The real gone girls

Now, suddenly, she was demure. Her fingers caressed the scanty triangle of sequins that was left in coy reluctance at the prospect of surrendering them. She had a silent argument with herself, which she finally resolved with a sort of girlish boldness. She went to the very edge of the stage and thrust the sequins toward a man seated there. He grabbed for them eagerly. As soon as they were removed, she whirled away.

Pasties and a G-string—both of glittering rhinestones—-that’s all she was wearing now. An Arabian lute sounded and she swung into a slow, sensual imitation of a woman in the act of intercourse. The movements were unmistakable. Even the simulated climax of it seemed real. And it was this that gave me just enough of a peep under that G-string to determine that the down there was the same shade of gold as her hair. Score another point for her being the real Françoise Laval.

She came out of it to kneel at the edge of the stage once again. She took a man's hand between both of hers and held it to her breast. She moved the hand about, made it stroke her, encouraged it to squeeze, pushed the fingers knuckle-deep into the cleavage. And when she finally pushed it away, one of the pasties she'd been wearing was nestling in the palm. As she straightened up, the bared nipple stood straight out, a stiffly quivering half-inch of redness with no trace of a roseate around it. On closer examination, I would find that there was a roseate which was so close in color to the ivory of her breast that it was invisible in the spotlight. But right now it was strangely exciting the way the long nipple popped out with such scarlet contrast to the breast.

A few moments later the second nipple was waving in the air. Now all she wore was that G-string. She danced slowly over to the table at which Lucky Pierre and I were seated. She stood right over me for a moment, smiling down and rotating those rhinestones with a skill that was amazing. Then, suddenly, taking me by surprise, she gave a little jump and was perched on my shoulders, her thighs gripping my neck. Still the rhinestones bounced up and down. Now the movement grew so frantic that they were scraping the tip of my nose.

I realized that she was waiting for me to pull the G-string off with my teeth. I snapped at it, felt it come loose, and flung my face aside to spit it out. Lucky Pierre stuck out a hand and caught it as it flew out of my mouth. At the same moment Frieda Fieler rose up slightly and came down determinedly to seal my lips. There wasn’t a single rhinestone between me and her quivering femininity now. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself cooperating fully in the offbeat kiss she offered. And that’s when the lights went out.

In the darkness she slid off my shoulders and into my lap. She started to stand up, but I held onto her. “Wait a minute,” I whispered. “I want to talk to you.”

“Talk?” Her fingers stroked my face wonderingly.

“Yes. Alone. When can I see you alone?”

“It can be arranged, chéri.” She blew in my ear. “But it will cost you.”

“How much?"

She mentioned a figure.

“That much?”

“I am worth it. And more.” She squeezed my thigh. “Believe me, you won’t be sorry.”

“A1l right. Where? When?"

“Tomorrow night. But not my place. That would be too dangerous. There is a man who troubles me. He needn’t concern you, but it would be best if I came to your quarters. Leave the address with the headwaiter. I will be there at eleven tomorrow evening. Between shows."

“Won’t that mean we’ll have to rush things?”

“Don’t worry about that, chéri. We will have an hour. You will find an hour with me more ecstatic than a week with other girls.” She kissed me, her mouth wide open, her lips sucking at the tip of my tongue, urging it to enter and investigate.

It was a long kiss, and I took advantage of it to do a little preliminary investigating. The place was still pitchblack, and I dropped my hand to her lap. I had only my sense of touch to go by, but the hair there seemed unusually soft and silky to me. The tendrils all leaned smoothly in one direction just as if they’d been combed. And I couldn’t be sure, but it actually felt as if the downy triangle had been parted down the middle. More and more I had cause to hope I had latched on to the right Françoise Laval.

The kiss ended. She scurried away. The lights went on. People began to leave. I paid the check, and Lucky Pierre and I left with them.

I slept well that night and woke late. I went downstairs to a local cafe and had my breakfast of coffee and brioche at an outdoor table. I was still dawdling over it when Lucky Pierre came swaggering up and joined me.

“Complications,” he announced.

“What do you mean?”

“I have found another Françoise Laval. An artists’ model.”

“I think I found the right one last night,” I told him.

“I thought so, too, but now I’m not so sure. This girl fits the description you gave me. And the man she is living with is named Pierre.”

“Yes, but is he a pimp?”

“Not anymore. But he used to be. That was before he renounced the worldly life of the procurer for the purity of art.”

“Oh, one of those, hey?”

“Exactly. As a pimp he had a reputation as a real dandy. Spats, pearl stickpin, hand-tailored suits-—the works, you know? Now he wears blue jeans, a filthy beard, and is half starving to death. But it’s all for art, and he swears he wouldn't have it any other way.”

“What about the girl‘? Is Françoise Laval her real name?”

“It’s what she calls herself. But there’s something else that should interest you. She was with Pierre when he was a pimp. That was a few years back. When he became an artist, she left him. And she left Paris. No one knew where she had gone—-and I suppose no one really cared. But it just happens that a fellow I know visited London after she left. And he claims he met her in a brothel in London.”

“That is interesting!”

“She came straight back to this Pierre, and she’s been living with him ever since. He’s very attached to her. But I don’t mean as a lover. The truth is that Pierre has renounced sex for art, along with everything else. No, his attachment to her is based on her excellence as a model. He uses her for all his painting. It is a very odd relationship.”

“It sounds it.”

“Yes. You see, she is a very healthy and lusty girl. She has a large appetite for sex. This appetite Pierre refuses to fill. Not so much as a nibble will he provide. It drives her wild.”

“Then why does she stay with him?”

“She loves him. But she also loves sex. So she cheats on him. But she is very careful, very discreet.”

“Why does she bother if he’s so disinterested?”

“Because he is jealous all the same. He doesn’t want to make love to her himself, but he doesn’t want anyone else to make love to her, either.”

“As you say, it’s a very odd relationship." I thought about it a moment. “How do I get to meet her?” I asked finally.

“Sometimes she poses for an art class in order to get a few crusts of bread for herself and Pierre. He doesn’t like it. Where painting is concerned, he considers her body his exclusive property. He won’t let her pose for individual artists, although she’s had many offers. But he has to permit her to pose for a group because they must eat. What he doesn’t know is that sometimes she does manage to sneak off to pose at some artist’s garret. The reason I mention all this is that she’s posing for the art class this morning, and if you want to see her all you have to do is pay the fee. And if you think it worthwile, you might take her aside, pass yourself off as an artist, and make a date for her to come and pose for you.”

“That’s a good idea, Pierre. I’ll see if I think it’s worth while to carry things that far.”

One look at the model after I checked into the art class, and I knew it was going to be worthwhile. Her hair was blonde and cropped, and since she was nude, it was easy to verify the other details supplied by Gina when she described Françoise Laval. Petite body, large breasts and hips — everything tallied. I paid particular attention to the hair below her slightly rounded belly. It was golden, all right, but I couldn’t tell whether it was dyed or not.

Once I’d taken inventory, I began feeling self-conscious about not doing anything with the brushes and canvases which had been set before me. But a quick glance told me there was no need to feel that way. At least half the men in the room were making no pretense of painting. They were simply sitting there and staring at the lush naked body.

Every so often one of these phonics would walk up to the platform on which she was reclining and cop a feel under the pretext of rearranging her limbs. Aside from this, she remained motionless. She made no protest when they touched her. She didn’t respond in any way. Her face simply stayed fixed in that permanent pout, and the green eyes were glazed over with boredom.

Finally the instructor called time, and the artists began filing out. The phonies stayed to the last, devouring Françoise with their eyes. I stayed with them, also continuing to stare at her.

She was stretching luxuriously, getting the circulation back into her limbs, I suppose. Then, still nude, she picked up her purse from the table where she’d set it and took out a comb. I Watched as she ran the comb through her short-cropped curls. And then my eyes almost popped as she lowered the comb and rhythmically ran it through the sleek hair beneath her belly.

“Does she always do that?” I grabbed one of the phonies by the arm.

“Always, M’sieur. Is it not provoking?”

“Very,” I agreed.

Through combing now, Françoise began to get dressed. A sigh swept the room, and the phonies began drifting out. By the time she was pulling her dress over her head, the last of them was gone. Only then did I approach the model.

“I would like you to pose for me.” I came straight to the point.

“I’m sorry. I do not pose for individual artists."

“I will pay you well.”

“How well?”

I mentioned a generous figure.

Her green eyes opened very wide. “Just to pose, M’sieur?”

“Yes.”

“I think not. I think perhaps you want something else.”

“No,” I assured her. “I just want to have you to myself so that we can talk.”

“First posing, now talking. What else do you expect, M’sieur?” Her voice was teasing.

“Nothing.”

“I do not believe you. Not for a minute. But do you know something?” She looked at me approvingly. “I do not mind. It is just possible that my need is as great as yours. And I think it likely that it is the same sort of need.”

“Then you‘ll come to my studio?”

“Oui. Give me the address.”

I wrote it out for her.

“What time do you want me?” she asked. “I can't make it this afternoon. Will this evening be all right?”

“If you can come early this evening,” I told her.

“Eight-thirty?”

“That will be fine.”

“Then I shall see you then, M’sieur.” Her hand was very hot as she gave it to me to shake good-bye.

It was so hot that it never occurred to me that she might not show up. But that’s what happened. By ten that night I knew I’d been stood up. I didn’t waste any time on regrets, though. The striptease candidate was due at eleven.

She didn’t disappoint me. She was prompt. She’d come straight from the Naughty Nude. All she'd worn was a one-piece dress to cover her through the street. I knew she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the moment she greeted me with a kiss.

Being human, I tried for an encore. But she pushed me gently away. “First the money,” she reminded me.

“Of course.” I fished it out and handed it to her.

She counted it carefully. “Correct.” She beamed. “And now let us begin.” She stooped over, pulled the dress over her head with one theatrical motion, tossed it across the room, and flung herself on the bed. “Come on, chéri.” She held her arms up to me. “What are you waiting for?”

“I want to talk to you a moment first.”

“Talk? Oh! Oui!” A look of comprehension lit up her face. “Of course! I had forgotten that you are an American.”

“Let's not get chauvinistic! I’m not shy. It’s just that I got you up here for a reason.”

“I rather thought you had, M’sieur.”

“Not that reason. Another reason. I want to ask you some questions.”

“Very well. If you insist.”

“Good. Now, your real name is Françoise Laval, isn’t it?”

“Oui. I try to keep that a secret for professional reasons, but I suppose there are many who know it.”

“Yes. And you’re not German. Is that right?”

“Oui. I am a native of Paris."

“All right. Now, a few years back you left—” I was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Are you expecting someone?” Frieda Fieler asked anxiously.

“Not that I know of.”

“Oh!” Her anxiety turned to panic. “Pierre! He must have followed me here. He mustn’t find me! Where can I hide?”

I watched as she darted, still naked, around the room. When it looked as if she was about to dive under the bed, I stopped her. “Just go in there,” I told her, pointing out the door leading to the bathroom. “Whoever it is, I’ll get rid of them right away.”

The knocking at the door sounded again as she followed my instructions. As soon as she was safely out of sight, I opened the door to the room. Françoise Laval, the model, stood there. “Quickly! Let me in!” she gasped. “I may have been followed!”

I stood back, and she slipped into the room, closing the door behind her and leaning against it while she caught her breath. “I‘m so sorry I’m late,” she said finally.

“I had given up on your coming at all,” I told her frankly. “You were supposed to be here at eight-thirty, and it’s already past eleven. I’m afraid this is a little inconvenient. Could you possibly come back tomorrow?”

“Oh, please, M’sieur! I could not come at eight-thirty because my-—-my protector was seized with a sudden fit of artistic jealousy. It was all I could do to get away now. If I am to pose for you, we must make the most of this opportunity.”

“But as you can see,” I lied to her, “I have already put away my easel and brushes for the night.”

“Then take them out again, M’sieur! While you are doing so, I will get ready.”

“But--” It was no use. She was already slipping out of her clothes.

“Well?” Naked now, she looked at me inquiringly. “Where are your sketching materials?”

“Look, Françoise, it’s like this. I’d like to talk with you a moment first.”

“Aha! I thought so! You're not really an artist at all. You lured me up here so that you might make love to me!”

“Well, no—I mean, not exactly-—”

“No?” She looked disappointed. “You mean you don’t want to take advantage of me?”

Talk about ambivalent feelings! Standing there with her hand on her hip and her balloon-like bosom bobbling towards the ceiling as if filled with helium, Françoise Laval seemed as appetizing to me as a sizzling shiskebab set before a starving Armenian. Still, I managed to force myself to set aside the skewer in favor of my real business with her. “ Françoise,” I began, “I understand that you have spent some time in London where—” For the second time that night, a knocking at the door interrupted my inquiries.

“Pierre!” She shrank back against the wall. “If he finds me here, he will kill me! He will kill us both! I must hide!" She started toward the bathroom door.

“Not there!” I remembered that I already had one naked Françoise Laval in the bathroom. “In here, quick!” I held open the door to the clothes closet and then closed it behind her. I started for the door to the room, and then noticed the model's clothing strewn on the bed. I grabbed it up and threw it under the bed. Then, just as the knuckles rat-a-tatted off the door again, I opened it.

The girl standing there looked like a refugee from a Ziegfeld version of a French Apache dance. Her skirt was slit to the thigh to reveal black net stockings hugging shapely legs. The red sweater she wore was at least three sizes too small, and her overlarge bosom seemed sure to burst the wool with her very next inhalation. A beret was perched atop brassy, obviously dyed blonde hair, and it was tilted at a brazen angle which matched the purse of her lips and the invitation in her blue eyes. Only her lack of make-up seemed out of character, but it was compensated for by a naturally flawless complexion.

“Who the hell are you?” I blurted out.

“ Françoise Laval.” Her husky voice made it sound as if she were telling me I’d just won first prize—a 1973 Cadillac limousine⁵ at the very least—in a raffle.

“How—?”

“Lucky Pierre sent me. He said you’d be delighted to see me. He said you would be most generous. Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

Dazed, I automatically held the door open for her.

“He said all I had to do was tell you my name,” she informed me. “It’s Françoise Laval,” she repeated, as if addressing a retarded child. “I think it’s a pretty name. Do you like it?”

“So much that I’m becoming a collector,” I told her.

“I beg your pardon, M’sieur?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Dizzily, I glanced from the bathroom door to the closet door and back to her. “So Lucky Pierre sent you,” I said helplessly.

“Oui. He is a friend of my man, whose name is also Pierre.”

“And I suppose your Pierre is a pimp?”

“That is a cruel term. But perhaps it is deserved. Alas, my Pierre is a most cruel man.”

“I see. And did he and Lucky Pierre arrive at a price for your services this evening?”

“Oh, no! He does not know I am here! He would be most angry. You see, while Lucky Pierre is a friend of his, they are also competitors. If he knew that Lucky Pierre had set up this trick for me, he would carve me up. And he would carve Lucky Pierre up. And he would surely carve you up. Or maybe he would just kill us with his hands. He is very big and strong, my Pierre. And very jealous when it comes to his property, which he considers me to be. Yes, very jealous!”

“Aren’t they all,” I sighed.

“So perhaps we should not waste any time!” She tossed her beret on the bureau and began disrobing.

“I don't think that right now—-” I began to protest.

But I stopped protesting as she discarded her bra, and my eyes fastened on a fantastically large bosom which looked even larger rising up from her petite figure. Once again I was seeing charms which fit the description of the ones for which I was looking. Despite the confused situation, my curiosity got the better of me. She was a speedy undresser, and I held my tongue to seek even more pertinent evidence.

When she removed her skirt, I saw it. There, sticking out of the top of her stocking, was a comb! And as she arranged herself provocatively on the bed, I spied a touch of auburn at the roots of the golden curls forming a triangle at the juncture of her beautifully molded legs.

“Hurry, chéri!” she wriggled. “I am so eager for you. Come! What are you waiting for?"

“ Françoise, will you answer a few-—” A third time I was interrupted. This time the knocking at the door was loud and insistent. I felt like a movie actor caught in a strip of film which has become jammed in the projector and forced to repeat the same scene over and over again.

“What’s that!” Françoise Laval jumped to her feet.

“Someone at the door,” I parrotted wearily.

“Oui. But who? Are you expecting someone?”

“No.”

“Then it must be Pierre! He must have followed me! Where can I hide?” She darted toward the clothes closet.

“Not there!” I told her. “That’s the first place he’ll look.”

She ran to the bathroom door.

“Not there, either. Too obvious. Here. Quick. Get behind the drapes.”

She did as I told her. I scooped up her clothes and threw them under the bed with the clothing of Françoise Laval the model and Françoise Laval the strip-teaser. Then I crossed over to open the door, lulled by now into expecting nothing more than another sex-hungry Françoise Laval. My expectations were misplaced. It wasn’t a girl, but a man who stood there. And what a man! Almost seven feet tall and all muscle. So much muscle that it overflowed the doorway. In one hand he held a wicked-looking bludgeon, an outsize blackjack that looked as if it had been designed to split skulls the way a nutcracker splits walnuts. The other hand, large as an elephant hoof, shot forward like a cannonball and sent me spinning back into the room. He followed, gorilla-like, his large, ugly facet filled with rage, wrestler-like grunts snarling from between fang-filled lips as he came.

I started to pick myself up, and thought better of it. “What can I do for you?" I asked in a tone which was meant to be conciliatory, but emerged more as a frightened squeak.

“I am Pierre!” he announced.

Which Pierre? I wondered.

“I am looking for Françoise Laval!”

Which Françoise Laval?

“I know she is here!”

Which was likely.

“When I find her, I kill her! And I kill you!”

Which figured!

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I WILL kill you!” The rumbling echo of the threat hung ominously in the air. Looking at this rampaging behemoth of a man, I didn’t have a doubt in the world that he could and would do exactly as he threatened. Perhaps it might be a fitting end for the man from O.R.G.Y., but that didn’t make it any more palatable to me.

“Can’t we discuss this calmly?” I suggested.

“Where is she?” He ignored my offer. “Where are you hiding her?”

“I’m not hiding anyone,” I lied desperately.

“There is no woman here, eh?” He looked at me as if I was a bug he was about to squash.

“N-no.”

“Then how do you explain this?!” he roared. Somehow I’d overlooked a bra when hiding the clothes under the bed, and now he was shaking it under my nose. “It is hers without a doubt!” he shouted. “The size is unmistakable!”

“All right,” I told him, my mind racing. “You’re right. I do have a woman here. But she isn’t the woman you’re looking for!” Which Pierre was he? And which Françoise Laval was he after? If I only knew that, I might be able to steer him to the wrong one.

“Aha! Do you admit it! Where is she?” He started for the drapes behind which my Françoise-come-lately was hiding.

He had no beard! That gave me hope. I remembered Lucky Pierre telling me that the artist Pierre had a beard. So this intruder wouldn’t be looking for Françoise Laval the model. Quickly, I intercepted him before he could reach the drapes. “She’s not in there,” I told him. “She’s in the closet.”

He started for the closet, but before he reached it, his eye was caught by the door to the bathroom. Françoise Laval the stripper must have been peeking out from there, for it was ever so slightly ajar. Then it had clicked closed, and this was the sound which attracted Pierre’s suspicions.

“What are you trying to pull?” he roared. “She’s in there!”

I trailed timidly behind as he barged into the bathroom. At first glance it looked empty. Then one of his bear-paw hands swept aside the shower curtain and the naked female figure of Françoise Laval the stripper came into view. Only her torso, for she kept her face covered with a towel.

“It is she!” Pierre exclaimed.

I cursed my luck. With two out of three chances, I’d come up a loser. And the stakes were my life!

“Do you deny it?” Pierre reached out and squeezed a naked breast. “Only these could fill this!” He held up the bra in front of the bosom. “I would know them anywhere! There are none others of such magnitude in all Paris!”

That's what you think, I thought to myself.

“This is the bosom of Françoise Laval!” His hand closed around my shirt-front like a grappling hook, and the next thing I knew my toes were dangling a good foot above the tiled floor.

“No, wait!” Françoise the stripper lowered the towel from her face. “You’ve made a mistake.”

Pierre looked at her, and his jaw dropped open. His fist unclenched, and I dropped to the floor, hitting so hard that my teeth rattled. “A thousand pardons, Mademoiselle! I would have sworn that this must be the bosom of Françoise Laval and no other.”

“It is,” she told him.

“Mademoiselle?”

“I am Françoise Laval.”

“You are?” The brute scratched his head, perplexed.

“But you are not my Françoise Laval,” he concluded finally.

“No.”

“Well then,” he said abashedly, “I suppose that I should be leaving.” It sounded as if he was half hoping that she’d ask him to stay.

“I’ll see you to the door,” I said, scotching that hope post-haste.

“My congratulations, M’sieur,” he said as I saw him out. “You are a most fortunate man.”

“You have no idea how fortunate,” I told him sincerely. I closed the door behind him and turned to face

Françoise Laval the stripper. “Why did you put that towel over your face?” I asked. “He might have killed me before he discovered his mistake.”

“I was afraid he would recognize me. After all, M’sieur, I am a rather well-known performer. And if word should get back to my Pierre that I had been found naked in the bathroom of an American— well-—” She made a slicing motion across her throat by way of completing the sentence.

“Oh.” I thought a moment. “I wonder just whose Pierre he was?” I mused aloud finally.

“He is mine.” The voice from behind the drape held a goodly amount of pride.

“Who is that?” Françoise Laval the stripper wanted to know. “What’s going on around here anyway?”

“Well, you see-—” This time the knocking at the door which interrupted me was like the roar of thunder.

Resigned to such interruptions by now, I waited for Françoise the stripper to dart back into the bathroom and then went to answer it. There was a click, and I found myself belly-dancing with the point of a switchblade knife. The face above it was all teeth—-some gold, some silver, some just plain human enamel. The rest of the face was ferret-sharp and snake-deadly, a visage calculated to inspire confidence in anybody looking to hire a professional assassin. But the sharp clothes covering the short, slender body were not those of an assassin. Rather they were the flashy hallmark of the Parisian pimp which he was.

“I will come in!” he announced, prodding me with the switchblade so that I backed up before him.

“By all means. The next train for New Rochelle leaves in about ten minutes,” I told him.

“What, M’sieur?”

“You were looking for Grand Central Station, weren’t you?”

“No. I am looking for Françoise Laval.”

“It’s a national pastime,” I murmured.

He decided to ignore what he didn’t understand. “And if I find her—” he started to say.

“Don’t tell me! You’ll kill her, right?”

“That is correct. And you too, M‘sieur.”

“I had a hunch you‘d feel that way. I don‘t know why. Maybe it’s that pig-sticker you’ve got tickling my belly button.”

“Enough! Where is she?”

“There’s nobody here but me.” I went into my routine.

“I’ll see for myself. And if I find her-—”

“I know. You told me already. Remember?”

“You remember, M’sieur. It may be the last thing you ever remember!”

On that cheery note he poked his head under the bed. “There’s no woman there," I tried to tell him.

“Aha! But there are woman’s clothes here! How do you explain that, M’sieur?”

“I’m a secret transvestite.”

“Not very funny, M’sieur.”

“A female impersonator.” I tried again.

“Enough jokes, M’sieur.” He waved the switchblade threateningly.

“Now look here, Pierre-—”

“Voila!” He sprang to his feet and stood directly in front of me, the knife flicking at my necktie again. “So you know my name! Then Françoise Laval is here. How else to explain it?” He stared at me challengingly.

“It’s everybody’s name,” I told him wearily. “Every Frenchman in Paris is named Pierre. Except perhaps Charles DeGaulle. And to tell you the truth, I’m not so sure about him.”

“Enough! Where is Françoise Laval?”

I’d had enough, too. “Behind the drapes," I told him wearily.

“You lie!” He looked wildly about and then crossed over to the clothes closet, cutting down the odds to fifty-fifty.

“She is in here!" He flung open the door.

There was nothing visible except my clothes hanging there. But that didn’t satisfy him. A stubborn so-and-so, he had to go groping behind the clothes.

“Ouch! Not so rough, please!” The muffled voice of Françoise Laval the artists’ model drifted from behind the clothes.

“Aha!” He spread apart two coats, and her bosom popped into view. “It is she! I would know those balloons anywhere! They are the most famous in all Paris!”

“Now just a minute,” I told him. “Don’t be so sure. If you want my opinion, identification by bosom is a most inaccurate method. Believe me, if there ever was anything to it, it’s a lost art now.”

“We shall see!” he told me grimly. He pulled aside the coats, and I held my breath as Françoise the model stepped out.

“But it is not Françoise Laval!” he exclaimed.

“It is so,” she told him indignantly.

“Let’s not go through that again,” I suggested. “The dialogue around here is beginning to sound like a broken record.”

“My apologies, M’sieur.” Pierre folded up his switch- blade knife and silently stole away.

When he was gone, I turned to Françoise the model.

“This is certainly a busy place,” she observed.

I remained mute. I was beginning to evolve a hazy theory about cause and effect that propounded the idea that every time I opened my mouth someone rapped on the door. I figured if I just kept my mouth closed, it might not happen. I figured wrong.

The pounding at the door sent Françoise the model back into the closet. Wearily, I c1osed the door after her and went to answer the pounding. This time it was a beard, torn T-shirt, paint-spattered blue jeans and a kitchen knife. There was no mistaking Pierre the pimp-turned-artist seeking Françoise Laval the doxie-turned model.

“I am Pierre!” he announced.

“Who else?”

“Inside!” The kitchen knife hacked off a piece of tie.

“Your knife is a trifle vulgar and out of style,” I told him as I backed into the room.

“Everybody is a critic!” he snarled. “I spit on them! I care nothing for style. I paint what I feel!”

“Very laudable. And what do you feel?”

“Right now I feel like painting with blood. Your blood. And Françoise’s. Where is she?”

“In the closet,” I told him honestly. I was beginning to understand the psychology of Pierres.

“Really?” He proved my point. “Then how do you explain that?” His outstretched arm pointed dramatically at the feet of Françoise the prostitute sticking out from beneath the drapes.

“Poor workmanship,” I told him. “They’re supposed to be floor-length.”

“We shall see!” He stalked over to the drapes like a hound dog who’s cornered a fox. Delicately, he pushed the drapery aside with the tip of his kitchen-knife. The nipple and half of one of the breasts belonging to Françoise the prostitute appeared. “As I thought!” he sneered. “It is my Françoise!"

Man! Talk about ego! Two Pierres had already flunked out on bosoms, and now this Gallic beatnik was all set to stick a label on only half of one mammary. “What makes you so sure?” I couldn’t help goading him.

“I have painted this breast a thousand times. I would know it anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t like to bet on that, would you?”

“We already have a bet, M’sieur. Your life against my apologies.”

“You lose!” Françoise the prostitute stepped forth with a giggle.

“My apologies, M’sieur." Pierre the artist retreated in confusion. “I would have staked my canvas—”

“Forget it,” I told him. “Don’t go away embarrassed. Just go away.”

“Of course.” He fairly slunk out of the room.

“Look,” Françoise the prostitute said, “are you going to make love to me or not? I haven’t got all night, you know.”

“We’d never make it,” I told her. “There’s an express Pierre due on the northbound track any second now.”

“M’sieur?”

“Forget it. I’m probably wrong, anyway. Now that I think of it, all the Pierres are accounted for. Yep, three and three. Unless there’s a Françoise Laval hiding in the ice-box, we’ve used up the Pierre supply for the evening.”

“Whatever are you talking about, M’sieur?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a little joke between me and Lewis Carroll. See what I mean, Alice?”

“My name is Françoise. Françoise Laval.”

“Of course it is. And a highly original name it is, too. Now, Françoise Laval, let’s just get down to the business of --”

“So you found her, Signor Victor!”

I whirled around to find Luigi Tortorizzi standing in the doorway.

“You didn’t even knock!” I protested. “Everybody else did.”

“So sorry. The door was opened, and so Vito and I just came in.” Vito stepped out from behind him and pointed a revolver at my groin.

“And your name’s not even Pierre!” I grumbled. “Are you sure you haven’t gotten your nights mixed?”

“We are sure, Signor Victor.” Luigi flashed his white teeth at me in a humorless smile. “I would say we picked exactly the right night. And the most propitious moment, as well. Just in time to relieve you of the responsibility of Françoise Laval.” He turned to Françoise the prostitute. “Please get dressed, Signorina.”

She shrugged, fished her clothes out from under the bed, and did as he asked.

“Vito, will you escort the Signorina to the car we have waiting?” Luigi instructed.

“Say, what is all this?” Françoise the prostitute wanted to know.

“Have no fear, Signorina,” Luigi assured her. “No harm will come to you. And you will be paid for your time.”

“I’d feel a little less afraid if the two of you weren’t waving those guns around,” she observed. Then, with a sigh, she accompanied Vito from the room.

“And now, Signor Victor," Luigi said when they were gone, “I shall take the greatest pleasure in concluding my business with you.” The click of the safety being released on the revolver he was hefting sounded ominously loud in the room.

“Why hold grudges, Luigi?” I asked, swallowing hard.

“Oh, I don’t, Signor Victor. But my bladder does. I’m afraid it still hasn’t gotten over that traumatic plane trip. So inconsiderate of you. My bladder doesn’t forget. And, alas, it is very vindictive.” His finger squeezed the trigger.

But it squeezed a moment too late. His attempt at humor had cost him his advantage. Unseen by him, Lucky Pierre had appeared in the doorway just in time to see what was happening. The tough little kid sprang at Luigi an instant before the Mafia killer fired. He was just quick enough to deflect the shot, and an instant later his teeth were sinking into Luigi’s gun-hand.

I sprang to Lucky Pierre’s aid, but I wasn’t quite fast enough. Luigi wrenched free of him, sent the boy hurtling toward me, and sprinted from the room. By the time I had untangled myself from the urchin, it was too late to catch him.

“Merde! They’ve made off with Françoise Laval. And after all the trouble I had getting her!” Lucky Pierre was disconsolate.

“Well, there’s plenty more where she came from,” I comforted him.

“You don’t understand, M’sieur Victor. It was very diffcult to persuade her to leave what she was doing and come up here to see you. There were many complications, and I was quite proud of myself for having overcome them.”

“And justly proud, I’m sure,” I soothed him.

“Oui. The first I knew of her was when I ran into this pimp, a brute mountain of a man—--Pierre by name—who was on the rampage because his only woman, his sole support, had run away from him. Seems she finally got fed up with his using her for a punching bag. He couldn’t understand it, poor dimwit. ‘She never complained before’, he told me. ‘I always thought she liked it.’ Still, he was more furious with her than puzzled.”

“I‘ve had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman,” I told the lad. “I’m afraid all my sympathies are with the lady.”

“Oui? Well, you‘re’an American. You don’t really understand women. Anyway, when he told me her name and described her, I got really interested. And when he mentioned the fact that she’d run off from him once before and gone so far as to leave France, I thought to myself that this might well be the Françoise Laval you are seeking, M’sieur Victor. So I made some discreet inquiries and learned that she was hiding out at the establishment run by Madam Harry.”

“Madam Harry? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“No. That is what they call her -- him-—it.”

“Don’t get hung up on the gender,” I advised him. “Go on with your story.”

“Oui. Well, Françoise Laval went to work in the circus there and—”

“The circus?"

“Oui. Madam Harry puts on one of the finest exhibitions in Paris.”

“Oh. That kind of a circus.”

“That’s right. Now, Françoise’s particular act in this circus is to make love with a Belgian shepherd police dog.”

“Why not a German shepherd?”

“C’est la guerre. We French have still not forgiven the Boche. A German shepherd would be an atrocity. A Belgian shepherd provides merely one more bizarre act to watch in a circus filled with such acts."

“I see. Go ahead.”

“Well, M’sieur, I watched Françoise’s act. Rarely have I seen two performers enjoy their work to such an extent. When it was over, the dog practically purred. And Françoise’s satisfaction was a testimonial to the breed. It was then that she did something which clinched the fact that I had to send her to you.”

“What did she do?”

“She combed and brushed the dog. And then the dog took the comb in his teeth and brushed her hair—the hair on her head, and the lower patch as well. So, as soon as the show was over, I sought her out and persuaded her to come to see you directly. It wasn’t easy, M’sieur. She has become very attached to that dog, and she wanted to bring him with her. But I convinced her that you would pay her well.”

“Fine. Except that you forgot one small detail,” I told him. “You got your timing a little fouled up. You forgot that I already had one Françoise Laval scheduled for eleven tonight.”

“The stripper!” Lucky Pierre slapped one small hand to his forehead. “How could I have been so stupid? A thousand pardons, M’sieur Victor. I hope having the two of them here didn’t ruin things.”

“Well, it did complicate them. Plus the fact that I had three to contend with, not two. The model picked the same time to show up.”

“But where are they?” Lucky Pierre looked around in puzzlement.

“One’s in the closet. One’s in the bathroom,” I told him. “And one’s flown the coop with the opposition. With my luck, she’s probably the one I’m looking for.”

As if to prove I wasn’t exaggerating, both girls chose that moment to come out of hiding. Lucky Pierre looked impressed as they entered, both still naked. He counted off three fingers, shook his head, looked at me with admiration and murmured, “C’est magnifique!”

“I have to get back to the Naughty Nude, chéri,” Françoise Laval the stripper told me. “It has been most stimulating around here, but we shall have to postpone our assignation for another time.”

“I too must leave, M‘sieur,” Françoise the model announced. “If I do not return soon, my Pierre will brood. He becomes so deeply depressed when I am not there that I am afraid he may harm himself. You know how artists are.”

“Now wait a minute!” I barred the door. “Neither one of you is leaving until we get this settled!”

“Get what settled?” they chorused.

“Just who is the real Françoise Laval!”

“I am!” they sang out together.

“The one who left,” Lucky Pierre chimed in just to complicate matters further.

“Now hold it. Hold it,” I said. “There’s quite a bit of money at stake here, and -”

“Money!” All three of them loosed a hosanna. “What money?”

“A million. Probably more.”

“In dollars?” Lucky Pierre stayed the practical businessman.

“Yes, in dollars.”

All three of them sat down. Suddenly the two girls weren’t in such a hurry to leave anymore.

“It’s a legacy,” I explained. “And it goes to the one who can prove she’s the Françoise Laval named in the will of a London bordello owner named Brigitte Kelly.”

“Brigitte Kelly!” both girls exclaimed. “I knew her well.”

“And so did the Françoise Laval who left,” Lucky Pierre insisted. It was obvious that his brain was working overtime to figure a way of cutting himself in if his candidate was the lucky one.

“We’ll see,” I told them. “It’s very simple for the right Françoise Laval to identify herself. All she has to do is tell me the names of the two girls with whom she went to Rome.”

“That lets out my Françoise Laval,” Lucky Pierre sighed. “When she left Paris she went to Brussels. Nowhere else. She mentioned that when she was telling me about her dog.”

“It’s a nice try, but I lose,” Françoise Laval the stripper admitted. “I’ve never been to Rome, either. And I guess there’s no point in my inventing a couple of names.

We all looked at Françoise Laval the model.

“Barbara Thomas and Gina Moretti,” she said positively. “I am the Françoise Laval you are seeking, M’sieur.”

“Then we have a lot to talk about,” I told her.

“But not tonight,” she said. “I really must get back to my Pierre.” She stood up to leave.

“That’s a pretty cavalier attitude to take toward so much money,” I told her.

“Perhaps. But Pierre says money has no importance anyway.”

“Your Pierre sounds downright un-French!” Lucky Pierre told her. “What kind of an inspiration is that for the youth of our nation?”

“Easy, boy.” I calmed him down. “How can I get in touch with you?” I asked Françoise.

“You can’t. Pierre would have a fit. I will contact you.”

“Make it tomorrow, will you?”

“I will try.”

On that note, the three of them left. It was the last I was to see of Françoise Laval the stripper. Lucky Pierre was seeing Françoise the model back to the garret she shared with Pierre the artist. He had shifted allegiance quickly once the identification was positive. His little child’s mind hadn’t quite figured out the angle yet, but he was going to stick as close to her as possible until it did.

As for myself, I went to bed. I slept like a log and didn’t get up until almost noon. Then I had some breakfast sent up. I didn’t want to leave my quarters for fear I’d miss the call from the bona-fide Françoise.

It was almost three o’clock when the phone finally rang. But it wasn’t Françoise. It was Albert Smythe Tarleton of Dombey of Dover, and his voice was urgent. “I have to see you right away.” He named a cafe in the working class district of Paris. “I’ll be dressed like a dock-worker and waiting for you,” he told me. “Just wear a shirt and pants. You don't want to be conspicuous.”

I joined him within the hour. My hat was off to him. He looked the part all right. Nobody would have taken him for an upper-class Englishman.

“It is imperative that you find Barbara Thomas as quick1y as possible, Mr. Victor.” He came straight to the point.

“Why so much more imperative now than before? What’s happened?" I asked him.

“Because if the Mafia gets to her first they may end up with the entire inheritance. You see, Gina Moretti has waived her claim.”

“I know that.”

“Yes. But what you don’t know, Mr. Victor, is that the Mafia has nailed down Françoise Laval. One of their agents married her this morning. That means that they’ll see to it that she too relinquishes her claim. That leaves only Barbara Thomas between the legacy and Brigitte Kelly’s uncle, which is to say the Mafia.”

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. Who married Françoise Laval? And which Françoise Laval did he marry? And how do you know all this?”

“With the Mafia hampering our investigation, Dombey of Dover took the precaution of keeping tabs on their men after their arrival in Paris. They were followed to your place last night where, as you know, they made off with Françoise Laval. This morning one of them married her.”

His voice turned sharp. “What are you laughing about, Mr. Victor? This is no laughing matter!”

“I only hope it was Luigi who married her,” I gasped, managing to control my mirth.

“No. It was his partner. The one they call Vito.”

“Too bad.” I chuckled again. “And they didn’t even ask me to the wedding!”

“Will you please explain this levity, Mr. Victor?”

“Sure. They snatched the wrong one. The Françoise Laval that Vito married is not Françoise Laval the heiress.”

“You’re sure of that?"

“Positive. I’ve located the real Françoise Laval, and I should be seeing her soon. I’m hoping she’ll be able to give me a lead on Barbara Thomas.”

“Then I am greatly relieved, Mr. Victor.” He got to his feet. “I will be in contact with you.”

I watched him walk off down the street. He was about a half-block away from the cafe when the lorry started for him. It was a large truck, and from the way it shot away from the curb I would have guessed the driver had his foot down to the floorboard. Tarleton tried to get out of the way, but it happened too fast. The right fender caught him solidly and sent him flying a good twenty feet.

I started for the scene on the run. That was a mistake. The truck was coming in my direction fast. My mind was on Tarleton, and I hadn’t yet absorbed the fact that what had happened was no accident. Just as the truck drew abreast of me it mounted the curb.

I was hit hard, from the side. But I wasn’t hit by the truck. I was struck by a flying tackle that just managed to carry me out of the path of the hurtling lorry. I looked up to find Lucky Pierre sitting on my chest. The boy flesh-peddler had saved my life a second time.

“It was the two who were at your place last night,” he told me as we scrambled to our feet. “I spotted them when they were parked at the curb before, and I was coming to warn you.”

“How did you know where I was?” I asked him.

“I followed you,” he admitted with a grin. “I was coming to give you a message just as you were leaving your place. When I saw how peculiarly you were dressed, I became curious. So I followed you.”

“Lucky for me you did. What message?”

“From Françoise Laval. The model, I mean. She will meet you tonight at nine o’clock on the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

“Why did she pick such a screwball place to meet?”

“Because of Pierre, the artist with whom she lives. After last night he is very suspicious. She will be able to slip out, but she knows that when he discovers she is gone he will go looking for her. But the Eiffel Tower is the last place he would look.”

“I guess so,” I granted.

“The man who was with you is alive.” Lucky Pierre pointed.

“How do you know?”

“They are putting him into an ambulance. They wouldn’t bother if he was dead. They would call a hearse.”

I saw that he was right. I debated whether to go over and see how badly Tarleton was injured. I decided against it. Dying or not, there was no point in calling attention to the connection between us. Lucky Pierre at my side, I went back to my quarters on the rue de la Boite.

He wasn’t with me when I left them again that evening to keep my date with Françoise Laval. She was waiting for me on the top platform, 906 feet in the air. Above us, 984 feet above the ground, the meteorological laboratory was all lit up and humming. The hum was lost in the strong wind whipping around the tower. We climbed halfway up the circular staircase leading to the tower’s top in order to get out of the wind.

We were only partially successful. Strong gusts still made Françoise‘s skirt swirl so that her perfectly shaped legs were revealed. And the wind provided another advantage for me. It had deterred sightseers, so that we had the upper platform and stairway all to ourselves.

Françoise was dabbing at her eyes as we seated ourselves on the stairway.

“What‘s the matter?" I asked her.

“It is that Pierre. I can never please him. He says he loves me, but he will never make love to me. All he wants me to do is take off my clothes and pose. Sometimes he pretends he wants to make love, and then as soon as I undress, he runs for his sketchpad. I am so frustrated!”

“There, there.” I patted her shoulder and she snuggled against me.

“Not only that,” she continued, “but now he absolutely refuses to let me claim the money you say I have coming. He says it will corrupt me. And he says then I will corrupt him and that will be the end of his art.”

“Well, you’ll have to work that out with Dombey of Dover," I told her.

“Who is that?”

I explained, and went on to fill her in on the procedures connected with the inheritance. Then I got down to my real reason for being there. “What can you tell me about Barbara Thomas?" I asked her. “Suppose you start with a physical description of her." I already had such a description from Gina Moretti, but I had two reasons for wanting one from Françoise. First, I wanted to be sure it tallied with Gina’s. And second, I hoped she might add some details which Gina had overlooked.

“She is a redhead,” Françoise told me readily. “And she is much taller than I am. Here, stand up a moment and I’ll show you.”

I stood up, and she stood on the step above me. Our lips were on a level now, and she kissed me deeply.

“Yes, in heels,” she murmured, “she would be exactly your height. She is more slender than I, more slim of hip.” She took my hand and held it to her hip. “Not so much to hold onto as this,” she purred. “More the fashion-model type. Still, her figure is good. And padded very well where it counts. Like here.” She half turned so that my hand trailed across her derriere. It felt very warm under the flimsy cotton material of the skirt she was wearing. “As well padded as I am, and that’s not so bad, is it?” she hinted.

“Not bad at all,” I agreed, squeezing her foam-rubber buttocks obligingly.

Françoise turned to face me again and resumed her description of Barbara Thomas. “Here”—-she took my hands and pressed them to her breasts—“Barbara is not quite as large as I am.” She wasn’t wearing anything under her sweater, and I could feel the tips of her breasts growing against my palms. “They are higher, it is true,” she conceded, “and perhaps the shape is more streamlined, more like upswept ovals than round globes the way mine are. But there is not so much of them, and some men prefer the old-fashioned style, finding it more voluptuous.” She moved away a little bit and pulled her sweater up. The impressive orbs of her breasts sprang free, and the pink roseates, as large as half-dollars, looked dewey in the moonlight. A drop of moisture glistened at the tip of each erect scarlet nipple as well. “What do you think?” She asked.

“I’m just an old-fashioned boy,” I told her. “I don’t think they’ll ever go out of style.”

“Merci.” Françoise dimpled prettily and made no move to lower her sweater. Instead, she took both my hands and arranged the fingers around the breast-tips. “Now you’ll notice that this is the exact center of each breast,” she said throatily. “With Barbara, it is not so. Hers are off-center, just a little above where they should be. And that is what gives her the illusion of an upsweeping curve. Do you gather my meaning?” She squirmed so that the subjects under discussion moved in and out of the loose grip of my fingers suggestively.

“I’m with you,” I assured her.

“Now-—” She shot me an impish grin and moved away, climbing a step higher. “As to her legs. They are longer than mine, just as slender, but not quite so curvaceous.” She raised her skirt and extended first one leg and then the other to my admiring gaze. “And when you touch them”-— she caught my hand and held it in a grip between her inner thighs—“you will not feel that little bit of extra flesh I carry there. Of course, there are those who find that very feminine and exciting.”

“Count me among them,” I told her.

“Her thighs are a little more muscular, the way a dancer’s thighs are,” Françoise continued. “But I do believe that mine are as sufficient for the purposes of gripping as hers are apt to be. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to find out,” I told Françoise. “And right now, I don’t really care.”

“Thank you, M’sieur," she said demurely. But her next move was anything but demure. “She has a very faint appendectomy scar on her stomach,” she told me. “It runs from here to here.” She raised her skirt above her waist now. She was dressed in the French style-—no undies.

I took a long, admiring look at her writhing nether-mouth and started fumbling for my own buttons and zippers.

“Oui, M’sieur,” she sighed. “But do you know something?” Her fingers delicately parted the flower petals. “Here we are exactly the same, Barbara and I!"

My pants fell loosely around my ankles, and Françoise took one long look. “It is more phallic than the Tower itself!” she moaned. And then she jumped, taking me completely by surprise.

Her aim was perfect. Her arms went around my neck, her legs locked around my hips, and the fulcrums of our bodies locked just as she’d meant them to lock. Even as I was borne downward by her weight, the two of us exploded with the very impact itself, and the floodgates of our ecstasy were so violently released that we didn’t even notice as we tumbled the few steps to the platform below.

But that was only the beginning. Astride me now, Françoise bounced up and down like a nymphomaniac gone berserk. Fortunately, I was so aroused that I was able to match her passion. The two of us were going at it so eagerly now that we were bruising each other’s flesh at the point of impact. But the sweetness was far greater than the minor pain.

That was the fleeting thought which crossed my mind as we built less abruptly toward another release of passion. And it was followed by a second thought before I was completely caught up in the sensation of release. I remembered that Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the builder of the Eiffel Tower, had invested one million dollars of his own money in the construction of the landmark. I wondered what he’d think if he saw the use to which Françoise and I were putting it. Would he consider it money well spent?

I sure as hell did!

CHAPTER EIGHT

“IF IT were not for the fact that you are an American, and impetuous, and that you swept me off my feet, I would never be able to forgive myself for betraying Pierre this way."

“I’m filled with remorse,” I replied. “And now, Françoise, if you’ll get off me, I‘ll pull up my pants. I think I hear people coming.”

“Very well,” she sighed. “But it has been so short-lived to fill me with such guilt. Poor Pierre!”

“He need never know,” I assured her.

“Oui. But if he did-—!” She rolled her eyes expressively.

“What would he do?”

“I am not sure. Chop off his ear, perhaps. Run off to Tahiti. Try to talk me into jumping out of the window.”

“And would you jump?”

“No. The truth is he doesn’t have enough talent to deserve such a sacrifice. His painting—well, sometimes I think he is a little myopic. No matter how often he paints me, my face and body always seem to come out elongated. Now, you wouldn't say I was elongated, would you?"

“Not at all. Now, if we could get back to Barbara Thomas –“

“Of course. What do you want to know?”

“Where you left her. Any leads you might have as to where she is now. Things like that.”

“I will tell you what I can,” Françoise began. She went on to fill me in on how she and Barbara had latched onto two German businessmen in Rome after Gina had left them. They had tagged along with this pair of Dusseldorf butter-and-egg men to Vienna. Here, the Kraut patsies had run dry cabbage-wise, and the two enterprising. doxies had sought new marks. They had found them in the person of a pair of Spaniards.

One of the Spaniards, the one Françoise had staked out for her own, was an internationally renowned Flamenco dancer. The other one, Raoul Mendes by name, was well-known in Spain as a fearless toreador. They were in Vienna as some sort of kookie cultural exchange program, and their spree with the girls was pretty much subsidized by the Spanish government.

The girls went back to Madrid with them. It was here that Françoise was disenchanted with her heel-tapping hot-shot. One night 300 pounds of Spanish wife descended on their little love nest, and the dancer went click-clacking off in the wake of a passel of brats which had evidently been sired by him. His perfidy in not mentioning his Señora and their muchachas and muchachos wasn’t easily forgiven by Françoise. It made her distrust all Spaniards, and so she decided to return to Paris and her Pierre.

The last she had seen of Barbara Thomas, the American redhead had been leaving for Pamplona with Raoul Mendes. “I wasn’t exactly heartbroken to see her go,” Françoise confided. “She’d gone native, and that really annoyed me. She’d become obsessed with her bullfighter-lover and with bull fighting itself. Although she spoke both English and French perfectly, she refused to speak any language but Spanish then. She was like one of those expatriate characters in a Hemingway novel set in Spain. I would say that if you find Raoul Mendes, you will find her with him. And a well-known bullfighter like Mendes shouldn’t be difficult to find in Spain. As a matter of fact, the Pamplona festival is just starting again. I would imagine the two of them are back there.”

I thanked Françoise and we parted, fittingly enough, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. She promised me to get in touch with Dombey of Dover about the inheritance. I hurried back to my quarters on the rue de la Boite to pack. Next stop Pamplona, Spain.

Lucky Pierre rode out to the airport with me to say good-bye. I shook the hand of the tough little boy sin-seller with real regret. He had saved my life twice, and I’d miss him.

“I’ll work on that crazy artist,” he promised. “Maybe I’ll be able to persuade him to let Françoise accept the money.”

I thanked him, but I didn’t have too much faith that he’d succeed. If I was right, then Tarleton’s sense of urgency had been correct. Only Barbara Thomas was left between the Mafia and the fortune. It was imperative that I get to her quickly, before Luigi and his brotherhood of killers did.

I was one of the first ones aboard the plane. As I sat there waiting for it to take off, I puzzled over the one thing Françoise had refused to tell me. I had asked her if she had any idea why Brigitte Kelly had named her and the other two harlots in her will. Like Gina, Françoise had admitted that she knew, but balked at letting me in on the secret. “Ask Barbara.” These were her final words on the subject. “She’s the only one of the three of us who probably won’t mind telling you. Ask Barbara.”

Now I shrugged off my curiosity at the sound of the jets building pressure for take-off. The cabin was fairly well filled by now, and the pilot appeared at the foot of the aisle and picked up the p.a. mike to introduce himself to the passengers.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he strolled slowly down the aisle. “This is your pilot, Captain Flagella speaking. I want to welcome—” His voice trailed off as he saw me, and he stopped in his tracks. “You!” His face turned ashen. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” I threw right back at him. “I thought you flew for the Italian airlines.”

“I did. But they grounded me after that incident on the Geneva-Paris flight. The flight surgeon said my nerves were shot.”

“Yeah? Then what are you doing flying a Spanish plane?"

“The Franco government is short of qualified pilots. They aren’t quite so particular.” His knuckles were white as he gripped the back of a seat to support himself. “Why do you follow me?” he whined. “Why are you persecuting me?”

“I‘m not. Forget about me. Go on. Fly the plane.”

“I may never fly again. How will I live?” he moaned. “Flying is the only thing I know. It’s in my blood." He got hold of himself and squared his shoulders. Evidently he had decided to take a stand. “I must ask you to please leave this aircraft,“ he ordered.

“Not on your life! This is the only plane to Pamplona until tomorrow. And I’m in a hurry.”

“I will not fly with you aboard!" His voice rose hysterically.

“Look, you’re exaggerating the risk. I’1l tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you. Go do your job, and I’ll promise not to go anywhere near the john before we reach Pamplona.”

“How can I trust you? A man with such perfidious kidneys? A man with such a diabolical bladder?”

“Excuse me.” The voice came from the seat behind me. “But I couldn’t help overhearing. If there is some difficulty in the area mentioned, perhaps I can be of service. I am a urologist and kidney specialist. Also, I am interested in getting to Pamplona for the bullfights. So, anything I can do to expedite matters-—”

“If you want me to fly this plane to Pamplona,” Captain Flagella told him, “then I must insist that this man be examined thoroughly before take-off to insure that he does not bring about another riot in mid-air.”

“If the gentleman is agreeable-” the doctor said.

“Anything to get the show on the road.” I followed him back to the john, where he examined me. “This scar here, M'sieur,” he asked curiously. “What sort of operation is that from?”

“An abortion,” I told him.

“An abortion?”

“Yes, an abortion.”

“Oh.” He thought about it a moment. “I begin to understand why our pilot is so concerned.”

“Never mind that. It had nothing to do with my kidneys. It didn't affect them, did it?"

“No.”

“Or my bladder?”

“No.”

“And I’m not an aerial risk elimination-wise?"

“No.”

“Then will you please tell him that so we can get going!"

“Oui.”

Captain Flagella was finally convinced that it was safe to take off. Shortly after we were in the air, he came hurtling down the aisle and plunged into the john. It was the first of many such trips which marked our flight. The passengers noticed, and there was a great amount of buzzing about it. The doctor, however, said nothing until just after we had landed safely in Pamplona. But his words then vindicated me completely.

“I believe,” he whispered to me, “that our pilot actually projected his problems onto you. Poor fellow. He needs help badly. It is obvious that his kidneys are shot. I wonder what could have happened to him to cause such a condition?”

I didn't enlighten the doctor. I ignored Captain Flagella’s farewell glower as I disembarked from the plane. I hailed a taxi, and en route to the hotel I found out from the driver that Raoul Mendes was scheduled to fight in two days. I also found out the name of the cafe where the bullfighters hung out. I tipped the driver well, followed a bellboy up to my room, hit the sack, and slept the day away. That evening I set out for the cafe the driver had told me about.

It was jammed. The bar was knee-deep in picadors, matadors and their cliques. The rest of the place was thick with tables around which the tourists sat to ogle the bullfighters. I found myself at a small table with one of these tourists, an American, bearded and determinedly beat. I bought him a glass of wine.

“Do you know Raoul Mendes?" I asked him.

“Sure. A competent torero. But just a little show-offy. Too flashy with the cape for my taste. Now, you take-—”

“Is he here?” I interrupted.

“Who?”

“Raoul Mendes.”

“Oh, him. Yeah. Sure he’s here."

“Could you point him out to me?”

“He’s in the center of that crowd over there, just to the left of the bar. The skinny fellow with the tight eyes and the permanent grin. See how white those teeth are. That’s because he has three different sets and he changes them three times a day. His own teeth were knocked out by a Barcelona-bred beast. They are really tough, those bulls. Over a thousand pounds of muscle on the—”

“Does he have a lady friend?” I interrupted again.

“No. Altered, poor champion. They all are."

“Altered? You mean Mendes? I didn’t know that bullfighters--”

“Not Mendes,” he enlightened me. “Not the bullfighters. I mean the Barcelona bulls. They are altered. To make them meaner.”

“Oh. I was asking about Mendes. Does he have a girl friend?"

“Him? Yeah. A redhead.”

“Is she here?”

“Yeah. She’s around somewhere. She always trails along with him.”

“Can you point her out?”

“Take my advice and steer clear of her, buddy. This Mendes is a tough hombre. And he doesn't like anybody fooling with his woman.”

“I’ll remember that. Now will you point her out?”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

I turned in my seat to follow his outstretched arm. The finger at the end of it was pointing straight at a girl who had just stepped up to the outer fringes of the crowd around Mendes at the bar. She was tall and slender, with red hair. She matched the descriptions both Françoise and Gina had supplied. Her tomato-colored hair was cropped short.

“Thanks,” I told my countryman. “See you around.” I strode directly over to the girl at the bar. “Hi,” I greeted her. “I'm Steve Victor. I’d like to talk to you.”

I'd addressed her in English, but she answered me in a fast-chattering Spanish dialect. It took me a moment to translate it. “How do you do. I am glad to meet you. You have very nice muscles. Just right for the embrace. Let us go now.” She took my arm.

“What?” I was dazed.

“Let us go now. Your arms are empty. Do you want them filled?”

“Well, yeah. Sure. But--”

“Then let us go. You just came in on the plane today, didn’t you? I saw you at the airport. So tonight you must prove your manhood for the first time on Spanish soil. Don’t worry, you will not regret it. I will take good care of you.” She tugged at my arm, pulling me away from the bar and toward the cafe doorway.

“Look,” I said, growing more confused by the minute, “couldn’t we talk in English? My Spanish isn’t too good, and I’m not sure I’m reading you right.”

“No. Only Spanish. Come. You must face the moment of truth with me. Don't you want your first piece of Spanish tail?”

“Well, yeah, but--”

“Then hurry. I don’t have all night, you know. After all, there are other men waiting.”

We were outside the cafe now, and she was pulling me along down the street. “Can’t we stop for a minute and talk?” I tried again.

“But no!” She kept leading me at a half-trot. “You want to stick it in, don’t you? Well then, we must not tarry. This may be your last chance. For tonight at least. Unless—” She paused for a brief instant and looked boldly into my eyes. “Unless you are afraid,” she challenged me.

“Certainly not,” I told her proudly. “After all, I am the man from O.R.G.Y."

“I thought you came from America.”

“I do. O.R.G.Y. is the name of the research organization for which I—”

“Later,” she interrupted, urging me to resume our former headlong pace. “Tell me later. We must run now if you are going to dip your lance tonight.”

Dizzy, I seemed to have no choice but to allow myself to be propelled along by her. She led me to a large enclosure at the far end of the street. There was a small door in the fence. She opened it and led me inside. A few more stops and I found myself on one side of a bullring.

“What the—?”

“El Toro!” she screamed and dived into the shadows.

I lost sight of her there. Mystified, I turned to look out over the bullring. None too soon. Charging toward me, steam coming out of its nostrils in the moonlight, was what looked like a ton of enraged beef on the hoof. I turned tail and sprinted for the shadows where the redhead had vanished just as fast as I could.

“Olé!” She shot past me, heading straight for the bull.

“Hey! What are you-—?”

And then I saw what she was doing. A cape in one hand and a short pike in the other, she was leading the beast with the aplomb of an experienced toreador. In her tight-fitting blouse and slacks, with her short-cropped hair, her silhouette did indeed seem like the slim-hipped stereotype of the expert Spanish bullfighter. The cape twirled around her body, and she barely seemed to move as she avoided the horns of the charging bull. Deftly, she plunged the pike into the shoulder-muscle just behind the thick neck and pulled it free. The animal emitted an outraged bellow, but it didn‘t seem to faze her. She merely waved the cape at him again, skipped out of his rampaging path, and once again plunged the pike into his hide. Then, contemptuously, she waved the cape to set him charging sidewise to her, turned her back on him, and slowly walked over to join me.

“Now it is your turn,” she told me.

“Just a minute,” I told her. “Ferdinand will keep. Would you mind explaining just why the devil you brought me here.”

“Why, to fight the bull, of course, señor.‘To prove your manhood.”

“Is this what you meant by proving my manhood?”

“But of course. To embrace El Toro. How else in Parnplona?”

“And all that business about filling my arms and sticking my lance in and getting my first piece of Spanish tail -- you were talking about the bull?”

“Si. The tail of the bull. And both ears, too, later on.”

“Are you drunk?” I asked her.

“Si. A little. But why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering why you picked on me for this escapade.”

“Because you spoke to me. Because, as I told you, you have the good muscles. Because you seemed a man with courage. But I see that I was mistaken.” She turned and started to walk away.

“Where are you going?"

“I will have nothing to do with cowards.”

“But I have to talk to you. And preferably in English.”

“I speak only Spanish," she told me haughtily. “And in any language I do not speak with poltroons.”

“Ye Gods. You mean I have to fight that bull before you’ll even talk to me?”

“Exactly, Señor.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about fighting bulls.”

“It is very simple, Señor. I will show you.”

And she did. For a half hour she patiently instructed me in the use of the cape and the pike. Then she led me out to the center of the bullring again, patted my cheek, and left me there.

The bull pawed the ground about twenty feet away from me. I thought about pawing the ground myself-—for the purpose of digging a hole into which I might crawl—and decided against it. The bull snorted. I blew my nose out of nervousness. The bull lowered its head. I tucked my testicles between my legs. The bull charged. I waved the cape like a distress signal.

The horns ripped the cape and kept going. “Olé!” That was the redhead trying to be encouraging. “Oh, no!” That was me as the bull swerved into a circle, reversed its direction, and charged toward me again. I shook out the cape and pulled in my rear end just in time to keep from losing half, of it—-which might have provided the perfect symbol for my appraisal of the situation. “Olé!” I acknowledged her praise with a sickly grin.

Once again the horny behemoth went for me. “Now the pike!" the redhead called. “Use the pike!"

“Won’t that make him angry?" I objected.

“Of course. That is the idea. Quick! Stick him!"

Her last words coincided with the bull's lunging for my groin with a murderous horn. More out of reflex than either sportsmanship or malice, I jumped to one side and brought the pike down so that it stuck in his shoulder. Now the beast was really angry, and when it charged again, I yanked the lance free.

“Olé! You have the makings of a fine toreador, Señor. Your coordination is excellent.”

I acknowledged the compliment with a bow. That was a mistake.”

“Look out!” she screamed.

Too late! The bull hit me squarely from behind. Fortunately, the horns missed me. But the impact was great enough to send me sailing through the air. I landed at the redhead’s feet.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

I got to my feet and wriggled the injured portion of my anatomy. It was numb. Then the numbness began to leave, and it felt as if I'd sat down on a dozen or so carpet tacks. “I‘m not going to do much horseback riding for a while," I told her. “Outside of that, I’m fine.”

“Come inside with me,” she said, leading me to a row of stalls fronting a barnlike structure. “We will put some liniment on it before it stiffens up on you.”

We entered the building behind the stalls. Inside, the air was heavy with the aromas of hay and bull-sweat and manure. She went to a cabinet and fished out a bottle of liniment. “Here.” She handed it to me. “I‘ll turn my back, and you go ahead and apply it to where you were hurt.”

I tried to do as she suggested, but it wouldn’t work. No matter how I bent over and turned and angled my body, I simply couldn’t get into a position where I could rub ointment into the injured flesh. “It’s no use," I called to her.

No answer.

I peered through the dimness. I could just barely make out her silhouette. She was standing with her back to me. From the way she was holding her head, I could tell she was staring at something quite intently.

I pulled up my pants and crossed over to her. She jumped when I touched her arm. “Oh! Are you finished?” she asked.

“I never got started,” I replied. “It’s an anatomical impossibility. It would stump the most expert contortionist.”

“Si. Well, that’s good,” she answered absent-mindedly.

I looked over her shoulder to see what was keeping her so preoccupied. It was a nature lesson. I should have guessed. Nothing is calculated to hold the attention of a normally erotic young girl so well as the sight of beasts in the act of mating. And the bull which was mounting the heifer in the comer of the corral was either unusually aroused—even for a bull stud—or else he was just so naturally well-endowed that he would have given any man an inferiority complex.

“Is it not thrilling?” The redhead wet her lips with her tongue. Her eyes were glittering. There was a light dew of perspiration on her forehead. She was leaning half over the fence so that her breasts were pressed into the back of her hands. The nipples were stiff, aroused, and clearly visible. Just touching her arm, I could sense, rather than feel, that she was trembling.

“Very thrilling,” I agreed.

This time she responded to my voice. She turned to face me, the uptilted peaks of her high breasts barely grazing my own chest. Again her tongue peeped from between her lips. “Did the liniment help, Señor Victor?” she asked, proving that I had been right and that she hadn’t really heard me before.

“No. I wasn’t able to reach around far enough to apply it.”

“Oh. Well, perhaps if I helped you . . .”

“I appreciate the offer, but it’s in sort of an indelicate spot, isn’t it?”

“There's no reason that you should suffer because of modesty.” She glanced at the two panting beasts again. “Animals have the right idea,” she observed. “They’re never modest. Come now. Just lean over the fence here and drop your trousers. I don‘t mind alleviating your suffering. I don’t mind at all.”

“Okay. If you’re sure, then okay.” I did as she suggested. As her fingers trailed soothingly over the bruised area, I found myself focusing on the lust-maddened bull. He was being far from gentle with the cow now, but she didn’t seem to mind. For some reason, I found myself recalling what the American I’d met in the cafe had told me about bulls. It raised a question in my mind, and I put the question to the redhead. “This surprises me,” I told her, indicating the scene in the corral. “I was told that they gelded arena bulls.”

“You were misinformed, Señor Victor. Only in Barcelona do they do that to the bulls. Here in Pamplona we find that putting a bull to stud the night before he goes into the arena increases his fury in the ring. Besides, tomorrow he may die. Why should he not live a little tonight?" As if to punctuate what she was saying, her warm hands kneaded the ointment into my flesh.

“Why, indeed?" I murmured.

“It’s so much more humane.” Her massaging fingers grew more intimate.

“And how!”

“I too go into the arena tomorrow,” she told me.

“You? As a bullfighter? I didn’t know they let women do that in Spain.”

“It is very unusual. I am one of the first. And in Pamplona only one other woman has fought a bull before.”

“But why—-?"

“A woman too must have her moment of truth.” A long, sharp fingernail strayed between my legs. “So you see,” she added with meaning, “tonight the bull and I have much in common.”

“I see.” The cow emitted a high-pitched lowing sound. It was a bovine giggle, openly erotic.

The redhead chuckled an echo. “She sounds very contented, doesn‘t she?”

“Well, from the looks of that bull, she’s got what to be contented about.”

“He is magnificent, isn’t he?” There was a teasing note in her voice that told me she knew her manipulating fingers were having their effect on me.

“He sure is monstrous big,” I commented.

“Isn’t he, though?" She giggled. “I wish I knew that heifer’s technique.” One of her hands was a groping fist now, and she wasn’t even making a pretense at rubbing in the liniment any more.

“There’s nothing wrong with your technique.” I braced my feet farther apart.

“Ahh, so you have noticed, Señor.” The fist became a hand again and stroked my flanks enticingly.

It was at that moment that the cow had a sudden moment of coyness. She surged upward, shook her head and snorted teasingly, eluded the bull, and ran over to the fence where I was bent over it. Before I realized what the damned heifer was going to do, she had done it. She opened her mouth, a yard and a half of tongue rolled out, and she took one long lick from my knees to my navel.

“What the hell!” I jumped back, tripped over my pants, and damn near pole-vaulted out the door by which I’d entered. When I straightened up, I was protruding like a sexmad hatrack.

“She must have heard me,” the redhead giggled. “And so she decided to demonstrate her technique. One can always learn from the beasts of the field, eh? And judging by the result, I’d say the lesson was most effective!"

“It’s not polite to stare.” I struggled to pull up my pants.

“Tell that to the bull,” she suggested. “The way he’s glowering at you, I think he’s jealous.”

I turned my head and saw that the bull was indeed glaring hatred at me. He stood still for a moment, then lowered his head and pawed the ground. For a minute it looked as if he was about to charge the fence separating us. I had my doubts about whether that fence would hold if he did. The cow saved me from finding out. She bounded over to her lover and distracted him. The bull forgot all about me as he bore down into the dust. I turned back to the redhead.

“You’re still staring,” I told her.

“It looks so funny that way. How will you ever be able to close the zipper?"

“You’ve got a point there."

“So have you.”

Puns yet! And in Spanish, no less! “Maybe I won't bother closing it," I told her.

“I was wondering when that was going to occur to you. I was beginning to fear that I didn’t appeal to you."

“Oh, you appeal to me, all right.” I stared pointedly at her bosom. The blouse she was wearing was one of those deep-V affairs. The top two buttons were unbuttoned so that it only really met at her waist. The inner roundness of both breasts, separated by a well-defined cleavage, was distinctly visible. She was breathing very quickly, and with each breath her nipples arched upward against the silken material as if eager to be free. “And besides,” I added, “I feel a decided obligation to do my little bit to see that you’re in top form to fight El Toro tomorrow.”

“You are very generous,” she told me. “But you have a tendency to talk too much. The time for talk is over now. It is the time for action."

“Okay. But where?" I looked around me at the stalls. One or two bulls were peering at us over the gates. “Unlike our bullish friends,” I told the redhead, “I don‘t really like an audience. It tends to inhibit me.”

“Follow me.” She took my hand. “I’ll show you.”

She led me to the rear of the building, and we mounted a ladder. It led to a haystack. “Looks awfully itchy,” I observed.

“That is easily overcome.” She rummaged in the hay for a moment and came up with a sleeping-bag. “Thee will love me well when we are together in this device," she predicted.

“Shades of Hemingway,” I muttered.

“Pardon, Señor?”

“Nothing.” I grinned to myself as she ran her fingers casually through her short-cropped red hair. “I’ll bet you’ve got one of those winebags somewhere around here, too,” I guessed.

“But of course.” She pulled a winebag out from under the hay and held it up. She opened her mouth, aimed it, and the wine spurted neatly down her throat. “And now you.” She passed it tome and watched with a little smile as I emulated her. “I am ready now,” she sighed. “I am ready to obscenity thee.”

She peeled off the blouse. Her breasts were really lovely. Not quite as large as Françoise’s, but exquisitely shaped and pulsating with desire.

“And thee?” she asked. “Why does not thee take off thy clothes the better to obscenity?” She was pulling off her slacks now, and she stroked her obscenity invitingly.

I quickly got out of my own clothes and started for her, my own obscenity preceding me like a tilted flagpole. She crawled into the sleeping bag and held it open so that I might join her. As I slid in beside her, she stroked my obscenity with fondness.

She of the cropped hair. So warm was her skin, so moist and clinging her lips, so fluttery—like twin, frightened rabbits—her breasts, so slick and clutching her obscenity. I ran my hand the length of her long, slender legs, over her smooth, streamlined hips, up her flat belly to the mounds of her breasts and then the column of her neck to her face, which I cupped in my hands and kissed.

“Do I please thee?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“Yes. I am pleased. You please me.” I dropped my hand again and stroked the triangle of curls over her obscenity.

“Oh! Obscenity! Obscenity! Obscenity!” she cried out. “And be quick about it, please!”

I rose up in the sleeping-bag, descended upon the softness beneath me, and obscenity’d her like crazy. It was even better than Françoise. Better than Gina. The best obscenity I’d had in a long time.

“Obscenity! Obscenity! Obscenity!” she moaned again as our thrashing bodies exploded the way nitro explodes when it is placed under a bridge by a true expert, one who takes pride in his work, in doing it well, the act itself I mean.

I did it well. A thousand fragments of passion flew into the air. And, just as with the bridge when the exploding had been done, there was a deep stillness afterward.

The girl, serene now for the moment, broke the stillness in a crooning voice which really did not impose on it. “Thee,” she sighed. “Thou art an expert obscenity-er.”

“It is but my job," I told her. “It is my work for O.R.G.Y. and I am satisfied to do it well. And you are quite a little obscenity-ing lover yourself.”

“Gracias. Muchas gracias. But why do we speak as if the night were at an end? It is early yet. Surely we can obscenity some more.” She of the cropped hair spoke plaintively.

“It is a surety,” I told her. “Only please to remember that I am not a bull.”

“Thee has grown an obscenity like the bull’s at this very moment.”

“That is true. Undeniable. A verity, verily. And this obscenity is for thee to do with as thee wishes.”

“And will thee do with my obscenity what the cow did with thy obscenity?” she asked demurely.

“If thee wishes it."

“Si. I do.”

“Very well, then.” I got out of the sleeping-sack and then crawled back in headfirst. Her hips writhed and her obscenity quivered in anticipation of my mouth. It was moist, her obscenity, and sweet-smelling, and the core was spicy to the taste. This heart of her obscenity—-how it swelled beneath my lips, how it stiffened to my tongue. And beneath it the petals opened-like a flower to a sucking bee.

I sipped deeply at this sweet well and was rewarded by her mouth eagerly devouring my obscenity. The sleeping-bag tilted, and we rolled back and forth with it as our mouths clung to each other’s obscenities. And then, together, we were fed by each other’s ecstasy in a long drawn-out moment of sweet release.

“Thou art an accomplished obscenity eater,” she of the cropped hair said when it was over.

“And thee,” I replied. “Where did thee learn to drain an obscenity so well?”

“It was wonderful,” she granted. “But it is even better when thee joins thy obscenity to my obscenity and we obscenity and obscenity and obscenity.”

“You’re fucking-ay-right it is!” I agreed.

And after a brief rest, we were once again doing that which provided us so much pleasure. This time, feeling as if my very spine were about to rip loose from my body, her name was torn from my lips as I released the last of my passion. “Barbara! Barbara! Barbara!” I shouted. And when it was over and we Were quiet again, I tried to put my gratitude to her into words. “Thank you, Barbara,” I said.

“You're welcome," she replied. And then, after a brief pause: “You called me that before, too," she remarked. “Is it an old love, or something like that?”

“What?”

“Barbara. That’s what you called me when we were making love. Is that your wife’s name?”

“I’m not married.”

“That's what all you Americans say. But I don’t believe you. Anyway, I don’t care if you are. You go right ahead and call me Barbara if it pleases you. I don’t care what you call me when you make love to me like that."

“Wait a minute!” I was slow on the uptake, but realization was beginning to dawn. “Isn’t your name Barbara?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you Barbara Thomas?”

“No.”

“And you’re not an American?"

“No. I am Spanish."

“Come on. You're putting me on, aren’t you? Whoever heard of a Spanish redhead?"

“Not all Spanish girls are brunettes."

“And you’re not Barbara Thomas?” I snapped my fingers. “That's why you couldn’t speak English! Right?”

“Si. I speak only Spanish.”

“And you’re not Raoul Mendes’ girl?”

“No. Oh, I begin to see. You mistook me for his American redhead.”

“You were pointed out to me,” I remembered.

“She was standing right behind me.”

“That explains it. You must have moved in front of her just as this fellow was pointing her out.”

“Si. It is—what do they call it‘?-—a case of mistaken identity. I am sorry if you were misled. I hope you have not been too disappointed.”

The slight edge to her voice made me remember my sleeping-bag manners. “I’m not disappointed at all,” I assured her. “It’s just that I have to see this Barbara Thomas about something. Please don’t misunderstand me. This has all been very enjoyable.” A sudden thought occurred to me. “But I don’t even know your name.” I exclaimed.

“Pilar.” She of the cropped hair dimpled prettily as the name escaped her lips.

“Pilar. That is a very pretty name. A very pretty name for a very pretty girl.” I stroked her naked breast. “In a life filled with more than my share of mistakes,” I told her, “this is the nicest mistake I ever made.”

“You are not the only one who has made a mistake, Signor Victor!" The voice was modulated and masculine and Italian. I knew that voice. And I knew the face peering into the haystack over the top of the ladder. “Yes, we both made a mistake!” I even recognized the gun trained on the sleeping bag.

“Don’t you ever knock?” I asked.

“A thousand pardons, Signor Victor. I have really been most patient. I have been listening to your and your infernal obscenities until they are coming out of my ears. And it has been frustrating, too. Were it not that I have strong voyeur tendencies, I would have interrupted long ago.”

“Who is he?” Pilar wanted to know. “What does he want?”

“Pilar, allow me to present Signor Luigi Tortorizzi. As to what he wants, I believe he wants to kill me."

“To kill you?” Pilar’s eyes widened.

“That is correct.” Luigi confirmed my estimate. “You have become most troublesome, Signor Victor. And now it will be my pleasure to end your life.”

“Ahh! Go obscenity thyself!” I told him.

CHAPTER NINE

“WAIT A minute!” Pilar was agitated. “If you are going to shoot Señor Victor, will you allow me to get out of the sleeping-bag first? No offense, Sefñor. But my father fought against Mussolini’s blackshirts in the Civil War, and he has told me that the Italians are not such very good shots. So, if you don’t mind, Señor--”

“How fleeting is true love,” I sighed. “Didn’t I take on that bull for you, Pilar‘? And now you won’t even do a little favor like dying in my arms.”

“I am afraid the signorina does not have a choice in the matter,” Luigi interjected. “I really cannot afford to leave any witnesses behind.”

“You mean you’re going to kill me, too?” Pilar objected.

“See, we really are star-crossed lovers,” I told her. “We are destined to die in each other’s arms. Don’t you find that romantic?”

“Only an American would think it romantic. In Spain we are much more practical where death is concerned. A Spaniard would rather sleep on a mattress than in a casket, no matter what the circumstances.”

“Better bed than dead, eh? Well, I’ll buy that. Still, considering our relationship, it’s downright unneighborly of you not to want to die with me. Why, in India the wife throws herself on her husband’s funeral pyre just so that she can be with him in death”

“Señor Victor, I am not your wife,” Pilar reminded me.

“But you were all set to risk your life fighting in a bull-ring tomorrow. So why not with me?“

“What bull!" she exclaimed.

“The one you were going to fight.” I purposely misunderstood.

“Not El Toro! What are you saying. What bull!” She spelled it out for me.

“The flesh is weak,” Luigi observed. Evidently our little discussion had interested him enough to keep him from rushing things.

I decided to keep talking, hoping I could stall him some more. “What’s with you, Luigi?" I asked. “First in Paris and now here. This is getting monotonous. Every time I get a girl‘s clothes off, you pop up and threaten to shoot me. It’s damn traumatic, I tell you. It could really inhibit me, maybe even give me a complex for life!”

“My apologies, Signor. But since your life is all but concluded, it need worry you no longer.” His thumb flicked off the safety on the revolver.

“Hey, Luigi,” I said quickly. “Answer me one question before you kill me, will you?”

“What is it?”

“Where's your playmate? I was kind of getting used to him. I’d kind of like to say good-bye.”

“Do you mean Vito?”

“Yeah, Vito. What is he, still on his honeymoon?”

“Alas, no. Vito has had very bad luck. He is dead.”

“Too bad. Marriage was too rough for him, hey?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. The girl he married was not the girl he thought she was.”

“A common error,” I sympathized.

“Yes. But then Vito was not the sort of man who should have married at all. He didn’t like women, you know. He had much more of an inclination toward young boys.”

“You mean he was—?”

“As a three-dollar bill, as you Americans say. But still, he had his feelings. And when he found out that his bride was cheating on him-"

“Cheating? If I know Françoise -- his Françoise, the prostitute, I mean-—-I’ll bet she was doing it for money.”

“You would lose your bet, Signor Victor. She was doing it strictly for love.”

“No kidding?”

“I would not lie to a dying man, Signor Victor.”

“Don’t talk like that. I’m really in the best of health.”

“But the prognosis, nevertheless, is negative.”

“Oh. Well, tell me about Vito‘s wife, anyway. Who did she cheat on him with?”

“A dog. A Belgian shepherd. She insisted on taking it along on their honeymoon. Vito thought it was a pet. Only later did he find out the true nature of the relationship between them.”

“And the shock killed him, hey? Sensitive fellow, that Vito. I can well understand it.”

“Wrong again, Signor Victor. A knife killed him. It was left carelessly sticking in his heart."

“ Françoise?”

“No. Pierre. Her pimp. He caught up with them, and when he found out they were married, he lost his temper. You will remember that he had a particularly ugly temper, Signor Victor.”

“All those Pierres do,” I told him. “It goes along with the name. Poor Vito.”

“I suspect that there are crocodiles swimming in your tears, Signor Victor. But I will genuinely miss him. No matter what his shortcomings, Vito was a most dependable partner. And I know the new man the brotherhood is sending to help me. He is a peasant who bought his way into the Mafia. He always smells of garlic."

“I'll keep my nose peeled,” I promised.

“The dead do not smell anything,” he reminded me. “And soon you will be as dead as Vito. Poor Vito. My only consolation is that he died before finding out that his marital sacrifice was in vain.”

“Oh. So you found out that you grabbed the wrong Françoise Laval.”

"Yes. But at least the right one need not concern us, either. She has already notified Dombey of Dover that she wants no share in the inheritance.”

“So that leaves only Barbara Thomas."

“Correct. And with you out of the way, Signor Victor, rest assured that I shall conclude my business in Pamplona with dispatch.” He leveled the gun at the sleeping bag.

Suddenly there was a commotion below us. A crowd of youths had entered and started shooing the bulls out of their stalls and toward the gate leading to the street. A fleeting indecision crossed Luigi’s face. He held the gun steady, but it was obvious that he didn’t want to shoot until after they'd gone.

If I was going to make a move, this was probably my last chance. But what sort of a move? Intruders or no intruders, I didn’t doubt for a minute that Luigi would shoot if I gave him cause. The hawklike way his eyes fastened on me told me that. The look immobilized me, and the moment of chance was passing quickly. Too quickly.

Not too quickly for Pilar, though. While Luigi watched me, while I lay frozen in the sleeping-bag, she acted. Her hand had been groping in the hay throughout our conversation. Just as the distraction occurred, she had found what she sought. A pitchfork!

And now she used it. Her arm came up suddenly, and she flung it at Luigi with the full motion of the trained matador. His reflexes were fast. I’ll say that for him. He flung himself backward just fast enough so that the murderous tines just grazed the top of his head.

The movement had two results. It spoiled his aim so that when he pulled the trigger of the gun the bullet passed over the sleeping-bag. And it sent him spinning backward off the ladder to the floor below.

I jumped after him, bent on getting that gun. But again Pilar was even faster than I had been. She grabbed up the cape that we had used to tease the bull with and tossed it down over Luigi’s face. While he was thrashing about blindly, I grabbed the gun from his hand and backed away. Pilar quickly came down the ladder and joined me near the gate to the street.

I would have had no scruples about plugging Luigi then, but a second group of youths came crowding through the door and began rounding up another bunch of bulls. I couldn’t spare the time it might take to explain killing him. I had to get to Barbara Thomas before any of Luigi’s Mafia buddies did. So, still keeping the gun on Luigi, I backed Pilar over to the gate. We paused for one final look at our murderous playmate.

He was directly in the path of the first of the charging bulls now. He swirled the cape in front of him and leaped aside just in time to avoid being gored. “Hey, Luigi,” I called out to him as a second bull stampeded toward him. “Ole!” And with that I pulled Pilar outside to the street.

It was dawn. Yet, despite the early hour, the streets were lined with people. As the first bull shot past us, a youth darted in front of it, waved a cape, and then nimbly sprang to safety behind the barricade on the other side of the street. With more bulls coming, we followed his example and sought the safety of the sidewalk.

“What’s going on?” I asked Pilar.

“It is the beginning of the Festival Day of Pamplona. This is the morning on which the bulls are turned loose in the streets so that the young men may challenge them and prove their courage.”

“Oh, yeah.” I looked toward the sky and remembered. “The sun also rises,” I murmured. “But the hell with that. Tell me, Pilar, how can we get through this crowd?"

“We can’t. Not today. This is the biggest day of the year in Pamplona. It is the day on which the young men of Pamplona face their moment of truth.”

“The hell with the moment of truth!” I yelled, exasperated. Two or three Spaniards turned around and shot me looks that said I was seditious, un-Spanish, probably a Communist, and undoubtedly a man who beat his mother with the Spanish flag. “What I mean is,” I added hastily, “that it’s imperative that I find Barbara Thomas. Luigi knows she’s Raoul Mendes’ girl now. He must have overheard us before. And I’ve got to get to her before he does.”

“You mean the red-headed American girl who sleeps with Mendes?"

“Yes.”

“She stays with him in his suite at the hotel on the other side of the city. But the only way you can get there is by risking running in the gutter with the bulls. You can see for yourself that the sidewalks are too crowded to move.”

“Okay.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

Pilar timed it so that we started out on the heels of the herd of bulls just passing. That wasn’t so bad, and we got halfway to our destination without incident. But then the next pack caught up with us, and I found myself mixing it up with the adolescent boys and young men jumping out into the street to taunt them. Luckily, Pilar was both experienced and nimble. She not only managed to duck the horns herself, but she also pulled me out of their way.

“Does this go on every year?” I asked her when we were forced to the sidewalk again.

“Si. Every year.”

“Well, it may be sport to a Pamplonan, but it looks pretty damned dangerous to me.”

“It is dangerous. Each year three or four are killed by the bulls.”

“Really? Then why does the government allow it? Why don’t they put a stop to it?”

“It attracts the tourists. And that is a major industry in Pamplona. Without the Festival. the tourists would not come, and the merchants would suffer.“

“Sounds like the New York World’s Fair,” I observed. “I guess the economics are the same the world over.”

“Come. Here’s our chance. Let’s go.” Pilar grabbed my hand again, and we hightailed it after the bulls which had just passed.

A few more narrow scrapes, and we finally reached the hotel. “I hope she’s in,” I told Pilar. “I hope she hasn’t gone out to watch the bulls like everyone else."

“She will be in,” Pilar said positively. “She will be in bed with Mendes. They will be making love.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“The same reason the bull was making love to the heifer. The same reason I made love with you. Mendes goes into the ring this afternoon. He will be making the most of the time left with his mistress."

“Well, I hate to interrupt him,” I told Pilar, “but-—"

“You will not be allowed up if you call from the desk,” she warned me. “Mendes is always incommunicado before he fights."

“But if I don’t go to the desk, how will I find out what room he’s in?”

“Wait. The bell captain is a friend of mine. I will find out for you.” Pilar left me sitting in the lobby and went into a huddle with the bell captain. “Suite five-oh-three,” she told me when she returned. “But the elevator will not take you to his floor. The hotel is taking precautions to guard him against his fans. Take the elevator to the seventh floor and walk down. But be careful. There is a hotel detective guarding the entrance to his suite.”

“Thanks, Pilar.” I took her hand. “I hope we’ll meet again soon,” I told her honestly. “It has been really wonderful.”

“For me, too, Señor Victor. Be sure to look me up whenever your business brings you back to Pamplona. Only next time, please don’t bother to bring along your Italian playmate. The way he was going to shoot us—it seems to me that he lacks the sporting instinct.”

“I'll come back alone,” I promised. We kissed goodbye, and I watched as she strode toward the door. “Good luck with the bull this afternoon,” I called after her.

“I will fight as one inspired,” she called back. She blew me a kiss, and then she was gone.

I strode over to the bank of elevators and took one to the seventh floor as Pilar had suggested I should. Then I walked down the two flights to the floor where Mendes’ suite was. Peeping out of the stairwell, I spotted a man sitting on a chair in front of one of the doors. The number on the door identified it as five-oh-three. I figured the man for a hotel detective and pondered what I was going to do next.

Standing in the shadow of the stairwell entrance, I watched a chambermaid pass down the corridor in the opposite direction from the hotel watchdog. She paused at a linen closet, loaded up with towels, and then kept going around a bend in the corridor.

That gave me an idea. Unnoticed by the hotel cop, I darted down the corridor to the linen closet. It was even better than I’d hoped. There was a waiter’s jacket in there, and a tray as well. I slipped off my own jacket and put on the white coat. Then I shoved some washcloths and sponges onto the tray and spread a snow-white napkin over it. It looked like a typical hotel breakfast tray as I hefted it to my shoulder and started toward the seated hotel dick.

The plan I had worked out called for me to sail into the room next door to five-oh-three. I knew the cop would stop me if I tried to enter Mendes’ room. But I figured he wouldn’t pay much attention to me going into any other room. Once I was next door, I hoped to be able to figure a way to get into Mendes’ room from there.

“Hey, you!”

My hopes sank as the hotel cop called out to me.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You’re out of uniform.” He pointed at my pants.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “This was a rush call and the chief said to go right up.”

“Rush call! That’s no excuse. I ought to put you on report!"

I had the idiotic feeling that the next thing he’d suggest would be a full court-martial with all the trimmings. What would happen then? I wondered. Would I be drummed out of the waiters’ corps? “I’m sorry.” I cringed as servilely as I could while balancing the tray. “It won’t happen again,” I promised.

“Well, see that it doesn’t. Damn foreigners," he muttered to himself, having noticed my accent. “Not enough work for the people who live in Pamplona and they bring in outsiders! What’s the hotel business coming to?”

“Can I go in now?” I asked timidly. ‘Tm afraid this food will get cold.”

“Go ahead,” he grumbled.

I reached for the doorknob.

“Jesus! What kind of a waiter do you call yourself, anyway? Don't you even know enough to knock?"

I knocked as softly as I thought I could get away with knocking, and prayed it wouldn’t be heard. Then I reached for the doorknob again.

“I didn’t hear them say to come in,” the plainclothesman said.

“Do you have trouble with your hearing?" I asked sympathetically. “I have an aunt who’s deaf, and she went to this clinic in—”

“Ahh, go on! Get about your business!” He waved me inside the room.

Once the door was closed behind me, I set the tray down and looked around. It was an ante-room. The bedroom was beyond, on the other side of the French doors. If I was going to get into Mendes’ suite, I could see that it would have to be through there. I eased open the French doors and slipped inside.

The blinds were drawn, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. When they did, they focused on the bed. It was a large, plush bed and the covers on it had been thrown back. In the center of it was a two-headed figure. Female. Naked. Sleeping.

I blinked and took a second look. The figure had two sets of arms and two bare bosoms, as well as two heads. A third look finally straightened it out for me. There were two girls there, both young, both blondes. They were sleeping with their bodies locked together like two pairs of criss-crossed scissors. One of the heads was at the top of the bed, the other at the bottom. Which explained the optical illusion. And also something else, which was really none of my business.

From the position, there could be no mistaking what they’d been up to when they drifted off to sleep. The lipstick smears confirmed it. For a moment I caught myself making mental notes for O.R.G.Y. Then I caught myself up short, cast one last, appreciative look at the fleshy pattern on the bed, and got back to the business at hand.

I crossed over to the window and squeezed in behind the blinds. The window was open. A ledge, about two feet below the window, ran the entire length of the facade of the hotel. It was about a foot wide, of hewn stone, and looked quite sturdy. It was the obvious path to the room next door and the only one that I could see.

I climbed out on the ledge. Five stories below, the street was filled with rampaging bulls. I hugged the side of the building and edged toward the window to Mendes’ room. I had almost reached it when I felt a portion of the ledge crumbling beneath my foot. And then my arms were flailing wildly as the stone gave way altogether and my footing disappeared from under me.

Somehow, I managed to grab a handheld on the sill of the window to Mendes’ room. I dangled there for a moment, the bulls stampeding like thunder far beneath me. For a minute it was touch-and-go as to whether or not I was going to topple into their midst. Then I managed to grab hold of the sill with my other hand as well. Painstakingly, my fingers digging in and aching from the strain, my arms feeling like they would pull loose from their sockets, I inched my way up to the window.

I was lucky. It was open a few inches. I heaved it open the rest of the way, and in the same motion jack-knifed through it head-first.

It was a fairly good dive and, fittingly enough, it ended underwater. I had misjudged. The window didn’t lead to Mendes’ bedroom, but to the bathroom adjoining it. And I had neatly plunged into a bathtub filled with water.

Nor was water all that was in the tub. As I came up sputtering, a frightened squeal informed me that the tub was occupied. For a moment I was all tangled up with warm water, bubbles, floating soap, a washcloth, and a panicky armful of slippery naked female. The squeal was followed by a scream, and then my arms were empty as the soapy siren bounded from the tub and fled to the next room.

Rising from the briny, sopping wet, I hightailed it after her, my shoes squishing as I ran. I had to stop her before she sounded the alarm and the suite filled up with hotel cops. Time was important, and it didn‘t allow for explanations and verifications.

She was shaking the man in the bed violently as I entered, and he was just coming awake. His eyes focused on me. Dark and expressive, they widened as he took in my appearance. “Who the devil are you?” he asked me in Spanish.

“My name’s Steve Victor. I know this seems crazy, but if you’ll just give me a chance, I can explain everything.”

“The hell I will!" He reached for the phone on the nightstand beside the bed.

“Hold it right there!” I pulled out the gun I’d taken from Luigi and pointed it at him.

He froze, his hand poised over the dial. “That gun is soaked through,” he observed after a moment. “It would never fire.”

“You might be right,” I admitted. “But neither of us is sure, are we? And you don't dare take the chance.”

“Raoul, be careful!” the still naked and dripping redhead moaned. “He’s a lunatic!”

His hand dropped away from the phone. “Just what is it you want?” he asked.

“A few words alone with the lady here. You can wait in the bathroom.”

“Don’t leave me alone with him, Raoul! He’s going to rape me! I can see it in his eyes!”

“The only thing in my eyes is soap from that damned bubble bath. And I won’t lay a finger on you,” I promised. “You’re not my type.”

“Don’t believe him, Raoul!”

“Look,” Mendes said, “I am facing an extremely ferocious bull this afternoon. My nerves are very tense, and this isn’t helping them any. Why don’t we just do as he asks, and then maybe he will go away.”

“But suppose he attacks me?”

“Don’t scream,” Mendes advised her. “It would cause a scandal. It would be in the newspapers that it happened in my hotel room. My mother would see it. How could I ever explain it to her?”

“Oh! You and your mother!” The redhead’s ample bosom filled and tilted upward in exasperation. “What about me?"

“What does it matter? It isn’t as if you were a virgin. You American women always place such importance on not being forced to do something. And usually, it is something that you really want to do, anyway.”

“You don’t care!” She spat the words at him.

“Not terribly. But more important, you do not really care, my pigeon. If you did, you would have covered your brazen charms long before now." And with that Mendes rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom, lithe and dignified despite his own nudity.

“I’ll show him!” She gritted her teeth as the door closed behind him. She flung herself backward on the bed, one leg doubled up so that the knee waved at me provocatively like a beckoning finger. “If you want to talk to me,” she said, “come on over here and get comfortable."

“Oh, sure. And then you’ll scream just to see if he'll come running,” I told her. “No thanks.” Until then I’d been speaking Spanish, but with this last I switched to English.

She switched right along with me. “You’re an American,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, that does give us something in common. Come on, now, don’t be unfriendly. Two Americans, thrown together far from home. We have to stick together. Close together.”

“Not as close as you have in mind. And besides, wasn’t it just a minute or so ago that you were coming apart at the seams for fear I’d attack you?” I reminded her.

“Can’t a lady change her mind?” Her fingers fluttered over her breasts, plumping them up.

“Sorry. But much as I’d like to oblige, we just don't have the time. Now,” I got down to business, “in this instance I am representing Dombey of Dover and—”

“Who?” she interrupted.

“Dombey of Dover. They’re seeking the heirs for a resettlement of the estate of Brigitte Kelly, so -”

“Who’s Brigitte Kelly?”

“I know it may prove embarrassing, but when I tell you what’s involved, I’m sure you’ll see why you have to acknowledge your relationship with Brigitte Kelly. You see, Barbara-—”

“Barbara? Who’s Barbara?”

“What?” It was my turn to be puzzled.

“I asked you who Barbara was.”

“You are! Aren’t you?” I couldn’t help the plaintive note which crept into my voice. “Aren’t you Barbara Thomas?"

“No. I never heard of her.”

“But you’re Raoul Mendes’ girl!” I, said frustratedly.

“I guess I can’t deny that.”

“And you’re an American!”

“As American as Mom’s apple pie,” she agreed.

“You‘re a redhead!"

“A natural redhead. See for yourself.”

I ignored the undulating proof. “And you’re not Barbara Thomas?” I asked, my own plaintiveness grating on my own ears by now.

“Never heard of the lady.”

“Mendes!" I bawled out. “Mendes. Come out here!”

“Señor?” Still nude, he stood in the doorway to the bathroom, a cigarette jutting from his mouth at a rakish angle, one hand on the door-frame, his ankles crossed gracefully, the picture of aplomb, the strutting matador posing before bowing to the hero-worshipping crowd. “Did you want me, Señor?" His nostrils flared arrogantly.

“Damn right, Mendes! Just how many mistresses do you have?” I asked him in my most authoritative O.R.G.Y. manner.

“Why do you ask, Señor? Is it that this one doesn’t please you and you perhaps expect me to supply a selection from which you may choose?”

“Don’t get snotty!” I told him. It was a phrase which somehow sounded much more personal in Spanish than in English.

“Your pardon, Señor.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “But I really do not understand your question. I have one mistress at a time like any other man."

“And how often do you change them?”

“Please, Señor! Do I ask you how often you change your underwear?”

“You don’t have the gun. I do. Now answer me.”

“Very well.” He shrugged. “As often as I grow tired of them. Every few months on the average, I suppose.”

“Well!” the redhead exploded. “And you swore to me that our love would last forever.”

“Forever is next Thursday-—maybe,” he told her.

“These girls of yours, Mendes,” I persisted. “Are they always redheads?”

“Recently, yes. I have developed a preference for redheads.”

“And a preference for Americans?”

“Si. I find American girls less wearing. They do not bounce around so much as other women. Indeed, a few I have known barely move at all.”

“That’s a canard!” I protested. “And I’ll match my experience against yours any day.”

“You tell him, Yank!" the redhead chimed in.

“But that’s neither here nor there," I continued. “What I want to know is if you ever had a mistress, an American redhead, named Barbara Thomas?”

“I never compromise a lady's name." He drew himself up proudly.

“Never?” I clicked the safety off the gun and pointed it at his belly button.

“Well, not unless I am forced to. So all right,” he sighed. “I am forced. Si. Last year I met Barbara Thomas in Vienna and she returned to Spain with me as my mistress.”

“And where is she now?”

“In Lisbon. When I went to fight there, she went with me. But she did not return with me.”

“I should say not,” the redhead interjected. “Two’s company, three’s a headache.”

“You mean you ditched her there?” I asked Mendes.

“Certainly not, Señor. I am a gentleman.”

“He’s lying in his teeth,” the redhead told me. “He left without even paying her hotel bill. We laughed about it all the way back to Madrid.”

“Some gentleman,” I observed.

“Please, Señor.” Abruptly, Mendes’ manner changed. “You are upsetting me. I must face El Toro this afternoon and already you have upset my stomach. If there are no more questions, will you please leave now? I must release the tension.”

“Not on your life!" the redhead told him. “Not with me, anyway. Not after the way you practically made a present of me to this man.”

“Then with someone else.” Mendes shrugged. “The town is crawling with American redheads."

“Do you have any idea where I might find Barbara Thomas in Lisbon?” I asked Mendes.

“No.”

“I do,” the redhead said. “When a foreign gir1’s down and out in Lisbon and good-looking, her first stop‘s apt to be a joint run by a neuter they call Madam Svitch-Hittinga.”

“How do you know that?” Mendes was startled.

“Because I worked there before I latched onto you, sucker!”

“And you let me think you were just an innocent American tourist girl,” Mendes said in an injured tone.

“You got your money’s worth."

“Typical!” Mendes muttered. “Crass American commercialism."

“And you can stop knocking my country, too,” she told him.

On that patriotic note, I bowed out. The hotel cop outside the door was startled to see me emerge, still dripping water and soapsuds. But I didn’t stop to answer any questions. I simply waved the gun in his face, and he sat back down and stayed put while I sprinted for the staircase.

Two hours later, wearing a fresh, dry suit, I boarded the plane for Lisbon. The flight was uneventful. I slept the entire trip. I didn’t even get up to go to the john once. Remarkable, considering that Captain Flagella wasn’t even the pilot this time.

It was a maddeningly slow flight, though, with five stops en route at as many Spanish cities. Night had fallen by the time we set down in Lisbon. My first sight of the city was like something out of an old Orson Welles movie-—crumbling architecture, half Moroccan, half Gothic, narrow, winding alleys, a brief flash of Coney Island neon lost in the haze of smoke rising from an occasional cafe. And then the airport, disconcertingly modern against the background of the medieval world beyond it.

I checked my bags and hailed a cab. “Do you speak English?” I asked the driver, since I speak no Portuguese.

“Of course I do, old chap,” he answered in a perfect Oxford accent.

Startled, I took a closer look at him. His face was wizened and he was very, very old. “Are you an Englishman, then?” I asked him.

“Would you believe that I was?” he asked in the same impeccable accent, beaming at me toothlessly.

“Yes. Why? Aren’t you?”

“No,” he cackled. “I am Dutch.”

A Dutchman, 108 years old or thereabouts, speaking with a perfect Oxford accent and driving a Portuguese taxicab! Well, I’m as curious as the next man. Despite my hurry, I took time to query him. “How long have you been in Lisbon?” I asked.

“Since the end of the war.”

“The end of the war? Twenty years. That’s a long time.”

“Not that war!” He dismissed World War Two with an impatient wave of his gnarled hand.

“You mean since the First World War?”

“Of course not. I mean the Boer War. I've been here since the Boer War.”

“But why haven’t you ever returned to Holland?”

“They forgot about me.”

“They?”

“Yes. The Netherlands Intelligence Service. They sent me here as a spy when the war started."

“I see. And the British accent is because--”

“I am impersonating an Englishman. Correct.”

“Well, don’t you think you should drop it by now? I mean, after all, the Boer War has been over for three generations.”

“I am trying to. But up until recently it was necessary that I keep it.”

“Why was it necessary?”

“I told you. They forgot about me. They just left me here to spy when the war ended. And they paid my salary right through last year. So, naturally, I had to keep up the accent. After all, that’s what they were paying me to do.”

“And what happened last year?” I asked.

“They passed some kind of bill forcing all spies over sixty-five to retire. They offered me a pension, but of course I refused it. I have my pride, you know. And I’d saved a little money, so I used it to buy this taxicab. But I still spy on the side, anyway. After all, I am a patriotic Hollander. And you never can tell when those limeys will start stirring up trouble with the natives again.”

“No, you never can tell,” I humored him. “Look, do you know of a house of ill-repute run by someone they call Madam Svitch-Hittinga?”

“But of course. Get in and I will take you there. You are very fortunate that you got my cab,” he told me as we got under way, “rather than the one behind me.”

“Oh? Why?”

“The driver is a Russian spy."

“A Commie?"

“Of course not. He is a White Russian. One of the most insidious spies in all Lisbon -- except when his rheumatism is bothering him. He has been here since the Russo-Japanese War and he particularly preys on Americans like yourself. He would have talked you out of going to Madam Svitch-Hittinga’s establishment. He would have steered you to the place run by Mexicali Cisco. It’s part of an arrangement he’s had with the Mexicans since the Pancho Villa border dispute. All the girls there are trained to pump information from loose-mouthed gringoes.”

“Thanks. I’ll stay away from there,” I told him. And then, as an afterthought: “Sounds like this White Russian is moonlighting,” I observed.

“Well, it is very difficult to make ends meet when you are a spy. And particularly so when you are a spy for a government which no longer exists. Mind you, I don’t condone his ethics, but I understand them.”

“That’s very decent of you.”

“Well, we spies have to stick together."

“And what’s the spying specialty at Madam Svitch-Hittinga’s?” I asked him.

“Italian. The Mafia is behind it.”

My heart sank as I heard that.

“They started out specializing in milking information from Ethiopians,” he told me. “But when the Mafia rebelled against Mussolini, the whole scope of the operation was enlarged. Today they sell what information they acquire to the highest bidder.” He swerved into the curb and braked the car to a stop. “Here we are,” he told me.

“Thanks. This has been interesting,” I told him as I paid him.

“It is Lisbon, old chap,” he replied. “Some cities depend on the tourist trade to survive. Lisbon depends on spies. And by the way, sir, if you don’t mind my asking, which government are you working for?”

“It’s a secret,” I told him, “but I don’t mind telling you. I represent the Iroquois nation. I’m here to make a munitions deal with a representative of the Sioux so that the French can be thrown out of Louisiana.”

“Then I fear we are on opposite sides of the fence,” he said stiffly. And, without so much as a backward glance, he drove away.

I entered the bordello. A maid led me down the long, dimly lit foyer to the main room. It must have been a slow night. Three or four girls were scattered lackadaisically about on the brightly colored velvet couches like so many pieces of slightly soiled fruit left over from a feast the night before.

At the far end of the room a drapery parted and a figure emerged to greet me.

I couldn’t tell whether it was a bosomy man or an angular woman. A frilly white blouse was parted at the neck to reveal a thick growth of hair on the chest, but on either side of this hirsute cleavage, pancake mounds made the material stand out. Tapered slacks made the hips seem flat and masculine, but the way the legs were hugged revealed a shapeliness that was decidedly womanly. The hair was flapper-bobbed or Teddy-boy long, take your choice. The puff-cheeked face was ruddy with rouge, but the full lips were pale, bare of lipstick, and the pinpoint eyes with the long lashes had only the barest outline of eye-shadow.

It fluttered up to me. “So happy to welcome you,” it said in a voice that managed to be male, female, and neuter, all at the same time. “I am Madam Svitch-Hittinga. What is your pleasure?” This in Spanish.

“I’m Steve Victor from O.R.G.Y.,” I told it. I went on to explain about the research organization. “I am doing a survey on the sexual behavior of American girls abroad,” I improvised. “I have heard that you have one such girl working here.”

“We have a few. You are welcome to meet them. But I'm afraid their time must be paid for.” Its English was quite good and it had switched over to it quite easily after hearing me speak in my native tongue.

“I’m quite willing to pay. But there is one girl in particular that I’d like to meet. I’ve heard some interesting talk of a certain redhead . . .”

“You must mean Barbara.”

“Yes. I believe that’s the name that was mentioned.”

“I am afraid that she is not alone at the moment.”

“Do you mean she has a client?" I asked.

“No. But she is occupied. Still-—” A cruel smile ghosted across the face, a look of malicious irony. “Why shouldn‘t she be interrupted?” it decided. “Catching her off-guard, as it were, might give an invaluable insight to your research. She may be annoyed, but she’ll get over it. Come with me."

I followed it through a drapery and up a long, narrow staircase. It paused outside the closed door to a room. “She is in there," it told me. It opened the door without knocking and gave me a gentle push. “Go on in, Mr. Victor."

I moved into the room. The door closed behind me. It was completely dark. Then, suddenly, the dazzling light of a million stars exploded inside my head. A sharp, skull-shattering pain, and the floor went out from under me. My brain escaped the exploding pinpoints of light by plunging into its own darkness of oblivion.

I pulled the blackness in after me, and it was all I knew then. Just the mindless blackness. Only the blackness!

CHAPTER TEN

LIGHT STUCK its fingers in my eyes and pried open the lids. A sharp sliver slipped behind the peepers and stabbed my brain back to awareness. The awareness was pain which slowly gave way to a dull throbbing at the back of my head.

Gingerly, my hand touched the spot. My scalp had sprouted an egg with a shell of broken skin and matted hair over a yolk of crunched bone. It hurt like hell. I wondered what the devil had hit me.

My eyes supplied the answer. A spike-heeled woman’s shoe, steel-tipped at the heel lay on the rug a few inches from my nose. Dizzily, I pulled myself up on my elbows to look for the shoe’s owner.

What followed was one of those moments of utter disorientation. It was as if I'd fallen back into a stray moment out of the recent past. For a long, uncomprehending instant, it was as if I’d stepped through that door to the hotel room next to Mendes’ suite in Pamplona. The same two-headed, double-breasted, naked female figure formed a pattern on the bed. And then, just as it had that first time, the figure separated, the optical illusion turned to reality, and I grasped the lewd tableau of two girls with their legs locked together scissor fashion in the writhing act of making lesbian love.

I got hold of myself and took another look. No, I hadn't stepped back into the past. These two girls were really quite different. One of them, the shorter one, had lustrous ebony skin and the flowing black hair typical of the truly beautiful Moorish woman. The other was a redhead, tall and slender, with breasts shaped like over-plump bananas. And sleep had definitely not overtaken them as it had those two girls back in Pamplona. No, they were as wide-awake in their way as their intentness on what they were doing would permit.

Unsure of just where I stood and why, I remained quiet, allowing the strength to flow back into my body as I watched them. They made a magnificent contrast as they thrashed about, the lustrous ivory tones of the redhead’s skin first enveloping and then being enveloped by the sculpted ebony flesh. They clasped hands now, their lower bodies still clinging together and moving rhythmically. They used the clasp to pull themselves to a sitting position, and the pointed scarlet tips of the jet-black breasts dueled teasingly with the lighter, rose-red nipples dangling upward from the creamy white bosom. They kissed, a long, lingering kiss as if they were trying to swallow each other up, a final kiss timed to last through this final release of their pleasure. Then their hips rose in unison from the bed, and their lower bodies ground together in an emulation of the kiss until the release was attained, had reached its peak, and finally subsided.

They fell back, away from each other. I thought they were drained of passion. I was wrong. They had only whetted their appetites. It was only a moment or two later that the redhead re-initiated their lust.

Her scarlet gash of a mouth with its hint of cruelty at the corners swooped down to forage between the plump black breasts. The tongue darted like a snake to deliver a rapid series of kisses to the deep-cleft valley separating the quick- breathing hillocks. A moan of renewed arousal escaped the lips of the dark-skinned girl as the other’s lips formed an O around the reddish-brown roseate center-pointing one breast. She reached out a well-manicured hand and lightly raked the white back with her nails. The redhead’s mouth darted to the other breast, caught the flesh between small, sharp teeth and gently nipped. “Oh!” the Mooress cried aloud and reached down to scratch the high, beautifully molded derriere of the white girl.

And now the redhead pulled away. She rose up on her knees and grasped the other by the hips. The wide hips flaring out from the narrow waist writhed in the grip, and the shapely, slightly fleshy black thighs oscillated like two hands tossing a potato which was too hot to handle back and forth. Green eyes shone at this reaction, and a fine film of passionate perspiration formed on the redhead’s brow. Quickly, she flipped the Mooress over on her belly, and once again her mouth swooped down. None too gently now, she bit into the plump black flesh just over the backs of the quivering thighs. The Mooress flung her arms out over her head in a spasmodic gesture of combined excitement and pain. A small dot of blood flecked the redhead’s lips as she finally stopped biting.

Immediately, the shorter girl turned over on her back again. Her breasts strained toward the ceiling like twin dark mountains now. And the curly hair covering her womanhood parted to reveal a little finger of throbbing redness. Noticing this, the redhead moaned and her fingers tangled in the dark curls in an effort to grasp it.

The caress drove the Mooress wild. She rose up to a sitting position and tugged at the redhead until the long, white legs were stretched out across her lap. Then that wondrous mantle of midnight-blue hair fanned out over the flat white belly as she leaned down to bestow a caress which caused a color-clash between her dark maroon tongue and the rust-red of the magic triangle.

It was the redhead’s turn to moan now. Her thighs clenched tightly together as she bounced up and down under the maddening tongue and the suction of the lips. Expertly, as if delicately drawing forth an oyster from its shell, the Mooress got her target between her lips and suckled it until it expanded unbelievably. It was the reaction of a truly experienced lesbian. Only long practice and expert muscular control enables a girl to react this way. I noted this as perhaps having more importance than immediately occurred to me.

Meanwhile, the pair had shifted positions again. Now they were lying side by side, on their hips, their toes pointing in different directions, their mouths busy at each of their founts of femininity. But there was a marked difference in their techniques which defined their roles.

The redhead’s legs were still clenched tightly together, the Mooress was licking and sucking at the flesh for the world as if her partner was a man. Her own legs, on the other hand, were flung wide apart, the thigh muscles making the ebony skin bulge a little as she strained to afford even greater access to the hungry mouth. And this mouth was buried, lips working, tongue flashing and fencing with quite another target than the one visible just above. There could be no doubt, as the nether-world of homosexuals defines such things, that the redhead was the bull-dyke in this relationship.

Suddenly the ebony legs snapped together as if to swallow up the face framed by the red curls. At the same instant, the redhead’s buttocks tightened fiercely and she thrust forward as if trying to stab through the roof of the mouth inciting her. There was a faint, long-lasting liquid sound, really a mingling of two such sounds, and then it was really over. They fell away from each other, drained and exhausted.

By this time, I had more than had an opportunity to regain my own strength. To my surprise, I found that Luigi’s gun was still in my jacket. It hadn’t been taken from me while I was unconscious. Nor, I realized, had whoever clobbered me taken the trouble to tie me up. Despite the lump on me head, my sense of being in danger lessened somewhat. Still, I had been clobbered, and so now I took the precaution of leveling the gun at the two girls as I got to my feet.

“Well, will you look who finally woke up.” The redhead spoke in English, and her voice had a slightly nasal twang to it which was reminiscent of New York.

The Moorish beauty giggled and said something in Portuguese.

“She wants to know how long you've been watching us,” the redhead translated.

“Long enough,” I told her.

The way I said it, the dark girl required no translation. Her hand fluttered to her cheek and her long-lashed eyes fluttered with embarrassment. But the redhead shrugged it off. “So you got an eyeful,” was her comment.

“That I did.” I let it drop. “Who knocked me out and why?” I asked.

The redhead translated this, and both girls went into a fit of laughing, as though my getting slugged was the most hilarious thing since Grandma bent too low over the wringer. “I did,” the redhead was finally able to gasp. “I bounced my slipper off your head. Harder than I realized, I guess.”

“But why?”

“Why did you sneak into my room the way you did?" she countered.

“I didn’t sneak in. Madam Svitch-Hittinga brought me here. I just walked in and got clobbered. Why?”

“I thought you were a thief or something,” the redhead said, translating it quickly for the Mooress and then joining her for another laugh.

“Didn’t it occur to you that I might be a customer?"

“It sure did. And tonight’s my night off. I’m not supposed to be bothered. I’m on my own time. Any customer Madam tried to palm off on me tonight deserved to be knocked on the noggin as far as I‘m concerned.”

“That doesn't sound very good for business.”

“Maybe. I don’t give a damn. The truth is, I didn’t think it was a customer. Or a thief, either, to be honest. I figured you were the Madam. You see, every time Olivia here and I get together, the damn creep tries to muscle in.”

“You mean to watch?”

“Watch, hell! To get into the act. To turn a cozy two-some into a three-way orgy. I just got fed up. I didn’t care whether I got fired or not. It was worth it to teach that whatzis a lesson. So I swung first and discovered I’d made a mistake later. But I saw you weren’t badly hurt, and we figured you’d come to sooner or later.”

“Sure. I sort of noticed that you weren’t exactly pacing the floor with concern over my condition.”

“So sue me for damages.” The redhead shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not working tonight, so why don’t you and that cannon just toddle along?”

“I want a few answers first. It could just be that I’m going to turn out to be good news for you.”

“That I doubt. The only time a man ever brought me good news it was to tell me that my brother -- who, incidentally, had raped me when I was eleven years old—-had been castrated in a bar-room knife-fight.”

“Who’s writing your biography?” I asked sarcastically. “Radcliffe Hall?”

“Sure. And she’s calling it Pump-priming for Lonely Wells. I’ll send you an autographed copy. Now, what is it you want to ask me?”

“Is your name Barbara Thomas?"

“ ’Atsa me, boy."

“And did you work for a woman named Brigitte Kelly in London who left you a large sum of money?”

“If you prefer my lurid past to my lurid present, yeah, I did.”

“You went from London to Rome with two other girls left money by Brigitte Kelly. Will you tell me their names?”

“Gina Moretti and Françoise Laval. Say, what’s this all about?”

I explained to her then about the additional inheritance, and Dombey of Dover, and my part in things. When I told her the sum of money involved and that it looked like the other heiresses would disclaim their shares, leaving her to claim the whole amount, she bounced to her feet and began jumping up and down on the bed with glee. The Mooress looked at her as if she’d gone mad.

“What do I have to do?” Barbara asked.

“Just come with me to London to the offices of Dombey of Dover.” Having finally latched onto an heiress who wanted to be an heiress, I wanted to deliver her personally.

“When do we go?”

“Right away. Look, I’ll go arrange for transportation, and you get dressed. I’ll pick you up back here in no more than an hour.”

“I’ll be ready.” Barbara began chattering to the Mooress in Portuguese, explaining her good fortune, as I left.

When I returned, with reservations for a midnight flight to London in my pocket, Madam Svitch-Hittinga was at the front door to greet me. “Now I would just wager that you want to see our little Barbara again.” A purple-tipped finger was waved under my nose. “Really, you Americans should not be so clannish.”

“You got it right." I didn’t mince words. “She’s waiting for me.” I started to brush past the he-she.

“But not quite so soon.” The flutter-fingered figure blocked my way. “She is—umm— occupied at the moment.”

“Occupied?”

“Yes. With a customer. A very special customer.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t she tell you she was leaving? Why would she bother with a customer? What does she need it for?”

“I told you, this is a very special customer. A very highly recommended gentleman sent by the powers that be."

“The powers that be? What do you mean?”

“The gentlemen who have been so good as to finance my little establishment.”

Something clicked in my brain. Suddenly I remembered what the cab driver had told me about the Mafia being behind Madam Svitch-Hittinga’s operation. A premonition of dread grabbed me by the bread-basket. I gave the he-she a shove and sprinted up the stairs.

“But you can’t go up there!” it wailed behind me.

By that time I was already halfway up. I took the rest of the steps two at a time and flung open the door to Barbara’s room. She was lying on the bed, naked, her eyes wide open. “Are you all ri—” I started to say. The words dribbled away as I drew closer and saw her more distinctly. Her long red hair was knotted around her neck like a do-it-yourself garotte. But she hadn’t done it herself. It had taken strong fingers, man’s hands, the technique of an experienced strangler to kill her this way. Yes, she was dead, but the expression of surprise at the suddenness with which death must have struck still lingered in her staring eyes.

Feeling sick, I bent over her and tried to untie the hair from around her throat with fingers that were numb. It was then that I caught the strong whiff of garlic coming from her half-parted lips. Squeamishly, I bent until my nose was almost touching those, cold, dead lips. There could be no mistaking it. Garlic, without a doubt. Grimly, I remembered Luigi complaining to me back in Pamplona that his new partner was a man who always smelled of garlic.

It added up, all right. The Mafia had won again. Three strikes and I was out.

While getting the tickets before, I had wired to Dombey of Dover to have someone meet Barbara and me when we arrived at the airport. Well, there was nothing to keep me in Lisbon now. I decided to take the plane myself and explain to the Dombey representative that I had failed.

I couldn’t get the smell of garlic out of my nostrils during the flight. I couldn’t forget Barbara‘s dead, staring eyes. I couldn’t forget the two innocent girls killed in Switzerland. The Mafia had a lot to answer for. But who was there to bring them to account?

There was a surprise awaiting me when I debarked in London. The Dombey representative sent to meet me turned out to be none other than Albert Smythe Tarleton, the one who’d gotten me involved in this whole thing in the first place. Outside of a slight limp, he didn’t seem too much the worse for his brush with the Mafia lorry in Paris.

Tersely, I explained to him what had happened to Barbara Thomas. “So it looks like the Mafia uncle gets the pot of gold,” I finished, my voice giving away how beaten I felt.

“No, Mr. Victor. Fortunately for us, there has been a new development. At least I hope there has. You'll have to confirm it. Do you know a small boy named Pierre from Paris?”

“Lucky Pierre? Sure I do. What about him?”

“He is waiting for you at your hotel. He claims that Françoise Laval had a change of heart. He says that he has her here in London, but he won’t tell us where. Refuses to deal with anyone but you. Evidently he expects some sort of reward. Perhaps a considerable one.”

I grinned. “If I know Lucky Pierre, I'm sure he does. Still, if he managed to change Françoise’s mind, he’s probably earned it.”

“He certainly does seem an enterprising lad. But I must confess I found it embarrassing walking through the streets of London with him before. With a foul-smelling black cigar sticking out of that baby face, he looked like anything but a typically English schoolboy.”

“He isn’t even a typically French schoolboy," I told Tarleton. “What he is, is a sort of cross between Horatio Alger and Lucky Luciano. Come on, let’s get over there and hear what he has to say.”

Big Ben bonged us to a halt in front of the hotel some twenty minutes later, and we climbed out into the fog. Tarleton took a deep, appreciative breath. I copied him and ended up in a coughing fit.

“You really should cut down on your smoking, old chap,” he advised, pounding me on the back.

“You mean I should cut down on my breathing,” I gasped. “What do they do, hire sprayers to wet down the London air every night?”

“Careful, old bean, you don’t want to upset the Chamber of Commerce.”

“I didn’t think I could. From the air around here, I figured tuberculosis was the major industry in London.” I hacked my way into the hotel then, and followed Tarleton to the elevators.

A few moments later we were in the room and Lucky Pierre was greeting me. But he wasn’t one to waste too much time on reunion chatter. He got right down to cases.

“I have Françoise Laval here in London,” he told me. “She has changed her mind and will accept her share of the inheritance.”

“How did you manage that?” I asked him. “What happened to her anti-materialistic artist-lover?”

“I took care of him.” Lucky Pierre grinned nastily.

“You mean you killed him?” I asked, alarmed.

“Oh, no, M’sieur,” the child pimp replied. “I destroyed him, but I did not kill him. I found the most esteemed art critic in all Paris, and in exchange for one year’s free credit with whichever of my stable of girls he fancied, he agreed to come and evaluate the paintings of Françoise’s artist.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that nut would have any respect for critical opinion.”

“Generally. that is true. But this man he respects greatly. I determined that in advance.”

“And what did this critic tell him about his work?”

By way of answer, Lucky Pierre held his nose. “And his faith in himself was destroyed,” he added. “All the fight was taken out of him. After that it was simple for Françoise to persuade him that she should claim her inheritance.”

“You say she’s in London. Where?” I wanted to know.

“First we agree about my fee, M’sieur Victor.”

“You see,” Tarleton said. “That’s the way he's been acting with me right along."

“Yeah,” I agreed. “What’s the world coming to when youth doesn‘t have any ideals any more?”

“I never had any,” Lucky Pierre said.

“Okay. Blow your nose and let’s get down to cases,” I told him. “How much do you want?”

He named a figure.

“Outrageous!” Tarleton exploded. “Why, he’s only a child!”

“He’s the Aristotle Onassis of children,” I told him. “But it’s coming out of my share, anyway. Okay.” I nodded to Pierre. “It’s agreed. Now where are you stashing Françoise?”

“Come. I will show you.” He led the way from the room, and we followed him down to the line of cabs waiting outside the hotel. He muttered an address to the cab driver in a low tone that we couldn’t hear, and we piled into the taxi.

When we reached our destination, somewhere in the murk of Soho, Tarleton exploded. “I know this place!" he said indignantly. “It’s the one Brigitte Kelly used to run. It’s a bordello!”

“Is that right, Pierre?” I asked him.

"Oui, M‘sieur Victor.”

“What's she doing in a place like this?” I asked.

“Well, we had to support ourselves somehow until you returned to London, M’sieur Victor.”

“But I saw to it that you had money to live on!” Tarleton reminded him indignantly.

“That was for me, M’sieur. And it was never agreed that you had exclusive rights to either my services, or Françoise’s. Besides,” he drew himself up to his full child’s height, “a man must keep on with his work. Without work, there is no dignity.”

“Just what is his work?” Tarleton asked me.

“He's a pimp,” I told him. “He’s one of the most ambitious pimps in all Paris. And I do believe he’s branching out. This may well be the beginning of an important London operation for him. How about it, Pierre? Is that what you’re planning?”

“Perhaps, M’sieur.” He was unperturbed. “And why not? After all, every business has to expand. Else how can a man better himself?”

“Let’s go,” Tarleton said, his proper British outlook obviously ruffled at this example of French enterprise. “If we’re going to see this girl, let’s get on with it.”

Lucky Pierre rang the bell, murmured a few words to whoever answered it, and then led us inside. We went down a long corridor and through a kitchen to a flight of stairs. With true Gallic consideration, Pierre was taking us up the back way so that the girls in the parlor wouldn’t feel rejected. “It would be very bad for their morale,” was the way he explained it.

It was Françoise Laval waiting for us in the room, all right. There was no confusion about it this time. Once I had assured Tarleton of this, he hurried off to report to Dombey of Dover. Lucky Pierre left with him, catching a lift back to the hotel. Seems he was promoting a business deal with the bell captain and had an appointment with him. That left me alone with Françoise.

“It is so good to see you again, M’sieur Victor,” she said.

“It’s good to see you too, Françoise.” I really meant it, since I was seeing more of her than I'd managed to see when we’d made love at night atop the Eiffel Tower. She was wearing her working clothes now: a semi-transparent shortie nightgown and lots of luscious bare skin. I restrained myself from picking up where we’d left off that night in Paris. It took some doing, since the way she was undulating that provocatively fleshy body of hers said all too clearly that that was what she expected me to do. I sat down in a chair across from her, rather than on the bed where she was, and turned our conversation back to business. “So now you’re going to get all of the estate left to Brigitte Kelly,” I remarked. “You certainly are going to be a very wealthy girl.”

“All of it? What about Gina? What about Barbara?”

“Gina has renounced her share. And Barbara is dead.”

“Dead!” She was plainly shocked at the news.

“Yes.” I told her what had happened in Lisbon. “That’s why I‘m sticking here with you until we can make other arrangements,” I concluded. “Oh, by the way,” I voiced a sudden thought. “I never did have a chance to really talk to Barbara before her death. I never got to ask her that question I asked you in Paris, the question Gina refused to answer and you refused to answer.”

“What question is that?”

“Just why Brigitte Kelly named you three as her heirs. Remember, you said I should ask Barbara, that she was the only one who wouldn’t object to telling me.”

“And now Barbara is dead.”

“That’s right. Will you tell me, Françoise?”

“All right.” She turned her head away, and her voice was very low when she spoke. “We were Brigitte‘s lovers.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Brigitte was a lesbian. At different times each of the three of us was her lover. It made working in this place much easier for a girl if she was Brigitte’s lover. I didn’t want to do it, and I was ashamed of myself after it was over. I didn’t swing that way, you see. It disgusted me. With a man—anything was all right with me. I was never ashamed for selling my body to a man. But with a woman -- that repelled me. Still, I did it. And I wasn’t the only one. Gina, I think, felt the same way I did, but she went along with Brigitte, too. Only Barbara did it because she liked it. And even Barbara didn’t like it with Brigitte. You see, Brigitte was pretty fat and disgusting in the years just before her death. And she wasn’t too clean when it came to matters of personal hygiene. Still, it was not so bad for Barbara, I guess. After all, she was a lesbian. Yet we were all surprised when Brigitte named us as her heirs. Even when we had sex with her, she had always treated us like dirt.”

“Well, that clears that up. It was a long time ago, and all the money you’re going to get should help salve the guilt you feel.” I was struck by a sudden biological urge. “Is there a john here?” I asked Françoise.

“At the end of the hall.”

I walked over and checked the window. There were heavy wooden shutters on the outside of it. I bolted them. “Lock the door behind me,” I told Françoise as I started for the john. I waited in the hallway outside the door until I heard the lock click. Only then did I move off to the bathroom.

Less than three minutes later, I was back in front of the door to Françoise’s room. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Silence. “ Françoise?” I called. More silence. “ Françoise?” Louder this time. My voice bounced off the door, and that was all. “ Françoise! Françoise!” I was shouting now. Still she didn’t reply.

I backed off from the door and slammed into it with all my weight. Again. And once again. On the fourth try it gave a little. On the fifth I went crashing into the room.

She was lying huddled on the floor against one wall. One look and I knew she was dead. Blood was still oozing from the wound in her neck. Only a knife could have made a wound like that. But there was no knife in sight.

I checked the window. The shutters were still bolted. And the door had been locked. I checked the room. No knife. Then how had Françoise been stabbed to death?

I left the room, closing the door behind me. I went out of the house and found a phone booth. I got the number of Dombey of Dover from Information. A moment later I was connected with Tarleton.

He started talking as soon as he heard my voice. Still rocky from the shock of Françoise’s murder, I didn’t interrupt him.

“Complications, Victor. Gina Moretti is here with me right now. She’s split up with her husband. She’ll probably get an alimony settlement, but in Switzerland that could take a long time. Particularly since her husband isn’t cooperating, and he wields considerable influence in that country. The upshot is that she’s come to London to claim her share of the inheritance. However, strictly speaking, she isn’t entitled to it anymore. Remember, she sent us a signed and notarized waiver. If Françoise Laval wanted to be difficult, I don’t think Miss Moretti will have a leg to stand on. I’ve just been sitting here with her trying to explain it, and—”

“Don’t bother,” I interrupted. “ Françoise Laval is dead.”

“What?!”

I told him what had happened. “I think you’d better come down here,” I said. “I'm going to need someone to help me with the local cops.”

“I’ll be right there. I’ll bring Miss Moretti with me. We don’t want to take any chances with her now.”

“I’ll be waiting.” I hung up.

It didn’t take them long. Gina looked as sexy and voluptuous as ever when they entered Françoise’s room. And she hadn’t gotten any shyer, either. “Steve! Darling!” Ignoring the corpse, she threw herself into my arms and began rubbing around as if Tarleton too were dead.

The fact is he didn’t notice. He was too busy puzzling over the murder. “Just like the way Brigitte Kelly was killed," he mused. “A locked room, a corpse with a stab-wound in the back, and no murder weapon. But how? How was she killed?”

“It beats me." I sniffed. Suddenly my nostrils had detected a faint odor they'd missed before--the odor of garlic! I moved about the room. It grew fainter, then stronger. I moved over to where it seemed to be strongest, my eyes darting about. And then they stopped darting because I knew! I knew how Brigitte Kelly had been killed! I knew how Françoise Laval had been killed!

Almost, I blurted it out. But I caught myself. If I was right, then mentioning it aloud would be sure to tip the killers off. No, the thing to do was to trap them. And I had the perfect bait. Gina Moretti! The only person standing between them and three million dollars now!

“Tarleton, would you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Of course, old chap.”

“Would you call the police for me?”

“You mean you haven’t called them yet? For Heaven’s sake, why not?”

“Well, I’m a foreigner in a strange country. I think it would sound better coming from you.”

“My God, it’s not an invitation to tea, you know!” he grumbled. “Oh, all right. I’d better go do it right away. You stay here with Gina."

“Check.” I watched him go. When he was out of sight, I turned to Gina. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” I said. “I’ve been running to the john all night. And now I absolutely have to go again. You’ll be all right if I leave you alone for a few minutes, won't you?”

“I imagine so. Hurry back.” She blew me a kiss.

I purposely left the door to the room ajar behind me. Then, out in the hall, I crouched down on my hands and knees and peered through the crack. Gina was strolling idly about the room, giving Françoise’s body a wide berth. I waited patiently. I was depending on her having that innate morbid curiosity we all have. My waiting paid off. Finally, as if drawn against her will, Gina slowly walked directly over to where the corpse lay and looked at it.

“Look out!” My muscles had been tensed and I sprang as I screamed. My shoulder caught Gina at the hip and sent her sprawling across the room. Immediately, I was on my feet, grabbing for the hand wielding the dagger with both of my own hands. Then I had the arm of death, and I sank my teeth into the wrist until the knife dropped to the floor. I yanked hard, and the result was that about 150 pounds of small, slightly chubby Italian descended on me and bore me to the floor.

My knee shot up as we fell and caught him in the groin. As he rolled over in agony, I finished the job with a short left to his belly and a shattering right to his jaw. He collapsed, unconscious.

I was just picking myself up as Tarleton returned with two uniformed cops and a man who couldn’t have been anything but a plainclothesman. “I thought you said you didn’t call the police, Victor,” he was saying as he entered. “But they say you did and here they are.” His jaw dropped open at the sight of the man on the floor. “What’s all this about?”

“It’s about two murders,” I told him. “I figured out how he did it, and I managed to trap him into attempting a third. Look!” I led Tarleton over to the wall above where Françoise’s body lay. “Smell,” I told him.

He sniffed. “Garlic.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Right. Our unconscious friend over there reeks of it. That’s what tipped me off. Now look at this."

“A hole in the wall! Where did that come from? It wasn’t here before.”

“Yes, it was,” I corrected him. “We just didn’t notice it. And for a very good reason.” I reached into the hole and withdrew a large metallic screen. “This was covering it,” I told him. “It’s an air-vent. And the tunnel behind it easily accommodates a small man. My guess is that these things run throughout the house. There’s a vent in every room, and the tunnel is what connects the ventilating system. And that’s how both Brigitte Kelly and Françoise Laval were murdered in locked rooms. It was the smell of garlic that drew my attention to it in the first place.” I went on to explain how I had used Gina as bait and trapped the murderer.

Tarleton didn't say much when I had finished. I think he was trying to absorb all that had happened and to sort it out in his mind as it pertained to Dombey of Dover. It wasn’t until the next morning, when he called me at my hotel, that his natural caution gave way to outright admiration for how well my theory had checked out. “Our garlic-smelling friend really ran off at the mouth once he realized the police had him cold,” he told me. “He implicated a lot of other people, too, and told the police where to round them up.”

“Luigi Tortorizzi among them, I hope.”

“Yes. Tortorizzi’s in London, and he’s already been picked up. Arrangements are being made to ship him back to Switzerland for the two murders he committed there. That is, if Portugal doesn’t get him first. According to the one we nabbed last night, it was Tortorizzi who killed Barbara Thomas, too.”

“That figures." I remembered the red hair twisted around the neck. “It looked like the kind of macabre murder technique he’d enjoy.”

“Best of all,” Tarleton continued, “he’s implicated Brigitte Kelly’s uncle, the Mafia man who’s out to claim her fortune, in Brigitte's murder. According to him, the uncle killed Brigitte himself. That should take care of any claim he has to the inheritance! You see, he found out she was the heiress to the uranium mine long before she was traced to London and Dombey of Dover got into the picture.”

“Then it sounds like it’s all clear for Gina Moretti to claim the estate. Case closed, and when do I get my percentage?” I asked.

There was a long silence. “Umm, Steve old fellow, I’m afraid I have some rather distressing news for you as well." His voice had never sounded chummier.

“What?”

“Gina won’t be getting the money. And Dombey of Dover won’t be getting its percentage, which means that you won’t be getting your share.”

“Come again on the Boston Cream Pie.”

“What? What did you say old chap?”

“Skip it. Just a joke between us boys. What do you mean Gina won’t get the money?"

“She signed that waiver, remember.”

“Sure. But with Françoise dead and the uncle taken care of, who is there to contest her claim?”

“The alternate heir that Brigitte Kelly named in her will. What’s more, with Gina’s disclaimer on file, they’ve got an airtight case.”

“I thought the alternate heir was the uncle.”

“No. His was a family claim. As the closest living relative, he was trying to break the will. With the primary heirs out of the way, he might have succeeded. But now, charged with Brigitte’s murder, he doesn’t have a chance. The will will stand and the alternate assignees will receive the estate.”

“Who are they, these alternate heirs?”

“Not they, it. It’s an institution dedicated to helping unwed mothers. I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Me too, Tarleton." I said good-bye and hung up then. I thought about what he’d told me then. A home for unwed mothers! Hell, somehow I didn’t begrudge them the money. It was a worthy cause. Perhaps if an institution like that had taken an interest in me, I wouldn’t have ended up in that Swiss abortion mill. That was really where it all started.

Yes, a home for unwed mothers. I reminded myself that I must get the name and address from Tarleton. What with the risks I take as the man from O.R.G.Y., I could never tell when I might have need of such a place!

Notes

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Indication of a cesarean abortion, performed beyond the time-limit for a suction abortion.

[←2 ]

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. (Wikipedia 2018)

[←3 ]

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to reestablish democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement when appointed Prime Minister of France by President René Coty. He was asked to rewrite the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position he was reelected to in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era and his memory continues to influence French politics. (Wikipedia 2018)

[←4 ]

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-sellers of all time. The book's premise to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do." (Wikipedia 2018)

[←5 ]

Altough copyrighted in 1966, this copy was published in the current edition in 1973. The Cadillac reference was obviously updated.

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