The bikini barely topped the swell of her lower abdomen, a thin stretch of elastic traversing the centerline of belled hips and plunging in back well below the p.r.o.nounced cleft of swollen b.u.t.tocks. The halter of the bikini was no more than an elasticized sc.r.a.p of overlaid "now you see it, now you don"t" netting. Bolan"s free hand found a natural resting place on the silky torso at a point about midway between the upper and lower edges of the Swim suit, fingers splayed down across the soft indentation of the navel. He flicked a glance around in a brief survey of his companions, noted that they were comparably burdened and preoccupied, then let his fingers travel on southward.
The girl giggled and captured his hand, raised slightly off his lap to gaze beneath her, and murmured: "You haven"t been around women lately, have you?" She then resettled, again agitating herself into the closest possible conjunction and moving Bolan"s hand up and onto her breast. "Have you forgotten what those feel like?" she asked whimsically.
Bolan nudged the net aside and a.s.sured her that he had, indeed, not forgotten. She giggled, took the drink out of his hand, set it on the nearby table and slid off his lap, then playfully tugged him out of the chair. "We need to get you into a pair of trunks," she told him. She moved close alongside and beneath his arm, maintaining a tight, lock-step embrace, and steered him to a cabana.
She entered with him, locked the door, and moved immediately into his arms, raising her mouth to his. He took it hungrily, suddenly aware of how long it had been since a vibrant American girl had been in his arms. Her breath was sweetly alcoholic, hot and wanting, altogether pleasant, an active tongue probing for effect.
Spring-tension hips were thrust high and forward and moving rhythmically for an even more disturbing effect. His hands fell onto bunched b.u.t.tocks, then he hooked his thumbs into the hips and flipped her away, breaking also the hot conjuncture of mouths.
She swayed back in for more. He evaded her, the thinking part of his brain seemingly numbed and reacting instinctively.
"Afraid you"ll mess up your pants?" she murmured. One of her hands moved between them, and she said, "Uh-huh. You"ve been too long without, Sarge." She moved away from him then, swinging her attention to the far wall of the small hut. An a.s.sortment of male swimming trunks hung from pegs there. Her eyes returned to his midsection, sizing him, then she selected from the swimwear. Put these on," she suggested, tossing the trunks onto a low bench behind Bolan.
Bolan was still feeling somewhat mechanical in his actions. His fingers were already at his shirtfront, working the b.u.t.tons. She moved back to him and went to work on the tie. A moment later she carefully hung shirt and tie on a peg, pushed him onto the bench, and took off his shoes and socks.
"I don"t give this service to just everybody," she told him, smiling darkly. Her hands seized his belt. "You"re different." He pushed her hands away and got to his feet.
"Everybody"s different," he grunted, his thinking faculties returning. He was fumbling with the waistband of his trousers. "I"ll be out in a minute," he added, giving her a meaningful gaze.
"You don"t really mean that," the girl replied.
A quick motion of her hands caused the bikini bra to fall away. Glistening cones sprang forward, jiggling tauntingly in the sudden release, the pale pink at the tips highlighting the projection. She cupped them in her hands, gently agitating the nipples with her thumbs, which were already protruding slightly; they grew noticeably under the attention, riveting Bolan"s eyes in fascinating inspection.
"That net makes them itch," she explained.
"Wouldn"t you like to scratch them for me?" Without a word, Bolan reached forward and tugged down the bikini panties. She stepped out of them with a throaty giggle and reached for his trousers, expertly lowering shorts and all in one brief motion and falling against him, moving sensually for calculated effect.
Bolan groaned and clasped her to him, luxuriating in the fusion of male and female flesh.
Her arms went tightly about him, hands rubbing feverishly at his back, pile-driving hips once again in action. Bolan twisted out of the embrace, his breathing harsh and ragged.
"It has been a while," he admitted.
"Don"t worry about that," she said, obviously enjoying the explosiveness of the encounter. There was no room to stretch out in the tiny dressing room; it was also obvious that she had dealt with similar situations before. She pulled the little bench around and pushed Bolan down onto it, seated on the end, then she climbed aboard, straddling man and bench, seizing and pulling him in with an obviously practiced maneuver and settling onto him with a harsh bounce. Bolan experienced an immediate tremor, his arms going about her and squeezing her fiercely to him as his back sought the surface of the bench. She went down with him, murmuring, "Good, good." It had happened so quickly as to seem totally unreal to Bolan. "I don"t suppose that did much for you, eh," he muttered apologetically.
She lay there, the magnificent b.r.e.a.s.t.s resting across his chest, lips nibbling at his neck, entirely relaxed.
"It can wait," she told him. "You guys always come back full of TNT or something." She struggled to her feet, smiling ruefully at his midsection, pulled a towel from a shelf and dropped it onto him.
"Are you a prost.i.tute?" he asked her, point-blank.
She looked at him, then smiled. "Sure," she said, still smiling. "Then it really doesn"t matter to you, does it? I mean..." "I know what you mean." She retrieved the male trunks from the floor and tossed them at him, then began pulling on her own trunks. Then she stared at him silently for a long moment, picked up the bra, seemed to be debating something in her mind, then hung the bra on a wall peg. "But you"re wrong," she said suddenly. "It does matter. And I"ll show you. It will be better next time. Now that you"re decharged. Well--come on. Let"s take a swim. And after that.
Well, we"ll find a better place than this d.a.m.n shack. Okay?" He grinned at her. "Okay," he said. He got into the trunks, and they both went out and took a topless dive into the pool. Bolan was looking forward to the next time, and the next place.
Obviously, Mara was also. It was the most exhilarating swim Mack Bolan had ever taken.
A Master"s Stroke Walter Seymour was disturbed. It had not been easy to build a place for himself in the organization.
Not with a name like Walter Seymour, for Christ"s sake. Now if his name had been Giovanni Scalavini--or some such--the road would have been a lot smoother. Even Nat Plasky had an edge on him, purely because the name sounded better to the old guard--even though any idiot would know that Plasky was no wop. Seymour had outrun Laurenti quite simply because, right blood or not, Laurenti had never been and would never be anything more than a nickel-and-dime hood. He"d had a hood"s intellect and a hood"s heart--a perfect combination and an ideal mentality for the nickel-and-dime business of payday-loan collection. Seymour had never liked the Triangle operation. He was honest enough with himself to admit that what he"d disliked about it the most was Laurenti. The Triangle front provided a good repository for illegal dollars, and Seymour would have been content to see it run as a strictly legitimate loan company--it had been the mentality of Laurenti that made Triangle a bra.s.s-knucks operation. Laurenti simply had a loan-shark mentality--and, of course, Triangle was Laurenti"s baby. He was a wop, and the old wops liked him, and his ties with the organization had extended back through several generations and even into the old country.
So--in a way--Seymour had been almost happy to see Laurenti dead. Not just from a personal viewpoint, he kept telling himself, but from the business angle as well. Laurenti, and Laurenti types, were bad for the organization.
Seymour was glad he was dead. At the same time, Seymour was disturbed about those deaths. Who the h.e.l.l had decided to gun down Laurenti and his people? Who the h.e.l.l and why the h.e.l.l?
Seymour was a realist. He knew that the "man upstairs" at Pittsfield had never fully accepted him. He"d been on probation for ten d.a.m.n years, and n.o.body knew it better than Walt Seymour himself. Now if this d.a.m.n GI this Bolan guy, could come up with ideas of an organization rub-out, and if the press could think that way, and if the cops could think the same way--then for d.a.m.n sure the man upstairs and all the men upstairs around the country might be thinking that way, too. It was no closely guarded secret that there had been bad blood between Seymour and Laurenti.
Yes, Walter Seymour was disturbed, He was disturbed about several things. The d.a.m.n GI disturbed him. Even though he"d been thoroughly checked out and stamped genuine, there was something about the guy that just didn"t ring. Walt Seymour was not "buying" Mack Bolan--not lock, stock, and barrel. Not for the moment, at least. Too many people, too d.a.m.n many nosey people, were interested in the organization.
Congressional committees, the justice Department, the Treasury Department, the FBI--EVERYBODY had a big nose and an itching finger for the organization. And Walt Seymour was wondering about Mack Bolan"s nose and fingers. Every manner of infiltration had been tried on them. The local cops had tried, the feds had tried, even other organizations had tried--but n.o.body had ever succeeded, not in any way that mattered. Walt Seymour was disturbed about Mack Bolan.
Something just did not ring for Sergeant Mack Bolan. The best way to spot a phoney, in Seymour"s mind, was to make a close inspection. The best way to inspect Mack Bolan was to get him on the payroll. Give him a loose leash, keep eyes, ears, and instincts open, and let the phoney reveal himself. Anybody could have sent him. Even the man upstairs could have sent him. Of course, if he was not a phoney--well, a guy like Bolan could be an a.s.set to the organization. He could be an a.s.set even to Seymour. Leo Turrin was beginning to give Seymour trouble. Turrin was smart, likeable, ambitious--and he had the right sound to his name. Yes, Walt Seymour was disturbed about Leo Turrin. He"d put Bolan with Turrin.
It would be a masterful stroke, he decided. If Bolan was a phoney, then the man most likely to get hurt by him would be the man next to him. Yes.
Yes. He"d put Bolan with Turrin. It would be a masterful stroke.
A Matter of Viewpoint "The first thing you gotta remember," Turrin told Bolan, "is that I"m the C.o. You can think of yourself as the First Sergeant if you want to-- but just remember that I"m the C.o. Then the second thing you gotta remember is that we never use the word "Mafia!" Understand? It"s "The Organization." You work for the organization and the organization works for you. That"s the way it works. But you"re not a member. You could never be a member. Your blood ain"t right, see. Even Seymour ain"t no member." "There"s a difference?" Bolan wanted to know.
They were in Turrin"s automobile, a fancy canary-yellow convertible, and Turrin was giving his new protege a lift home from Seymour"s suburban home. "Sure there"s a difference." He punched in the cigarette lighter and fished in his pocket for something to light, finally accepting a Pall Mall from Bolan. "Look, the organization goes back for centuries. Got started in Sicily, the home of my ancestors. It was sort of like Robin Hood, only this ain"t no fairy tale, it"s for real. I"ll bet you didn"t know--the Mafia is a real pure idea--real democracy, you know, democracy for the little people. For the ones that was getting s.h.i.t on. It was even better than Robin Hood because it was a ma.s.s movement." "No, I didn"t know that," Bolan admitted.
"I"ll bet you didn"t know that "Mafia" translates back to mean "Matthew." Matthew means "brave, bold." It had to be a secret society because it was going up against the establishment, see, the establishment of those olden times. There was tyranny, see, and all the money was divided up between the rich b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, the n.o.blemen, the aristocracy. All the laws were rigged to keep the poor people poor and the rich people rich. See?
That"s how all laws got started. Everywhere, not just in Italy and Sicily. Laws were written to protect the rich b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, see. So these bold, brave guys got together in a resistance movement.
They set up the Mafia, and it"s been nip and tuck ever since." "Hippies," Bolan grunted.
"What?" "Early Italian hippies," Bolan said, grinning. "What were they demonstrating for--a pizza in every pot?" Turrin"s face clouded. "I don"t think I like your sense of humor. I"m being serious. The Mafia is a very democratic idea." "Okay, I"ll be serious," Bolan replied.
"But-uh-what"s the moral of the thing, Leo? I mean, maybe a hundred years ago, in Italy or Sicily or wherever it was--okay, I can see the picture. But not over here. Not now. I mean, there is a democracy in this country. A legal democracy." Turrin laughed l.u.s.tily. "s.h.i.t!" he guffawed. "Don"t let yourself get brainwashed.
Things haven"t changed that much. The rich still get richer while the poor get poorer. There"s still a place here for the bold and the brave." "Don"t get me wrong," Bolan said. "I"m not arguing against the organization--h.e.l.l, I"m part of it now. I just like to see things like they really are." "Then see them like they really are. Don"t get to feeling like a lousy criminal. You"re the guy said you didn"t have a dime to your name. Over there getting your a.s.s shot off to protect the rich b.a.s.t.a.r.ds" riches. See it like it is, Sarge. Didn"t Seymour say he was starting you at two-fifty a week? h.e.l.l--does that sound like the poor getting poorer?" The sergeant grinned. "Just call me Bolan the Bold, Captain." Turrin turned him a warm gaze. "By Jesus, you "n" me are gonna get along all right, Sarge--yes sir, all right." "What is your operation, Leo?" Bolan wanted to know.
"Girls." He grinned delightedly.
Bolan felt suddenly light-headed.
"Girls?" he echoed.
"Girls. All kinds of girls. Hostess girls, party girls, call girls, house girls, street girls. Name your price range and I got just the girl for you." "And they"re all bold and brave too, eh?" Bolan asked, his tongue feeling strange and thick in his mouth.
"Betweencher a.s.s they are. You work for the organization, the organization works for you. We"re spreading the riches around, see." Bolan relaxed into the soft upholstery and closed his eyes. "Well, I guess that"s one way of looking at it," he said quietly. He was thinking of another Bolan, and wondering just how brave she"d been, in there among the bold.
The Girl Watchers Bolan was being worked into the routine that Turrin called "girl-watching." He had been outfitted in expensive civilian clothes and provided with a snub-nosed.32 caliber pistol, a license to carry same, and a shoulder holster with a snap-out feature to put it in. The clothing and the hardware had come from Bolan"s future earnings; the gun license had appeared through some magical means wholly unknown to Bolan.
"It"s legal, It"s legal," Turrin a.s.sured him. "It ain"t broadcasted, but it"s legal, and if the question is ever raised about you carrying a gun, they"ll find your license all duly recorded and all that jazz. So don"t worry about it. We take care of those little details. n.o.body gets nothing on the organization." Turrin was operating behind a front called "Escorts Unlimited." The offices were sw.a.n.k and convincing and the "social" rooms of the "clubhouse" beyond reproach. He had a genuine computer match-making service, complete with certified programmer and staff.
"We make a little off the front," he confided to Bolan, "but just about enough to break even on the rent and salaries. We even carry a mortgage on that razzle-dazzle computer." He laughed. "Financed through Triangle Industrial Finance Company, that great little friend to free enterprisers." Bolan discovered that his official job t.i.tle was "security officer." He was on the legal payroll of Escorts Unlimited, and from his weekly $250 would routinely be deducted the social security and income taxes. "You can even have U.s. Savings Bonds taken out if you want," Turrin explained, "but listen, don"t worry about those legal deductions.
We make all that up. You get an expense account, nontaxable, so don"t worry. You come out all right. But we"re legal, see. Strictly legal." The undercover operation even had an air of legality about it. The various facets of organized prost.i.tution in the city and surrounding suburbs were programmed into the computer and coded to insure against inadvertent loss of security and deliberate snooping. The program code for the call-girl operation, for example, was listed under "Dates Available by Prior Arrangement Only" and the program "key" for specific informational or a.s.signment "sorts" and "print-outs" was activated only by a secret code letter. The same file, sorted electronically and activated by the standard program code, would produce only a print-out on the legitimate dating service. Another operation was listed under "Dates by Spontaneous Selection," and a similar one as "Organized Social Activities"--meaning, respectively, street girls and house girls.
"We use the machine, sure we use it," Turrin told Bolan. "Why not?
The d.a.m.n thing is foolproof, and you got no idea yet the size of this operation. I got hundreds of girls working the undercover end of things, and why should I try to keep all this stuff in my head, or in a secret set of books someplace.
Listen, I got a destruct I can punch into that computer and in one second there"s not one incriminating record in the file--not one that anybody can get to, anyway. It wipes out everything but the legit operation. h.e.l.l, why shouldn"t I use it? That"s progress, Sarge--h.e.l.l, that"s sheer progress.
My programmer calls it APPS, for Automated Prost.i.tution Program System, and he"s proud as h.e.l.l of the thing. h.e.l.l, he"s a scientist, that guy, a real scientist. The sweet part is that none of these people in the office, n.o.body but me and my programmer, know anything about the real business. The d.a.m.n machine has even got them outsmarted. Not one of "em could really testify to anything. It all looks on the up and up to them.
So a guy calls in, see, and says he"s John Smith of Ace Industries, and he"s hosting a sales meeting. He wants us to send him a dozen hostesses to give the place some glitter.
One of the office girls takes the order. If this guy is on the level then that"s all there is to it.
The girl runs the order through the Program and she gets a list of names and phone numbers. She goes down the list, making the calls, until she fills the order. And everybody"s happy. The sales meeting gets some pretty models to pretty things up and Escorts Unlimited has a happy customer. But-but-if this John Smith is in the know and he wants some bedsprings tigers for his little get-together, then he"s got a code in his order that automatically triggers the computer to a different list. And he don"t even know what the code is, it"s just something my field man has rigged into his account number. Get the picture? The d.a.m.n thing is foolproof. We change the program codes every day--every d.a.m.n day--so we run things right up tight and we know who we"re dealing with all the time.
"Another case. Say a guy is in town just for the night, and he wants some company. He lets it be known, just like a guy would in any town. You know, a word to the desk clerk or a waiter or a bellhop. You know the routine. In a matter of minutes one of my field men is on the horn, talking to one of the office girls. He places an order for a model, and he knows the program code to use.
Sometimes in less than ten minutes a girl is on the job, and we got a happy client, and a totally dumb staff clerk who would testify on a stack of Bibles that all she ever did was call a free-lance model who"s listed in our computer service. See?
It"s clean, it"s clean as h.e.l.l.
"We"re pretty well protected from the girl end, too. There isn"t much to tie her back to us, if she ever gets careless or unlucky. It"s happened a couple of times, and we get very indignant, see. Imagine that! A prost.i.tute, perverting our sacred service to ply her shameful trade! Get the picture? We been took by the girl, see, and naturally we can"t be responsible for anything like that." "That doesn"t say much for protection for the girl, does it?" Bolan inquired.
""w h.e.l.l, they just get their wrists slapped.
If it looks like she"s in real trouble, you know, like they"re gonna throw the book at her--why, we get her a lawyer--under the table, you know. We pay legal fees, or some of "em, and we"ll advance the money to cover fines. We take care of our girls. Unless they"re way outta line. You work for the organization, the organization works for you.
Remember that, Bolan the Bold. When the girls are okay to come back to work again, we enter "em into the computer with a new name and a new district and that"s that.
But you can see the security of the thing, can"t you? I mean, we"re covered, Sarge." Besides Turrin and the programmer there were five other organization men in the operation, these five respectfully cla.s.sified as "sales representatives" and referred to as "field men." The job t.i.tle sounded better than "Pimp" but the effect was precisely the same, even though much of their contact work was in the rarefied strata of big business, conventioneering, and politics. "These are sharp boys," Turrin reported proudly. most of them are better educated than me. They can move around in the best circles, and in fact they got to. They hardly ever see their girls, and probably not one girl in ten would know any of these guys if they saw "em at the same party, or even in the same bed. The field men work on a commission, so they"re go-getters. They don"t have a lot of contact with the street girls or the house girls, and d.a.m.n little to do with their own party girls and call girls. We"re up tight all the way, Sarge." "With everything run so impersonally," Bolan probed, "I suppose you never have contact with any of these girls either, eh?" Turrin winked and smiled knowingly. "Don"t worry, my sergeant, you"ll have all the female flesh you can stomach." He laughed. "I make personal contact when I feel the need to. Not so much with the girls on the top end." "Oh." He frowned. "Sometimes a certain personal touch is called for. Sometimes I take a personal interest in a new girl, to get her started off right.
You know." He laughed again. "But I got a wife and three kids, you know. I mean, I don"t lay around with wh.o.r.es all the time." Bolan dug his elbow into the other"s ribs. "h.e.l.l, I bet you got a dozen names on your personal list right now," he persisted.
"Oh, I don"t know..." Turrin sobered, then grinned suddenly. "A guy can go ape at first, if he don"t use some will power. And that"s bad. You either start to lose your appreciation, or you start to lose your head. And that is real bad. Sometimes a girl is referred over from one of the other operations.
In those cases, I take a personal interest, get her logged into the computer, that sort of thing, you know. That"s outside the regular recruiting channels. Sometimes I"ll take a personal interest in the kid, help her get off with her best cheek forward, you know what I mean." Bolan knew what he meant, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. Turrin was not looking at his companion, however.
"But I don"t get into no entanglements," he continued. "Know what I mean? You can"t get emotionally straddled with these girls. You know what I mean?" Bolan nodded. "I think so," he said curtly.
"Besides, these girls getting to a hundred bucks a toss get to thinking they got a gold-plated a.s.s or something. I don"t really like "em. When I feel like cutting up a little, I go down to one o"my houses." "You have those, too," Bolan observed wryly.
"Oh, sure. Really, I understand that end of things a lot better." Turrin grinned. "I like it better. That end is run entirely different. We got a madam for each house, just like the olden times. She runs her own books. We keep her supplied in girls, she runs the house, runs her own books, and feeds the money back in to the field man in her district.
She works on commission, too, just like the field man, and he gets an override on everything she makes." "Sounds like very big business," Bolan commented.
"You"ll find out just how big," Turrin replied, "if you stick close to your C.o. Listen, we got ten women who do nothing but recruit girls.
And you"d be surprised where we get some of them from.
College campuses, factories, office buildings." He raised his eyebrows.
"Suburban homes--one gal we took on last month had just come off her honeymoon. We got chorus girls, models, would-be actresses and even some part-timers who really are actresses.
Listen, every woman who is a woman has got at least a little whorin" streak in her. A lot of our call girls are part-timers. You know--they do other things, too. All of our party girls are part-timers, moonlighters. h.e.l.l, some of "em wouldn"t say "f.u.c.k" if they was getting gang-banged. Nicey-nice, you know--but not too d.a.m.n nice to pick up some extra coin here"n there." Turrin frowned. "For my part, I"ll take the good old honest wh.o.r.e. Well-was He paused, frowning even deeper. "You"ll go outta your mind with the turnover we got in this business, Sarge. Understand something, and make sure you understand it. We have no compet.i.tion in this town. Or anywhere around. If a girl is selling it within fifty miles of where you"re standing, then she"s selling for the organization and she"s working for us. We-was "I"m glad I understand that," the executioner said brusquely.
"Yeah--well, we don"t even allow no amateurs to operate. We bust "em fast, d.a.m.n fast--and they either join our team or they get the h.e.l.l out. That means we gotta fill the demand if we don"t want a big payroll of nothing but broad-busters. I mean, there"s no profit in that sort of thing. You understand that. I want you to understand me too, Sarge. I might not talk Yale or Harvard, but I"m a businessman and I know my business and I run my business all the way. Understand? All the way. No loose gooses around here, and just because I"m a good guy some of the time don"t mean I"m an idiot. You better understand that. And just because I like you don"t mean I won"t bust you if you get outta line. You got that understanding?" "I have that understanding." "All right. You understand this, too. It"s more profitable to keep the demand filled than to run around bustin" amateurs and chiselers. We got the high cla.s.s hotels and motels pretty well covered with our computer call girl services, and we even got a few high cla.s.s clubs and dining rooms as clients. But we got walking girls, too--we call "em field girls. They operate strictly free-lance, some of "em using their own pad as home base, and we trust "em to play their finances square with us. We spot-check from time to time, but generally we use the honor system with the walking girls. They cover the little bars and clubs and some of "em even serve as house girls for the crummy little hotels. We let "em operate and we give "em the protection of the organization. But they all belong to us. Understand that. Every d.a.m.n one of them. Get the picture?" "I get it," Bolan a.s.sured him.
"We treat our girls good. No strong-arm stuff as long as they keep in line. And we don"t try to own "em. They want to get out, they get out--but once out, they stay out, and they all know that.
They"re working for theirselves, see, and they all know that too. The organization does all their contact work --"cept for the field girls--and they get our full protection. And they keep the heavy share of the take.
Like I told you, we"re a democracy for the bold and the brave." "Yeah, I remember," said Bolan the Bold.
"All right, come on," Turrin said, suddenly smiling. "I"m going to show you one of our house operations." "I was wondering when we"d get around to the girl-watching," Bolan replied.
"You don"t know what girl-watching is yet," the vicelord of Pittsfield said chummily. "Come on, I"m taking you to my home away from home. I keep it stocked with the best stuff in Pittsfield, and I dare you to keep your eyes on and your hands off.
And you gotta do just that. You gotta do just that."
G.o.dd.a.m.n Iron-Man Bolan It was a large house in the suburbs--nothing overly elaborate from the outside view, and certainly nothing to cause it to stand out from the other irregularly placed estates on the tree-lined street. An iron gate stood open, allowing ready access to the macadam drive. A gardener worked quietly in a flower bed near the front of the acreage of neat lawn. Numerous trees and shrubs dotted the landscape, all but hiding the house from street observation. A six-foot iron fence completed the isolation, there being no gate other than the automobile gate at the drive. Bolan looked again at the "gardener," deciding he was too young, too alert, and too near the open gate to be anything other than a disguised guard. Turrin brought the front wheels of the convertible to a temporary rest upon a slight lateral ridge in the driveway macadam, counting to five under his breath, then grinned at Bolan and gunned on along the curving drive toward the house. "We"re up tight," he muttered.
"There"s a pressure switch buried in that b.u.mp.
Always give it a five-second count, or you"ll panic everybody in there." He nodded his head toward the white-painted structure looming in front of them. "We call the place Pinechester.
And it"s legally chartered as a private club." "Looks nice, but deserted," Bolan commented.
"Little early," Turrin grunted. "Don"t get much daylight business. Most of the girls sleep until late afternoon, "less they wanta get in some sunbathing or swimming or something." He noted Bolan"s raised eyebrows, and added, "Yeah, there"s a pool around back, nice one. This is one of our higher cla.s.s houses. It"s my pet, really. The girls here all treat me nice. They wanta stay here. Sheer luxury, huh." Bolan had to agree. They pa.s.sed a double tennis court and a golf-putting green. "How many girls?" he wanted to know.
"There"s twenty-two bedrooms," Turrin replied proudly. "Sometimes we have more girls than that, sort of rotate days off and get the most out of the property. Real businesslike, you know." He glanced at his companion. "We sell memberships to this place. Like I said, it"s a club. Run like a club. But the membership fee just gets the member in the door. Or he can use the pool and the other outdoors stuff at no extra charge. Then every so often we throw a party--by printed invitation only --and that costs the guy a bundle. We always got a waiting list for our parties." He pulled the car into a five-stall garage, killed the motor, and turned to Bolan with a huge grin. "We got half the aldermen in Gwinett on our party list. And the other half trying to get on," he added, chuckling.
They went in through a side door, and Bolan found himself standing ankle-deep in the carpeting of a wide hallway. "Library in here," Turrin announced, rapping lightly on the wall as they proceeded centerward. "Looks nice, but wasted s.p.a.ce.
Couple of thousand books in there just turning to dust." They entered a smartly furnished room with a vaulted ceiling and two enormous crystal chandeliers. Couches and overstuffed chairs were placed here and there, in threesomes and foursomes, with accompanying side-tables, ash trays, and various bric-a-brac. "This"s the clubroom," Turrin told him. "We tried to cozy it up some. It"s a G.o.d-awful big room, and cozying wasn"t easy." He tugged at an ornately woven pull cord. Bolan heard soft chimes echoing somewhere in the quieted mansion. A statuesque woman with flaming red hair piled high, empress fashion, strode into the room, a warm greeting on her lips.
"Leo darling!" she cried happily. She ran to him and embraced him, pulling back immediately to look warmly into his eyes. Bolan noted that she was a half-head taller than her employer, then took into account the impossibly high heels of her shoes and mentally calculated her back down to Leo"s general height. She wore silk skintight hip-huggers that clung to her every suggestion, from belly b.u.t.ton to ankles, and Bolan allowed that there was quite a bit of suggestion there. A silk jacket completed her attire. It had flaring, slitted sleeves, nicely exposing the rich skin tones of her arms as she moved them, and ended several inches above the waistband of the pants. The front of the jacket did not come together--three scarlet ties were provided as closures, but only one, squarely at bustline, was being employed. The gap at the center was a span of inches, and the ties no bulkier than a shoestring. The effect was Startling, and found an interested audience in Mack Bolan. The redhead ignored him completely until Turrin made note of his presence.
"I want you to meet my new top-kick, Rheeda," he said. "Mack Bolan, Rheeda Devish." The redhead looked him over then, and it was done in a single flash of interested eyes--yet Bolan had the uncomfortable feeling of being completely invaded in that brief inspection. She smiled and said, "Mack.
How"s the weather up there?" "Warm," he replied, grinning.
"Oh, it"s the environment," she said soberly.
"Once you get acclimatized I"ll have to get to know you better." Bolan was unsure of the ground, but there was no mistaking the invitation of that friendly declaration. He wondered, but only briefly, about the degree of quote emotional involvement unquote between the girl and Turrin.
"And I guarantee you--it"ll never be the same again," Turrin added quickly, chuckling, and removing the wonder from Bolan"s mind.
"I can hardly wait," he replied, staring into warm, violet eyes. He felt a shiver at his spine, and hoped it was not observable from the outside.