by Paul Kenyon
She was lying naked, face down, on the padded table. The strong, capable fingers dug into her shoulders and back, kneading away the last trace of stiffness, rubbing her skin to a warm glow.
It was better than a night's sleep.
"Inga," she said, "are any of the guests still here?"
The big-boned babyfaced blonde in the starched uniform paused, her hands on Penelope's buttocks. "Just that rock performer. He was sleeping it off in one of the bedrooms. There were two ladies resting with him. Eric is clearing the three of them out now."
"What time is it?"
"Seven o'clock. Skytop and the others won't arrive for a few minutes yet."
"Good. I need some more of this. See if you can loosen up the gluteus, will you?"
Inga gave the Baroness a resounding slap on the buttocks, then she began to pound them with the edges of her hands.
"Didn't you get any sleep at all last night, Baroness?"
"Not a wink."
The big blonde shook her head. "That is not good. It is bad for the reflexes."
"My reflexes are fine."
"The gluteus muscles seem stiff," Inga said.
"I gave them a lot of exercise last night," the Baroness said dryly.
There was a commotion outside the door. The two Russian Wolfhounds set up an excited yelping, and there was the sound of their claws scrabbling on the polished floorboards of the hallway. A heavy male voice was shouting something argumentatively. Then there was a crash and the sound of splintering wood.
The Baroness raised herself on her elbows and turned toward the door. A moment later the door burst open and a huge hulk of a man staggered inside, dragging two hundred pounds of dogs with him. One of the Borzois, Igor, had his teeth fastened in the sleeve of the intruder's sweatshirt, while the other dog, Stasya, was hanging onto the man's leg.
"Goddammit, Baroness, will you get these two overgrown chihuahuas off me!" he boomed.
The Baroness rolled over and sat up, making no attempt to hide her nakedness. "Igor, Stasya!" she said sharply. The two enormous white dogs released the man immediately and sat at attention, their tongues lolling. Igor whined in self-pity at having had to give up his mouthful. "Good boy," the big man said, patting the long slender head. Igor wagged his tail.
"Joe Skytop!" Inga said severely. "What do you mean, barging in here when the Baroness is having her massage? You should wait outside!"
"Hand me my robe, will you, Inga," the Baroness said. She put it on without apparent haste, not bothering to cover her breasts. Joe Skytop had seen them often enough. He was her chief cameraman. He'd photographed her thousands of times, in every stage of dress and undress, waiting impassively while she changed costumes.
He was also one of her best agents, an unarmed-combat expert who could kill a man barehanded in any style you named, from karate to aikido. Skytop had a wide, massive chest, a neck as thick as a telephone pole, fingers like frankfurters. He was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, with the high wide cheekbones and eagle beak of his ancestors.
"What was that crash I heard outside?" the Baroness said.
He shuffled his big feet. "I'm afraid I smashed that antique chair in the hall. The dogs knocked me into it."
The Baroness looked amused. Inga opened her mouth to say something when there was a diffident knock on the half-open door.
"Come on in, Tommy," the Baroness said.
Tom Sumo entered, dressed in a neat blue business suit, his hat in his hands. He was a small, slight man in his twenties, who did everything with Japanese grace. Tom had been born in California, but his parents were old world people from Osaka.
"Dan said you wanted us all here at seven," he said. He smiled, showing a mouth full of gold fillings and an orthodontic brace.
"Tommy! What have you done to your teeth?"
"Keen, isn't it?" he said proudly. He removed the brace and handed it over for inspection. "It's a UHF unit. I can receive — and broadcast, too. I spent the whole week working on it. The upper platinum band is a tuner The lower one's an aerial. The plastic part that's shaped to my palate is an integrated circuit — those little flakes embedded in the plastic are resistors and capacitors. I've got my whole head wired for sound."
She turned the braces over in her hand. "What about power? I don't see any batteries."
"The gold and silver fillings. Actually, they're alloys. I get a difference in electrical potential. My saliva is the electrolyte."
"Good work, Tommy. Make up a two-way unit for me, too. Something just as offbeat. But no braces or fillings. I like my teeth the way they are."
Sumo smiled happily. He was an electronics genius, and the Baroness's communications and de-bugging expert. His cover was fashion consultant for the pictures Skytop took for magazine layouts. He was good at that, too.
Paul and Yvette were the next to arrive. They paused in the doorway, an elegant, graceful black couple who looked as if they had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine — which they had. They were two of Penelope's most popular models, much in demand for beach and evening wear layouts.
They were also two highly competent operatives. Paul was an explosives expert, adept at guerrilla warfare techniques. Yvette, a former beauty queen from Port-au-Prince, was a prodigy at costumes and disguises, and the best small-craft handler the Baroness had ever known.
"Howdy, people," Paul said. "We going to blow up the world again?" He was pencil slim, very dark and polished, wearing a sport jacket and paisley scarf, and trousers so tight that you could see the outlines of the car keys in his pocket.
"Hush, Paul, that isn't funny," Yvette said in her liquid Haitian cadences. She took a seat by the window, a fetching tropical vision with her smooth café-au-lait skin and crisp flowered print dress.
Dan Wharton followed them in.
Then Eric appeared in the doorway, a lean, narrow-hipped figure with pale Viking eyes, yellow hair, and features that were a shade too handsome. He made fifty thousand dollars a year as the Baroness's top male model. But he was tough as well as pretty. He fought like the Norwegian sailor his father had been, with hard fists and knees and eye-gouging thumbs. He spoke eight languages fluently, and often played the part of Penelope's escort on European assignments.
"We're all here except Fiona," Eric said. "I called at six-thirty to remind her, but there was no answer."
"Still asleep, no doubt," Penelope said, a trace of annoyance showing. "Her day doesn't start till noon."
"I'll fetch her," Wharton said, getting up.
"I've fetched myself, love," a voice said from the doorway. They all looked around. The girl who stood there was slender and leggy, with a pale, fragile-boned beauty and hair like orange flame. She wore a snaky green minidress that was molded like a second skin to her braless torso. She was the Baroness's top female model. The previous year she'd made twice as much as Eric. She was worth every cent.
"Sit down, Fi," Penelope said. "Inga has coffee for us. Now try to pay attention."
Fiona covered a yawn and sat next to Wharton. He moved an imperceptible inch away.
Penelope belted the terrycloth robe and sat cross-legged atop the massage table. The eight of them faced her in a semicircle, waiting.
"We have a puzzle today, children," she said. "Here's what it's about."
She briefed them rapidly and precisely. When she was through, she gave them their assignments. "Joe, you're going to Nebraska. Dan, I'll introduce you to some of Cynthia Rawlings' friends, and you can try to get a line on her brother. Paul and Yvette, if some organization is trying to flood this country with a new drug, it's going to make ripples in pusherville. I want you to put on your uptown clothes and your uptown voices and see what you can find out."
Eric, holding Inga's hand on the Regency divan, said, "What about us?"
"Sit tight. I may need you two for backups."
Sumo said slowly, "I don't know about tapping the IBM 7090 at Fort Meade. "They've tightened security since the last time we did it. I
don't think I can get a VHF signal through the baffle they installed in the wall."
"There's a way we can get the computer to talk without a VHF tap."
"What do you mean?"
Penelope grinned mischievously. "Call it up on the telephone."
"Are you serious?" Sumo said, looking interested. "When they tightened security, they worked out what they thought was a perfect way to fool the CIA. The computer now accepts split pulses sent over the telephone lines. There's a subprogram to reassemble the pulses into a request for readout. Key used it last night. I recorded the pulses on that trick string of pearls you made for me."
"Beautiful!" Sumo exclaimed. His eyes went dreamy. "All we have to do is sneak our own query program into the 7090's innards on a counterfeit pulse, let it bounce around in the memory core, and…"
"Later, Tommy. We'll talk about it after you analyze the pulses."
"Right."
Inga stirred. "You said you wanted Eric and me to help you. How?"
Penelope uncrossed her legs and swung them over the edge of the massage table. "You can start making inquiries about Reginald T. Perry's sex life. I want to know who his last mistress was. If it was a new drug that killed him, he may have gotten it from her. If he got it somewhere else, he may have taken a trip with her, or at least mentioned it to her. I don't know her name, but I think she's supposed to be a model…"
Fiona leaned forward. The green dress bulged dangerously. "Monica Firth," she said.
"What's that, Fi?"
"I know who Reggie's girlfriend was. I worked with her on a TV commercial. She talked about him. Her name's Monica Firth."
"Very good, Fi. Call her up. You can use the phone in the study. Tell her International Models is interested in her. You and I are taking her to lunch today."
With a toss of her flaming hair, Fiona left the room. Skytop and Paul watched her swinging rear with undisguised pleasure. Wharton studiously looked at the floor.
Penelope stood up. "On your way, children. You have work to do, and so do I."
They got to their feet and began moving toward the door. Sumo was babbling happily into Wharton's ear, telling him about the pulse analysis equations that were going to allow him to tap the big computer in Fort Meade. Paul gave Yvette a pat on the bottom, herding her toward the door. Penelope stopped Joe Skytop on the way out.
"There's a flight to Denver in an hour. Eric has your ticket."
The big Cherokee nodded. "I'll need some money."
She opened a drawer and handed him a thick bundle of notes. "There's two thousand here. Don't be afraid to spend it. Wire John for more if you need it."
Skytop stuffed the wad into his jeans. He paused. "Be careful, Baroness. You can't tell who might get interested when you start asking questions. It might be somebody who plays rough."
"I play rough, Joseph," she said.
Without any apparent preliminary bunching of her calf muscles, she jumped four feet straight into the air, doing a simultaneous backflip. Her feet shot out and caught him full in the chest. One hand hit the floor to support her weight. The other caught the hem of his jeans at one ankle and tugged sharply toward her.
The big man flew backward, off balance, and landed in a chair. It splintered under his weight and he crashed to the floor.
Penelope completed her cartwheel and landed in a standing position, the robe flapping open. She fastened it and watched Skytop struggle to his feet, a rueful expression on his face.
"Beautiful!" he said admiringly. "That was a new one! I never saw it coming!"
"You keep breaking chairs, Chief darling."
He shook his huge craggy head. "You're the chief," he said, and shambled out.
Penelope inspected the ruins of the Louis Quinze chair. It had cost four thousand dollars. It had been worth it to see the look of surprise on Skytop's face. Now, she knew, he'd work a little harder sharpening up his reflexes.
She found the clothes Inga had laid out for her and took them to the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the dressing alcove. She let the terry robe fall to the floor and studied her naked body with a professional eye.
She saw a long-limbed beauty in superb physical condition. The belly was flat, smooth, from the puckered navel to the soft dark bush covering the gentle curve of the mons. The shoulders were wide, capable, and very feminine. If you looked very closely, you could see the strong tough sinews rippling under the creamy skin. The breasts were high and well-placed on a long torso that tapered to an impossibly narrow waist. The flared hips and smooth thighs were taut, firm. The elegant curves of the calves were made of muscle, not fat.
She watched herself critically while she did a few simple exercises. Nothing quivered except the strawberry-tipped globes of her breasts, and those hardly at all. Now in her thirties, she was still as firm as a teenager.
Satisfied, she turned from the glass. Her body was as efficient as a well-oiled machine. It would do exactly what it was called on to do — scale a wall, swim a river, parry a knife thrust, kill a man instantly with nothing more than a rolled-up newspaper or three rigid fingers.
Fiona returned as she was zipping up her dress, a vibrant orange knit by Ricci. She smoothed the body-hugging fabric over her breasts and hips, then turned to the red-haired model.
"Did you get her?"
"Yes. She's thrilled at meeting you. We're picking her up at twelve."
The Baroness glanced at her sapphire watch. "Three hours from now," she said. She took the Bernadelli VB out of the drawer of her vanity table and checked the magazine. All five rounds were there. She snapped the magazine back in place and slipped the little gun into the soft chamois holster sewn to the thigh of her pantyhose.
Fiona's eyes widened. "You're taking a gun? To have lunch with Monica Firth?"
"You never can tell," the Baroness said.
4
The large blocky man with the oddly shaped head didn't belong in that neighborhood. The suit he was wearing was too cheap for the East Sixties. It hung loosely from a bulky squarish torso that made him look as if he were wearing a box under his jacket. His face had been crudely hacked out by a careless sculptor, with its broken nose, cauliflower ear, and the unfocused eyes of the ex-pug.
His head had a huge dent in one side. It looked like a carton that someone had stepped on.
He watched the entrance of the fashionable apartment building from across the street until the doorman disappeared on an errand for a tenant. Then he lumbered across awkwardly like an oversized walking toy with rusty joints.
Inside the lobby he searched the list of names next to the house phone. His blunt finger stopped at Monica Firth — 7G.
The blocky man straightened with a creak. He made it to the elevator a scant second before the doorman returned.
There was no one in the seventh-floor corridor. He put his ear to the door of 7G and listened for a moment. A radio was playing inside.
He put a big gnarled hand on the knob and turned. The other hand went flat-palmed against the door. He pushed.
The door complained squeakily. He increased his pressure. The frame groaned. He pushed steadily harder. Something gave with a snap and the door flew open. With surprising speed and deftness he caught it before it could slam into the wall.
He shambled inside and closed the door behind him. The radio was on a table in the foyer. It was playing something from Oliver — "I'd Do Anything." He turned up the volume.
Monica Firth was in the bedroom, just stepping into her pantyhose. She was wearing a tea-colored bra with a little bow in front. The only other item she was wearing was a portable hair dryer, slung over her shoulder by a strap. A flexible plastic hose connected to the flowered cap covering her curlers.
She didn't hear him enter the room. The hair dryer's humming deafened her. He was three steps inside before his bulk shadowed her peripheral vision.
Monica looked up. "Who the hell are you?" she said.
He lurched toward her. She tried to take a step backward, but her
ankles were trapped by the pantyhose. An oversized hand clamped on her arm.
She screamed. The other hand went over her mouth.
She beat at him with her free hand. It was like hitting a block of granite. The hand over her mouth tightened, digging steel-hard fingers into the hollows of both cheeks. Her head was forced back. It was impossible to move in that iron grip. The blocky man let go of her arm and delicately removed the plastic dryer cap. His bleary eyes roved over her curler-covered scalp. He jerked the plug of the dryer out of the wall.
Monica was making gobbling sounds, flailing at his tombstone chest. She freed one foot from the pantyhose and brought a knee up into his groin. He didn't appear to notice.
"Quiet down, lady," he said. His voice sounded rusty and unused. She got her arms up high enough to start thumping his head and face with her fists. Something hard on his scalp hurt her hand. She whimpered.
The blocky man dragged her over to the bed, his gorilla hands fastened on her chin and arm. He flung her on her back, then knelt over her. The mattress sagged under his weight.
Some of the fear left Monica's eyes. This was something she knew about. Let him have his way and maybe she could talk him into leaving without hurting her.
A knee like a log of wood covered her thighs, pinning her down. He fumbled in a pocket with one hand. The thumb and forefinger in the hollows of Monica's cheeks squeezed, forcing her mouth open. Her lips compressed into a round O gave her an expression like a Kewpie doll.
She tried to scream, but the only sound that came out was a gurgle.
The thick fingers popped something cool and smooth into her mouth. It might have been a cough drop.
"Swallow, lady," he said. A big paw rapped her solar plexus, and she drew in air sharply. She started coughing. "Swallow," he said. Holding her by the face, he shook her head impatiently. The lozenge went down.
He held her pinned to the bed for another ten minutes, one vast mitt over her face, the other bearing down on her thighs.
After a while she stopped thrashing. Her breathing became calmer. Her body noticeably relaxed. Cautiously, the blocky man took his hand off her mouth. She didn't scream. He removed his other hand from her thighs and looked down at her. There was something very much like envy in his clouded eyes.
