the unhatched egghead

He released her head, but still he wasn't through. He bent over her bosom and nibbled until his manhood once again became as rigid as her breast-tips were. Then he proceeded to the foot of the bed, where he untied her feet. He retied them as high up on the bedpost as he could force them. This resulted in Helen’s under-cheeks being completely exposed and drawn tautly apart. She simulated a convincing scream as he buried his instrument of torture in the center of this plump and fleshy target.

So it went on, with a seemingly endless chain of erotic variations, as Archie watched. At first titillated, he was surprised to find himself growing bored after the initial action. His right eye, which had been pressed to the keyhole, began to smart. He switched to his left eye, but soon that too began to tear. He stifled a yawn and wished that he could stretch. It was getting damned close in the closet.

Of course it had been close when he’d first entered it, but he hadn’t minded it so much then. He'd been both too excited and too concerned to notice at the time. Everything had happened too fast.

“And now that you’re all trousered up, I’ll bet you just can’t wait to get out of them again, hey?” Helen Giammori had teased him as she ushered him inside her small suite of rooms.

It was a setup typical of the cheap residential hotels of the area. There was a small sitting room leading to a slightly larger bedroom with a door leading to a private bathroom to the left of the old-fashioned four-poster bed. To the right of the bed was the stand-up wardrobe closet made of plywood and cardboard which was to be Archie’s hiding place in only a few short minutes.

“I don’t know about that," Archie answered her as she led the way directly into the bedroom. “I’ve been up all night and I’m awfully tired. Besides, there are some questions I have to ask you. About your friend Dixie, I mean. Do you have any idea where I might find-—?”

“Gee, honey, I don’t really have time for questions now. It’s even risky to knock off a fast one. I wouldn’t even suggest that except you’re such a nice kid and I feel bad about leaving you all hung up before. See, Vito’s due here in about twenty minutes.”

“Who’s Vito?"

“He’s my lover. Also my business manager. But he’s very strict about business only during business hours. And after six in the ayem like now definitely isn’t business hours in Vito’s book. He’s a very jealous type, Vito is. Murderous, too. If he finds you here this time of the morning, there's no telling what he might do.”

“But I only want to talk to you,” Archie objected. “I don’t want to-—” His words were cut off by a sudden loud knocking at the door. “Vito?” he asked.

“Vito.” She nodded. “He’s early,” she added.

“It figures,” Archie said wearily. “Anything to keep the plot rolling.”

“Huh? What plot?"

“Never mind. It isn’t important. What do I do now? Hide in the closet or something?”

“Yeah. Hide in the closet. Unless you’d rather have Vito cut your throat, that is. Hurry up.”

“This all has a very familiar ring to it,” Archie said as he climbed into the closet. “I thing I saw it on the Late Show one night last week.”

“Be quiet.” Helen closed the door on him.

The pounding on the door leading to the hallway was growing more insistent. She cast one last look over her shoulder to be sure the wardrobe closet door was securely shut and went to answer it. Archie crouched down, finding it more comfortable, and found his eye on a level with the keyhole. He peered through it as Helen opened the door leading from the outside hallway to the sitting room.

“Hey, Vito!” She threw her arms wide in a gesture of welcome.

“Hey, Helen!” A very small man with sharp eyes, a weasel face, and the bowlegged walk of an ex-jockey dived into her embrace. His face disappeared in the deep cleft between her breasts. “Letab-b. Wegah wukta dunaw. Arujah. Ibawda boyswit m.”

“What, honey?” Helen released her hold and let him come up for air.

“I said later, baby. We got work to do now. A rush job. I brought the boys with me.”

“Work?” There was a whine in Helen’s voice. “But you said I’d never have to work after six in the morning. You promised. I thought you’d take me out for breakfast, and then we could come back here and — well, you know. So what’s all this about work? You always tell me how I have to be careful to stick to business hours.”

“I just changed the business hours,” Vito told her firmly. “Don't bug me, baby. I told you, this is a rush job. There’s money in it. Why else do you think I'd go to the trouble of rounding up Squint and Batman?"

“Squint and Batman! Oh, no!” For the first time Helen peered over Vito’s shoulder and saw the two men waiting behind him in the hall. “Not another one of those porny movie deals,” she wailed.

“Quit beefing! It’s a must. Let’s get it over with,” Vito told her. “Come on in, boys,” he told the pair in the hall.

They entered and closed the door behind them. Immediately the pint-sized Vito became all business. “Get the equipment set up, Squint," he instructed the older of the two men. Squint, a moon-faced, balding man with one eye permanently squeezed up to hold the monocle lodged there, unfolded a tripod, set it up, and began unpacking his movie camera, recording devices and film. “You get into the burglar outfit,” Vito told Batman. “And you slip into the black nightie,” he added to Helen.

“The black nightie? But Vito, it’s in the hamper.”

“Then get it outa the hamper.”

“But it’s filthy. It has to be washed and ironed. Honest, Vito, it’s actually beginning to smell bad.”

“Cameras can’t smell. Do like I say. Get it out of the hamper and run the iron over it quick so the creases don’t show.”

“Ingmar Bergman he ain’t,” Batman commented to Helen a few moments later as he sat on the edge of the bed and watched her ironing the nightie. “No esthetic sense, know what I mean?”

“Look who’s talking about esthetic sense!" she snorted. “You’d make love to a hog if they paid you enough for it.”

“I already have,” Batman admitted without embarrassment. “Barnyard Frolics. Made it two years ago. Very big box office on the Corn Belt smoker circuit. Easy identification for the yokels, I guess.”

“How do you do it, Batman?” Helen was frankly curious. “I’ve always wondered.”

“How do I do what?”

“Get it up on order? Keep it up for hours at a time? Even afterwards, when most guys have a cooling-off period? How do you manage it?”

“You’re a helluva one to be asking me that. Jeez, we’re both in the same business, ain’t we? How do you do it?”

“That’s different. I’m a woman. I can fake it. The times guys thought I was going wild with passion when all I really felt was like yawning—-I can’t count ’em. But it’s different with a man. A guy can’t fake. So how do you do it?”

“Practice, baby, practice!” Batman’s tone was smug.

“I’ll bet you live on aphrodisiacs,” Helen guessed.

“You got it. I sprinkle kayf on my oatmeal every morning. For lunch, nothing but thorn apples. That’s a trick I picked up from those old Roman lovers. Those boys really knew their love fruits. And for dinner, nothing but concentrated oysters.”

“Like a perennial bridegroom,” Helen chuckled. “And the bridegroom always cometh.”

“On demand, baby. On demand.”

“What about between meals? The pace you keep up, you must need passion sustenance at odd hours.”

“Then it’s just a simple drink, sweetie. Vodka and Spanish fly. Good for what fails you, like I always tell the fellows. Brings the old jizzum to the necessary boiling point.”

“Okay, you two, let’s go!” Vito interrupted the conversation. “Come on, now. No goofing off. Let’s remember we’re all pros. No time for retakes. Let’s make it look convincing.” He positioned Helen on the bed and pulled the sheet up over her. Then he showed Batman how to stand behind the drape so he could appear at the proper moment and make it look as if he was climbing through the window with the burglar kit. “Ready on the set!" he announced and popped behind Squint, the cameraman. “Lights! Camera! Action! Let ’em roll. . . .”

They had been rolling for some time now, and Archie was having a rough time staying awake in his hiding place. Desperately, he pinched himself, wiped his eyes, and peered through the keyhole again. It looked as if the picture-making session might be drawing to a close.

The burglar had untied Helen at some point during Archie’s lapse of attention. Now it was he who was stretched out naked on the bed with his clothes on a pile on the floor while Helen had become the aggressor. Batman simulated great weariness as he shrank away from her, but the state of his manhood successfully belied his acting. Helen climbed up on the bed and stood over him, looking down, her body erect, feet braced on the mattress on either side of his hips. The camera stayed back for a long shot. Helen took a deep breath and held it so that her naked bosom swelled out to its fullest potential. Then she flexed her knees three times like a champion Olympic high-diver testing the diving board, and leaped.

It was a sort of jack-in-the-box jump. She went straight up in the air, legs bending double, arms locking around her shins. And she came down right on target, impaling the flagpole to the base, her firm, round haunches slamming all her weight down on the burglar’s pelvis.

It was the climactic moment in the lm. It was the cavalry, bugles blaring, charging to the rescue of the encircled wagon train. It was the silver bullet felling Dracula with his teeth a scant inch away from the milk-white throat of the sleeping heroine. It was the brave, flat-chested Navy nurse slipping a pair of hand grenades into her blouse, pulling the pins and walking straight toward the lecherous, evil , smiling, cowardly, nefarious Jap soldiers who’d just raped her kid brother. It was Jimmy Cagney, fatally wounded by a fusillade of tommygun bullets, crawling up the church steps to snarl penance with his dying breath. It was the Marine pilot plunging his dive bomber straight down the smokestack of the Nipponese aircraft carrier about to launch the planes capable of sinking our South Pacific fleet. Yes, Helen’s leap was a cinematic high point.

“Oof?!” Batman’s response was genuine. A fleeting expression of agony crossed his face as his brain relayed the message from his squashed gonads. But he quickly controlled it and bounced along with Helen to the finale.

It ended with him picking up his burglar kit and tottering to the window. He was dressed now, and Helen had put her nightgown back on. She grabbed him for one last kiss.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.

“What?”

“You came to rob me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. But I’m too tired. I’ll have to come back tomorrow to finish the job.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Helen promised.

The burglar left. Helen got back into bed and pulled the sheet over her. She closed her eyes. Immediately, there were signs of movement under the sheet. She tossed it aside. The strap of the nightgown slipped off her shoulder so that one breast was bated. She raised a leg and the skirt of the nightie slipped back over her thighs. Her two hands reached down toward the blonde triangle. . . .

“CUT!” Vito yelled. “Good. Print that,” he told Squint. “We’ll have to wait ’til later for the cast party,” be added to Helen. “I gotta get this film developed and in the can. It's gotta be delivered right away.” He shooed Batman and Squint out of the room ahead of him and the door closed behind the three of them.

Helen was looking miffed when she opened the closet door for Archie to emerge. “How do you like that little pimp?” she said through clenched teeth. “He doesn't care about me! He just uses me! Never even apologized for cutting out. Oh! I don’t know why I put up with him!”

“Why do you put up with him?” Archie asked.

“It’s cost me a lot; but there’s one thing that I’ve got; he’s my man! ”

“It seems to me I've heard that song before," Archie caroled back.

“Cold and wet, tired you bet, but there’s one thing I’ve got yet; he’s my man. Two or three girls has he--”

“Enough. I dig. I don’t hand out judgments, baby. Anyway, what I really want to find out from you is —”

“Come on to bed, sweetie.” Helen wriggled invitingly. “We’ll talk later.”

“If I hit that mattress,” Archie said truthfully, “I'll go out like a bum bulb. Honest, any other time I'd hippety-hop at the offer. But now I’ll just have to beg off and ask for a rain-check.”

“It’s your loss.” Helen shrugged. “I’ll see you around.” She nodded pointedly toward the door.

“Wait a minute. There are a few questions I’d like to ask.”

“Like what?”

“Like anything you can tell me about Dixie.”

“Dixie who?”

“Come off it! Dixie-the-doxie who was diddling with Beaumarchais when he was killed.”

“Killed? Somebody was killed?”

“Professor André Beaumarchais! Remember?" Archie was exasperated, and his voice was heavy with sarcasm

“Who?” Helen’s owl-eyes matched the question. “Never heard of him."

“The hell with it!” Archie strode into the sitting room and picked up the telephone. He dialed the operator. “Police headquarters,” he said, his eyes riveted to Helen’s with a look designed to cover the act that he was bluffing.

“Hey! What are you—” She crossed over to him quickly and pushed down the button in the phone cradle. “Let’s not go off half-cocked,” she protested.

“Are you going to talk to me?” Archie demanded. “Or do I call the cops and let you try your wide-eyed games on them?”

“All right. I’ll tell you what I know. It isn’t much anyway.”

“Okay. First of all, what’s the redhead’s last name, and where can I find her?”

“Keller. Dixie Keller. She’s got an apartment over on York Avenue. I don’t know if she’ll still be there after what happened, or not. Anyway, here’s the address and phone number.” Helen scrawled them down on a piece of paper and handed it to Archie.

“How well do you know her?” Archie pocketed the paper.

“Not well. I only met her on a party about six weeks ago. It was a large spree that Vito sent me out on, and there were a lot of girls there.”

“Does Vito handIe Dixie too?”

“No. I don’t know who her connection is. Maybe she doesn’t have any. There's always a few girls like that around. Free-lancers. They come and go.”

“Which one of you was it that Beaumarchais called?” Archie asked.

“Me. He said he wanted me to come over and bring another girl. He sort of implied that the other girl would be for him because you were kind of young and naive and he wanted me to lead you by the nose. I never guessed what a long nose you’d turn out to have; I never figured a kid like you to go around sticking it in everybody’s business.”

“Just call me Pinocchio.” Archie sloughed off her insults. “How did the professor happen to know you in the first place?” he wondered. ,

“Through Vito. About a year ago he came recommended from some connection of Vito’s in Paris. Vito sent me around to his hotel room one night. The professor had me come over two more times, and then he went back to Paris. The next time I heard from him was last night.”

“How did you happen to pick on Dixie Keller to go with you last night?"

“Now that you mention it, I didn’t exactly pick on her.” Helen frowned. “In a way, she sort of asked herself along.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, at this party, the one where I first met Dixie, there was a Frenchman who knew Beaumarchais. He mentioned him casually in connection with some scandal that had been front-page news in Paris. It seems this Frenchman—I don’t remember his name--was a former newspaperman who’d gotten to know Beaumarchais when the scandal hit the fan. He really admired the professor and was sort of gushing about him. Well, it wasn’t long before I realized that he was talking about the same Professor Beaumarchais I’d gotten to know -- well, intimately, you might say. So I mentioned this fact, and that’s when Dixie sort of perked up her ears and latched onto me.

“By that time, the party was getting pretty wild. To be honest, it was turning into a real old-fashioned orgy. This Frenchman began sort of teasing me to demonstrate some of Beaumarchais’ love-making techniques. Dixie egged him on and volunteered to cooperate if I'd take on the professor's role. So that’s what we did. Our impromptu act was a big hit.

“When it was over, Dixie stayed with me and got me to promise to fix her up with the professor the next time he came to New York. It struck me as odd because girls in our profession don’t usually go around picking out their customers. Particularly if they haven’t even met them.”

“So when the professor called you, you called Dixie,” Archie guessed.

“Nope. That’s the funny thing. She called me before the professor called and told me she’d heard he was in town and reminded me of my promise to get her together with him.”

“She’d heard he was in town?” Archie thought about that a moment. According to what the professor had told him before he’d been killed, his visit to New York was top secret and known to only a few top-level American and French government officials. So how had Dixie Keller come to hear about it? “Did she mention how she happened to know he was in New York?” Archie asked Helen.

“No. But she asked me if I thought he’d call me, and when I said there was a good chance, she insisted on coming over to be sure I kept my promise. It was a funny situation. I didn’t know how I was going to get the professor to let Dixie substitute for me, but as things turned out it was no sweat. He fit right in with her plans when he called and arranged for me to service you and bring along another girl for him.”

“Yeah,” Archie agreed. “It fit in with her plans. and it cost him his life. Have you seen Dixie since last night?"

“No.” Helen seemed to be about to say something else, but she stopped herself.

“Spill it.” Archie was firm.

“She called me,” she admitted reluctantly. “The phone was ringing when I got home after I left you. She was — well, I guess ‘strange’ is the word.”

“Strange how?”

“It’s hard to explain. It was almost as if she was elated about something. I mean, she came on like she was worried, which would have figured, but underneath it was as if she’d just won the Irish Sweepstakes. I asked her what happened, because I didn’t really know. All I knew for sure then was that there’d been shooting. That’s when she told me that the professor had been killed.”

“Did she say ‘shot’ or ‘killed’?” Archie asked.

“I’m pretty sure she said ‘killed’.”

She would have had to hang around a minute or two after the shot was fired to have made sure of that, Archie thought to himself. Unless, as seemed a decided possibility, she had fired the bullet herself. “Go on," he told Helen. “Exactly what did she say happened?”

“She said they’d been making love and there was this shot and the professor keeled over dead in her arms. That’s all.”

“Did she have any idea where the shot came from, or who might have fired it?”

“If she did, she didn’t mention it. But then her whole attitude was so funny. She didn’t act like a girl who’d just seen a man killed while he was making love to her. It was like the only reason she was mentioning it was to be polite. Yeah, that’s it. Like she knew she had to be polite, but was anxious to get it over with so she could talk about her real reason for calling.”

“And what was her real reason?”

“She wanted me to put her in touch with Vito.”

“Vito? Why?”

“Vito has connections. All kinds of connections, you know? She wanted to make a business arrangement through him with the ‘family’.”

“You mean the Mafia?” Archie sounded as puzzled as he looked.

“Yeah. She wanted to hire a couple of gunsels."

“Gunsels? You mean she wanted somebody burned?"

“No. That’s what I thought at first, too, and I told her I didn’t want to get involved. But she swore up and down that wasn’t it. She finally convinced me that all she wanted them for was protection.”

“Don’t those boys come pretty high?” Archie wondered. “She must have been plenty scared.”

“She didn’t sound scared. Like I said, more excited. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been too expensive ’cause she didn’t want them for too long.”

“How long?”

“About a week. I got the feeling she was planning to split after that. Not just take off from New York, but probably leave the country.”

“I see. Did you put her in touch with Vito?”

“I told her where to reach him.” Helen shrugged. “I figured after that it was up to him if he wanted to get involved and set things up for her.”

“And did he?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to ask him.”

“Well, see if you can find out. I’ll call you later.” Archie started for the door.

“Are you sure you don’t have time for a quickie?” she asked. “On me?”

“I’ll call you later,” he repeated, and started out once again.

“Wait a minute! What’s that?” Helen hurried to the door, blocking his way. “It’s Vito!” she exclaimed after listening an instant. “He’s back. Quick! Get in the bedroom.”

Archie did as she instructed. Then he stood just behind the closed bedroom door and listened.

“What are you doing back?” Helen asked as she opened the hallway door in response to Vito’s knock. “And why are they with you?” she added as Squint and Batman followed Vito back into the room.

“On account of Squint here is a butterfingered numbskull,” the bandy-legged little Vito told her disgustedly. “We got to do a fast retake.”

“Why? What happened?”

“We get all the way over to the East Side carryin’ the film cans an’ we’re crossin’ the street an’ this idiot drops one of them. It rolls right across the gutter, bounces up on the sidewalk, an’ keeps on rollin’. It rolls right up to the feet of a trucker what’s unloadin’ a van, an’ he picks it up.”

“Why didn’t you ask him for it back?” Helen asked logically.

“ ‘Cause the way it is, this trucker’s unloadin’ other cans of film from this van an’ bringin’ ’em into this here buildin’. He sees our can, thinks he dropped it, an’ puts it right in the middle of a stack of film cans what look just like it. There wasn’t no way to tell it from the others. By the time we reach him, he’s already rolled the stack inside an’ unloaded it.”

“But if you asked the people there, they would have let you look through the film to find your can,” Helen suggested.

“We couldn’t chance it. The place bein’ delivered to was this outfit ‘Operation Yorkville’.”

“You mean that rah-rah censorship outfit?”

“Yeah.”

“But why were they having film delivered?” Helen wondered.

“Propaganda, I guess. You know, these documentaries these outfits take around to show PTAs an’ outfits like that how dirty books is ruinin’ the nation.”

“But then they’re liable to show our picture by mistake!” Helen was startled at the prospect.

“Yeah,” Vito agreed. “That should sure be one helluva PTA meeting.”

“Will I get residuals on it?” Batman wondered.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Vito told him scathingly. “How could you if we can't even admit it’s our picture?” Then his tone became more businesslike. “Come on, you two,” he ordered. “We ain’t got much time. Into the bedroom, and let's re-shoot the scene.”

As the doorknob turned to the bedroom door, Archie dived into the wardrobe closet once again. Crouching down and peering out, he was able to see Helen slip into her nightgown and resume her place on the bed while Batman put on his burglar’s mask and got into position. “Lights! Camera! Action!” Vito called.

Ob, well, Archie thought to himself as he crouched down and watched from his uncomfortable hiding place. That’: show biz!

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE RETAKES broke all records reported by Kinsey or anybody else. Batman was in and out like a flash, and so was the rest of the crew. Vito gave Helen a quick kiss goodbye on her solar plexus-—exactly the point to which the diminutive procurer’s lips reached—and then he and the others were gone.

Archie corkscrewed out of his hiding place. A few quick words by way of goodbye to Helen, and then he too left. Out in the street he hailed a cab and headed for home sweet home. A short while later he arrived at the elaborate town house and groggily made his way up to his room without meeting anybody to whom he might have to give explanations. He was sound asleep the moment he horizontalized his gangly body. It was the deep sleep of the young, the nocturnally active, and the unwillingly pure.

The streetlights of Park Avenue were shining outside his window when Archie finally awoke. The room was dark. Archie turned on the night-table light and yawned his way into the bathroom, shedding his pajamas as he went.

The icy needle spray of the shower hit him like a jolt of LSD, and his consciousness expanded with a yowl of awareness. Masochistically, he stood there and let the icicle-like droplets wash over his body, finally forcing himself to aim the outpouring at his groin just before he leaped from the shower stall. Then he was awake, skin tingling arctically and the rumblings in his adolescent stomach telling him he was as hungry as a wolf.

He threw on a shirt and a pair of slacks and clattered down the back staircase to the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, but when he entered it seemed as crowded as Gimbel’s on Bargain Day. Waiters kept tray-juggling through the swinging doors leading to the rest o the rooms on the ground floor of the house, and there were three chefs busily pounding doughs and setting fire to sculptured pastries doused in brandy. Archie peered around until he spotted Mrs. Huggins, the family’s regular housekeeper, overseeing the hectic scene from her perch on a pantry stool. He made his way over to her.

“What’s going on?” Archie asked the gray-haired lady.

“Your mother is having a party to celebrate the opening of somebody or other’s new play. About a hundred people, I’d judge. And Mr. Jones is meeting with a group of business associates in the library. Both are on short notice, and I’ve had to call in the catering service for help."

“Busy-busy.” Archie shrugged it off. He was used to the confusion surrounding the frequent large gatherers in the house. “How’s chances of my getting some breakfast?” he asked.

Mrs. Huggins glanced pointedly through the window at the night sky. “Breakfast.” She carefully avoided giving the repetition of the word any inflection.

“Sorry.” Archie grinned his most boyishly winning grin. “I guess I'm running a little behind today.”

“I’ll have Cook make you some bacon and eggs.” Mrs. Huggins responded positively.

“Don’t bother. I'll just scrounge around here and get a bite for myself.” Archie drifted over to one of the tables, investigated a platter heaped with delicacies, and selected the makings of a sandwich. He poured a beverage into a glass and pulled a kitchen chair off to one side where he could eat without blocking the flow of traffic.

A few moments later, Mrs. Huggins came upon him. “What’s that you're eating?” she asked in a tone that managed to be suspicious and motherly at the same time.

“A black caviar sandwich and champagne,” Archie replied blithely.

“That's no breakfast for a growing boy.” Her tone was scandalized.

“Sure it is. All kinds of vitamins in caviar. And many a doctor recommends champagne for the liver’s sake.”

“Put it down and let me have Cook fix you some oatmeal.”

“Ugh!” Archie wolfed down the rest of the sandwich and drained the champagne. “Very high in protein, too,” he told her, beating his chest. “Just the thing for that energy boost to meet the new day.”

“Which is over,” she murmured to herself as he beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen before she could carry through her oatmeal threat.

But Mrs. Huggins was wrong. For Archie the day was just beginning—even if it was already nighttime. And it was going to be a very full day, as he started to appreciate almost immediately.

It started with his being accosted in the hall by Lester, the Jones’s butler. “Excuse me,” he greeted Archie, “but there have been several calls and messages for you during the day. Mrs. Jones thought it best not to disturb you, so I’ve kept a record of them.”

“Thanks. What are they?" Archie asked.

Lester consulted a handwritten list. “The first call was from a Miss Helen Riley at about eleven this morning,” he told Archie. “She has called back several times since then and said it was urgent. I asked if there was a number where you might call her back, but she said there wasn't and that she would call again later. Shortly after Miss Riley’s first call, there was a call from a man who declined to leave a message or give his name. He also has called back periodically through the day. The last time he said something about possibly seeing you this evening, but he still refused to identify himself.”

Archie thought about it a moment and decided the anonymous man was probably Strom Huntley, his CIA contact. He wondered if Strorn was in the house now, possibly attending the meeting being held by his stepfather. “Go on,” he told Lester. “Who else?”

“A Miss Steinberg called just before the dinner hour and left a message for you to call back if you were free to play chess this evening. Just after that a Miss Giammori called and left word that a gentleman called Vito wanted to talk to you and that you should—-ahh--watch your step .”

“No editorial comments please, Lester. Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. The gentleman named Vito came to the house about an hour ago, and when I informed him that you couldn’t be disturbed, he insisted on waiting. He was most firm about it. I finally left him in the parlor in the left wing.”

“Is he still there?”

“I really can’t be sure, sir. It’s been a most busy evening, and I haven’t had a chance to go back and check.”

“l see. Well, is that it?”

“Except for the other gentleman who just recently came to see you, sir. A Mr. Kupp. I told him also that you couldn’t be disturbed. Then he asked to see Mr. Jones. I informed him that Mr. Jones was occupied with a business meeting, but he was just as insistent-—-although his manner was more polite -- as the first gentleman. Finally I informed Mr. Jones of the urgency of Mr. Kupp’s request to see him, and Mr. Jones had me escort him to the parlor in the right wing until he might break away to speak with him.”

“Has J.P. spoken with him yet?” Archie asked.

“I don’t know, sir. It’s been such a —“

“Hectic evening. I know. All right, Lester. Thank you.”

“Oh, sir,” Lester called after Archie as he started to walk away. “I thought you’d like to know that Professor Stynestein is also here. I happened to overhear him inquiring after you. I believe he’s in the main living room with your mother’s other guests.”

“Thanks, Lester.” Archie was glad to hear that his father was in town. He might be helpful concerning the scientific aspects of the mess surrounding Beaumarchais’ murder, the mess Archie was beginning to regard as a tangled jungle springing up all around him. On impulse, Archie headed into the main living room to greet his father.

It was jammed with people, and Archie wasn’t able to pick him out from the throng of actors and artists and writers and playboys present. He wandered through the panoply of evening clothes, blue jeans, saris and Arab robes, tiaras and turbans, nodding hellos to people, most of whom he knew, as he went. Halfway across the large room, his path was blocked by a pair of breastworks, loaded, and defying him to pass. Rising out of red velvet, they were familiar to Archie.

“Hi.” He acknowledged them. “How’s your toilet?" A few heads swiveled around at the question.

“Jus’ bubblin’ away like a little ol’ fishpond,” Melanie Leander answered. “That plumber-man was right wise, an’ Ah’m mighty careful what I feed it now.”

“What brings you here?” Archie wondered.

“Ah’m an invited guest,” she told him proudly. “Ah happened to meet this boy who’s, y’all know, a artist-type, an’ he was asked an’ tol’ to bring a friend by the hostess herself, an’ so he brought me. How ‘bout y’all?” She lowered her voice confidentially. “Y’all crashin’?”

“No,” Archie told her. “The hostess is my mother.”

“Is that the truth? Y’all mean you’re one of the Joneses?” Melanie was impressed.

“One of the Jones boys. Asa me, babe.”

“Foah real? Well naow! Y’all jus’ have to meet mah escort. He knows youah mothah personally.”

“That’s a coincidence. So do I,” Archie remarked as she hooked a passing arm and yanked back the man attached to it to introduce him to Archie.

“This heah is—" she started to my.

“Hi, Quentin,” Archie beat her to the punch. “How are things in the world of ovarian abstractionism?"

“ ’Lo, Archie. What are you doing here? Why aren't you out leading the teenage rebellion?”

“You two know each othah," Melanie deduced. “Well naow, isn’t that cozy? ”

“Probably a helluva lot better than either one of us know you, my dove,” Quentin told her with a lecherous glance down her velvety bodice. “But I, for one, am willing to correct that.”

“Doing research, Quentin?” Archie asked.

“Don't be sarcastic, my lad. The ovarian movement will resurrect our fast-dying culture.”

“Could be,” Archie shot back. “But why does it have to look so much like another kind of movement?”

“Oh! Y’all mean-—” Melanie clapped her hands. “You naughty boy! Such talk in front of a lady!”

“ Sorry. I figured it fit in,” Archie said apologetically. “Considering the circumstances of our first meeting, I mean.”

“Just how do you two innocents happen to know each other?” Quentin asked.

“You might say that Johnny introduced us,” Archie told him, winking at Melanie as she giggled. “How about you? What evil fortune put a satyr like you on the track of this sweet Southern cat? ”

“Johnny who? Oh, never mind. As it happens, Melanie and I met under circumstances of unimpeachable respectability. In a government office, if you will, in the light of early day.”

“Ah met Quentin this mawnin’ on the Unemployment Insurance line,” Melanie confirmed. “Ah could tell right away that he was a darlin’ boy by the respectful way he tawked to the lady at the desk.”

“Always be respectful to the hand that feeds you, hey, Quentin?” Archie said. “Yeah,” he added to Melanie, “Quentin’s just about the nicest forty-two-year-old ‘boy’ who ever seduced half the jailbait in the Village.”

“He’s goin’ to paint me,” Melanie told Archie proudly. “He wants me to pose foah him.”

“And did he tell you that he only paints the area between the navel and the knees?” Archie wondered.

“He says Ah have an intriguing pelvic structuah,” Melanie added.

“Why, Quentin, did you say that?” Archie nudged him with his elbow. “How flowery can you get?”

“Insolent young pup! ” Quentin growled amiably.

“Naow, don’t you two boys be quarrellin’ ovah me,” Melanie fluttered. “Say,” she turned to Archie and diplomatically changed the subject. “Did y’all evah find youah friend, that professor fellow who knew Helen?”

“Not exactly.” Archie didn’t bother explaining that Melanie had his interest in the professor somewhat garbled.

“He cawled Helen this evenin’. Ah tol’ her she should get his numbah so’s you could cawl back, but she didn’t pay me no mind.”

“He what?” Archie looked at Melanie dumbfounded.

“Cawled Helen. ’Bout seven. Why are youah eyes bulgin’ like that?”

“Thyroid,” Archie muttered. How could Professor Beaumarcbais have called Helen Dawes? The question spun around his mind like a pinball gone berserk with palsy. How could Andre Beaumarcbais have called anybody? He was dead!

“Archie!” It was a yoohoo call from the other side of the room. It snapped him out of the daze into which he’d fallen. He looked up to see Carlotta, his mother, waving at him. “Archie!” When she saw that she’d gotten his attention, she started toward him.

In her late thirties, Carlotta O’Toole Jones was still a beautiful woman. Her face was unlined, her figure as lithe and supple as ever, and her personality warm and sparkling. People found it hard to believe that she had a near-grown son. Archie himself was sometimes floored by the realization that this beautiful young woman was really his mother.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted him, brushing her lips against his cheek. “I suppose it’s no good asking for an explanation of where you were all last night and why you didn’t come home.”

“You didn’t bring me up to give explanations,” Archie reminded her.

“Well, l do hope she was something special, whoever she was,” Carlotta said with equanimity.

It bugged Archie. Even his mother assumed his sex life was being taken care of. It was downright humiliating. For some obscure Freudian reason he would have been more shamed to have his mother find out about his virginal status than anything else. So he lied by implication with an insinuating wink by way of reply.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot. There’s a phone call for you. I guess you can take it in the library. A female,” she added with a deliberate leer.

“Why can’t I have a nice, normal, over-possessive, Oedipal-type mother like every other American boy?” Archie sighed. He excused himself to Melanie and Quentin and went into the library to take the call.

“Hello, Archie?” It was Helen Steinberg. “How are you, bubula? Mama and Papa are out at one of their Talmudic night classes at the Yeshiva and so I’m all alone.”

“Where’s your brother? ”

“That bum? Don’t even mention him. He’s dead as far as we're concerned. Out drawing swastikas with some of his goyisha friends, I suppose!”

“Oh. Well, what is it you want, Helen?”

“Like I said, I’m all alone and so I thought maybe you’d like to come over and play a bissel chess.”

“Sorry. I can’t tonight.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to curl up in bed all alone with my copy of Sholom Aleichem."

“Why don’t you try Pilgrim’s Progress instead?” Archie suggested.

“Oh, aren't you the smartypants? All right for you. Anyway, maybe the professor will call back again. Maybe I can even talk him into coming up and playing chess.”

“Professor? What professor?” Archie had a foreboding. It was justified. “Why, Professor Bcaumarchais, of course. He called me just a little while ago. I told him you’d been here.”

“What did he want?”

“Now that you mention it, I don’t really know. Just to say hello and let me know he was in New York, I suppose. He seemed most interested in you.”

“I’ll just bet!”

Singlemindedly, Helen Steinberg switched back to her reason for calling. “If you can’t make it tonight, when will you come up and play chess with me?” she wanted to know.

“Just as soon as you have that dumbwaiter widened,” Archie assured her. “Tell me, did the professor mention anything about your scientific correspondence?”

“Only to say he hoped I’d saved my notes. I told him of course I had, and he said that was good because he wanted to see them. He said he’d call again and drop over when it was convenient. He sounded a lot more eager to come over than you do,” she added pointedly.

“That’s because he doesn’t know about the dumbwaiter.”

“Wel1, maybe he won’t have to find out. Maybe he’s Jewish.”

“No, he’s not,” Archie assured her. Although, he added to himself since he really had no idea who might be impersonating the dead Beaumarchais, it’s possible that he might be. “I’ve got to go now,” he added to Helen Steinberg. They exchanged goodbyes and he hung up the telephone.

As he left the library, he bumped into Lester in the hall. “There was another call while you were on the telephone, sir," Lester told him. “Miss Helen Riley again. She said she couldn’t wait.”

“Did she leave a number where I could call her back?”

“No, sir. She said you couldn’t reach her when I asked that.”

“Did she say she’d call back?"

“No, sir. I asked her that, too. She just said it was too late now and hung up.”

“Too late?”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, I wonder what that’s supposed to mean? Archie thought to himself as he headed for the parlor in the left wing where “the gentleman named Vito" had been left to await him. The parlor was empty. Vito wasn't there. Archie went back to the main living room where his mother’s soiree was in full swing.

Melanie spotted him as soon as he entered. She came straight over to him. “Ah’ve been talkin’ to that friend of youah’s," she said. “An’ he has been makin’ me the most amazin’ financial offers.”

“What friend?”

“The teensie fellow with the bow legs an’ those little black eyes full of mischief. He says if I let him be mah agent, he can make me hundreds of dollahs a week. What do you think, Archie?”

“Did he say what kind of work he had in mind for ou?"

“He wasn’t too specific, but he said it would be real easy an’ I wouldn’t have to worry ’bout standin’ on mah feet all day.”

“No, in Vito’s line, your feet aren’t likely to be where you get your calluses," Archie said. “But if I were you, I’d get him to spell out exactly what it is he has in mind.”

“Archie!” His mother was at his elbow, interrupting them. “Who is that darling little friend of yours who made himself so popular with the men? just look at them crowding around him over there. Whatever do you suppose he can be saying to them?”

“Probably telling them jokes,” Archie suggested.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Every time I go over there all conversation ceases most abruptly. And I’ve noticed the same thing every time one of the other ladies gets near his circle. I appreciate his consideration, but you should really tell him, Archie, that the distaff side is quite sophisticated and there’s really no need for him to guard us from a risqué story. If your friend is such a fascinating raconteur, I think the ladies should be allowed to enjoy him, too.”

“I’ll suggest it.” Archie moved away from his mother and Melanie and started toward Vito. Before he reached him, a man detached himself from the group surrounding the little Italian and came up to Archie. It was Strom Huntley, the CIA man.

“Man, am I ever glad to see you,” Archie began. “Wait ’til I tell you—”

“That fellow,” Huntley interrupted. “Is he reliable?”

“What?” Archie was caught off balance

“Can he really produce? Does he really have access to all those fabulous girls who can do all those fabulous things?”

“You mean the CIA might want to use -” Archie jumped to the conclusion.

“ CIA, hell! I'm dedicated, but I’m not that dedicated. I'm a normal man just like anybody else. I have to have a little recreation in my life, too, you know!”

Archie stared at him. He saw a rather stoop-shouldered man with gray hair that was thinning out on top, a man of about sixty years of age. The man's blue eyes, which had impressed Archie as “steely” on their first meeting, were aglitter with lust, and damp, as if the tongue which had licked the thin lips had glazed their surface. His still-muscular body, gone to paunch, was actually bouncing slightly with excitement.

“Look,” Archie said, “come on inside where we can talk privately. This Beaumarchais business,” he whispered, “is getting all fouled up. Remember? You told me it could affect the security of the whole nation. That’s more important than Vito’s broads.”

“To you, maybe,” the CIA man answered. “But you’re only a kid. When you reach my age, you’ll realize there’s nothing as important as what you can get while you’re still alive to get it.”

“Listening to you," Archie said, “I get visions of the whole world going up in smoke while you get your ashes hauled.”

“What good’s the world if you can’t get your ashes hauled? " Huntley retorted.

“You may have something there. But all the same, will you please come on into the library where we can talk privately?”

“Oh, all right.” A bit petulantly, the CIA man followed Archie into the other room.

“Now listen,” Archie insisted when he'd closed the door behind them. He proceeded to tell Huntley everything that had happened during the long previous night, concluding with the mysterious phone calls to two of the Helens from somebody pretending to be the dead man. “What do you think?” he asked when he’d finished.

“I think he was exaggerating,” Huntley said a little sadly. “No girls, not even pros, could be that uninhibited.”

“Not about Vito’s whores!” Archie had to stop himself from screaming. “About the Beaumarchais case. Have you gotten any leads on who might have done him in? Do you know who set it up to steal his papers?”

“We suspect the Russians. A certain agent of theirs has been given the job of smuggling something very important into the right Commie hands. He’s been told to let everything else drop and concentrate on it. Seems likely it could be the Beaumarchais papers.”

“Is that the one they planted at Brookhaven?"

Huntley’s eyes narrowed. His features formed a look of sharp suspicion. His voice was clipped and hard when he spoke. “How did you know about that?” he asked tensely.

“You told me. Don’t you remember?”

“I did?“ Oh, of course I did.” He was abashed. “But it was only supposed to be a for-instance.” He pouted.

“All right. All right,” Archie soothed him. “So, for instance, is this cat the one who's supposed to make the contact for the Beaumarchais papers?"

“We’re pretty sure he is. But I really shouldn’t even be discussing it with you. It’s CIA business.”

“If you didn’t want to discuss it with me, then why have you been calling me all day? That was you who called half a dozen times, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Huntley admitted. “It was me. I just wanted to find out if you’d gotten a line on the girl that was with Beaumarchais when he caught it. So now I know. And I'd advise you to quit meddling any more. This is CIA business.”

“But you made it my business, too,” Archie protested. “You told me to take Beaumarchais’ wallet and sneak out of the place. I could get in a lot of trouble because of that!"

“The CIA never heard of you,” Huntley told him frostily. “Personally, though, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re a very obliging kid. A good-looking kid like you must go over big with the girls, hey? Got any numbers you’d like to share?"

“I’m a virgin,” Archie told him truthfully.

“Well, if you’re going to be snotty, forget it. You wise kids are all the same. Well, you won’t be young forever.” He got to his feet and started for the door. “It’s a lot of money,” he muttered as he went. “I sure hope that Vito isn’t some kind of con artist or something.”

Archie followed him out. The men were still crowding around Vito. Archie pushed through the crowd, miffed at Vito, who, after all, had never even really been introduced to him, using the nebulous contact to crash his mother's party and promote his nefarious business. Archie had decided that enough was enough and he was going to put a stop to it.

But just as he was reaching out to tap Vito on the shoulder, Archie found himself face to face with Professor Albert Stynestein, his father. “Archie, my boy!” the world-renowned genius smiled with pleasure.

“Hello, sir. How are you?” Archie carefully refrained from calling him “Dad” or “Pop” or anything else which might allude to their relationship. He was conditioned to maintain the secret without resentment.

“Remarkable fellow.” Professor Stynestein nodded towards Vito. “Understand he’s a friend of yours.”

“So I’m learning,” Archie said grimly.

“Tell me, my boy.” The professor lowered his voice. “Have you ever met any of the young ladies he’s discussing so graphically?"

“One,” Archie admitted.

“Ah!” The professor winked. “A chip off the old block.”

“An accidental chip,” Archie reminded him.

“Archie, that was unkind.”

“Sorry, sir. No offense meant, really. I’m just a bit bugged tonight.”

“And none taken, my boy.” The professor ran his fingers over his mane of unruly gray hair. “However, I am intrigued by what he’s been proposing.”

“Just what has he been proposing?” Archie asked.

“A little get-together later on where some of the gentlemen present will be introduced to some of his young ladies. I think I'll go along. Out of curiosity, you understand.”

“I understand perfectly,” Archie assured him. “But you might bear in mind what you taught me, sir: One of the first rules of empirical science is that one must learn from one’s mistakes. And one should take measures to avoid repeating them. Dig?”

“Yes, Archie. I ‘dig’. How could I help it when my mistakes keep popping up to remind me?”

“Don’t be bitter,” Archie cautioned him. “Some mistakes don’t turn out so badly.”

“In your case, I’d say the mistake turned out very well,” Professor Stynestein agreed fondly. “Perhaps that's why I don’t really mind chancing a repetition of it.”

“But one of the elements can’t possibly be duplicated.” Archie nodded pointedly towards Carlotta across the mom.

“How true,” Stynestein sighed. "I'm glad to see that you recognize that, my boy. I, myself, never lose sight of it.” He nodded to Archie and crossed over to Carlotta. Her face lit up with genuine fondness as he spoke to her.

Archie smiled approvingly to himself and turned back to Vito. This time his hand closed firmly over the padding on the little man’s shoulder. Vito turned and looked up at Archie.

“Whaddaya want, kid?” he asked, a little annoyed.

“I’d like to see you alone for a minute,” Archie told him.

“What for? Who are you? Whaddaya want, anyway? Can’t ya see I’m busy, kid?”

“I’m Archie Jones. You remember, your old friend, your bosom buddy who invited you to this bash.”

“Oh. Sure. Excuse me, fellas.” Vito withdrew from the circle of men clustered around him and followed Archie into the library.

“You told Lester you had to see me,” Archie reminded him when they were alone.

“Lester?”

“The butler.”

“Oh, yeah. The stuck-up guy in the monkey suit. I thought I was gonna have to belt him before he let me in.”

“What did you want to see me about?”

“We got a mutual friend. Ya called her today for some info about a broad named Dixie Keller. Like you wanna talk to her about something.”

Archie started to say that he hadn’t called, but he caught himself. Of course Helen Giammori couldn’t have told Vito about his having been in the closet. But then why had she mentioned any contact with him at all to the pint-sized procurer? The answer, Archie realized, was that she was in love with Vito and it was her way of warning him without telling the truth. But what was Vito’s angle in coming here?

“I'd like to see Dixie Keller,” Archie admitted. “I was thinking of dropping by her pad.” He made it casual and left it hanging.

“Dat wouldn’t be healthy,” Vito told him. “She’s got friends are partic’lar about who comes calling.”

So Vito had fixed Dixie up with some muscle. Archie filed the fact in the back of his mind. “I don’t see why her friends should get huffy," he told Vito. “I’m a friend of hers, too."

“Ya met her once,” Vito said flatly. “An’ there was some blood spilled dat time. So let’s not kid each other. You try to see Dixie on yer own, yer gonna get creamed. On the other hand, I got a little influence. Dat’s why I come to see ya. I might do ya a favor and arrange a meeting—if de price is right.”

“What’s the right price?” Archie asked.

“One G. An’ dat’s cheap. I was gonna ask more, but I done myself so much good here tonight I decided to go easy on ya.”

"I’ll let you know,” Archie decided. “How do I contact ou?"

“Call Helen. She’ll putcha in touch.”

“Will do.” Archie saw him to the door of the library. “Are you leaving now?” he asked hopefully.

“You kiddin’? It’s shapin’ up like gangbusters in dere. Why should I blow? ”

“I can think of a dozen good reasons, but skip it,” Archie sighed. “just take it easy, will you? Those are my mother’s friends you’re hustling.”

“You mama sure has a swingin’ bunch of friends,” Vito replied with a wink as he exited.

The same, Archie reflected a few minutes later, couldn’t be said of his stepfather. The men congregated in the other wing of the house were anything but “swingers.” They were a quiet group, well-groomed, wary of one another, on the whole much older than Carlotta’s guests, top financiers with poker faces come to the lair of the Wolf of Wall Street to play the game of big business with the million-dollar chips they controlled.

A murmur of greetings came from them as Archie entered. “Hello, A.L.. Hi, D.M. ’Lo, P.F. Hi, M.F.,” he returned their greetings.

“O.F." The last gman he'd greeted corrected him. “I had to change my first name because of the connotation. Some of my employees were using the initials M.F. most disrespectfull .”

Sorry, O.F.,” Archie corrected himself. “My apologies to all of you,” he added. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting. I was looking for J. P.”

“He excused himself to go into the parlor. There was someone there waiting to see him.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you gentlemen later.” Archie excused himself and went to the parlor. The door was closed. He knocked.

“I’m busy in here,” the voice of J. P. Jones called out gruffly. “I’ll be out in a little while.”

“It's me, J. P.,” Archie called back.

“Oh.” The door was opened. “Come on in, Archie. This concerns you, anyway."

Archie entered and saw Howard Kupp sitting in one of the armchairs. He was smoking one of J. P.’s expensive cigars and sipping some cognac. There were some photographs spread out on a table across from him.

“How’s the wife and kiddies?” Archie greeted him blithely.

“Just fine. Send their regards. Sorry about intruding this way. But you were so stubborn I figured I’d better take up our business with your stepfather here. And it certainly is a pleasure doing business with such a gentleman.” Howard Kupp puffed on the cigar contentedly.

“Of course we haven’t really done any business yet,” J. P. told Archie smoothly. “Mr. Kupp was just showing me his merchandise when you arrived. It’s really very interesting. Would you like to see it?”

“All right.” Archie picked up the pictures and went through them slowly.

J. P. looked over his shoulder. “Bad angle in that one,” he commented. “Makes you look even skinnier than you are."

“Sorry about that,” Kupp interjected. “That’s the trouble with candid photography. It isn’t always flattering to the subject.”

“I quite understand, Mr. Kupp,” J. P. said soothingly. “It wasn’t my intention to disparage the quality of your work.”

Kupp nodded, mollified. “The wife wasn't too happy with the way they came out, either,” he admitted. “But then let’s face it, she isn’t as young as she used to be.”

“She certainly looks quite young and energetic here,” J. P. observed. “Well, Archie, what do you think?" he added as Archie set the pictures back down.

“I think it’s blackmail."

“Of course it is, my boy. Nobody denies that. Mr. Kupp is a realist, or he wouldn't be here. And of course I too am a realist. Morality is not an issue here. The question is whether we pay Mr. Kupp for his photos or call the police and charge him with being a blackmailer."

“If you do that," Howard Kupp said mildly, “my wife will see that these photos get to every exposé magazine in town. Also, I will sue her for divorce and name Archie here as correspondent. Besides which I'll sue him for alienation of her affections. My kids will testify to that. They could be very pathetic in a courtroom.”

“I’ll vouch for that,” Archie agreed.

“It would be a very nasty mess for you and your family, Mr. Jones. It probably wouldn’t do you any good in the business world, either,” Kupp pointed out.

“My position in the business world is unassailable," J. P. told him icily. “As to any publication of these pictures, you can rest assured, Mr. Kupp, that they would be squelched the moment any editor obtained them. A man in my position has many ways of exerting pressure to suppress unwanted publicity. And as far as any lawsuits are concerned, I maintain a legal staff on a million-dollar-a-year retainer. Do you seriously think you could stand up against such talent in a court of law? I would destroy you and your wife and your children, Mr. Kupp. I would squash you all as if you were a family of ants. And that’s what you are, Mr. Kupp. An annoying bug. Nothing but that!”

“That's no way for one gentleman to talk to another,” Howard Kupp whined. “Besides, you’re bluffing. A guy in your position can't afford to take the chance on being able to squelch the publicity over something like this. It’s too big. The papers would have a field day. No matter what kind of influence you’ve got, they wouldn't pass it by. You’re bluffing! ”

“Am I?” J. P. picked up the telephone and dialed. “Hello,” he said into the mouthpiece after a moment. “This is J. P. Jones. There is a man in my home who is attempting to blackmail me. Will you send a detective right over?” He gave the address and hung up. “Do you still think I’m bluffing, Mr. Kupp?”

“You’ll be sorry,” Kupp muttered, getting to his feet and starting for the door.

Before he could reach it there was a discreet knock from the other side. “What is it?” J. P. called out in response.

“Excuse me, sir,” It was the voice of Lester, the butler. “There are some gentlemen from the police department here.”

“So fast?” Even J. P. was surprised. And Kupp looked green. “All right, show them in,” he told Lester.

As they were trooping in, the phone rang again. Archie, standing closest to it, picked it up. “Hello, Archie,” the voice said in his ear as the policemen began trooping into the room. “This is Helen Riley. I’ve been trying to get you all day. To warn you.”

“Warn me about what?” Archie watched as J. P. greeted the police officers, some of whom were in uniform and some in plainclothes. The tycoon pointed toward Kupp, who was trying to edge past them and out the door.

“About Angie. Angelo Valenti, I mean. He’s really got it in for you. He was to tail you last night. And he called me today and says he’s going to arrest you and that you’re going to fry.”

“What?” Archie was dazed. “Arrest me for what? Fry for what?”

The plainclothes man who seemed to be in charge walked right past Howard Kupp, ignoring J. P.’s accusations, and came straight up to Archie. There was a cop at his elbow, and Archie took a good look at him for the first time. It was Angelo Valenti, and he had a triumphal grin on his face.

“Archimedes Jones.” The plainclothes man gripped Archie’s arm firmly. “You’re under arrest on suspicion of murdering Professor André Beaumarchais!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was chaos!

On the heels of the police, reporters and photographers stormed the Jones mansion. They rode roughshod over Lester, stampeded past the frenetic party going on in the main living room, attracting quite a few of Carlotta’s guests in their wake, whooped it up in the room where J. P.’s confreres were gathered as if they’d discovered gold, and finally descended on Archie with shouted questions and popping flashbulbs.

“How did you guys get wind of this?” the detective in charge demanded disgustedly. He looked from one to the other of his men searchingly. “Which one of you finks tipped them off?" he wanted to know.

But all their faces were blank. Even the face of Patrolman Angelo Valenti gave nothing away to his superior. It was only when his eyes met Archie’s that the youth detected the fleeting sneer crossing Valenti’s features and realized that it had been he who had fingered him for the law and the press alike.

“Archie?” Helen Riley’s voice on the telephone was urgent in his ear. “Archie, what’s happening? Archie, you don’t have any time to waste. You have to get away before Angie gets there.”

“He’s already here,” Archie told her.

“Hang up that phone now, son,” the head cop instructed him.

“Okay,” Archie agreed. “I have to hang up now,” he told Helen. “Any message for your boyfriend?”

“Tell him his mother wants him.”

“Okay.” Archie hung up the phone. “Your mother wants you,” he told Valenti.

“Mama? What’s the matter?” He looked worried.

“Maybe she’s having a heart attack,” Archie suggested vindictively.

“That’s not funny! I oughta punch you right in the--”

“Knock it off, Valenti!” The detective in charge cut the patrolman short.

“J. P.! J. P.!” One of the business tycoons bulled his way into the room. Some of the other barons of commerce followed in his wake. “This is outrageous!” The lead muckymuck’s face was livid. “Invasion of privacy!” he sputtered. “They’re taking our pictures! Scandal! Can’t afford to be mixed up in-"

J. P. Jones ignored him. He was busy with another aspect of the confusion. “. . . and I want this man arrested for extortion immediately!” he was insisting to one of the officers. He pointed a shaking finger at Howard Kupp. “I am prepared to prefer charges of blackmail against him! The evidence is right there on the table!"

Two of the reporters raced for the table and seized the pictures. “Wow!” the first said. “It’s the Jones kid en flagrante!"

“Page one for the morning edition,” the second reporter enthused.

“The broad with him’s kind of over the hill,” the first remarked, studying one of the pictures.

“Watch that kind of talk!” Howard Kupp said indignantly. “That’s my wife!”

“Put those pictures down!” J. P. demanded. “They’re private property! "

“Those your kids, too?” the first reporter asked Howard Kupp, pointing to one of the pictures.

Howard peered over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Cute kids.”

“Yeah.” Howard puffed up a little with pride.

“I have to tell you that you are entitled to have legal counsel present and that anything you say may be held against you,” the head detective was informing Archie.

“Hey, Inspector,” one of the cops called from the doorway. “Look what I found.” He pushed Vito into view, holding the little man gingerly by the neck of his jacket as if he was a particularly rancid dead fish.

“Well, well,” the inspector stared with distaste at Vito. “Aren’t you out of your territory?”

“Caught him red-handed, too,” the cop holding Vito boasted. “Got him just as he was accepting money from two fish. Joe! ” he called to a cop outside. “Bring the suckers in here.”

Another policeman, holding onto each of their arms, propelled Strom Huntley and Professor Albert Stynestein into the room.

“Officer, you’ve leaped to a conclusion on the basis of inadequate observation,” Stynestein was protesting. “The empiricism of your entire methodology is so questionable as to render it unscientific! ”

“Communist infiltration in the police department,” Huntley was muttering. “I’m being framed to embarrass the government. The CIA shall demand a Congressional investigation! ”

“That’ll be a switch,” a photographer hooted as he snapped a picture of the trio.

“Brought one of his girls with him, too,” the cop gripping Vito added to the inspector. “Caught him red-handed describing to these two how she was going to entertain them.” He stood aside to let a cop hustle Melanie into the room.

“Y’all don’ have to push!” she was complaining.

“Police brutality! " Quentin brought up the rear.

“Let me go! Take your hands off me!” Carlotta was indignant as yet another policeman escorted her none too gently onto the scene.

“I think I got the madam! ” he announced proudly to the Inspector.

“What are you doing?” J. P. raged. “That’s my wife!”

“For Pete’s sake, you guys,” the inspector reminded them, “this isn’t a vice raid. We’re here to pick up this kid for homicide. You’re on the homicide squad, remember?”

“The vice squad is more fun!” The cop holding Carlotta released her and poured.

“I demand ta see my attoiney!” Vito said loudly.

“Tell them I’m innocent,” Archie insisted to Storm Huntley.

“One of the first rules of being a CIA man,” Huntley observed to the room at large, “is that one swallows one’s cyanide tablet before involving the parent organization.”

“I’m not a CIA man,” Archie reminded him. “And I don’t have a cyanide tablet.”

“Would you like to borrow mine?”

“No, thanks.”

“This heah ofiicah is bruisin’ mah titties,” Melanie complained.

“Let her go,” the inspector commanded.

Abashed, the cop withdrew his hands from Melanie’s bodice and released her. She backed off, stumbling into the not-unwilling grasp of one of the tycoons. Just as his hand fastened over her left breast, a photographer snapped their picture.

“J. P.!” the tycoon wailed. “We've got to get that photo before my wife sees it! ”

“My wife’s a member of the D.A.R.!” another chimed in. “A scandal like this might result in her being drummed out. She’ll leave me! Do something, J. P.!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” J. P. Jones tried to calm them.

But before he could continue, another element was added to the melee. A theatrical young man with long blond hair and suspicious hips bounced into the room. “The morning papers, everybody,” he announced. “The reviews are in.”

A well-known and aging matinee idol was right behind him. “Let me see them! ” he demanded.

“Me first!” The equally well-known actress who was his leading lady in the show which had just opened snatched some of the papers from the blond young man.

“I wrote the bloody thing! I should get first crack at the reviews!" A snarling Englishman in tweeds grabbed them away from the leading lady.

“Ooh! What does it say about me?” The ingenue of the show hung over the author’s shoulder.

“Look out!” A hungry—looking Balkan type elbowed her aside. “I want to see what it says about the direction.”

“The Times says your heavy hand was unmistakable,” the author told the director smugly.

“Kerr points out that there isn’t much that even the most competent actors can do with such unbelievable dialogue,” the leading lady told the author.

“And he also says that your portrayal of a woman in love was too geriatric to be believable,” the author stabbed back.

“The News said you kissed with more suction than sex,” the leading man informed the ingenue.

“Is that so?” She peered over his shoulder and read farther down. “And they also suggest that it's time for you to retire gracefully,” she pointed out maliciously.

“What about the sets?” Carlotta asked, attempting to smooth over the dissension.

“Kerr says they’re remarkable.”

“He also calls them ingenious.”

“The News compliments their superb artistry.”

"Got it!” The theatrically blond young man pulled out a pad and pencil and began jotting down some notes.

“What are you doing?” Carlotta wanted to know.

“Getting up the ad for the show,” he told her. “Look.”

She looted and read what he had written: “Ingenious! — Times. Superb artistry! – News. Remarkable!—Kerr. Order tickets now for the smash hit of the season!”

“Isn’t that sort of misleading?” she suggested timidly.

The blond young man shot her a look that accused her of being very naive indeed.

“Oh,” Carlotta said. “Sorry about that.”

“An outrage!” one of the tycoons was protesting.

“The trick is low-key lighting," Howard Kupp was explaining to one of the photographers.

“It’s a better haul than Appalachia,” one cop exulted to another.

“And if you hadn’t upstaged me through the entire first act . . .” The leading lady was loosing a tirade at the leading man.

“I demand my constitutional rights!” Vito was standing firm.

“J. P.! You've got to do something about this!”

“Ouch!” Melanie grabbed her just-pinched derriere. “A man youah age!” she chastised one of the big businessmen. “Y’all should be ’shamed of youahself!”

“The Commissioner's going to hear about this!” J. P. was roaring.

“. . . what can happen to the best of plays in the hands of an incompetent Philistine of a director,” the author was complaining to the ingenue.

“I am not now and have never been a member of the Communist Party,” Quentin was assuring a policeman and a reporter.

“Terrific party, Carlotta,” a matronly looking woman was assuring her. “You always have the most fascinating people. Such diverse types, and they mix so well!”

“The nerve of that Lindsay with his civilian review board,” one of the cops was protesting to another indignantly as he jabbed his billy into Strom Huntley’s kidney. “What’s he think we are? buncha sadists or something?”

“. . . fine thing when a man goes to a business meeting and . . .”

“. . . all that damned director’s fault!" the ingenue insisted. “He told me to show a lot of bosom. How was I supposed to know it was too much?”

“My only regret is that I have such weak kidneys to give for the CIA! ” Strom Huntley said staunchly.

“Don’t miss that one there,” a reporter instructed one of the photographers. “He rings up a nickel every time a light gets switched on.”

“I’ll take it right to Katzenbach!” J. P. shouted.

“It seems, my boy, that you are quite a catalyst,” Professor Stynestein was commenting to Archie.

“Lester, more champagne!” Carlotta called.

“Wait a minute!” the inspector climbed on a chair and bellowed. “Hold everything! Now, all you people quiet down! ”

At the voice of authority, the hubbub subsided.

“Now, the only important thing is that this young fellow here is under arrest on suspicion of committing murder,” the inspector announced, pointing at Archie. "Now then, young fellow, do you wish to make a statement?”

“Yes,” Archie replied formally. “I wish to make a statement.”

“And what is that statement?”

“Simply this.” Archie held his chin high. “I have to go to the bathroom!”

“Very practical under the circumstances,” Professor Stynestein murmured sotto voce.

“It’s his constitutional right,” Vito agreed.

"All right! All right!” the inspector signaled to one of the policemen. “Take him to the bathroom,” he instructed.

“That’s really not necessary,” Carlotta protested. “He’s been toilet-trained since he was a year old. Not that we forced him, you understand, but—”

“Lady, I believe you!” the inspector interrupted. “I think I must be losing my mind,” he added to himself. “But he’s under arrest for murder and he’s got to be guarded,” he explained. “Go on, Flannery, take him to the john.”

The cop named Flannery took Archie by the arm and led him from the room. “Where is it?” he asked. Archie showed him.

“Wow!” the cop exclaimed as he closed the bathroom door behind them. “This is about the plushest can I ever seen.”

“Yeah,” Archie agreed. “Italian marble. It was sculpted in Florence and flown here piece by piece to be assembled under the supervision of the Japanese architect who designed it.”

“What's that gizmo?” the cop pointed.

“A special, electrically powered, custom-made bidet-like toilet imported from France,” Archie told him.

“Well, I'll be damned! How does it work?”

“These jets here eject warm water to cleanse the user.” Archie pressed a button and demonstrated. “Then these jets eject warm air for drying.” He pressed another button.

“What’s that there for? ” Flannery pointed to a third button.

“That's an alternate, in case the user’s in a rush.” Archie pushed it. “See, it’s a brush with a disposable felt surface for quick wiping.”

“You mean there are people who are too lazy to wipe their own-—?”

“As old F. Scott Jazzage put it,” Archie reminded him, “ ‘the very rich are different from you and I.’ And as somebody else—I forget who—-said, ‘With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.’ ”

“And what’s that? ” Flannery pointed to a switch which was set apart from the other buttons.

“Strictly for female use,” Archie told him. “It sets in motion a small grappling mechanism for extracting sanitary tampons.”

“Oh.” Flannery blushed. “Well, I guess you'd better-—-"

“Yeah. I guess I had.” Archie stared at him quizzically.

“I gotta stay here with you. Sorry,” Flannery apologized.

“Oh, all right.” Archie quickly concluded his business and flushed the toilet. “Want to try it?” he suggested to Flannery.

“Gee, I really shouldn’t. I mean, I'm supposed to be guarding you.”

“Oh, go on. You’ll probably never have another chance. Even a cop should have a little luxury in his life some time or other.”

“Okay.” Flannery took out his gun and pointed it at Archie apologetically as he lowered his pants and seated himself. “Can’t afford to take any chances," he explained. “The inspector would skin me alive if I let you get away.”

“Perfectly all right,” Archie assured him. “I understand. . . . How do you like it?”

“This is really living,” Flannery enthused. “Say, what kind of fur is this seat covered with, anyway?”

“Sable.”

“No kidding?” The cop chuckled. “Now ain’t that something?”

Archie grinned back, casually stretched, and as he lowered his hand flicked the fourth of the switches about which Flannery had inquired. Silently, the extraction mechanism activated itself. It took a few seconds for it to affect Flannery.

The perils of automation, Archie thought to himself as the policeman screamed. Flannery’s feet shot out from under him and straight up in the air as the unthinking gizmo failed to distinguish between the target for which it had been created and the one which was available. His arms also shot up as he was pulled downward and forward. As the hand holding the gun flailed helplessly, Archie delivered an up-from-under karate chop to Flannery’s wrist. The gun went spinning as Archie’s other hand came down hard and hit smack on the nerve target of Flannery’s neck. As the mechanism released its excruciating hold and retreated back into its socket, the cop pitched forward on his face, unconscious.

Archie quickly clambered over him and pulled himself up to the high, small window set in the bathroom wall. He extended his arms straight out and wriggled through the window headfirst, scraping quite a bit of skin from his shoulders and hips in the process. A less lanky boy might not have been able to manage it, might have gotten stuck halfway through. But Archie pulled through, and a moment later he tumbled headfirst into the evergreen bushes ringing the side of the town house.

He huddled there a moment, getting his breath back and casing the situation. He could see half a dozen police cars pulled up at the curb on the side street. There were three or four policemen stationed on this side of the house as well.

It was a predicament. Flannery might come to any minute and sound the alarm. If Archie simply tried walking past the cops, they'd be sure to stop him and ask questions. And the odds were against his sneaking past, or making a successful run for it.

As Archie considered this dilemma, luck took a hand and its solution rolled up on four double-tired wheels. It was the truck of a private garbage-disposal company, and Archie watched as the driver climbed down from the cab and explained to the cop in charge that they’d been hired to dispose of the refuse from the Jones party. The cop gave his approval and the driver led three other men around to the side of the house were Archie was hiding.

While they were doing this, Archie surreptitiously got hold of one of the cans they hadn’t emptied yet, tilted it over on its side, and pulled it into the bushes. He emptied the contents out of sight behind the evergreens. Then he set the large pail back on end, squeezed inside it, and jammed the cover on top of himself.

A moment later he felt the can being angled as one of the garbage men started rolling it toward the sidewalk. “Jeez!” the garbage man complained. “This one must have bricks in it! ”

The can was bumped from the curb to the glitter. Motion stopped, and Archie’s head stopped spinning as it was set upright. Perhaps five minutes passed, and Archie could hear was a steady sort of grinding, rumbling noise. Finally he decided to chance it, eased the lid off slightly, and peered out over the rim of the garbage can.

It was fortunate that he took the chance before it was too late. What he saw was the four garbage men positioned at the rear of the garbage truck and performing their duties by rote, a routine series of motions they were evidently used to doing. Two of them grabbed each of the pails in turn and lifted it. As it cleared the ground, a third man heaved up against the bottom of the pail, adding to its momentum. With the precise timing of a dancer in a perfectly choreographed ballet, the fourth man swept the top off the can so it could be emptied and then disposed of the empty pail, twirling it along the sidewalk so that it lined up perfectly with the other empties.

But it wasn’t the men that held Archie's attention. It was the maw at the rear of the garbage truck, the large mouth with its grinding steel teeth chewing the garbage to pulp. He had a sudden vision of himself being swallowed by it, being chewed to bits, going down the metal gullet as he screamed for help. He envisioned his hands waving frantically as they were torn from the rest of him. And then he saw the hands too being swallowed up right down to the last protestingly wagging finger. It wasn't exactly a pleasant prospect.

Archie replaced the cover as the men turned toward the pail in which he was hiding. A few moments later the pail was hoisted to the accompaniment of muttered curses at its unusual weight. At the instant that the cover was removed, Archie sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, fist first. “Surprise!” he shouted as he clipped the garbage man who had removed the cover flush on the jaw. He leaped sideways to avoid the grinding metal teeth and kept going around the side of the truck.

As he jumped into the driver’s seat in the cab, behind him there was turmoil. The three garbage men had dropped the pail and were helping the fourth to his feet, their voices garbled with one another as they tried to make sense out of what was happening. By the time Archie had started the motor, two new voices had been added to the hubbub as a pair of cops came running up to investigate the confusion. Archie threw the truck into gear and gunned the motor. The last thing he heard as he shot off down the street was the voice of the driver wailing to the cops: “My garbage truck’s being stolen! Do something!”

Archie didn't wait for the cops to decide what to do. By the time they’d drawn their guns and were taking aim, he was skidding around the corner. He made a series of rapid turns, heading north by east, just in case an attempt should be made to follow him. Then, when he was sure he’d lost any possible pursuers, he slowed down and cruised idly while he contemplated what he should do next.

With Strom Huntley turning his back on him, Archie saw himself being set up as a patsy for the police. There’d be an alarm out for him before long—if there wasn't already-—and once he was apprehended he might languish in jail for who knew how long while the CIA took its own sweet time with the case. And meanwhile, the formula for which Beaumarchais had been murdered might be finding its way into the worst possible hands.

Archie’s best educated guess was that Dixie Keller had taken the formula and might still have it. So he pointed the truck toward the address which Helen Giammori had given him for Dixie. Ideally, he knew, he should contact Vito first to set up the meeting so that he might see Dixie without being clobbered by the two gorillas Vito had arranged to protect her. But Vito was still undoubtedly occupied with the cops, and there was no time to wait for him to get uninvolved. At least he had the advantage of knowing the hoods were there, Archie told himself as he pulled the truck to a stop in front of the modest East Side apartment house corresponding to the address Helen Giammori had given him.

There was no doorman, which was a break. The door to the lobby was slightly ajar -- break number two. A self-service elevator made it three. Archie hoped three breaks to a customer wasn’t the limit.

He rang the doorbell to the apartment and ducked down just before he heard the sound of the peephole being opened. A moment later it was closed. Archie rang again and ducked again. After the third time the door was opened and a head peered cautiously out into the hall. A gun poked out with a hand attached to it.

Archie yanked the hand as he sprang straight up from his crouch. The gun clattered to the floor just as the top of Archie’s head slammed into the hood’s Adam’s apple. The gunsel let out a sound that was half-grunt, half-yell as Archie brought his whole weight to bear in a push that propelled the two of them back into the apartment. Archie kicked the door closed as they struggled.

His opponent was a big man. He caught Archie in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides and bouncing him hard. Archie worked one foot back behind him and brought it forward in a short karate kick that connected solidly with the hood’s shin. The burly gunsel sank half to the floor from the impact of the blow, but he didn’t relinquish his grip on Archie. He did, however, yell for help.

A twin gorilla came into the foyer on the run. He was as big as the first one. Like the first, he was dripping muscles. His gun was held at the ready. He circled the locked combatants carefully, seeking a clear shot.

Archie was just as careful. He kept shifting to keep the first plug-ugly between himself and the second. The bully-boy was stronger than he was, but Archie had the advantage of knowing how to apply his foe’s strength for his own benefit.

Now Archie did just that. As the hood exerted all his strength to swing him around so his cohort could get a clear shot, Archie took him by surprise by going limp so that the movement put him off balance. The result was that Archie was carried past the gun too fast to allow for a shot, and he used the momentum to carry him downward with a sudden lurch his opponent hadn’t expected. It freed him from the encircling arms and enabled him to swing low enough to slam his elbow into the hoodlum’s groin.

As the first hood doubled over, the second one again circled to get behind Archie. But Archie was too fast for him. He got behind the first hood and slammed both hands simultaneously into the rear tendons of his legs so that he pitched forward against the gun-wielder. Archie took advantage of the tangle to grab a lamp from a foyer table and slam it down on top of the head of the hood with the gun. He wrenched the gun from his grasp as he fell and pointed it at the first gunsel.

“Stay just the way you are,” Archie told the agonized hood who was clutching his wounded groin. “I want to remember you always that way.”

The hood started to straighten up.

“Uh-uh!” Archie told him. “Just hold onto yourself and don’t move.” He reached behind him and opened the door to a closet in the foyer. Still holding the gun on the hood, he groped behind him until he’d pulled a belt loose from a raincoat that was hanging there. Using one hand and his teeth, he tied a slipknot in it. “Turn around and hold out your hands behind you,” he instructed the gunsel.

When he’d obeyed, Archie came up behind him and tied his hands. Then he made him lie down on the floor and looped the same tether around his ankles. When he was through, the gunsel was trussed up with his legs bent at the knees and his hands tied to his feet. Then Archie went back to the closet, found another belt, and tied up the unconscious plug-ugly in the same way. He fastened his tie to the radiator and then shoved the first hood into the closet and closed the door on him. That way, he figured, they wouldn't be able to help each other get loose. That done, Archie made his way to the rear of the apartment.

The door to the bedroom was closed. Archie opened it. There was a small night light on over the bed. Its rays only half illuminated a sight that had Archie doing a double-take.

Dixie Keller was stretched out on the bed. Her red hair fanned out over the pillow. Her arms and legs were pulled wide, held in place by ropes fastening her wrists and ankles to the four bedposts. The position wasn’t unlike the scene Archie had watched Helen Giammori and Batman enacting for the pornographic movie Vito had been shooting. Except that Helen had been wearing a nightgown, whereas Dixie was completely nude.

Also, she was gagged. Her green eyes bulged with her plea to be freed as she stared at Archie. But she wasn't able to make any sounds or to give words to the plea.

A fine film of perspiration covered her naked body. It was a cool night, and Archie wondered at it. Then he saw the reason. In the space between each of her toes, matches had been inserted, head-first. Two of the matches were mere burnt and crumbling sticks of evidence as to what had been done to her. As Archie approached he could see the blisters they’d caused and he could detect the odor of burning flesh.

Quickly, he removed the gag and untied Dixie. As soon as she was free she rasped the wounded foot with both hands as if by holding it so she might soothe the pain. Archie stood back and watched her sympathetically.

“Did Vito’s two goons do that?” he asked finally.

She nodded without speaking.

“But why? I thought you hired them to protect you.”

“I did.” She snorted. “Some protection!”

“What did they want from you?”

“The same thing you’re after.” She looked at him levelly.

“You mean Beaumarchais’ formula?”

Dixie didn’t answer.

“Do you have it?” Archie persisted.

She curled up and continued patting her injured foot.

“Look,” Archie said, “if they got it from you, it still might not be too late to get it back. But you have to tell me."

The redhead seemingly ignored him.

“Then they didn’t get it,” Archie concluded. “You still have it.”

She shrugged.

“You did take it, didn’t you?”

Another shrug.

“You must have. Why else would you have killed Beaumarchais?"

“I didn’t kill him!” Now that she’d finally deigned to speak, her voice was indignant.

“He was alone in the room with you," Archie reminded her. “You must have killed him.”

“We weren’t alone.”

“You weren’t? Who else was there?”

‘Whoever killed Beaumarchais, that’s who. But I didn’t see the killer. I don’t know who it was. The shot came from outside the window. There’s a fire escape there.”

“Is that how you left?” Archie wanted to know. “By the fire escape?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Weren’t you afraid you’d run into the killer?”

“Yes. But I was in a hurry. I didn’t want to get involved in a murder case. That’s why I took the chance.”

“Come on! Quit putting me on! There’s more to it than that, and you know it,” Archie insisted. “You wouldn’t have chanced running into an armed murderer on the fire escape in the dark if you hadn’t had more at stake than just getting involved. Either you killed Beaumarchais yourself, or you stole his papers right after he was murdered. That’s the only way it adds up.”

“Think what you want to think,” she told him haughtily .

“If I’m wrong, then how come you went to such lengths to have Helen Giammori put you in contact with Beaumarchais? ”

“The way she talked about him, he sounded interesting. And I knew his reputation. That’s all there was to it.”

“You expect me to swallow that you were just looking for a thrill?”

“I don’t care what you believe.”

“Maybe you'll care if I call the cops.” Archie feinted toward the phone on the nightstand beside the bed.

“You’re bluffing. I heard one of the hoods on the phone with Vito before. I know the cops are after you for the murder. You wouldn’t dare call them. So why don’t you just pick up your marbles and take it on the lam, kid?”

“Is that gratitude?” Archie asked petulantly. “Here I come on like the Horse Marines and rescue you from those toe-toasters, and this is the thanks I get. Can't you show a little appreciation?”

“What's to appreciate? I know what you’re after. You’re no different from the rest of them.”

“Then you do have the Beaumarchais papers,” Archie said doggedly.

“Suppose I do?” she answered archly. “Would you be interested? ”

“Very.”

“How much is ‘very’ in the coin of the realm?”

“How much are you asking?” Archie decided to go along with the haggling.

“The last bid I had was two hundred thou.”

Archie whistled. “Somebody must want them awful bad,” he granted. “Don’t tell me that's what Vito’s Mafia boys were willing to pay.”

“Don’t be ridic! They’re strictly something-for-nothing bargainers. They got wind of what was up and decided to cut themselves in—and me out; that’s all. They weren’t buying; they just wanted to do the selling. That s why they were barbecuing my bunions. They wanted the merchandise so they could peddle it themselves.”

“Then who did offer the two hundred Gs?”

Dixie’s smile said that was for her to know and him to find out.

“The Russians? The Chinese? Some international cartel?”

“How do you know it wasn’t the CIA?” she teased him. “It’s important enough for them to make a bid, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Archie agreed. “It probably is. But the CIA guy who’d probably make it was too busy arranging his sex life to be bothered the last time I saw him. All right.” He took a deep breath. “If you won’t tell me who made the offer, how about telling me who put you onto Beaumarchais in the first place.”

“Why should I? What’s in it for me?”

Archie thought fast. “Protection,” he offered finally. “And the chance that I’ll be able to make a deal for you with the CIA to get the papers back.”

“I just might be interested” Dixie admitted. “About the deal, I mean. But I don’t need protection. I can take care of myself. And even if I did, what good would a skinny kid like you be to me?”

“I didn’t do so badly,” Archie reminded her. “And if I left now, those hotfoot experts might get loose and give you another going over.” He tossed the gun he’d taken from the hood up into the air and caught it neatly by the barrel. “Also, I’d guess that some of the other parties you’ve been dickering with might not be above pulling a fingernail or two if they thought it might save them two hundred Gs. No telling what they might do to get those papers without paying. Yeah, you need a bodyguard, baby. I’ll admit it’s a body worth guarding, so let's just say I’m applying for the job."

“If you‘re gonna come on like Humphrey Bogart, you should really get a haircut,” Dixie admonished him. She thought a moment. “There is something in what you say,” she granted. “I’ll tell you what. You stay here with me tonight. In the morning we’ll go to another place I’ve arranged for a hideout. The man with the two hundred Gs will contact me there. You act as go-between, and I’ll cut you in. He won’t get to me before tomorrow night. If you want to play Patrick Henry and make a deal with the CIA before then, that’s okay with me, too. So long as there’s no interference with my getting out of the country day after tomorrow."

“It’s a deal,” Archie agreed. “But don’t you think you should tell me where the papers are so I’ll be able to guard them, too?”

“No, I don’t think that. I don't think that at all. As a matter of fact, what I think is that it would be pretty damn stupid to tell you.”

“I dig.” Archie grinned. “You trust me, but only to a point. Right? ”

“Right.”

“Okay.” Archie saw no alternative to playing it the way it was being dealt him. “I’ll be just outside playing watchdog if you want me." He started for the door.

“Oh, no! ” Her voice was firm and it stopped him.

“No? Why not?”

“Two reasons. The first is that you’re probably just looking for a chance to ransack the rest of the apartment. And the second is that if I’m gonna have protection, it’s gonna be right here beside me where it’ll do some good.” She patted the bed.

“You mean you want me to sleep with you?

“Gun and all!” she insisted. “What’s the matter? Am I so hard to take?”

“No.” Archie looked at her naked body as she once again stretched herself out on the bed. It was a slender body with small, firm, high, pointy breasts and smooth hips. A faint flush of pink suffused the ivory flesh tints, giving Dixie’s torso an aura of warmth which was enhanced by the red hair streaming down over her shoulders to her breasts. Under Archie’s stare the nipples of her breasts widened and grew longer until they seemed to beckon from between the tendrils of hair like dark red rubies glittering in a bed of orange-red blossoms. “No,” Archie repeated. “You’re not so hard to take.”

“Then come on over here and protect me.” Her voice was sultry, and she stretched her arms out to him. “You’re a bodyguard. Well, do your duty and take care of my body.”

Archie crossed over to the bed and perched next to her.

“If you’re going to guard it, you should really get to know it,” Dixie murmured, running her hands up her hips to her bosom and then holding her breasts out to Archie almost as if she was offering him some fruit.

Archie reached out and touched one of her breasts with one hand. Immediately Dixie put her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers. The breast-tip burned against his palm. Her lips were moist and eager, her tongue searching. Archie put his free arm around her and she pulled away suddenly. “That damn gun is pretty cold against my bare back,” she complained.

“Sorry. I’ll try to be more careful.”

“Why don't you put it down?”

“That would make me derelict in my duties as a bodyguard,” he pointed out.

“Oh, all right. But at least get undressed.”

“Turn the light off,” Archie said.

“My god! You act like you’re a virgin or something.”

She turned off the bedlamp and the room was plunged into darkness.

“I am,” Archie told her as he stood up in the dark and took off his clothes.

“Oh, sure. So am I,” Dixie said sarcastically.

“But I really am,” Archie insisted. “You should know that. So if I seem inexperienced, you'll know why.”

“Quit putting me on."

Why is the world so full of doubters? Archie wondered. Any sin, any crime is believable. But innocence? Unthinkable! People will forgive you anything except the sins you haven’t committed, he reflected. Archie sighed. “Honest, I’ve come close, but I’ve never really been with a woman before,” he insisted.

“Really?” Dixie’s voice said she was beginning to believe him. “Well, then, we’re just going to have to make this something really special!” She reached out her hand and determined that Archie had stripped. Then she rolled over and caressed him intimately with her lips. “Yes,” she decided, “it certainly feels like you’ve been saving it for a long time. Come on!” Her voice said the idea of his virginity excited her. “You’re going to have your first lesson from a master! ”

“You mean a mistress,” Archie corrected her.

“Don’t be presumptuous. A single drink doesn’t mean you own the reservoir. Still, we’ll see. Come on! Lie down.” She tugged at his manhood.

“Just a minute,” Archie said. “I want to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, hurry up.”

“I won’t be a minute.” Archie felt his way through the darkness to the bathroom door, closed it behind him, and turned on the light. He set the gun down on the washstand and did what he had to do. Then he picked up the gun, turned off the light, and went back into the pitch-black bedroom. He found his way to the be and stretched out alongside Dixie. Her body was still warm and pliable as he put his arms around it.

He kissed her on the lips. Her mouth was warm, but strangely unresponsive. He caressed her breasts. They seemed to tremble under his touch, but otherwise she didn't move. “Come on. Give me my first lesson!” Archie murmured in her ear. His hand trailed down her belly and worked its way between her thighs. Still she lay still. Archie reached around and ran his fingers up her plump buttocks, urging her to him. Higher his fingers went, and then-—

Archie shot up in bed, the gun held ready in one hand, and turned on the light. His sudden fear was confirmed. There was a trickle of still-warm blood from Dixie’s back to her derriere. Just above it, at the source, there was a dagger sticking out of her back.

Archie scrambled away from her. She fell on her back on the bed, her head dangling loosely from her neck. Her eyes stared grotesquely. She didn't look sexy any more. She didn’t look vibrant and full of life. What she looked was what she was-

Dead!

CHAPTER NINE

“Very traumatic, of course.” That’s what the shrink would say on Archie’s next visit, and Archie, naturally, would agree. “To have one’s early attempts at sexual experience aborted by death,” the shrink would continue, musing, “might leave a lifelong scar on the psyche, a scar affecting one’s lifetime attitude toward the love act.” Archie would nod seriously. “To stem this effect before it has a chance to rigidify into a subconscious viewpoint,” the shrink would suggest, “we must take a long, hard look at the emotional reaction at the very moment of trauma. Now, what was your first response when you found that the woman you were caressing, the woman you were about to make love to, was dead?” Archie would think and he would remember and he would relive the moment. And once again he would utter the phrase that sprang to his lips when he realized that Dixie was dead.

“EEK!” Archie would tell the shrink.

“EEK!” he shrieked now as Dixie’s dead eyes continued to stare at him.

“Regardless of the circumstances,” the shrink would continue, “to your subconscious mind it must have seemed that the female preferred dropping dead to having intercourse with you. This might be termed the ultimate rejection. Think now, how did you feel at the moment?”

“Rejected,” Archie would tell the shrink. “Rejected like crazy!”

“Why did you have to go and get yourself killed before I had a chance to make love to you?” Now Archie’s mind framed the bitter question and directed it at the corpse lying on the bed.

“The emotionally adolescent level of consciousness would of course he stunned by the impact of death at such a moment,” the shrink would persist. “But at some point rationality must have taken over and you must have rejected the dead ‘thing’ which had seemingly rejected you. Now just how did you react to that realization?"

“I yelled,” Archie would tell him.

“What did you yell?”

“MURDER!”

“You felt threatened for your own safety?”

“Yes, I felt threatened.”

Looking at the corpse now, Archie felt sudden fear for his own safety. He felt threatened. Very threatened. “MURDER!” he yelled.

Nobody answered. Just the echo of his own voice. Only the sight of Dixie’s arched body resting on the knife inserted in its back. Merely the presence of death with no hint as to its cause.

Archie calmed down. He had to think. Someone had killed Dixie Keller. That someone was undoubtedly after the papers Dixie had stolen from Beaumarchais. Only a few moments could have elapsed since the murder. The murderer probably hadn’t had time to locate the papers yet. In which case, the killer was undoubtedly still on the premises. I.e., Archie decided, he himself was number one target should the killer decide to strike again.

Archie pursued this logic. If the killer was around, then Archie's return from the bathroom must have forced him into hiding. Ergo, he must still be hiding. The question was: where?

Archie scrutinzed the room. The two most likely hiding places, he decided, were the clothes closet and underneath the very bed on which he was still gingerly perched beside the naked corpse. The clothes closet seem the more likely hiding place of the two. But under-the-bed was closer at hand. So Archie put his head between his legs and peered under the bed.

An upside-down face peered back at him. Even upside-down, the face was familiar. Surprisingly familiar. It was the last face Archie had expected to see. Indeed, he was so startled that he straightened up and blinked his eyes hard. Then he looked again to make sure he was seeing right.

No mistake. It was the face he’d thought it was. “You!” he exclaimed as the face peered back. Archie crooked a finger. “Come out of there!” he commanded.

“Shalom.” Helen Steinberg greeted him as she wriggled out from under the bed.

“Statistically,” Archie told her with a sigh, “murder is not a Jewish crime. It has no place in the ethnic ethic. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Your being young doesn’t mean you should be in such a hurry to jump to conclusions,” she objected. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“I suppose you were just parking your knife where you could find it if you wanted it,” Archie suggested sarcastically.

“It’s not my knife, and I didn’t kill her!”

“If you didn’t, then who did?”

There was a loud sneeze from the clothes closet.

“Gezundheit,” Helen Steinberg said automatically.

“I knew that was the more likely of the two hiding places for a murderer,” Archie said regretfully. “I should have looked there first.”

“It would have been a fatal look,” a masculine voice from behind the door of the clothes closet assured him. “But then I regret to say that the situation is probably going to be fatal for you two, anyway.” As if to prove the point, the closet door opened and a cocked revolver poked its way into the room. A small man with a large, bald head and a waxed goatee followed it. There was a large button on the lapel of his suit jacket. There was a number on the button, under which was printed in large, block letters: “BROOKHAVEN LABORATORIES TOP LEVEL CLEARANCE.”

“Aha!” Archie exulted. “I know who you are!”

“So who is he?” Helen Steinberg asked.

“He’s a Russian agent that the CIA’s had under surveillance. Strom Huntley told me all about him.”

“Strom Huntley? This is a name?" Helen Steinberg wondered.

“He’s a big wheel in the CIA,” Archie assured her.

“A Jewish name it’s not,” she decided.

“So the CIA’s had me under surveillance, eh?" the Russian mused. “I didn't know that.”

“Maybe I shouldn't have told you.” The thought occurred to Archie.

“No. I’m glad you did. It hurts my ego and it threatens my status, but it’s the kind of thing a man should know. It's the kind of thing a spy has to face up to squarely without kidding himself.”

“I wasn’t concerned about you,” Archie said. “I was thinking of it from the point of view of national security."

“Oh.” The spy looked hurt. “I thought you meant — Well, never mind. Let’s get down to business. Where did the deceased hide the formula?”

“I don’t know,” Archie said truthfully. “You should have asked her that before you stuck the knife in her."

“There wasn’t time,” the spy admitted regretfully. “Not being familiar with your bathroom habits, I wanted to get it over with before there was a chance of your returning and catching me in the act.”

“I don’t dig why you had to kill her, anyway,” Archie said.

“It looked like she was going to double-cross me. She was giving you the go-ahead to deal with the CIA. And after I’d made a firm deal with her!”

“If it was so firm, what were you doing in her closet eavesdropping in the first place?” Archie asked.

“Well, two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. If I could save it for my government— Besides, I didn’t trust her. And I was right."

“Just how long were you in that closet?” Archie wondered.

“A very long time.”

“You could believe him,” Helen Steinberg assured Archie. “Look how he smells of mothballs."

“Were you there while those hoods were torturing Dixie?” Archie asked.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you put a stop to it?”

“In the first place, it wasn’t my place to interfere. And in the second place, I found it interesting from a professional point of view. When it comes to torture, I try to keep up with any new developments in the field.”

“Weren’t you afraid they’d make her talk and then take off with the formula before you could stop them?”

“On the contrary,” the spy corrected Archie. “I was hoping they would make her talk and save me a lot of trouble. If they had, I had confidence in my ability to shoot them down before they might put the information to use.”

“You’re a bloodthirsty cat, aren’t you?” Archie observed. “It was you who killed Professor Beaumarchais, wasn’t it?”

“That was my handiwork,” the Russian admitted modestly. “Neat, wasn’t it? I so much prefer a gun to a knife. It’s much less sloppy.”

“You have an unfortunate habit,” Archie told him bitterly, “of bumping people off at the most inopportune moments.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You’re sorry!” Archie snorted. A sudden thought took his mind off his regrets. “But if you killed the professor,” he wondered, “then how come you didn’t steal the formula yourself?

“I’m embarrassed to tell you.” The spy blushed.

“Aw, come on, now. Don’t be embarrassed. Spit it out,” Archie wheedled.

“Well, all right.” The spy looked at his shoes and his voice was very low. “You see, I shot the professor from the fire escape. A very nice piece of marksmanship, if l do say so myself. Anyway, at the sound of the shot, the red-headed lady jumped up and looked directly toward the window from which it had come. I leaped back out of sight, intending to take careful aim and finish her off as well.”

“Why didn't you?” Archie asked. “What stopped you?”

“As I jumped back a jagged piece of metal on the fire-escape snagged my trousers. I was unable to free myself. It was a very awkward position.”

“I’ll bet it was,” Archie granted.

“Somebody should complain to the building department the things these landlords get away with,” Helen Steinberg interjected. “There’s a special number, you could call it day or night.”

“There was no telephone handy,” the spy reminded her. “And even if there had been, I don’t think I would have used it. I was otherwise occupied. For one thing, I was trying to get the seat of my pants loose. For another I was trying to draw a bead on the redhead. Two things interfered with that. The first was the way my snagged trousers hampered my movements. The second was the fact that she had quickly crossed over to the safe to get the papers and was out of range.”

“But she said she left by the fire escape,” Archie remembered. “Why didn’t you dust her then and grab the papers?”

“She was too smart for me. And too fast.” The spy sighed. “Instead of coming straight through the window, she sneaked up on it from the side. She'd scrambled into her clothes by then and she’d picked up a quart whiskey bottle that had been on the nightstand. From the angle of her approach, I couldn't see her coming. She was on me before I realized what she was up to. She cracked the bottle down on my wrist hard and I dropped the gun. Then she broke the damn thing over my head. By the time I stopped seeing stars, she was past me and half way down the fire escape.”

“Three things still puzzle me," Archie mused. “Who sicced her on the professor in the first place? How did she know the formula was in the safe, or even that there was a safe hidden behind that picture? And where did she get the combination to the safe?"

“The last two questions are simply answered,” the Russian told him. “Your French friend was typically Gallic when it came to women and quite garrulous when it came to liquor. Before I shot him, while I was listening outside on the fire escape, I was appalled at how easily the redhead wheedled information out of him. She was very good at getting him to talk about his work. The more interested she seemed, the more he blabbed. He told her all about the formula for making gold from base metals and explained its importance to her in terms of world economics. By egging him on to brag some more, she had him careless enough to mention the safe and to tell her that the combination was in his wallet. They even had a big laugh about how he’d been caught in a storm and the rain had soaked through his raincoat and almost obliterated the numbers of the combination.”

“But who was behind her?” Archie persisted.

“That I don’t know.” The Russian shrugged. “Either the Egyptians or the Chinese, I suppose. Outside of us, they’d have the most to gain from the formula because they’d have the most to gain from the devaluation of the gold the United States uses to redeem its currency abroad.

“The Egyptians? I hadn’t thought of them,” Archie admitted.

“I had,” Helen Steinberg said bitterly. “You can’t take your eyes off those sneaky Arabs for a minute they're stealing the mazuzah from around your throat. But it wasn’t them that put Dixie Keller up to stealing the formula,” she added positively.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Just take my word for it, I’m sure.”

“Then it must have been the Chinese,” the Russian was sure. “Those little, yellow, slant-eyed, fanatic bastards!”

“Such a way to talk! And from a Communist just like them, too! The Anti-Defamation League should only know!”

“Imperialist Zionist!” the Russian spat at her. “I’ll talk any way I feel like. And you’re not going to stop me, because I’m going to eliminate you right now.” He glared and clicked the safety off the revolver. “Both of you," he added.

“Why me? I didn’t say anything,” Archie pointed out with desperate logic.

“You know too much. You have to die. Sorry.”

“You're sorry?” Archie became angry. “How do you think I feel? It isn’t bad enough you’re going to rub me out, but thanks to you, I'm going to have to die a virgin!"

“Are you implying maybe that I’m not?” Helen Steinberg was indignant.

“Not at all.” Archie assured her. “No offense, really.”

“You’ll be better off dead, anyway," the Russian told her spitefully. “A nice Jewish girl like you sleeping with Chinks!”

“I never!” Helen Steinberg protested hotly.

“Well, the way you talk, you would if you had the chance. It makes my Russian blood boil to think of you with some yellow-bellied little slant-eyed Trotskyite!"

“That did it!”

All heads turned at the sound of the new voice from the doorway to the bedroom. The Russian’s head didn’t turn quite fast enough. Before he’d focused his eyes, two shots rang out and he pitched forward to the floor on his face.

“That’s no way,” Helen Steinberg chided the Oriental gentleman with the smoking revolver. “Violence is no answer to prejudice. You should turn the other cheekbone.”

“Too late now. missy.” The Chinese blew coolly down the barrel of the revolver to clear the smoke. “The chauvinist, capitalist Russian is dead. And good riddance! Now we see who really will bury whom!”

“How did you get in here?” Archie wondered.

“Through the front door. Somebody left it open.”

“That’s true.” Helen Steinberg confirmed it. “It was open when I came in before, too. When you were in the bathroom and I sneaked under the bed, I mean.”

“So that’s how you got there.” Archie nodded. “I was wondering about that. But how come Dixie didn’t see you?"

“I guess she must have been dead already yet.”

“Just what are you doing here?" Archie asked Helen Steinberg.

“What’s that? ” She ignored Archie’s question and pointed to a large bundle perched on the floor behind the Chinese.

“Laundry,” the Oriental told her.

“You mean you’re a laundryman?”

“I’ve found it to be an excellent cover-up for my real work in behalf of world Communism.”

“But it's a stereotype!” Helen protested. “Don’t you realize you’re playing into the hands of the bigots by taking on the guise of a laundryman? I mean. for a Chinese it’s like smiling enigmatically, or looking impassive."

The Chinese looked at her impassively. Slowly, an enigmatic smile creased his features. “What you’re saying is that an Oriental doesn’t dare be inscrutable even if he happens to feel inscrutable -- whatever that feeling may be," he told her. “Like all decadent democrats, you would rob us of our heritage.” The smile vanished and his features became inscrutable. “I’ll be a laundryman if it suits me to be a laundryman,” he said with true Oriental calm. “And if you don’t like it, you can just go to the laundromat and be damned. You people are all alike. Always complaining about too much starch, or too little starch, or losing your ticket! Always sounding off about the white man’s burden while it’s us who have to carry the laundry! It’s one helluva --”

“You’re losing your inscrutability,” Archie interrupted.

“So sorry.” The Chinese mocked him. “It’s just that I get so mad! But then we digress. To get back to the matter at hand, where is the formula?”

“We don’t know,” Archie said truthfully. “And personally I’m getting pretty tired of being asked.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re no more to be trusted than she was.” The Chinese pointed at the corpse of Dixie Keller. “She pretended to be a dedicated Mao-ist, got me to trust her and assign her to this Beaumarchais business, and then when she had the formula she went and double-crossed me with the Russians.”

“How did you get wind of the Beaumarchais formula in the first place?” Archie asked.

“His laundryman in Paris alerted us. He's one of our agents.”

“Are all Chinese laundrymen Communist spies?” Helen Steinberg exclaimed.

“Now who’s being chauvinistic?” the Chinese taunted her. “Just because I said he was a laundryman, you leap to the conclusion that he was Chinese. As a matter of fact, he happens to be a Laplander.”

“A Laplander laundryman in Paris?” Archie thought about it. “And a spy for the Chinese Communists to boot.”

“Laplanders can have an economic conscience, too, you know,” the Chinese put Archie down. “And he’s a good laundryman — except sometimes he tends to be a little heavy on the detergent.”

“You’re not implying that would be true of all Laplander laundrymen, I hope,” Helen Steinberg said anxiously.

“Not at all,” the Chinese assured her. “I have no prejudice whatsoever toward Laplander laundrymen. And in the case of this particular Laplander, believe me when I say that we work shoulder-to-shoulder for world revolution." He drew himself up. “But I can allow you to distract me from my purpose no longer,” he said firmly. “Where is the formula?”

“We don’t know!” Archie and Helen chorused.

“If that is true, then you will die for your ignorance. If it isn’t, you will die for your stubbornness.” The Chinese pointed the gun straight at Archie’s heart.

A shot rang out. A look of surprised inscrutability spread over the features of the Chinese. He hadn’t fired the shot. His eyelids lowered enigmatically until his eyes fastened on the Russian. He was still on the floor where he had fallen before, but now he was propped up on one elbow, gun still in hand. “You’re not dead.” The voice of the Chinese was impassive.

“Nyet.”

“But I shot you twice, straight through the heart.”

The Russian merely smiled broadly.

“What’s to smile about? ” Helen Steinberg wondered aloud.

“I always smile when it hurts,” the Russian told her.

“With me it’s the other way around,” the Chinese said. “It always hurts when I smile.”

“You sub-culture Orientals do everything backwards,” the Russian sneered.

“Don’t you sneer at me,” the Chinese sneered back. “If it wasn’t for these inferior guns you Russians palmed off on us, you’d be dead now!”

“That’s gratitude for you!” The Russian grimaced with pain. ‘There’s nothing wrong with our guns, and I can prove it! ” He shot the Chinese again.

The Chinese staggered over to where he was lying, placed his own gun against the top of the Russian’s head, and fired. The top of the Russian’s head flew off.

“Oooh! I’m splattered with Bolshevik brains!” Helen Steinberg made a face and shuddered.

“So sorry," the Chinese apologized as he sank to his knees. But I guess I’ll show him who’s going to bury whom,” he added as the bloodstain over his heart widened.

“But you're dying, too,” Archie pointed out.

“But I killed him first. You don’t understand, do you? That’s the whole trouble with you Americans. You’ll simply never understand the Asiatic concept of ‘face’.”

“I guess not,” Archie granted. “Any last requests before you kick off?”

“Yes,” the Chinese gasped. “Will you please see to it that that bundle of laundry gets delivered to 3C. I really only stopped off here on my way up there.” There was a rattle in his throat, and his breathing became extremely labored.

“Will do,” Archie assured him. “Well, it looks like you have to be going now. Ta-ta.”

“Ta-ta,” the Chinese echoed, stiffened momentarily, and fell back dead.

“He was true to his calling to the last,” Helen Steinberg said, picking up the bag of laundry and hefting it over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“To carry out his dying request,” she told him over her shoulder as she carried out the laundry. “I’ll be right back.”

“Oh.” Archie shrugged off her departure. He had more important fish to fry. Systematically, he began ransacking Dixie Keller’s bedroom, looking for the stolen papers. He was still at it when Helen Steinberg returned a few moments later.

“This place is a mess,” she declared, standing in the doorway and looking from one to another of the bloody corpses strewn around the bedroom. “Why do men always have to be so sloppy when they murder people? Women aren’t like that. Take Lucrezia Borgia, for instance—”

“You take her,” Archie interrupted. “Right now I’ve got to locate those papers.”

“Well, they shouldn't be so hard to find.”

“Really?” Archie was sarcastic. “Well, suppose you tell me where to look, then.”

“All you have to do is think logically where a woman would hide something if she didn’t want it to be found.”

“And where would that be?”

“Well, most women would go through a sort of step-by-step process of reasoning.” Helen held her finger to her cheek. “Now, if I wanted to hide something around here, for instance,” she said, “the first place I might think of would be that box with the flushing thingamajig behind the toilet in the bathroom."

“Why would you think of that first?”

“Because it’s the last thing a woman would go near.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. Let’s have a look.”

“Don’t bother. It won’t be there.”

“Why not?”

“Because the next thing I’d think of is that any woman would figure that would be the last place she was supposed to look, and so she’d look there first. So I’d never hide it there.”

“You lost me on that last Talmudic turn,” Archie told her. “I think I'll have a look, anyway.”

“Don’t bother. It won’t be there.”

Archie looked. It wasn’t there.

“I told you so,” Helen singsonged as he returned to the bedroom. “Now, the next logical place I might hide it would be the fuse box.”

“I’ll look in the fuse box.”

"Don’t waste your time. It won’t be there, either.”

“But you said -”

“You didn’t let me finish. After I thought of the fuse box, I'd decide against it because a single girl sometimes has gentlemen callers and suppose one of them was amorously inclined?”

“Suppose he was?” Archie was bewildered.

“Then he’d want the lights out, wouldn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“So what if he’s the kind of shrewdie who decided to deliberately yank a fuse when a girl’s not looking so he can act like the lights blew out? What would he find when he sneaked over to the fuse box?”

“The formula, if it was there." Archie saw the dawn.

“Exactly. So l’d never hide it in the fuse box.”

“You don’t think I should look, anyway? Just to make sure. ”

“Stubborn! Stub-bor-n! Just like a typical male! So go ahead and look if it will make you happy.”

Archie looked in the fuse box.

“I was right? ” Helen asked smugly when he returned.

“Yeah.”

“All right. So pay attention, now. I know exactly where I would put it, the perfect place, if I wanted to hide something.” She paused dramatically.

“Where?” Archie fed her the straight line.

“In the icebox.”

“Icebox?” Archie looked blank.

“Refrigerator, I mean. I got the habit of calling it ‘icebox’ from my parents. They always refer to it that way because of their ghetto background.”

“What ghetto background? I thought they came from New England.”

“Not so loud. The walls have ears. The ghetto background is part of passing. Everybody thinks they worked their way up to Central Park West from the Lower East Side. And on the Lower East Side, in the old days, everybody had iceboxes. . . . Anyway, the refrigerator, that's where it is.”

“Ridiculous!” Archie opined. “Why, anybody that was in the house might open the refrigerator door to get something to eat and find the papers if they were hidden there.”

“Not if they were in the freezer compartment behind the ice trays. They’d be out of sight there.”

“That’s crazy. Nobody would hide anything there.”

“A woman would. And I’ll bet that's where they are. So let’s go look.”

“Kookie!” Archie muttered to himself as he followed her into the kitchen.

“Go on. Open it.” Helen pointed at the refrigerator.

“Mad!” Archie flung open the refrigerator door. “There! See!” he said smugly. “Two shrunken bananas, a cup of yogurt, and half a salami. But no secret formula!”

“She certainly had poor dietary habits,” Helen mused. She inspected the salami. “And she wasn’t kosher, either,” she added disapprovingly. “Go on. Open the door to the freezer compartment.”

“Insane!” Archie opened the freezer door. “One TV dinner and four trays of ice cubes,” he announced. “But no secret formula.”

“Don’t be such a smartypants. Take out the ice trays.”

“Idiotic!” Archie removed the ice trays. “Nothing but ice coating the back," he sneered.

“A housekeeper she wasn't. How long since she defrosted, I wouldn’t want to guess.” Helen rummaged through a kitchen drawer and came up with an icepick.

“Chip it away,” she instructed Archie.

“Lunacy!” He stabbed at the ice with the pick and ducked his head as the small chips began flying. “Imbecility!” he muttered as he continued. “Sheer, unadulterated nuttiness! I don’t know why I--”

“There. Helen Steinberg’s voice was a clarion call of triumph “See! There it is!”

“Well, I’ll be damned!" Archie's jaw dropped open as he did indeed discern a packet of papers outlined deep behind the ice-wall. He recovered himself and resumed stabbing furiously at the hard-frozen area.

“Don’t do that!” Helen Steinberg stopped him. “You want to rip them to shreds? We have to defrost the refrigerator.” She turned a dial on the side of the freezer compartment and motioned to Archie to follow her out of the kitchen.

“What now?” he asked as they re-entered the bedroom.

“Look out! ” she screamed.

Archie swung around just in time to see a burly figure springing at him behind the door. Almost casually, Archie held up the icepick to meet the flying form. His attacker impaled himself and crashed to the floor with the icepick sticking out of his heart.

Dead eyes stared back at Archie as he looked at the face. They belonged to one of the hoodlums he had tied up in the foyer before. Archie picked up the revolver still clutched in the Russian’s hands and went to check on the second hoodlum’s whereabouts.

He needn’t have worried. The second gunsel was still trussed up in the closet in the foyer. The first one had managed to cut his bonds against a jagged piece of metal on the radiator to which Archie had bound him. The frayed tie still dangled from it. But evidently he'd been in such a hurry to attack Archie that he hadn’t stopped to free his buddy. Archie closed the closet door and returned to Helen Steinberg.

“I think the refrigerator is defrosted enough by now to get the papers,” she told him. "Let’s go see.”

They went into the kitchen. Archie looked into the freezer compartment. Helen peered over his shoulder. “If you chip very carefully at it now," she told him, “I think you can get it loose.” She handed him the icepick which she had removed from the chest of the latest co se.

They both had their heads in the refrigerator a few minutes later when two new voices sounded from the entry to the kitchen. “He’s at the fridge,” the first voice said.

“What’s he doing there?” the second voice wondered.

“Fixing himself a snack, I guess.”

“Oh? Well, I guess killing four people would work up an appetite.”

Archie bumped his head on the refrigerator door-frame as he turned around. When the stars cleared in front of his eyes he found himself looking at the inspector and Patrolman Angelo Valenti. Both were pointing their guns at him as if they meant business.

“How did you get here?” Archie wondered.

“It was Valenti s hunch,” the inspector admitted.

“Simple deduction,” Valenti admitted modestly. “Plus the fact that I persuaded Vito to give us a little info.” He made a fist, waved it at Archie, and grinned. “You’re a regular one-man crime wave, ain’t you?” he added. “I make it one attempted rape and five murders so far.”

“It's hard to figure,” the inspector sighed. “A kid like you, could be clean-cut-looking if you got a haircut, comes from a good background, plenty of money, respectable parents—I don’t know! I just can’t figure what makes you kids act the way you do today.”

“Now wait a min!" Archie said. “Wait just a cotton-pickin’ min! In the first place, I didn’t try to rape anybody. I hate to put you down, Valenti, but the fact is that your fiancee was more than willing.”

“It doesn’t matter," the inspector told him as Valenti glared. “We don’t even have to bother with a sexual assault charge. Not with five murders going for us, we don’t.”

“But I didn’t kill them!” Archie protested.

“You killed one of them,” Helen Steinberg reminded him helpfully. “The last one. Remember?"

“I did not!” Archie was indignant. “He deliberately threw himself on an icepick I just happened to be holding.”

“A clear case of suicide,” the inspector said sarcastically. “And how about the Chinese gentleman? Who killed him?”

“The Russian,” Archie insisted. “The other man lying there.”

“We’ve got the gun we think did that one,” Valenti reminded the inspector. “Found it lying on the dresser inside. Looks like the right caliber for the holes in the Chinese.”

“Well then. if you’re right,” the inspector said smoothly, “Mr. Jones here has nothing to worry about. If the gun matches up, it’ll probably have the killer’s prints on it. And of course those prints won’t be Mr. Jones’s because he didn’t kill him.”

“But my prints are on the gun,” Archie remembered. “I just picked it up before to check on the hood in the closet."

“What hood? What closet?” the inspector wanted to know. Archie told him. “Better go have a look,” he instructed Valenti.

“But I didn’t kill the Chinese even if my prints are on the gun,” Archie insisted. “The Russian killed him.”

“That’s true,” Helen Steinberg insisted. “I saw the Russian kill him. I was a witness.”

“And I suppose the Chinese killed the Russian,” the inspector said wearily.

“That’s‘right,” Archie and Helen chimed in together. “Assuming you're telling the truth,” the inspector pointed out, “that still doesn’t clear you where the dead girl is concerned. You still could have killed her.”

“No, I didn’t!” Archie said.

“No, he didn’t,” Helen echoed. “The Russian killed her. He confessed it to us. I heard him."

“So you’re just an innocent victim of circumstances,” the inspector growled at Archie. “But what about Beaumarchais? We know you killed him."

“You know wrong. The Russian killed him, too.”

“That’s right,” Helen confirmed. “He did. I -”

“I know. You heard him confess it.” The inspector looked disgusted as he took the words out of her mouth.

“It’s all perfectly clear to me except for a couple of minor details,” Archie said. “And it’ll be clear to you too after I explain it," he added to the inspector as Valenti came back into the room. “But the first thing you should do right now is get in touch with Strom Huntley of the CIA so he can come up here and take charge of these papers. Believe me when I say they’re a matter of vital national security.”

“It just so happens that this Huntley character is downstairs,” Valenti said. “He’s been tagging along with us and insisting that he have a chance to talk to you before we shot you down. We kept telling him it was kind of impractical in the case of a hardened killer like you since we’d most likely have to shoot first and ask questions later, but he insisted.”

“Get him up here,” the inspector told Valenti.

The policeman called out the window to one of the cops waiting in the street. “He’s on his way,” he informed the inspector after a moment.

“One of the things I can’t figure --” Archie was talking to himself, but he spoke aloud. “— is who called up Helen here and Helen Dawes and pretended to be Professor Beaumarchais.”

“Don’t let that bother you.” Valenti chuckled. “That was me. I followed you after you left my Helen’s, and later, after I found out about the Beaumarchais murder, I called up and pretended to be him to see if I could get a line on you. just routine detective work, that’s all,” he said modestly. “But how did you know to call me?” Helen Steinberg wondered. “You had no way of knowing Archie was in my apartment.”

“Got a lead on that through a stoolie,” Valenti told her as a cop ushered Strom Huntly into the room.

“A stoolie?” Helen’s tone changed to bitterness. “And I’ll bet I know who it was, too! ”

“Who?” Archie asked her.

“My rotten goyisha brother! ”

“That’s right,” Valenti admitted.

“But why would he stool to the cops?” Archie wondered.

“For his own nefarious purposes,” Helen Steinberg said. “To throw them off the track. To distract them while he went after the formula himself.”

“But why would he want the formula? How did he even know there was one? Is he an agent, too? And for whom?” The questions came, tripping oil Archie’s tongue.

“He knew about the formula because he read my correspondence with the professor. I caught him at it. And he is an agent. It breaks my heart to admit it, but he’s an agent for the Arabs no less. The Egyptians! Well, what could you expect from an anti-Semite like him?”

“The Arabs are Semites, too,” Archie reminded her.

“It’s not the same thing! When did you ever see an Arab eating a pastrami sandwich? Anyway, I just got wind of what he was doing tonight. I overheard him on the phone. And when he took down this address, I came here to thwart his plans, he shouldn’t bring any more shame on the family than he already has. But the no good never even showed up here. Why? is a mystery to me."

“I can tell you why.” Strom Huntley spoke for the first time. “Because a couple of our boys intercepted him, that’s why. They had a very interesting little chat with your brother. And then some checking was done. Your brother turned out to be the one thing any self-respecting spy detests more than anything else!”

“I’m not too fond of him myself," Helen Steinberg confessed. “So what did you learn about the no-good-nik?”

“He’s a double agent!” Huntley told her, his voice heavy with contempt. “He was supposed to be acting for the Egyptians, but the truth is he was double-crossing them and reporting everything back to the Zionists. If he'd gotten that formula, it would have ended up in Tel Aviv, not Cairo."

“Ooh! Wait ’til I tell Mama and Papa!” Helen Steinberg was ecstatic. “He's been a good haimisha boy all along. He was only pretending so he could help Zionism. And all the time we blame him for clinging so stubbornly to his Puritan heritage! And now I’m so proud! Wait ’til the neighbors hear! ”

“All’s well that ends well,” Archie reflected.

“All’s well that ends well,” the shrink would echo to Archie during his next visit. “But what we really have to consider is how to do-neuroticize your libido after that trauma of having your love-object drop dead on you just prior to consummation. Somehow your subconscious must become convinced that sex will not always have such fatal results.”

“It’s convinced,” Archie told him. “Believe me, it’s not a problem any more. It‘s all taken care of.”

“It is? What do you mean?”

“Well, a few nights after we got the Beaumarchais case all unscrarnbled,” Archie said, “I was just leaving a hootenanny down in the Village when who should I bump into but-—”

“Helen Giammori!" Archie greeted her. “How’s tricks?”

“Not so loud! ” She looked around her nervously. “There’s vice cops everywhere.” She looked at the instrument strung around his neck. “What’s with the banjo?”

“It’s a guitar. I play it. Protest songs. Want to hear?”

“Sure. But not here. Come on up to my place and play me a few numbers.”

Looking at her lush body and remembering, Archie didn't demur. He hailed a cab and gave the driver her address. A few moments later they were alone together in her apartment. A few moments after that they were half out of their clothes. And a few moments after that there was a pounding at the door.

“Vito!” Helen gasped. “Quick! Into the closet!”

“Oh, no,” Archie groaned. “Not again!” But nevertheless he grabbed up his clothes and his guitar and hid in the closet.

He watched as Vito came in with Squint and Batman. He watched as they set up their equipment and Batman and Helen got into costume. He watched as Vito took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and then walked straight toward the closet in which Archie was hiding to hang up his jacket. He watched the closet door open.

“What the hell! ” Vito exclaimed.

“Vito, honey, I can explain,” Helen wailed.

“Never mind!” Vito shouted. “Never mind the explanations! Never mind anything! I gotta inspiration.” He pulled Archie out of the closet. “Can you play that thing?” he demanded.

“Y-Yeah,” Archie admitted.

“Great! Boys!” Vito turned to Squint and Batman. “We are gonna do something new in pornographic pictures! We are gonna come up with a innovation that’ll revolutionize the field! Boys, we are gonna make the first pornographic musical!”

“Who’s he think he is? Busby Berkeley?" Squint muttered.

Vito ignored him. He was too busy issuing directions. He turned into a living burst of machine gun fire. He positioned Helen. Then Batman. Then Archie. Then he went into a conference with Squint concerning camera angles. Finally he was ready. “Roll ’em!” he shouted.

“Gonna ma-a-ake it with my woo-oo-man toni-i-i-ight,” Archie sang.

A few moments later the blonde stretched out on the bed and wriggled her hips invitingly. The nervous youth fell on top of her and —

BANG!

Which is the way the story began; which is the way the story ends. . . .

Notes

[←1 ]

Barbara Fritchie (née Hauer) (December 3, 1766 – December 18, 1862), also known as Barbara Frietchie, and sometimes spelled Frietschie, was a Unionist during the Civil War. She became part of American folklore in part due to a popular poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, in which she pleads with an occupying Confederate general to "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag."

Table of Contents

1

←1