was supposed to do, he takes one great big murderous bite an’ won’t let go.”

“What happened to Jenny?” Wilma shuddered. She wasn’t smiling amymore.

“It was a mess. She lasted out the night at the hospital, but she kicked off the next morning. An’ some wise-guy reporter got hold of the story an’ printed how she was killed in a orgy -- without the details, of course. Anyways, there was sure a big stink for a while an’ yours truly had to answer to the big guys for it. ’At’s one-a the reasons they sent me here. Sorta punishing me, I guess.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t just rub you out.”

“Nah, they don’t play rough without they got a real good reason. You seen too many gangster movies. They work smooth. like any big organization.” Vito thought about it a minute. “All the same,” he added, “I wouldn’t wanna goof again. A guy can still end up in a cement overcoat if he fouls the syndicate up too often—particularly a guy who knows as much about ‘em as I do.”

“Just why are you here?” Wilma asked innocently.

“Small potatoes. You know this guy Angus Morton what runs this place?”

“Yes.”

Well, we supply him an he pays his dues to the syndicate."

"What do you supply him with?”

Gals, hooch, some drugs now an’ then. You know it ain’t the tourists what keep this joint goin’.”

“l guessed that much.”

“Yeah. Well, Morton’s into the St. Louis mob for a bundle, so you might even say the syndicate owns a share of this dive. They don’t bother with it much, but a while back they get a call from Morton that he’s got a deal for ’em if they can supply some heavies. Like I say, I’m inna doghouse, so when St. Louis calls the big boys in Chi, they call New Orleans an’ tell me to hustle my ass out here to find out what’s cooking.”

“What is cooking?” Wilma asked.

“Some local yokel’s standin’ in the way of the powers what be. In this town, them powers, from what Morton tells me, add up to one little pipsqueak name of Barker. A banker. Anyway, Barker sneezes, Morton blows his nose. I just don’t dig guys like him—Morton, I mean. Between the piece Barker owns an’ the piece the syndicate owns, he must be workin’ for the sheer joy of it. Anyway, his pitch is that if he can get some outside help for Barker on this proposition, Barker’ll let him off the hook he’s got him on with some kind of mortgage on this place or something like that. An’ that’s where I come in.”

“What are you supposed to do for him? And what’s Barker’s angle, anyway?”

D’Angelo looked at her shrewdly. “How come you’re so interested?” he wanted to know. “Oh hell, what’s the difference,” he said when she didn’t answer. “It’s all a drag to me anyway. I couldn’t figure Barker’s angle any more than you, an’ that’s the first thing I told the syndicate. Well, they did a little digging -- they got their sources, you know -- an’ they come up with the answer up at the state capital where the real estate records is kept. Seems there’s some big factory needs some land to expand an’ --”

“I know about all that,” Wilma interrupted. “The whole town knows about it.”

“Yeah? Well, here’s somethin’ the whole town don’t know. The mortgage Barker’s bank holds on the property has what they call a sale clause in it. If the property’s sold before the mortgage is paid off, the bank’s entitled to—now hold your breath—the total amount of the sale price.”

Wilma looked at him disbelievingly. “But how can that be?” she asked, dazed.

“The original mortgage on the property goes all the way back to the early 1900s—before the owner was even born. There was no regulation of contracts in those days. Banks could pretty much write their own ticket on mortgages. Most of these places was what they called homesteads to start with. Guys used to lay claim to a hunka land, take out a mortgage on it an’ then sell it an’ skip, leaving either the buyer or the bank holding the bag. Well, the bank was smarter than most of the buyers, so they stuck this clause in all their contracts to protect themselves. An’, like I say, the original mortgage ain’t never been paid off—only renewed a half-dozen times over the years. This guy Barker must have dug out the original mortgage an’ now he’s laying for the owner, trying to force him to sell so he can pocket all the dough -- which is maybe ten times the amount left to pay off on the mortgage. Slick, huh?”

“That’s the word. Slick.” Wilma kept herself from revealing the extent of her feelings toward Barker now that she’d found out how he was trying to rob her father. “But you still haven’t told me how you fit in.” she reminded D’Angelo.

“I’m not too clear on that myself. Barker’s first idea, according to Morton, was for me to bring in some hoods to force this guy to sell. But then Barker had some kinda change of heart. Latest plan is to use strictly local talent. Morton dug up some guy what works on this farm and I recruited him just last night.”

“You mean Rafe Proctor?”

“That’s the one. A real Reuben, you know. But a Reuben what begins twitchin’ so hard he almost wets his pants when he gets a smell of green stuff.”

“How much green stuff?”

“Chicken feed!“ D’Angelo snorted. “I offered him five C‘s an‘ he got so cooperative he practically licked my hand.”

“What’s he supposed to do for it?”

“Get a good weenie-roast goin’ in this guy’s barn, make sure it goes up, stock an’ all.”

“When?”

“Tonight.” D’Angelo stared at her as she absorbed this information. Finally, he spoke again.

“Come on, Wilma, I been blabbing my head off an’ you been lapping it up an’ milking me for more. Now I know you well enough to know it ain’t just idle curiosity. Suppose you tell me what your angle is.”

Wilma thought a moment. “All right,” she said finally. “You’d have to know sooner or later anyway. You know the name of this farmer you’re doing a job on?”

“Sure. His name’s Mal— Well, I’ll be damned.” D’Angelo whistled. “I’d forgot. That’s your name, ain’t it. Wilma Malden, sure. It’s been so long it went clear outa my head. What’s he, your husband, or something?”

“My father.”

“Whaddaya know? Small world, ain’t it? Hell, I’m sorry, kid, but how could I have known?”

“You know now,” Wilma told him softly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean you’ll get off my father’s back, that’s what.”

“I don’t know as I could do that even if I wanted to, Wilma. It’s up to the syndicate, not me. An’ much as I like you, kid, I ain’t about to buck them.”

“Not even for old times’ sake?” Wilma asked sarcastically.

D’Angelo shrugged. “You know better than that,” he told her.

“Yes, I do. So suppose I put it another way. Forget what close, dear, intimate friends we used to be and let’s look at it another way. I learned a lot while I was in New Orleans. And I learned even more in Miami. I know enough about the syndicate to cause them a lot of trouble if I wanted to tell what I knew in the right places. What do you think of that, Vito love?”

“I think you’re looking for a bellyful of slugs, that’s what I think.”

“Why, Vito honey, and you just got through telling me how everything’s run so smooth like a big business organization and how the syndicate tries to avoid killings. Remember? And now you’re saying they might have poor little me killed. Aren’t you ashamed?”

“It ain’t funny. I’m serious. You go around threatening to tell what you know an’ they’ll eliminate you like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I’m gonna do you a favor an’ pretend I never heard you.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to repeat it.” Wi1ma’s voice was grim. “Either you lay off my father, or I’ll spill the beans.”

“Don’t be a damn fool, Wilma. Even if I agreed, they’d have somebody else down here to do the job in no time flat. An’ whoever they sent would probably take care of you first thing.”

“I figured they weren’t as lily-white as you were trying to paint them before, Vito, so I took a few precautions before I came here. I wrote it all down and I put it in a sealed envelope and then I sent the envelope to a lawyer friend of mine in Miami. Anything happens to me, he’ll send it on to the D.A. down there. Believe me, the syndicate does anything to me, the whole thing will blow up in their faces.” Wilma way lying. She’d done no such thing. She’d only just thought of the idea. But she figured she might still take this kind of precaution after she left Vito.

“You’re making a mistake, Wilma. Nobody bucks the syndicate and gets away with it.”

“I’ll take the chance. Will you?”

"What do you mean?"

"Just this. You’re already in hot Water with them from what you told me. If they find out how you shot your mouth off to me about the connection with Morton and the rest of it, they’re going to be pretty angry. And if I make trouble in New Orleans and Miami and they happen to remember I was once your girl, they’ll be even angrier. The way I see it, Vito, you’ve no choice but to play my way.”

“I don’t know, Wilma. One thing I learned, it’s to always look out for number one first. If your way’s best for me, I’ll go along. If not --” He shrugged. “I guess it depends,” he added, “on just what it is you want me to do.”

“Nothing. That’s all I want you to do. Nothing. Just don’t do anything to hurt my father and keep me posted on any other bright ideas Beau Barker comes up with. Okay?”

“Don’t you want me to call off Proctor before he burns down your father’s barn?”

“Nope. Just forget about him. I’ll take care of him my own way.” Wilma smiled a vicious little smile. “It will be my pleasure,” she added. “Just sit tight. I’ll be back to see you in a few days.” She blew him a mock kiss and left.

Before going back to town, Wilma stopped off to see Angus Morton. He was in the cabin he used as a rental office, feet propped up on the desk, shirt off with the ribs looking like they were about to poke through paintcoat-thin flesh. His eyes were bugging out as he read a little home-printed pornographic booklet he’d picked up from Joe Ambler the night before. The sound of Wilma’s voice made him jump guiltily.

“Hi, Angus,” she greeted him from the doorway. “Getting literary, I see.” Wilma had recognized the booklet as similar to the ones she’d once peddled for Ambler back in high school.

“Oh, hi, Wilma.” Guiltily, he jammed the booklet into a desk drawer and closed it. “What can I do for you?” He noticed that Wilma was standing in the open doorway so that the sunlight was streaming through the thin summer dress she wore. Angus stared. at her crotch greedily and licked his lips.

“No need to ask what I could do for you,” Wilma said sarcastically as she noticed the direction of his steady gaze. “But I’m not going to do it,” she added, “so you can just stop hoping.”

“Har-har! Wilma, you sure are a card. No matter what you want, it’s a mighty pleasure jus’ to look on you.”

“Relax, Angus. Flattery might get you everywhere if there were anywhere at all for you to get. But there isn’t, so let’s make this short and sweet. You’ve been working with Beau Barker against my father and I want you to stop.”

“Now, Wilma’ I ain’t been doin’ no such thing. Why would I wanna hurt your daddy?”

“Don’t bother denying it, Angus. I know you have. I even know there was talk of having you appointed to reassess his property so they could slap a nice, heavy new taxi on it. And I know you arranged with the syndicate to help Barker get my father. I know a lot about you, Angus. I know what kind of place you run here. I know who supplies you with the girls and dope you peddle and how. And if you don’t want me to tell what I know where it might do the most good, like the State Attorney General’s office, for instance—and you’ll notice I’m not talking about the local sheriff or cops because I know they’d tend to be rather lenient -- then you’ll just butt out of any plans Beau Barker has to hurt my father. Got it, Angus?”

“I got it,” he said sullenly.

“Then don’t forget it.” She turned on her heel. “Enjoy yourself reading,” she called back over her shoulder.

At the very time that Wilma was driving back from the Morton Motor Lodge, Don Corrigan was coming to a decision. He would have to tell Preston B. Dawes what he’d found out about Wilma. But even as he decided to do it right away, Don knew that he would hedge. He could tell Dawes that Wilma was really Ben Malden’s daughter and that she was undoubtedly spying on him, but he couldn’t tell Glory’s father the truth about the relationship between Wilma and his daughter. He just didn’t have it in him to hurt the older man like that. Don knocked on the door to Dawes’s office and entered. . . .

“Wilma you’re fired!” Dawes said it to her simply and directly, just as soon as he got home that evening. They were alone in the living room to which he’d summoned her, and now, having said it, Dawes turned to leave the room.

“Just a moment, Mr. Dawes!” Wilma’s voice was a command.

Dawes turned and looked at her, very annoyed by the tone.

“Don’t you think it’s only fair to tell me why you’re firing me?” Wilma was playing for time, putting her thoughts in order, deciding just what words she would use to slip the knife into Dawes.

“Because I have learned your true identity, that’s why,” Dawes told her coolly. “Knowing that you’re Ben Malden’s daughter would tell the stupidest of men—which I trust I am not—that your motives in insinuating yourself into my employ without informing me of your true identity are—well, questionable, to put it as kindly as possible.”

“I see. Well, Mr. Dawes, I’m not going to deny that you’re right. No, indeedy.”

“Then there remains nothing more to be said. Please just pack your belongings and leave as quickly as possible.”

“Whoa, Mr. Dawes! Just hold your horses. There’s something I’d like to tell you about before I get the bum’s rush.”

“Yes?”

“It concerns your darling daughter, Glory.”

“My daughter can have nothing to do with this. Kindly just say what you have to say and get out.”

“Oh, but you‘re wrong. Glory has everything to do with this. You see, I’m Glory’s lover.”

“What do you mean‘? This is outrageous! If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call Henshaw and have you thrown out.” Dawes was so angry that his usual composure had slipped for the moment and he was sputtering. “How dare you imply such a thing about my daughter?”

“Just wait a minute, Mr. Dawes. Hold onto yourself before you have a stroke. I can prove that what I say is true.” Wilma reached into her purse and brought forth a note which Glory had written to her a few days before. It bubbled over with girlish appreciation of their “love”, and looked forward to the “ecstasy” of meeting Wilma at the motel again the next night.

She handed Dawes the letter and he read it disbelievingly. Then he read it again and his face filled with rage. “A daughter of mine—,” he said to himself, rather than to Wilma. “A daughter of mine -- How could it happen? How could a daughter of mine be so perverted, so evil?”

“That’s the way the libido bounces,” Wilma told him flippantly.

He ignored her. “A degenerate. My daughter is a degenerate. She doesn’t deserve to live. She pollutes the very air around her. A sex pervert! To make love to another woman! She is filth! She should die! I could kill her with my own hands!” He fumed like a benevolent god who’d been cruelly betrayed—righteously angry.

“Be quiet!” Wilma cautioned as he rose trembling with rage and his voice mounted in volume. “Do you want the Henshaws to hear you?”

“And you!” He turned to her as though noticing her for the first time. “You are the scum who dragged her down to your level! But why? Why? ”

“To keep you from destroying my father, Mr. Dawes. That’s why.”

“But what has that to do with this?”

“Everything. It’s why I seduced Glory and why I’ve been gathering the evidence of the relationship between us.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“It’s simple. If you don’t scotch all efforts to take over my father’s farm, I’ll reveal the truth about Glory and me to every exposé magazine, newspaper, and syndicated columnist I can find. They should eat it up. Can’t you just see it? Farm Girl Confesses Unnatural Relationship with Beautiful Socialite. What a headline that will make! Believe me, they’ll eat it up. I’ll drag the Dawes name through so much mud that neither you nor Glory will be able to show your faces anywhere in your rich little world! What do you think of that, Mr. Dawes?”

“I think it would serve Glory right if I let you do it. But I can’t. I have myself and the other members of my family to consider. What do you want me to do?”

“Just squelch all of Continental’s efforts to force my father to sell his farm. Just let that boss outfit you work for know that you think it would be an unwise move to expand in that direction.”

“I can’t do that.“ Dawes shook his head. “It would make me a traitor to the company I’ve helped build, the company that’s been my whole life. No. I’ll resign if that will keep you quiet. But I can’t double-cross a bunch of innocent stockholders who are depending on my judgment.”

“I’m touched,” said Wilma in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “But I’m afraid you’re just going to have to double-cross them. I’m not interested in your resignation. I’m interested in making my father safe from the persecution of your organization. I won’t mince words, Mr. Dawes. You have no choice but to do it my way.”

“You are blackmailing me!”

Wilma merely shrugged.

“You are the one who should die!” Dawes lost his temper again. “You planned all this! Only the mind of a monster could have done that! You are a vicious, disgusting monster! I tell you honestly that I could kill you for what you have done!”

“You’re in quite a murderous mood tonight, Mr. Dawes. First it’s Glory you want to kill, and now me. But you’re not going to kill anybody. I know your sort of man. You haven’t the guts to kill either a pervert daughter, or a monster woman like me. You’re a coward, Mr. Dawes. And cowards always act reasonably. So you think over what I said and you’ll see that there’s no other course for you to take. Sleep on it. I’ll call you tomorrow when you’re looking at things more calmly.”

Wilma went up to her room, packed her things and left. The reason she’d cut things short with Dawes was that she’d remembered something more pressing which required her attention. Now she drove straight to her father’s farm, parked the car in back of the barn, got out, went inside, and waited.

She had less than an hour to wait. Then she heard the footsteps she’d been expecting. They grew louder as they approached the barn and then she saw Rafe Proctor framed by the moonlight streaming through the door he’d just opened.

A heavy kerosene can was dragging down one of Rafe’s arms. In the other hand he carried an unlit kerosene lantern. Now he set the can down on the floor of the barn, fished around in his pockets for matches and lit the lantern. His jaw fell open with surprise as the light revealed Wilma, sitting directly in front of him, her eyes glinting hard at him over the length of the double-barreled shotgun leveled at his belly. The gun was left over from the days when her father used to keep chickens in the barn and used it to drive away the occasional stray dogs which preyed on them. Wilma had bought shells for it on her way back from the motel that afternoon. Now she clicked off the safety and smiled strangely into Rafe’s gawking face.

“Wilma!” he exclaimed, finding his voice at last. “Whatta you—”

“Hello, Rafe. What’s the matter? Arent’t you glad to see me?”

“Sure, but—”

“But what? Don’t you want to collect the bonus I promised you for that job you did on the Dawes girl?”

“Hell, yes!” For a moment Rafe’s eagerness made him forget the shotgun. Wilma jerked it slightly to remind him. “Whatta you holdin’ that there gun on me for?” he asked nervously.

“It’s a new sex game I’m going to teach you,” she cooed. “It’s called ‘What to do with a buggering barn burner.’ ”

“Barn burner?” The very way he tried to assume an attitude of innocence gave Rafe away. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you getting five hundred dollars to burn down my father’s barn. You know, Rafe, you really are a jerk. You could have gotten five times that much if you’d been smart. Burning down my father’s barn is worth an awful lot of money to some people around here. Beauregard Barker, for instance. But then, I forgot. You don’t take your orders straight from Beau Barker. Your deal was with Mr. D’Angelo.” She watched him squirm under her cold gaze.

“Now, wait a minute, Wilma! What you gonna do?”

“Teach you not to play with matches for one thing. And for another, i’m going to get even with you for what you did to me right up there in that haystack.”

“Hell, Wilma, I thought you liked’ It same as me. Come on now, admit it. It were a right snazzy ding-a-ling, weren’t it?”

“Right snazzy! And now you’re going to get some idea of how it felt. Back up against that wall there, Rafe, and drop your pants.”

Slowly, fearfully, Rafe did as he was told.

“Now your drawers.”

Rafe slid his jockey shorts over his hips and let them drop to the floor.

“Good. Now put your hands up over your head.”

Rafe clasped his hands on top of his head. His eyes grew big as Wilma balanced the shotgun in the crook of one arm and picked up a pitchfork. “What you gonna do?” It was a wail of fear.

“Turn around and bend over.” Wilma watched as he obeyed. Then she raised the pitchfork and gently stabbed at his posterior with the sharp prongs. Rafe screamed, but she continued until his backside was dotted with perhaps two dozen blood-trickling perforations.

It was only the beginning. Wilma paused for breath, then raised the pitchfork over her shoulder, aimed carefully and thrust one of the prongs hard between the cheeks of his back-side. Rafe’s scream reached a new pitch and then broke in the middle as he fell forward and crumpled to the floor, unconscious from the sudden agony.

Calmly, Wilma lifted a bucket of water from one of the pig stalls and dumped it over his face. She slapped him a few times and then dumped another bucket of slops over him. When he came to, she stepped back and leveled the shotgun at him again.

“No more,” Rafe begged. “Please, Wilma, no more!”

“What’s the matter, Rafe? Don’t you like my new sex game? It is a sex game you know. Sex and pain often go together. You demonstrated that very clearly that day up there in the hayloft. I figured a fellow like you with all your inventiveness and offbeat tastes when it comes to sex would really appreciate the game we’ve been playing. No? Well, I’ll tell you what then, Rafe, we’ll play a new game instead. I just know you’re going to love this one.”

Wilma approached him cautiously, still with the shotgun aimed at his stomach. She kept her finger on the trigger and pressed the nozzle against the side of his head as she bent over his prostrate body. He looked at her pleadingly, but it was no use. Wilma was enjoying herself too much to stop.

She dropped to her knees between his legs and propped the shotgun under his jaw so that his head was forced backwards. Then, her finger still stroking the trigger, she took his penis out of his pants and took it in her mouth. She licked the shaft, kissed his testicles, sucked the hole at the head of the organ. Despite the pain which had been inflicted in him, despite the fear which filled him even as Wilma worked him over with her tongue and lips, Rafe began to respond.

Just at the point when it was about to explode, Wilma stopped abruptly. She stood up, still pointing the gun at Rafe. “Stand up,” she commanded.

He got to his feet.

“Over here.” She indicated where she wanted him to go with a gesture of her head.

He obeyed.

“That’s it. Stand right there.”

Rafe stood directly in front of a hip-high chopping block her father had once used to slaughter chickens. Wilma reached across the block, grasped his erect penis and set it on the block. Before Rafe realized what she was doing, she quickly raised the rifle and brought the butt down viciously on the long erection stretched out on the block.

Blood spurted. Rafe screamed and fainted. Wilma laughed.

She left him lying there. She told herself it would be a long time before he tried burning any more barns. And it would be an even longer time before he cornholed some other girl. Wilma laughed to herself again at the thought of the bloody mess she’d left lying behind her on the floor of the barn.

She laughed and she laughed, dizzy with exhilaration. Her blood was pounding with excitement as she entered her father’s house. Her very throat was choked with the frantic desire aroused by what she’d done. And, best of all, she’d done it for her father!

That’s what she told herself as, half-mad with passion, she climbed the steps to her father’s bedroom. She’d do anything for her father because she loved him. And he loved her! She was sure he did! He was the only man who could give her what she wanted! And he would! He must!

Slowly, brimming over with desire, Wilma opened the door to her father’s bedroom. . . .

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Glory Dawes had no idea that there were people who wanted to kill her. She didn’t know that her father cursed himself for having sired an “unnatural monster” and that he was filled with rage to the point of wishing his child dead. She didn’t know that her ex-fiance, his manhood affronted first by her cheating on him with another man and then by her preference for a woman over him, had likewise reached the point where his desire to destroy her was not under control. She didn’t know about the others; she didn’t know them; she had no idea that they knew her, let alone that they might have reason to kill her.

Glory didn’t know about the secret meeting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beauregard Barker. Looking around her front parlor at the men who had slipped into the house so furtively, one by one, Mrs. Barker shuddered with distaste. As the acknowledged leader of society in Glenville, she was unused to having what she considered to be the riffraff of the town in her home.

Mrs. Barker was a skinny, dried-out woman in her late thirties. She was her husband’s willing chattel every place but in the bedroom. Once the cold sheets were pulled over her colder body, she controlled Beauregard Barker with an iron pelvis. Only rarely did she allow his fatness to envelop her in a hurried sex act, and when she did, she always extracted payment from Beau. This payment, made to the cashier beneath the surface of her obedience, added up to her getting her own way in almost all matters save those relating to business. However, on the surface, she remained the most obedient of wives.

So when Beau asked her to leave while the men discussed the matter at hand, Mrs. Barker went into the next room. Of course she left the door ever so slightly ajar so that she could hear what was transpiring. She was very curious as to why Beau had summoned such a motley group to their home. Of those who had come, Joe Ambler was the only one who had ever been a guest in the Barker home before. As the owner of the general store, his merchant status was close enough to the Barkers to label him acceptable. Also, he and Beau Barker served together as deacons of the church.

But what was a man like Luke Partridge doing here? A common red neck, a sharecropper turned laborer? He was the sort of man Beau Barker usually didn’t even take the trouble to bother noticing.

And Harvey Henshaw? A common servant? Why had he been asked to the Barker home? Or Mr. Birdwell, the ex-teacher they’d pensioned off with a school board job? Or Angus Morton, who was rumored to be involved in all kinds of shady doings in the Glenville area? Or Rafe Proctor, that lout who couldn’t hold a steady job?

Why had her husband assembled these people here? Mrs. Barker listened and learned the answers from her husband’s lips as he talked to the group.

“I’ve asked you all here,” he began smoothly, ”because I believe that along with myself you represent the feelings of different segments of the community of Glenville. Mr. Ambler knows how his fellow merchants feel about things. Mr. Birdwell can speak for the educational community, for the teachers and parents of Glennville. Mr. Partridge, as head of the factory union, knows the feelings of our laboring men. There are few servants in Glenville, but I felt they should be represented in the problem which faces us, and I think you’ll agree that they couldn’t be represented any better than by Harvey Henshaw. Our shrinking farm community is represented by Rafe Proctor, who comes from a farming family, was once a farmer himself, and is currently employed as a farmhand. Mr. Morton can speak for those concerned with the image Glenville presents to tourists. And I believe I may give voice to the feelings of Glenville’s more fortunate and affluent citizens.

“Now, as to why we’re here. It has come to the attention of Mr. Morton and myself that the most heinous form of sexual depravity is being practiced right here in Glenville!” Barker paused dramatically.

Henshaw started nervously.

“The very morality by which we live is being undermined,” Barker told them pontifically. “Such filth has come to Glenville as some of you may not even be aware exists. Indeed, the acts which are being perpetrated are of a nature which decent people avoid even mentioning.”

In the next room, Mrs.Barker was titillated. She strained her ears to hear. Also, Rafe Proctor was licking his lips with frank curiosity. Only Luke Partridge seemed to be displaying the genuine puzzlement Barker’s words implied they should all feel.

“The horror of homosexuality has invaded Glenville,” Barker announced. “Worse! Female homosexuality! That most disgusting of all perversions! Yes, I tell you that right here in Glenville lesbians are flaunting their immoral sins against God and man!”

Everybody except Angus Morton was genuinely surprised. There was a murmur of disapproving voices and then the question emerged. Who was doing this terrible thing?

Barker answered. “The Malden girl and that blonde from New York, Glory Dawes.” He went on to supply details.

These details were listened to with a kind of lip-licking disgust by all of them— including Mrs. Barker in the next room. Peculiarly enough, each of the listeners jumped to the same wrong conclusion in fixing the blame for this depravity. Despite the special knowledge which each of them had about Wilma’s evil nature, they each nevertheless blamed Glory for the relationship.

It was inconceivable to them that a girl who had been born and raised in Glenville might have initiated such depravity. New York, they all knew, was a Sodom, a sinkhole, and it followed that it must have been the girl from the big city who led the local maiden down the garden path to the pit of perversion. No matter what Wilma was, she had been one of them, and therefore the largest share of the blame went to the outlander.

Barker’s revelations had eaten away at the veneer which kept them civilized. Beneath this surface, violence was ever ready to erupt. Now there were murmurings among them of horsewhipping and tar and feathers and even lynching. And these murmurs were mostly aimed at Glory.

Privately, however, each of them was having a personal reaction conditioned by his particular relationship with Wilma. After they’d left the Barker home, these reactions snow balled and congealed into personal hates. And these hates were also of murderous proportions.

There was Mr. Birdwell, for instance. He went straight home after the meeting. He went up to his room and got’ ready for bed.

Five minutes after he turned out his light, the window in the house opposite flared up, framing little Alice Simpkins in its glow. Mr. Birdwell strained to see her from his bed. But she walked farther into her own room and began undressing in front of the mirror. Almost automatically, Birdwell got out of bed and started for his window to watch her.

But then he remembered about Wilma and how he might be seen peeping at Alice. He pulled down the shade and got back into bed. He thought about Wilma then, and his skinny frame began trembling with rage at how she’d destroyed just about the only pleasure he had left in his empty life.

For years Mr. Birdwell had conditioned himself to express his occasional anger in only one way. Now he reached for the hem of his old-fashioned nightshirt and pulled it up above his waist. Gnarled fingers groped over veined thighs for a moment and finally formed the loose-fisted symbol of Birdwell’s sex life through the years. Birdwell unleashed the bitterness in his mind and molded it into a fantasy of mounting, hardening fury while he slowly masturbated.

His hands ripped the clothes from Wilma ’s burning body. Her little breasts were swaying, the tits long and hard and red as cherries. Her high, hot ass was flushed pink and trembling. Her cunt was dripping honey, the lips working like a bellows, the joystick purple and hard and twanging.

“You gonna pay, you bitch!” He drove a hard fist into one soft breast, then watched the nipple swell up ugly from the blow.

When Wilma pleaded for mercy, he struck her in the face and she fell to the floor. “No!” she screamed. But he had his huge, hot hard-on out now and in his hand and he struck her again and again with it like it was a truncheon.

He turned her over and with his dong, beat her cushiony butt until it was as red as if it had been whipped with a leather belt. He mounted her like a bull and shoved his giant pecker right up her bunghole. She screamed again. His prick was too big; her asshole was too small. That didn’t stop him. He rammed it in and out until it was slippery with her blood, until the blood was pouring out all over his iron balls, until his pecker-tip was tasting the terror of her very bowels.

If he'd come, he would have blown her bowels to bits. But he was merciful. He pulled his horse-prick out of her ass and shoved it in her mouth. She gagged. She choked. But that didn’t stop him. He crammed it down her throat and fucked her in the face his hard-on deep in her mouth, foaming, forcing her tongue down her windpipe until she fainted.

He slapped her face until she came to. Then he fell on top of her and forced her legs apart. He shoved the broad, foaming, blood-stained crown of his cock between the lips of her narrow, dripping cunt. Her goddamn honeybox was slick, but almost as tight as her asshole had been. He slung her legs up on his shoulders and bent her double so he’d have more leverage to shove his rod all the way up her. This way his weight was on her foam rubber ass and his balls were bouncing against her bleeding asshole. He rammed his cock all the way in her. She screamed. He ignored her screams and just kept pumping his cock in and out of her box until he ’d opened enough of a path for it so she wasn’t hurting as much. She started pumping with him, hot and excited, her stiff clitty rubbing up and down the length of his steaming cock.

“Cut that out!” He slapped her face hard. “You evil, disgusting little twat! You animal bitch-in-heat! You filthy whore!” He kept beating her and fucking her, not letting her participate, stopping her from any thought of coming, just fucking and hitting her like a man, like a man, the way it should be!

Her screams rang in his ears as he fucked her. He beat her with his fists until her body was covered with welts. Then he took out a knife and stabbed her. Again! Again! Again! , , .When her naked torso was slippery with blood, he shot his load of cream deep inside her dying body. . . .

Mr. Birdwell’s hand moved frantically as his penis started to spurt. Wilma! Kill her and fuck her! Wilma! Then his mind took an unplanned flip as he remembered Barker’s description of what the girls had been doing and suddenly it wasn’t Wilma, but Glory who was his victim. He wiped his hand on the sheets. But he couldn’t wipe away the urge to kill which filled him.

Across town, in the back room of Joe Ambler’s general store, a similar urge—this one born of jealousy -- was taking shape. Joe Ambler, lecher, adulterer, and lovemaker whose perverse pleasure it was to vent his lust midst the stench of dead flesh, was in the process of talking himself into a righteous morality. It was a two-pronged morality with each prong dipped into the venom of self-doubt and prejudice.

The first prong, leveled at Wilma, stemmed from the fury which filled him at the knowledge that she could make love with him and then go on to commit those disgusting acts with a woman. Somehow that she did this was a reflection on his manhood. It was almost as if she were telling him that even a woman was a more satisfactory lover than he was. For years, Ambler’s wife had been rubbing it into him that he was too fat to be any good in bed. He knew she’d cheated on him. Now that the same thing was happening with Wilma—and with a woman!-—all the rage he’d been afraid to show toward his wife was directed toward the redhead.

On the other hand, he was filled with jealousy of Glory. And this was compounded by the suspicion and hatred toward outsiders which was ingrained in Glenville residents. That a New York girl should steal his mistress was all the excuse Joe Ambler needed to contemplate murder.

He contemplated it now; calmly, coldly. Suppose one of those girls should be found dead on the highway some dark night? Suppose Wilma’s body were found with a couple of .22 slugs in it? Suppose the New York bitch turned up with a noose around her neck, hanging from a tree? Nobody would ever know who did it. It was just exactly what the perverted tramps deserved! Either one of them! Both of them!

Luke Partidge and his wife, Annie May, were arriving at the same conclusion. Luke had been so shocked by what he’d heard from Beau Barker that he hadn’t been able to stop himself from spilling it all out to Annie May as soon as he got home. His wife was aghast and had immediately run to her Bible for comfort. To her simple mind, these girls were possessed of the devil and only death could exorcise the demon-spirits within them.

Luke, as always, was swayed by his wife’s simple piety. She confirmed his own judgment that these girls were downright evil. And in Luke Partridge’s world, where everything was black and white, evil had to be punished by death. His personal animosity toward Wilma for her blackmail of him truly didn’t even enter into it. To him, as to Annie May, both these girls were perverts and both should die for their sin against God.

Like the Partridges, Harvey and Johanna Henshaw were obsessed by what had been revealed. “Musta been goin’ on right under our noses,” Harvey told Johanna.

“It’s a mortal sin,” Johanna observed indignantly. “But that Wilma Malden was never no good. Lord knows we got reason to know that.” Her eyes met Harvey’s and they both looked away guiltily. “An’ that girl from NewYork,” she went on hastily, “well, what can you expect? Them New York folk is alla buncha degenerates anyhow.” It never occurred to either of them to question the morality of their own sex lives.

They were both silent a moment. Then Harvey spoke. “What you think’ll happen to ’em, Johnnie?”

“Way folks is round here, word gets about an’ they’s a good chance they’ll take the law in their own hands.”

“You mean lynch ’em?”

“May be. More likely somebody gonna take care of it quiet-like.”

“Both of ’em?”

“l reckon.”

Harvey shot her a small smile. “That wouldn’t be so bad for us. We ain’t gonna have to worry ’bout Wilma tellin’ on us no more if they shut her up for us.”

“Now ain’t that the truth. sweetie,” Johnanna agreed.” ‘Bout the best thing could happen to us’d be if someone shut Wilma Malden up permanent.”

“Well, maybe we could sorta take a hand ourselves.”

They talked about that possibility far into the night.

Rafe Proctor also lay awake that night. The pain of what Wilma had done to him still lingered on as a throbbing ache which made sleep difficult. More, the humiliation of how she’d destroyed his manhood -- perhaps for good -- had changed into a desire for vengeance which filled his very soul.

He wanted to kill Wilma. He made and discarded one plan after another by which he might murder her. With each one, his mind dwelt on how he would make her suffer before she died. And his mind kept skidding away from these plans to how she’d used him. He saw it all clearly now. Her father had nothing to do with it. Wilma had really been after Glory all along. That’s why she’d used him to break up Glory and that fellow, Don Corrigan. It had been that little blonde bitch from New York that Wilma wanted all along.

Maybe He’d kill Glory, too. Maybe he’d just do that. But first, he’d kill Wilma!

There was no such rage in Angus Morton. His will to murder was made up of the cold logic of necessity. He wasn’t shocked at the lesbian bit. He’d known about it as long as Beau Barker himself had. He only welcomed the revelation because now there would be many people desirous of both girls’ deaths, many people who would look upon such killing as justified. if murder did become necessary then, there would be a moral motive and no shortage of suspects. That could be very helpful.

Angus’s attitude stemmed from the fact that he might be forced into doing the killing. His life was closing in on him and he was being squeezed by Vito D’Angelo as well as Wilma. The signs were that if he hoped to escape his downfall at the hands of one or the other of them, he might have to do their dirty work.

Wilma had paid him a visit that very afternoon, before he’d gone to the Barker home. She’d spoken vaguely about the pressures being brought to bear on her father to sell his farm. And she’d hinted—just barely hinted -- that perhaps the only way to make Dawes let up might be violence. Also, she’d mentioned that if that became necessary, the target for such violence could be easily supplied by her. She left no doubt in Angus’s mind that the target she was speaking of might be Glory.

And then there was D’Angelo. He’d spelled out for Angus how Wilma had applied pressure on the syndicate to halt any action they might take against her father. He told Angus of his own predicament and how it might be necessary to “eliminate” Wilma before she got completely out of hand. Vito implied that he might do the deed himself. But then, he pointed out that as an outsider he might be a natural suspect and therefore might call on Angus to kill Wilma for him. He told Angus he knew he’d be glad to do the syndicate a little favor like that, because if he wasn’t glad, the syndicate just might pull the rug out from under him but good.

On the other hand, D’Angelo had considered, the best thing might be to stay on Wilma’s side. Maybe kill the Dawes girl as a way of stopping her father’s maneuvers against Malden. With a murdered daughter, he wouldn’t be likely to bother much about business.

Thus murder hung over the Morton Motor Lodge. . . .

And murder also crept into the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Beauregard Barker. But it crept in by the back door and it hadn’t arrived yet as they lay side by side in bed, talking. The conversation had started when Beau reached for his wife with tentative lust. He hoped maybe tonight. . . .

“Wait,” she said. “First I want to know why you told them all about those two girls tonight.”

“You were eavesdropping!” he accused.

“Oh, Beau. I was not. You just don’t realize how your voice carries. Now tell me what you’re up to.”

“What makes you think I’m up to anything more than what’s on the surface? Those two girls are the worst kind of perverts. We can’t have that kind of thing going on in Glenville,”

“You know very well that you’ve incited those riffraff to take some kind of violent action against those girls. The question is why?”

“They’re filth! And they should be punished! Don’t you agree with that?” Beau asked.

“They deserve anything they get. But I know you well enough to know there’s more to it than that. Now what is it?”

“Well, if something happens to the Malden girl, her father isn’t going to hold out for long.”

“I imagine that’s true. But what about the other girl?” his wife wanted to know.

“There’s reasons why her being out of the way could be helpful. It could take her father out of the picture. Grief and all that, you know. I can do much better with that mortgage on Malden’s farm if a shrewd apple like Dawes isn’t around when the sale takes place.”

“So that’s why you’re so thirsty for their blood.”

“I’m not thirsty for their blood,” Beau protested. “I just think the people of Glenville have a right to protect themselves against unnatural women like that.”

“And if they kill them, all the better.” Mrs. Barker shrugged. “You really are cold-hearted, Beau,” she said. But there was a note of admiration in her voice.

“That’s what you think.” Beau reached for her and began running his hands hungrily over her body. “Now I’m gonna show you how warmhearted I can be when I want to be.”

Mrs. Barker sighed to herself and accepted his caresses passively. She wondered to herself what she should demand on the morrow by way of payment for letting him use her body. While her mind considered the possibilities, Beau was working up to a more pertinent fantasy.

His wife’s dried-up body had long ago ceased to arouse him. For many years now, whenever he made love to her his mind would conjure up fantasies of other women and exotic situations. In this way, Beauregard Barker had made love to virtually every attractive woman in Glenville—none of them ever knew about this, of course -- as well as to a dozen or so of the sexiest actresses he’d viewed on the local screen.

Now, however, there was one picture which took precedence over all others in Beau’s mind. In vivid detail, he was seeing once again the writhing, nude bodies of the two girls in the motel cabin. Only now his mind had transported him from the window where he’d watched into the room and onto the bed itself.

Beau was between the two girls now. He was devouring Glory ’s lush breasts with his mouth. His hands were grasping at Wilma ’s glistening buttocks. Glory’s plump hips were bouncing in her eagerness to wrap her legs around him. Wilma’s sharp teeth were nibbling at the inner surface of his thighs.

He was a bull with a giant prick, a stiff, outsized cock to flail the weak females into submission. They groveled now, the sweat of fear slicking down their boobs—Wilma’s small ones with the long, prick-like titties; the blonde’s big, lush jugs with those red half-dollars framing the nips-—and terror tightening their thighs too, those thighs sticky with the cunt-juice pouring out of them, and the twats twitching, afraid of his huge, virile cock, but aching to feel it fucking them too. He pounded their soft flesh with his fists. His teeth tore at their pussies savagely. His heel ground into a belly, a breast, a buttock. Their whimpers were a duet of cringing worship to his cock.

Beau grasped Wilma now, slender neck almost completely encircled by the claw-fingers of one hand. With the other hand he slapped her face, back and forth, back and forth, while the upper half of her body struggled for breath and the lower half writhed for fulfillment. And then it was Glory panting under his blows, her blonde hair whirling wildly as she struggled to free herself from his grip, her plump hips and buttocks jiggling half in panic and half in lust. He squeezed her throat and her face became shiny with sweat. Then he choked Wilma again, hands tangling in her long red hair, and felt her nails rake his back in a plea for the mercy of his fucking. He was choking each of them in turn, first Wilma, then Glory, his sex urge overcome by sadism so that he no longer knew whether it was orgasm or death he was seeking. And mounting lust tightened the vise of his cruel hands on their throats. . . .

‘,‘Stop! You’re choking me! Beau, please! You’re hurting me!” Fear filled Mrs. Barker’s voice and it was fast becoming panic.

But Beau seemed past hearing. He was pounding away at her brutally, stabbing at her tender membranes as though he wanted to rip them from her body. And his hands around her scrawny neck were shaking her head, the way a terrier shakes a rat, and tightening as if he really was bent on killing her.

“Stop! Stop! Are you trying to kill me?”

Finally, with a savage thrust of release and a spasmodic wrenching of the throat between his fingers, Beau relinquished his fantasy and groped back to reality,

His wife, half-swooning, was unable to speak for a moment. When she did, her voice was shrill and filled with a combination of lingering terror, shock, and disgust. “What were you trying to do to me?”

“Nothing. Just make love.” Beau was shamefaced and sullen.

“Make love? Rape, you mean! You were raping me, that’s what you were doing! I’ve never seen you like that. You went mad! I really thought you were going to kill me!”

“I was just making love to you,” Beau insisted stubbornly.

“You were trying to murder me!” she accused.

“No,” Beau told her, his voice shaky, “I wasn’t trying to murder you. . . .”

Yes, the seeds of murder were budding in Beau, just as they were in the others. Every man is a murderer; so it has been writ. Now this potential was very close to the surface in Glenville. So close, indeed, that a portion of it was aimed directly at Glory Dawes, waking her up to some of the forces which had been shaping her life, releasing yet another impulse to kill—this one in the breast of the young blonde herself!

It stemmed from the letter she received from Don Corrigan:

Dear Glory, it began, I ’m writing this letter more for myself than for you. I’m writing it in the hope that by putting the way I feel down on paper I’ll be able to get back some measure of control over my emotions.

What are these emotions? Summed up, they are rage and an overwhelming desire for vengeance. Toward whom? You for one, Glory, Why? Because I loved you so very much—and still do, damn it!—and you thought so little of that love that you allowed it to be smeared with the filth of perversion.

Yes, I know all about you and Wilma. I know that you let her seduce you into being a lesbian. I even know that you seem to find more wild ecstasy in her arms than you ever found in mine.

Can you guess how this makes me feel? Like something less than a man, Glory; for you've robbed me of my manhood. You ’ve spit on what we had and forgotten me in the arms of your girl-lover. Because of this, I tremble with the urge to kill you!

Yes, to kill you! Even though I know that you are a victim of Wilma’s much the same as I have been. It was she who led me to the scene of your lovemaking with another man. (Another wound from you which may never heal.) And it was she who went on to seduce me and hold me with perversion.

She did this for unscrupulous reasons of her own—business reasons. She is the daughter of the man whose land we are trying to buy—your father can tell you more about that—and she will stop at nothing to further her father's interests. She is -- and I know this may sound corny—the most thoroughly evil person I have ever known. Yet I experienced a kind of love with her—albeit a kind very different from that which I had known with you. Perhaps" that’s the reason why I find myself wanting to kill her almost as much as I want to kill you. When all pretense of love vanishes, hate quickly fills the void. This has happened to me with both of you and my hate is truly murderous.

It has taught me something, this hate. It has shown me the killer inside myself! It has made me know what it is to want to kill someone for whom I once felt only desire and love. There ’s nothing else to say.

Goodbye. Don.

Done reading the letter, the violent hatred which filled it having aroused an answering hatred within her, Glory was nevertheless torn. She truly loathed Wilma now. She would gladly have wiped the redhead from the face of the earth. And yet her body hungered for the next night to come and sweep her into the ecstasy she found in Wilma’s arms.

No! She wouldn’t go, she told herself. This she-devil had ruined her life. She deserved to die before she ruined any more lives. . .

If Glory had reason to kill Wilma, the reverse had also come to be true. All Wilma’s machinations, all the devious tricks she’d used to save her father’s farm, all the maneuvers which had seemed so promising of ultimate success—all seemed now to have been for naught. At the very moment when it had seemed that she must win, she found herself eye to eye with defeat.

Preston B. Dawes had thwarted her. She couldn’t know how much wrestling he’d done with his conscience, but she did know the upshot of it. Dawes had called on her father, Ben Maiden, and told him the truth about her lesbian relationship with Glory and how she’d tried to use it to blackmail him.

Ben told Wilma of Dawes’s visit and of the revelations he’d made. He told her he believed Dawes. He told her he’d decided to sell. He told her these things with cold, deadly calm, and then he said nothing more. He went up to his room and locked the door behind him.

Wilma was stunned. She was at a loss. There was no point in carrying through her threat to Dawes about exposing her affair with Glory to the press. It was too late for that now. All it would accomplish would be to hurt her own father more.

She thought of going to see Don. He might have some information which could help her stop the sale before it went through. He worked very closely with Dawes. But Don had been avoiding her lately. Somehow, he must have caught wise to some of the truth about her. She couldn’t be sure just how much he knew, but she decided it was doubtless enough to have put him on his guard against her. It seemed sure his usefulness to her was over.

How could Dawes be stopped? And stopped quickly, before her father signed the bill of sale? She went over all the people she was in a position to manipulate and discarded each of them as being of no use in this ultimate situation. Her mind was left with only Vito D’Angelo-—and that meant murder.

She might be able to pressure him into killing Dawes. She had enough on Vito so that it might be to his advantage to do it. Or to see that it was done. By Angus. Morton, probably, if he didn’t do it himself. There was no time to bring in an outside hood. But even if she could arrange for a killer, it would be difficult to arrange for the murder of Dawes. The only places he ever went in Glenville were his home and the factory. He was rarely alone. To have him murdered would be to point the finger of suspicion immediately at her father or herself. Nobody else in Glenville had any conceivable motive for killing Dawes. Still --

It was then that Wilma thought of Glory. A beautiful girl given to wandering around the countryside all by herself. A girl who had liaisons at shady motels. There were any number of reasons why such a girl might meet with violence. She was rich and often carried sums of money with her which were large by Glenville standards. Even robbery could be a motive.

But what would be gained by killing Glory? Everything, Wilma decided. With her out of the way she could convince her father that Dawes had lied in an effort to get him to sell. Dawes himself would be too grief-stricken to pay any attention to business. Indeed, he’d probably take his daughter’s body back East for burial. That would leave Don in charge of the negotiations with her father. And Wilma had good reason to be sure of her ability to handle Don.

Yes, Glory’s murder would most certainly serve her purpose. And it would be so easy to arrange. Wilma got in her car and drove to the Morton Motor Lodge. She had a long talk with D’Angelo and a short one with Morton. Nothing definite was decided, but the possibilities of cooperation looked very good indeed. And if there was no cooperation, why, then, Wilma thought to herself, she might just kill Glory on her own. She hated the girl for being rich and beautiful. She might even enjoy killing her. Yes, that was certainly a strong possibility.

Wilma mulled it over as she drifted off to sleep that night. She closed her eyes at just about the time the meeting was breaking up at the Barker house. She dreamed vivid dreams of violence and death.

Such were the dreams—waking or sleeping -- of many in the town of Glenville that night. Murder stalked the town, making its plans and marking its prey. It was poised to strike.

Less than twenty-four hours later, the blade of murder tasted a young girl’s blood!

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nature’s light bulbs dotted the sky, thin beam-streaks joining to spray gray through the window and highlight the glistening pearls of sweat on straining, naked female flesh. Bodies thrashing on the bed, merging like the merging of hate and love consuming them. Mouths yearning to consume, nostrils filled with the perfume of desire, eyes dilating at the sight of quivering breast-tips and hungrily arching legs, ears sucking in the liquid sounds of lovemaking and quivering to the tongue-touch whisper of wordless sighs and desire-filled moans, and the hot, wet, clutching feel of femaleness enveloping femaleness and being enveloped in return. . . .

Such was the scene played by Glory and Wilma in their cabin at the Morton Motor Lodge that fateful night. Such was the scene less than an hour before the thrust of an ice pick sucked the lifeblood from the body of one of them. Such was the scene before their living lust was stamped out by the lust to kill.

Their passion reached its pitch and exploded, leaving them prey to the brooding hatred each was developing for the other. But the hatred was temporarily snuffed out with their interim cigarettes, channeled once again into the expression of their mutual passion. Then exhaustion, and silent rest.

Rest broken finally by Glory, as she rose from their bed of depravity and went into the bathroom. She showered and scrubbed her body. She rubbed the skin with a vengeance, as though trying to cleanse herself of the perverse and tingling hunger which had so recently overwhelmed her. Then she dried herself, wrapped the towel around her head like a turban, went back into the bedroom and seated herself in an armchair.

She watched as Wilma stretched, catlike, and got to her feet. Her eyes stayed on the redhead as she crossed the room and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The latch didn’t catch and the door swung open again. Noticing it, Glory got up automatically, walked over to the doorway and closed it once again. Returning to the armchair, she heard the water-rush of the shower as it was turned on by Wilma.

A moment later, Glory heard the scream. It was a high-pitched wail of terror turning to pain and it seemed to go on for an impossibly long moment. A second scream started to follow it, but was abruptly cut off. Then there was the dull sound of wet flesh striking porcelain.

Glory sat frozen, her mind uncomprehending. At last she managed to shake off the daze of fear and got to her feet. She crossed to the bathroom door and opened it. For a few seconds the light blinded her. She blinked, her eyes adjusted to it, and the horror of brutal murder swam into her vision.

Wilma’s body was sprawled over the edge of the tub, bent backwards with the impact of sudden violence. Her red hair spread fanwise over the wet tile floor. An ice pick, handle still quivering, was buried deeply in the flesh beneath her left breast. Her eyes were wide open, green, staring jewels sparkling with terror and polished frozen by the instant of her death.

The dead cat-eyes held Glory obsessed. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t move. She simply stood there staring back into their depths while numbness ate further and further into her brain and blanketed her very ability to think. After a while she turned from the scene and walked, as if in a trance, to the farthest corner of the other room. She crumpled to the floor there and closed her eyes as if overcome by a great weariness. Her head sank forward, chin resting between her naked breasts, the towel covering her hair shining white and motionless in the still room.

Time passed. How much, Glory was beyond knowing. The sky outside the room turned from black to gray to blue-white. Early morning stirred over the Morton Motor Lodge. The chambermaids started on their rounds of the cabins.

The front door opened, splashing Glory with sunlight. She didn’t look up. The maid studied her a moment, puzzled at this nude figure huddling so oddly in a corner of the room. Then her eyes strayed to the open bathroom door and she screamed.

Still Glory didn’t move. The scream echoed to the sound of footsteps racing toward the main building. A faint hubbub grew in volume and then Angus Morton materialized in the doorway. He studied the scene for a long moment.

“Miss Dawes,” he said.

Glory didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to have heard him speak her name.

Morton turned to the handyman beside him. “Stay out here an’ see no one else comes in,” he instructed him. He stepped through the doorway and shut the door behind him.

“Miss Dawes,” he said again. “What’s happened here?”

Glory’s eyes stayed shut. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She seemed unaware of anyone’s presence.

Morton’s mind was racing. On the face of it, it sure looked like this New York chick had done in Wilma Malden. That’s how it looked to Angus and that’s how he knew it would look to others, the law included. But Angus knew that there was another possibility. Vito D’Angelo! If the syndicate had decided Wilma was dangerous, Vito might have had to kill her. If he had, Angus was sure Vito would have been very careful to cover his tracks. That brought it back to where it was before. No matter who killed Wilma, the Dawes babe was still the logical one to pay the piper. Yep, she wasn’t just number one suspect, she was as good as hanged.

Unless—Angus’s mind raced ahead. This gir1’s father was a real rich Easterner. What might it be worth to him to have his daughter cleared of murder’? Whether she’d done it or not wasn’t the point. If Angus worked fast, he might be able to arrange things so she was off the hook. Maybe even get her out of here without anybody seeing her.

The chambermaid and the handyman were the only ones who had seen her so far. The maid didn’t know who she was and she’d been too hysterical to have gotten a really good look at her face. And the way she was sitting, Angus knew the handyman wouldn’t have seen her features.

He could slip her out the back window, into her car and down the back road before anybody identified her. He could say that the girl who was here had pulled a gun on him and made her escape. He could claim he’d never seen her before and didn’t know who she was.

But, he remembered, there were others who knew that Glory Dawes had been meeting Wilma at his motel. Not those who’d been at that meeting at Barker’s. Beau hadn’t mentioned the motel to them. They could only guess that the girl might have been Glory Dawes and if Angus denied it, they’d have to accept his word. But Beau himself knew. And so did that fellow Corrigan. What about them?

Well, Angus reckoned, if he could make some kind of deal with Dawes to protect his daughter, he’d just have to cut Barker in. Beau would go along with anything if the price was right. And as for Corrigan, he was Dawes’s’boy anyway. Angus figured Dawes should be able to handle him.

It was worth a try. The thing to do was to call Dawes and, if he agreed to pay enough to put the plan into effect. If he balked, it was time enough to call the sheriff.

Angus walked over to the telephone and began to dial. He got information, obtained the number of the Dawes home, hung up briefly, then picked up the receiver again and began to dial the number. Throughout, his eyes stayed glued to Glory Dawes.

He was closer to her now, and despite the situation and the way his mind was working, Angus couldn’t keep from ogling the girl’s nudity. He still couldn’t see her face clearly, but her lush body was exposed in detail to his gaze. His eyes watered with longing as they caressed her creamy bosom and slowly traveled up the length of her legs to the mound of blonde tendrils rippling ever so slightly in the morning breeze coming through the window.

“Dawes residence.” It was Harvey Henshaw’s voice sounding in Angus’s ear.

“This here’s Angus Morton, Harv. Lemme speak to Mr. Dawes. It’s important.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dawes isn’t at home.”

“Where is he?’

“I believe he’s gone to the factory for an early morning meeting with Luke Partridge. Luke’s on the night shift this week and I think Mr. Dawes wanted to catch him and talk to him before he left. Something about the new union, I’d imagine.”

“Skip the gossip, Harv. I don’t have time. Gimme the factory number and I’ll call him there.”

Harvey did as asked and Angus hung up and dialed again. When he got the factory switchboard, he asked for Mr. Dawes and was told he hadn’t arrived yet. “Mr. Corrigan, his assistant just came in though,” the operator informed him. “Will you speak to him?”

“No. . . .Wait! Yes. I’ll talk to him.” Time was growing short and Angus realized that if he were going to cash in on what had happened he’d have to decide quickly. Maybe Corrigan could commit Dawes to some sort of financial arrangement. Hell, he’d been engaged to the girl himself once, hadn’t he? He oughta be able to come through for the old man and his daughter in a pinch like this.

Angus told Don what had happened quickly and teresely. “I’ll get hold of Mr. Dawes and we’ll be right out there,” Don answered when Angus had finished.

“Hold on. You ain’t with it, Mr. Corrigan. See, I called Mr. Dawes first thing. I ain’t called the sheriff yet.”

“Then call him. What are you waiting for?”

“I figger as how maybe Mr. Dawes might wanna protect his daughter. Way things look now, she could hang for this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“This here’s murder, Mr. Corrigan. That ain’t ridiculous.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“l could get her outa here ’fore anybody finds out she’s mixed up in it. Chances are she’d be kept outa it altogether—that is if the price was right.”

“You mean you want Mr. Dawes to pay you?”

“You got it, Mr. Corrigan. Whatta you think it’s worth to him to keep his only child offa the gallows?”

“Not a cent!” Don told him through clenched teeth. “Glory didn’t kill that girl. She may be a lot of things, but she’s no murderess. So you just take your filthy proposition and— You’d better call the sheriff right away, Mr. Morton. Because if you don’t, I will!”

The phone clicked in Morton’s ear. He sighed. It hadn’t worked. He followed Don’s advice and called the sheriff.

“I’ll be right out, Angus. Don’t let nobody in till I get over there,” the sheriff told him.

Angus said he wouldn’t, but the quick move of events broke his promise for him. After the sheriff hung up, Angus sat down across from Glory, making sure to pick a chair which gave him a clear view of her charms, and settled back to ogle her. He watched the slow rise and fall of her large breasts. What would happen, he wondered, if he walked over to her and fondled them? The daze she was in, he decided, she probably wouldn’t even notice. Why, if he had time, he could probably throw her a fuck right there and she’d never even know what was happening.

The thought made him itchy. He half-rose, drawn by her naked body, intending to steal a caress. But before he was all the way to his feet, the idea was pushed out of his mind by a commotion on the front porch. Before he could look to see what it was, the front door burst open and Vito D’Angelo entered. Behind him, Angus could see the figure of the handyman he’d stationed as guard. The figure was doubled over, clutching at its groin.

“Morton, what’s going on here?” Vito demanded.

Angus closed the door behind him and pointed toward the bathroom. Vito took a few steps and then stopped short and whistled. It was a low whistle of surprise.

“It’s Wilma Malden,” he said.

Angus nodded.

“She’s dead.”

“YEP.”

“Murdered, huh?”

“That’s right, Mr. D’Angelo.”

Vito looked up sharply at the note of slyness in Angus’s voice. “The doll here do it?” he asked, motioning toward Glory.

“If you say so, Mr. D’Angelo.”

“What the hell do you mean if I say so? I just got here. I’m not telling you. I’m asking you.”

“Well now, it sure does look like she done it. But on t’other hand, Mr. D’Angelo, a lotta people mighta had reasons for killin’ poor Wilma. Ain’t that right?” Morton chortled.

Vito stared at Morton, a slow light beginning to dawn on him. “Whadda you think you’re trying to pull, you creep? You saying I had something to do with this?”

“Nosiree! I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ like that, Mr. D’Angelo. I wouldn’t never tell the sheriff nothin’ like that, No, sir. But I reckon you mighta had a reason to kill wi1ma. I reckon We both know that. Ain’t no sense denyin’ it. An’ if the sheriff asks me, why I don’t rightly know iffen I should lie or not. I’d sure ’preciate your advice on that point, Mr. D’Angelo.”

“Why, you hick blackrnailer! Are you tryin’ to lean on me?” Vito grabbed Morton by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. “Why, I oughta—”

Vito broke the sentence off at the sound of approaching sirens. “You just keep your trap shut!” he told Morton. “Or else! You got that?”

“I will, Mr. D’Angelo. Honest I will.” Morton was frightened. The whole power of the syndicate had suddenly seemed concentrated in the fist D’Angelo had waved under his nose. “I didn’t mean nothin’. Honest! I ain’t gonna butt in nor say nothin’ no matter what you had to do with that thing in there.” He pointed to the bathroom.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it.” Vito told him. “And I don’t care whether you believe that or not. Just so long as you keep shut. But I ain’t so sure about you, Morton. You had as much reason to kill her as I did. Maybe the sheriff would like to know about that.”

“Now wait a mi—” Angus broke off the word and clammed up as the sheriff entered.

“Thought I tol’ you not to let nobody in, Angus,” the sheriff said, eyeing D’Angelo.

“I’m an old friend of the victim,” D’Angelo explained smoothly. “I—umm—persuaded Mr. Morton to let me come in. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

“Old friend of the victim, hey?” The sheriff eyed him suspiciously. “Well, I s’pect we’ll find out jus’ how old an’ how good a friend afore this is over. Meanwhile, you two clear out while I make my investigation.”

Morton and D’Angelo started for the door.

“Hold it!” the sheriff ordered. “Angus, this girl here ain’t got no clothes on. Couldn’t you at least of throwed a blanket over her or somethin’?”

“You said not to touch nothin’,” Angus said sullenly.

“You’re fulla it, you lecherous ol’fraud. I bet you been sittin’ here poppin’ your eyes at her an’ playin’ with yourself. You had a spark o’ decency, you’da covered her. Go on! Get outa here!” he ordered in a tone thick with disgust. He walked quickly to the bed, pulled off a blanket and covered Glory with it.

She looked up then, for the first time, as though awareness were slowly beginning to come back to her. The sheriff turned away. He went into the bathroom and began his investigation of the murder scene.

It was a few moments later that the deputy he’d stationed on the porch entered to announce that Mr. Dawes and Mr. Corrigan were outside and wanted to come in. The sheriff told him it was all right. Preston B. Dawes and Don Corrigan entered the cabin.

“Glory!” Dawes rushed over to his daughter.

Don stood back near the door, looking miserable.

Dawes knelt beside his daughter and hugged her to him. A moment later there was the sound of her muffled sobs against his chest. It was the first sound she’d made since discovering Wilma’s body. The sheriff watched as father and daughter clung together, neither seeming to be able to find the words to say to each other.

When Dawes did speak, it wasn’t to Glory, but to the sheriff. “May I take my daughter home?” he asked.

“ ’Fraid not, sir,” the sheriff answered respectfully. “The way things are, we ‘re gonna have to hold her.”

“Surely you don’t suspect her of having committed this heinous crime?”

“Right now, Mr. Dawes sir, she ’pears to be the main suspect we got.”

“She’s in a state of shock. I want to take her home and. I put her to bed.”

“Sorry, Mr. Dawes. I can’t ’low that. I’m gonna have to take her back to town with me, an’ book her on s’picion of murder.”

“I See.”

“C-can I get dressed?” Glory spoke for the first time.

“In a minute, Miss. Soon’s we’re through in here.” The sheriff took out a pad and went back into the bathroom. He made some notes and drew a rough sketch of the scene there.

While he was so occupied, Glory had looked up and noticed Don for the first time. The sight of him jarred her mind into action. Her brain began to work for the first time since she’d discovered Wilma’s body. Still in a state of shock, her thoughts were confused. But they jelled into one overwhelming conviction. Don was the murderer! It had to be him. That letter he’d written to her. He’d practically said he was going to kill Wilma. Or herself! He’d been driven berserk by the things they’d done to him, she and Wilma. Glory wished he’d killed her instead. She wished she were dead. Looking at Don now, she knew how much she really loved him. But it was too late. She’d driven him away from her. She’d driven him to murder. The only thing her love could do for him now was to try to protect him from the results of what he’d done.

Glory remembered his letter in her purse then. She crossed over to the nightstand, keeping her body between it and the others in the room. She slipped the letter from her purse, dropped it on the bed, and quickly sat on top of it, pushing the blanket with which she’d been covered out of the way so that her naked haunches gripped the crumpled paper.

The sheriff came out of the bathroom and crossed to the front door. He opened it and called to the deputy outside to come and help him. The deputy came in and the two of them carefully carried Wilma’s body from the bathroom into the bedroom. “You can go in there and get dressed now,” the sheriff told Glory.

She squirmed, pressing down hard on the bed until she was sure of her grip on the letter. Then she stood up and walked to the closet, the blanket around her concealing the fact that she was walking with her behind cheeks squeezed tightly together. The sheriff stopped her before she could open the closet door.

“My things are in there,” she explained.

“You go on in the bathroom an’ I’ll hand ’em to you one by one,” he instructed.

Glory did as she was told.

The sheriff searched each garment carefully before he handed it to her. When she had them all, she asked if it was all right to close the door and he gave her his permission. As the door closed behind her, the sheriff picked up the telephone and began to dial.

In the bathroom , Glory extracted Don’s letter, tore it up into little pieces and threw the pieces into the toilet bowl. The sound of the toilet flushing reached the sheriffs ears just as the number he’d dialed was beginning to be buzzed. Glory had taken the first step in her determination to shield Don. It was a step based on the belief that the only way she could atone for what she’d done to him was to protect him all the way -- even if that meant taking his punishment on herself.

“Hi, Jed?” The sheriffs call had gone through. “We got a sure ’nuf murder on our hands here. You’d best call the coroner an’ tell him to get on up here with the meat wagon right away,” he instructed the deputy in his office. “I prob’ly won’t be back for leastwise a few hours. Anythin’ comes up, you can reach me here.”

The sheriff hung up and turned to the deputy staring down at Wilma’s body, “Go find Angus Morton,” he said tersely.

The deputy went out and returned quickly with Morton. “Angus,” the sheriff said, “you got an empty cabin where I can talk to some of these folks private-like?”

“Sure, sheriff.”

“You stay here an’ don’t let nobody in till I’m through,” the sheriff told the deputy. He jerked a thumb toward the bathroom. “Keep her here with you. Mr. Dawes,” the sheriff turned to him, “you an’ Mr. Corrigan come on along with us. All right, Angus, lead the way.”

When they got to the empty cabin, the sheriff asked Mr. Dawes and Don to wait out on the porch while he talked to Angus. Inside, he sat down in an armchair and told Angus to have a seat. “All right, Angus,” he said, “now s’pose you tell me what’s been goin’ on here.”

“Murder, sheriff.”

“I know that, Angus. Don’t be gettin’ wise with me. I wanna know what them girls was doin’ here in the first place.”

“I jus’ rented them the cabin, sheriff. That’s all I know.”

The sheriff stood up and walked over to Angus. He bent over him so that their faces were very close. Angus could feel his tobacco breath hot on his cheek as the sheriff spoke. “I ain‘t playin’ games, Angus. This here’s murder. Murder, an’ I’m gonna be more law than you ever dreamed. So let’s don’t kid each other. Anything goin’ on here, you know ’bout it. That’s your business, Now, you gonna tell me what you know, or do you wanna cool a spell in a cell?”’

“What you wanna know, sheriff?” Angus shrank back from him fearfully.

“What was them two doin’ here? They got a coupla guys they’s shackin’ up with? That it?”

“No, sheriff. That weren’t it.”

“What then?”

“They’s makin’ love to each other.”

“You kiddin’ me, Angus?”

“Nope. Hones’, sheriff. That’s what it were. Them two’s a couple of lesbos.”

“I’ll be dammed!” The sheriff’s face looked a little sick as he began to believe Morton. “You knowed that an’ you let it go on here? What the hell’s the matter with you, Angus. You know we never ’lowed nothin’ like that in Glenville. You know I wouldn’t never go along with no fairies or dykes. I draw the line at that. So’s the town. I mighta blinked off lotsa things, but not no filthy sinnin’ like that. How the hell you let them use your place for that? I’da shut you down in a minute if I’d knowed you ever ’lowed it. But if you’d come to me first thing, I’da jus’ see’d to it that it were stopped. Why di’n’t you come to me?”

“Hell, sheriff,” Angus replied defensively, “I ain’t the only one what knowed ’bout it. That feller Corrigan, he knowed. An’ Beau Barker, too. Mattera fact, Beau had a meetin’ of some folks jus’ the other night to talk ’bout what to do with them perverts.”

“A meetin’? Who was there?”

Angus told him and the sheriff made a list of the names. “How come Beau didn’t see fit to bring me in on this?” the sheriff asked.

Angus shrugged. “Best ask him that, sheriff.”

“Don’t worry. I will. You know, everyone of them people that was there’s a suspect in this murder. Barker give each of ’em a motive. That’s what he done.”

“I reckon that’s right, sheriff. But, hell, it seems right likely it weren’t nobody but that New York gal what done it.”

“Mebbe. But I gotta check out all the others. An’ that means you, too, Angus.”

“Me? Why would I --”

“Same reason as any o’ the others,” the sheriff interrupted. “Now s’pose you tell me where you was all last night, Angus, and don’t leave anythin’ out.”

“I’m clean, sheriff, an’ I can prove it.” Morton grinned. “I was cuttin’ the crap game from ten till closing. I gotta dozen witnesses’ll bear me out.”

“What time them girls get here?”

“Wilma showed round nine-thirty. I don’ know when the other one come.”

“What time you close the game?”

“Four-thirty.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Went down to the diner on the highway-for burgers with some a the boys. You can check it out.”

“Don’t you worry. I will,” the sheriff told him dryly. “How ’bout this feller- D’Angelo?” he asked. “Where was he?”

“I don’t rightly know. You’ll have to ask him direct. I didn’t see him.”

“What’s his connection with the Maiden girl?”

“Now, that there’s a mighty int’resting question, sheriff. They knowed each other in N’Orleans. Ask me, they was maybe shackin’ up there. She come up here to see him a few times. Once I heard ’em havin’ a argument.”

“What about?”

“Couldn’t say. Jus’ know they was shoutin’ for a bit an’ then they quieted down. Don’ say I said it, sheriff, but I s’pect D’Angelo oughta be looked into.”

“Okay. You round him up an’ l’ll talk to him later. You can go now. Send Dawes in on your way out.”

Morton went out and a moment later Preston B. Dawes entered. The sheriff motioned him to a chair. “It looks mighty bad for your little girl, Mr. Dawes,” he told him.

“She didn’t murder that girl.”

“It surely looks like she did. What makes you say it so positive?”

“I know my daughter. It just isn’t in her to kill. I’m telling you that she couldn’t have done it, sheriff. If you want to apprehend the real murderer, you had better start looking elsewhere”

“Oh, I intend to do jus’ that, Mr. Dawes. Believe me. Tramp like Wilma Maiden, lotsa folks mighta had reason to kill her. Lotsa folks. Even maybe you, Mr. Dawes.”

“Me? Why me? What reason would I have for killing her?”

The sheriff ignored the question. “You know what your daughter were doin’ here with the Malden girl?” he asked.

“No,” Dawes lied. “I don’t.”

“You know ’bout the relationship ’tween ’em?”

“I – I -” Dawes broke down. “Yes,” he admitted finally, filled with shame staring at the floor to keep from meeting the sheriff’s eyes, “I know what they were doin.”

“That might be a reason for you to kill the Malden girl right there. Mightn’t it, Mr. Dawes?”

“But I didn’t kill her.”

“No?”

“No! I-I threatened her once, but it was just the sort of thing you say in anger. I didn’t mean it. I tell you I didn’t kill her, and neither did my daughter.”

“When did you make this threat?”

“A few nights ago when I fired her.”

“Fired her? Was she working for you?”

“Yes. She was the maid in our house.”

“The maid—Ben Malden’s daughter, the maid in your house! All the trouble you havin’ with him, Mr. Dawes, that sure seems mighty peculiar.”

“I didn’t know who she was. When I found out, I fired her. That’s when she told me what had been going on with her and Glory. You see, the Henshaws hired her in the first place.”

“The Henshaws, hey? Now that’s mighty int’restin’.”

The sheriff jotted down a note on his pad. “Hearin’ all this, Mr. Dawes, it ’pears you mighta had even more’n one reason for killin’ Wilma. I mean, you see how I gotta check out alla the angles. So s’pose you tell me where you was last night.”

“I was at home. All night.”

“I reckon the Henshaws’ll bear that out?” It was a question.

“Harvey brought me some milk in the library at about eleven. And I said good-night to Mrs. Henshaw about one, just before I went to bed.”

“But you coulda sneaked out after that without their knowin’, right? You coulda come up here, knocked off Wilma an’ gone back home with nobody bein’ the wiser.”

“No I couldn’t. You see, I didn’t have the car. Glory had it. It’s still up here. If I had gone out, I’d have needed a car from somewhere to get here. If I’d borrowed or rented one, you could certainly find it out easily enough.”

“That’s true, Mr. Dawes. I’ll have to check round of course, but for the time bein’ I reckon you’re clean. You can go. Ask Mr. Corrigan to come in on your way out, will you?”

Dawes left, to be replaced by Don Corrigan. He sat down nervously, facing the sheriff.

“What brung you up here, Mr. Corrigan?” The sheriff came directly to the point.

“I came up with Mr. Dawes. To see if I could help. I—I used to be engaged to his daughter.”

“That so? How come she broke the engagement?”

“She didn’t. I did.”

“Why?”

“Personal reasons. It has nothing to do with any of this, sheriff. Believe me.”

“I don’t,” the sheriff told him flatly. “But let it go for now. What about the Malden girl? Talk round town is you was shackin’ up with her in your room a few weeks back. That true?”

“Yes.”

“You kill her?” the sheriff asked idly.

“Of course not! Why would I?”

“Maybe ’cause she stole your fiancee. Maybe ’cause your ex-fiancee stole her. Maybe somethin’ to do with alla this ruckus with Ben Malden. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Corrigan. Next to Glory Dawes, you sure do figure as the most likely one to a done it. Now s’pose you tell me where you was last night.”

“In my room at the hotel.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No. I went to bed early. About ten. After that I didn’t see anybody and nobody saw me.”

“All right, Mr. Corrigan. That’s all for now. I’ll wanna talk to you again later, back in town. Don’t try nothin’ foolish like runnin’ off or nothin’, now. You be where I can find you real easy. You’re not, an’ I’ll have to put a warrant on you.”

The sheriff escorted Don to the door. He stuck his head out, spotted Vito D’Angelo and beckoned him to come in.

“What do you want from me, sheriff?” D’Angelo asked when they were inside.

“I wanna know ’bout you an’ Wilma Maiden.”

“Strictly private and personal. It has nothing to do with what happened. I’m not involved,”

“What you doin’ in Glenville in the first place, Mr. D’Angelo?”

“I’m here on business.”

“What sorta business?”

“Private business,” D’Angelo told him flatly.

“Now you jus’ look here, mister, they’s been a murder committed an’ I’m the law round here. Now, you gonna cooperate with me?”

“I’ll answer anything you ask me that’s got to do with the crime. Anything else, I got nothing to say.”

“This ain’t New Orleans, mister. I call the shots in this burg. Now you gonna answer whatever I ask you. You get that in your head right off.”

“I have nothing to say until I see my lawyer.”

“A big-city wise guy, huh?”

“I have nothing to say until I see my lawyer,” Vito repeated.

The sheriff approached him threateningly.

“Lay a finger on me, you Reuben, and I’ll sue this hick town for every nickel it’s got!”

The sheriff went back to his chair. “All right, D’Angelo. For now, we’ll jus’ have to play it your way. Will you answer me one question?”

“I ain’t sure. Depends on what it is.”

“Where were you at last night?”

“In my room.”

“All night?”

“All night.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I had company.”

“Who?”

“I ain’t got no more to say until I see my lawyer.”

“All right, D’Angelo. Get outa here,” the sheriff said disgustedly. “But see you don’t leave town.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Nope. I jus’ want you handy.”

“If I ain’t under arrest, I’ll leave town if I want to.”

“You do an’ I’ll have you picked up like that.” The sheriff snapped his fingers.

“On what charge?”

“Material witness in a murder case. An’ you can tell that to your lawyer if you’ve a mind to! Now get outa my sight, you citified hood!”

D’Angelo left. The sheriff sat thinking a moment. Then he got up and started for the door. Before he reached it, Joe Ambler waddled into the room.

“Joe!” The sheriff was surprised. “What you doin’ here?”

“Jed called me when he couldn’t reach the coroner.”

“Yeah? Why? An’ where the hell is the coroner, anyway?”

“He’s outa town. Visitin’ some relatives upstate. Won’t be back till tomorrow. That’s how come Jed called me. Said as how you had a corpse on your hands an’ he was ’fraid it might get to smellin’ pretty gamey iffen it weren’t put on ice soon. He figgered as how I got the only cold storage in town so I might keep it for you overnight. I brung my truck to haul it back in.”

“You know who it is?” the sheriff asked.

Ambler nodded “Angus jus’ tol’ me. Ain’t many derserved it more, you ask me.”

“I s’pose.” The sheriff remembered then that Morton had mentioned Ambler as being one of the men at the meeting at Barker’s house. “Yeah, you knew ’bout her an’ the Dawes girl an’ what they was doin’, didn’t you?”

“Sure. So’d a lotta others.”

“What else you know ’bout Wilma Maiden? She worked for you when she was a kid, didn’t she?”

“Yep.”

“Anythin’ else?”

“I know she’s a damn good piece a tail.” Ambler grinned.

“You make it with her?”

“Sure. We had a little thing goin’. She’d come round the store every two, three nights an’ we’d have a party.”

“You pretty free admittin’ it,” the sheriff observed.

“Why not?” Ambler shrugged. “You gonna find out bout it sooner‘ or later anyhow, I’spect. Ain’t it better you hear it straight from me? Hell, you ain’t gonna tell my wife on me. Lessen you’re forgettin’ a few things I could tell your wife.”

“Jus’ you knock that off, Joe. Nobody’s sayin’ nothin’ ’bout tellin’ wives nothin’. Alla same, I’d like to know what you was doin’ last night.”

“You think I knocked her off, sheriff? Hell, that’s funny. But it ain’t no sweat, sheriff. I was playin’ poker with the boys at my own house till after two. Then they left an’ me an’ the missus went to bed. We had a little squabble an’ didn’t get to sleep till after four. Way we was goin’ at it, I ’magine the neighbors could tell you I was home all right.”

“Okay, Joe. I jus’ had to ask. No hard feelin’s. I reckon you can take the body an’ keep it on ice for us overnight. Okay?”

“Sure ’nuf, sheriff.“ The fat man waddled out the door.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Word of the murder spread through Glenville like raging fever. That ice pick buried in Wilma’s flesh had turned over a rock, and now the bugs were scurrying for cover. It wasn’t the murderer walking the streets who sparked their panic so much as it was the prospect of an investigation which might bare their own sins to the glare of public righteousness.

Among those gripped most tightly by this fear were Harvey and Johanna Henshaw. As though perched on the scaffold and watching the approach of the executioner, they stared out the front window at the figure of the sheriff as he came up the front walk. It was Johanna who managed to get up the courage to answer his ring and usher him into the living room.

The sheriff minced no words. He reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a packet of four-by-five photoprints and spread them out before the Henshaws. “These here pictures was found in the dead girl’s handbag,” he told them. “S’pose you start explainin’.”

Harvey seemed unable to get his tongue unwrapped from around his teeth, so Johanna ‘did the talking. She told the sheriff the truth, all of it, from the beginning. She told how Wilma had snapped the picture of them in their “dress-ups,” and how she’d used it to blackmail them into giving her the job as the Daweses’ maid. “That’s all of it, sheriff,” she finished. “Honest. I knowed me an’ Harv was doin’ wrong, but what else could we a done with her threatenin’ us the way she did?”

“‘All of it, hey‘? Not quite, Johanna. You’re leavin’ out one mighty important fact.”

“What’s that, sheriff?”

“Jus’ that these here pictures give you a mighty strong motive to of murdered Wilma Malden. That’s all, Johanna.”

“Why, sheriff, we never—” Harvey found his tongue at last.

“Not us. Not never, sheriff,” Johanna chimed in. Then thinking fast, she added, “if we had, sheriff, you don’t s’pose we’d leave them pictures behind so’s you could find ’em, do you?”

“Maybe not. Unless you got scared off afore you could get ’em or somethin’. Lotsa things mighta happened to keep you from findin’ the pictures after you killed Wilma. So I think maybe you better tell me where the two of you was last night.”

“Why, right here, sheriff,” Johanna said. “You jus’ ask Mr. Dawes. He knows we was here.”

“He went to bed at one o’clock. Where was you after that?”

“In bed ourselves. Hell, sheriff, we couldn’t a done it if we wanted to. We was both here to give Mr. Dawes his breakfast come mornin’. He’ll vouch for that, too. So you see there weren’t even time to get up there an’ kill her an’ get back. We ain’t got no car. Fact is, neither of us even knows how to drive one, sheriff.”

“That agrees with Dawes’s story all right,” the sheriff admitted. “I’ll check on the car bit an’ if it’s true, then I reckon you got nothin’ to fear.” He picked up the photos and shoved them back in his pocket.

“What you gonna do with them pictures, sheriff?” Johanna asked fearfully.

“Use ’em at the trial.”

“You mean the murder trial, sheriff?”

“Nope. I mean your trial-the one they’s gonna be for you an’ Harvey. These here pictures prove you done broke the law. You two been behavin’ like real perverts. What you done is ag’in’ man an ag’in’ nature. I ain’t gonna have goin’s-on like that in Glenville. You gotta pay for your sinnin’.”

His next stop was at Luke Partridge’s house. Luke was in bed when he got there. Annie May, his wife, went in to wake him up.

“Where was you at last night, Luke?” the sheriff asked him before he could rub the sleep from his eyes.

“What for you wanna know, sheriff? I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Wilma Malden’s been murdered. You had a lotta trouble with her father. Also, you was at a meetin’ at Beau Barker’s house where he tol’ what she an’ the Dawes gal were doin’. Way I hear it, you was plenty upset ’bout it. Thought they oughta be punished, you did. Maybe even lynched. Or maybe jus’ quietly killed, hey, Luke? You decide to take the law in your own hands? That what you done?”

“I didn’t do nothin’ like that, sheriff. I never even knowed about it till you just told me.”

“Then answer my question. Where was you last night?”

“Working. Ten to six shift. After‘ that, I hung aroun’ to see Mr. Dawes. But he never showed. That’s the truth, sheriff.” '

“Okay, Luke. If it ain’t, I’ll find out fast enough.” The sheriff got to his feet and left.

Luke watched him go. Annie May looked at his face and saw worry written there.“What’s the matter, Luke?”she asked.

“Nothin’,” he answered shortly. But his mind was racing and it saw only disaster ahead. That petition he’d given to Wilma instead of mailing to the meat-packing locals. It was bound to turn up. And when it did, Luke knew he’d be sure to lose his position as head of the company union and probably his job as well. He sighed and cursed the dead girl to himself.

The sheriff’s route from the Partridge house to the next stop on his list took him past his office, so he decided to look in to tell the deputy where he’d be if he was needed.

“Birdwell’s? Ain’t no sense your goin’ there, sheriff. He ain’t to home.”

“No? Where is he?”

“Down the hospital with a broken jaw.”

“How’d that happen?”

“He ain’t in no condition to say. The only story we got to go by is the one of the feller what broke it.”

“What’s his story?” the sheriff wanted to know.

“It’s a lulu.” The deputy grinned. “Seems he were out in the picnic area east o’ town spoonin’ his gal when he hear like heavy pantin’ comin’ from the bushes. He says he went over to have a look an’ found Birdwell’d been watchin’ him an’ his girl goin’ at it. He says Birdwell were squattin’ there with his pants down round his ankles with his fist wrapped round hisself an’ goin’ to it like a V-8 piston. So this here feller see’d red an’ smashed him with his fist an’ knocked him cold. He brang him to the hospital an’ they say his chinny-chin-chin’s busted in three places.”

“Anybody hol’ this feller?’

“Naw, sheriff. He’s jus’ a kid an’ a scared one at that. We want him, he’s a cinch to pick up with no trouble.”

“You think he tol’ the truth?”

“I didn’t talk to him, sheriff. The doc down the hospital called to tell me what happened. Way he tells it, it sounds true. l mean, the coulda jus’ left him lyin’ there. If it weren’t true, why would he bother totin’ him to the hospital?’

“What time’d all this happen?”

“Kid brung Birdwell in ’round midnight.”

“Then Birdwell couldn’t a been up at the motel,” the sheriff mused.

“Reckon not.” The sheriff took out his notebook and checked Birdwell’s name off his list. “What else been happenin’?” he asked.

“We developed them prints we took off the handle o’ that ice pick. One or two of ’em’s clear as a bell. Oughta be jus’ right for positive identification.”

“You take the Dawes girl’s prints yet to see if they match up?”

“Nope. We was waitin’ for you. Figured you’d wanna be here to see for yourself.”

“Well, I’m here. Go get the girl an’ let’s see.”

The deputy went out and returned a moment later, leading Glory into the room. The girl looked calm, resigned to whatever fate had in store for her. The deputy escorted her over to the desk, took her fingers one by one and pressed them down on the ink pad, rolling them to be sure they were adequately blacked. Then he took a white card and rolled each inked finger over its surface to get an imprint. A second card for her other hand, and the process was completed. The deputy reached into the desk and took out another white card with the imprint of fingerprints on it. He set the three cards down in front of the sheriff.

The sheriff studied them for a long time. “Damn!” he said under his breath. “Why does everything have to be so dadblasted complicated.” He sighed and looked at Glory. “All right, Miss Dawes, I reckon you can go now,” he said.

“You mean I’m free?” Glory asked, dazed.

“Yep. Your prints don’t match the ones we found on the murder weapon.” The sheriff turned to the deputy. “They’s a lotta people I’m gonna wanna see, Jed. Might as well start roundin’ some of ’em up. Let’s start with Corrigan an’ D’Angelo an’ -- oh,yeah!—Rafe Proctor. Give Corrigan a call up to the fact’ry an’ tell him to come over here. D’Angelo an’ Proctor you’d best pick up personal. Then I’ll tell you who else I wanna see.” He looked up and saw that Glory was still standing by the door, her hand on the knob, but not moving to turn it. “I said you could go, Miss Dawes,” he reminded her.

“Oh! Yes, of course.” She turned the doorknob and let herself out.

On the street, Glory tried to think what to do. Absolved herself, it seemed all the more likely that the sheriff might fasten on Don as a suspect. Of course, the sheriff knew nothing of the letter Don had written her. She’d managed to destroy that most incriminating piece of evidence. But Don didn’t know it was destroyed. He might even take it for granted that the sheriff had it. And if he believed that, he might think the jig was up and confess to having murdered Wilma.

Glory had to get to him first, before he saw the sheriff. She ran into a drugstore, called the factory and was told he’d left already. She ran out of the drugstore and started walking in the direction of the factory, praying he’d take the main road into town.

About fifteen minutes later, her prayers were answered. She spotted Don’s car coming down the road and flagged it down. Don braked to a stop beside her.

“Glory, what are you doing here? I thought you were—”

“In jail.” She finished the sentence for him. “No. They let me go. They know now that I didn’t kill Wilma. But that’s not important. What is important is that they suspect you. I had to talk to you before you saw the sheriff.

“Slow down, will you. What are you talking about?”

“That letter you sent me. The one where you threatened to kill Wilma -- or me.”

“Oh! In all the excitement I’d forgotten about it.” Don said truthfully.

“I just wanted you to know I destroyed it. Nobody ever saw it but me.”

“You did?” Don looked at her, surprised. “Why?” “Because I love you.” she said in a very small voice, unable to meet his eyes.

“How can you say that—after everything that’s happened?”

“Oh, Don. You don’t have to believe it. I know how you feel. I don’t want anything from you. I just want to protect you. I know that what you did was because I drove you to it."

“What I did‘? What are you talking about?”

“Wilma,” Glory told him in a whisper.

“Wilma? You mean you think I killed her?”

“Didn’t you?”

“No! Of course not!”

“Don, they’ve got the fingerprints from the ice pick at the sheriff’s office. Don, don’t lie. If you did it, don’t go there. Run away. I’ll go with you if you want. I’ll help you. I’ve got some money. We can change our names. Get out of the country.”

“Wait a minute! If they’ve got the fingerprints, what difference could the letter make?”

“I didn’t know they had them when I destroyed it.”

“Then why are you stopping me now?”

“To warn you. So you can get away.”

“If you think I murdered her, why do you want to do that?”

“I told you. Because I love you.”

“Even if I’m a murderer?”

“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I love you and I want you to live.”

“Glory,” Don said gently, “I didn’t kill Wilma. If they’ve got fingerprints from the murder weapon, you can be sure they aren’t mine. Those prints won’t prove my guilt. They’ll prove my innocence.”

“Don, are you sure?”

“I ought to know. But if you’ve got doubts, I tell you what, you drive to the sheriff’s office with me and wait for me. Watch how fast they let me go. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Don.”

“After I come out, we can talk. We’ve got a lot to talk about. All right?”

“Yes, Don.”

Twenty minutes later Glory’s fear subsided as Don emerged from the sheriff’s office and rejoined her in the car. “I told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said as he started the motor. “Now let’s go someplace and have that long talk I mentioned.”

They went to Don’s hotel room. And they did talk—at first. But there came a moment when for Glory, her eyes filled with tears, mere talk was not enough to express the love she felt for Don. That was when she fell to her knees in front of him and reached up to open the zipper of his pants.

“You don’t have to—” Don started to say.

“I want to. I want to feel it in my mouth. I want to kiss it and lick it with my tongue and suck it. And I want you to come in my mouth. I want to feel your sweet, hot cream pouring down my throat. I want to swallow it—every last drop—until you’re drained.”

At these words Don’s penis reared up hot and hard. Glory bared her large melon-breasts and contrived to put his erection between them. She pulled down Don’s pants and jockey shorts and clutched at his behind, forcing his stiff organ to pump in and out of the deep cleavage between her breasts.

“You’re so hard!” she panted. She squeezed her breasts tight together, making a vagina-like passage for his organ to move inside. “That’s it! French-fuck me, baby! Rub your hard prick between my tits! Let me feel your cream-filled balls against my nipples. They ticle you, don’t they? Now I’m going to kiss your nuts just the way you always wanted me. Then I’m going to lick your cock.... Oh! It tastes so good! Why was I so stupid? Why wouldn’t I do this before? . . . Now I’m going to lick that white foam off the tip. And then I’m going to take it in my mouth. And I’m going to suck it and suck it and suck it! . . .

Meanwhile, back in his office, the sheriff was feeling more and more harassed and perplexed. When Glory’s prints hadn’t matched up, he’d been sure that Corrigan would turn out to be the guilty one. Hell, he’d been intimately involved with both girls and the business ruckus over the Malden farm. But fmgerprints didn’t lie. Corrigan’s hadn’t matched those on the ice pick. So now the sheriff was right back where he’d started from—plenty of suspects, but no proof of murder unless he could match up the prints.

He looked up sourly as the deputy pushed Vito D’Angelo into the office ahead of him. “This bird didn’t wanna come. He had to be persuaded,” the deputy told the sheriff.

“That so? Well, now that you’re here, Mr. D’Angelo, why don’t you jus’ sit down an’ I’ll be with you in a jiffy. Jed, you wanna come close here a minute? There’s somethin’ I wanna tell you private-like.”

The deputy walked over to the sheriff and bent down so that the older man might whisper in his ear. He grinned slowly as he heard the sheriff’s words. Then he straightened up and left the way he’d come in. The sheriff turned to D’Angelo.

“Jus’ a few minutes more an’ I’ll be with you, Mr. D’Angelo.” He propped his feet up comfortably on the desk, took a magazine from the drawer and began to read it.

D’Angelo watched him from half-closed eyes. Obviously, the sheriff was trying to bug him, trying to wear his patience down. D’Angelo decided he’d just sit it out and not lose his temper.

This decision lasted for about twenty minutes. By then, D’Angelo had had it. “You can’t pull this on me, you country bumpkin,” he announced with deadly calm. “I’m getting outa here!”

“ ’Fraid not, Mr. D’Angelo.” The sheriff sighed. He reached into the desk drawer and brought out a large Colt .45. He set it down on the desk in front of him. “You make a move, Mr. D’Angelo, an’ I reckon I’ll jus’ have to shoot you tryin’ to escape. So you jus’ relax. I tol’ you, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

D’Angelo relaxed.

Another twenty minutes went by and the sheriff finally put down his magazine and spoke. “Now, I’ll tell you why’ I had you brung here, Mr. D’Angelo. We got some prints off that ice pick what killed the Malden girl. I jus’ want you to lemme take your prints so’s we can be sure they don’t match up. Okay?”

“You ain’t gonna fingerprint me,” D’Angelo told him. “I ain’t never had my prints taken and I ain’t never gonna. What’s more, you can’t make me unless you got some charge to bring against me. If you do, sheriff, you better make it fast. My lawyer’s on his way here now and if he finds you holding me without a reason, he’ll start raising all kinds of hell. I’m telling you, you better put that gun away and let me go.”

“Mr. D’Angelo, if you didn’t kill that girl, why won’t you jus’ lemme take your prints?”

“That’s my business.”

“Reckon that’s right -- but only for now.”

“Whaddaya mean?” D’Angelo asked, disturbed by the sheriff’s sly calmness.

“Fact is, Mr. D’Angelo, I s’pected you wasn’t gonna cooperate. So while we been settin’ here relaxin’, my deputy’s been up at your cabin at the lodge dustin’ the place real good. I ’rnagine he’ll come back with some real good prints o’ yours. Whatta you think?”

“You had no right—” D’Angelo was fuming, but fear was also beginning to crawl over his face.

“He gets back, first thing I do is check ’em ‘gainst the ones we got offen the ice pick. They match, you’re as good as hanged, Mr. D’Angelo. They don’t, we gonna send ’em round the country. Somehow I s’pect they’s gonna match with somethin’ some police department’s got somewhere. That’s all for now, Mr. D’Angelo. You can leave. But you’ll be hearin’ from me.”