A Hard Act To Follow

by Troy Conway

  Then there was the business about Corinne at the LSP party. If she had been a prisoner of the conspiratorsor of the Chinese Reds who were supposedly backing themshe almost certainly wouldn’t have been there. The theory got shakier.

  And so I had brought Hartley’s photo for Egbert to identify. I was looking for a new theorylike maybe that Hartley was an acid-head and that the conspirators had got theirs hooks on Corinne through him.

  Now Egbert had identified Hartley as one of the crowd.

  Beautiful.

  Except for one thing. Timing.

  Egbert had said that Hartley was one of the first guys in the group.

  That meant that Hartley was a conspirator at the same time that Corinne supplied Walrus-moustache with the report about the Chinese Reds infiltrating the hippies. And her report was the main reason the conspiracy was now being investigated by me and by Walrus-moustache’s other agents.

  If she had been part of the thing from the beginning, why did she blow the4 whistle on herself and her buddies?

  Who’s side was she on?

  It was possible, of course, that Hartley hadn’t brought her in until after Walrus-moustache had received her report.

  Still, now that he was dead, why was she staying?

  Fear?

  I doubted it.

  But why else?

  I couldn’t guess.

  Another problem: if the Chinese Communists actually were behind the plot, what was Corinne, a rabid right-winger, doing in their camp?

  And even if the Chinese Communists weren’t behind it, what has induced her to tie in with, and stay tied in with, the hippies?

  The more I thought about it, the more baffling it became.

  Finally I stopped thinking and resumed picking Egbert’s brains.

  “What do you know about James Hartley?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Just what I told you. He was one of the first guys in the group.”

  My fingers closed around his bicep. “Think hard, Egbert! This is important. He may be the key to the whole business.”

  “But I told you all I know!”

  “Then tell me again! Start right at the beginning and tell me everything you can about him, even if you don’t think it’s important.”

  He looked hard at the photo, then handed it back to me. We circled a group of longhair who were chanting the praises of pot to the accompaniment of a trio of congo drummers. Then I found an unoccupied plot of grass on the periphery of the crowed that was listening to Dina Grey’s folk songs, and we sat down.

  “well.” he said, “I don’t know exactly when I saw him for the first time, but it was pretty early in the game. He was a lot older that the crowd I ran with, so I never really got tight with him. We might’ve said ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and all that, but never anything more.”

  “How did you know he was from Philadelphia?”

  “That’s the way everybody talked about him. I mean, we were a pretty informal group. We didn’t bother with last names of stuff like that. hen you met a guy, you said ‘I’ m Egbert’ and he said ‘I’m Jimmy.’ If there was more than one Jimmy in the crowd, you told them apart by saying ‘Jimmy from Brooklyn’ and ‘Jimmy from Philadelphia.’”

  “Was Hartley especially close to The Big Head?”

  “I don’t think so. I saw them together a few times, but that was about the extent of it. He certainly wasn’t one of The Big Head’s real close buddies, like Swami Swahili.”

  “How often did he come to New York from Philadelphia?”

  “All the time. He was here just about every weekend.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Just before The Big Head broke the group down into platoons. After that, I only went to the Treasury Department platoon meetings, so I never saw him again.”

  “Do you know what platoon he was in?”

  “No.”

  A vague feeling of uneasiness gnawed at me, an feeling that Egbert had just said something very significant and that I had missed it.

  I ran the last few bits of dialogue through my mind again.

  Then again.

  But it was no use.

  Nothing clicked.

  I asked a few more questions about Hartley, then changed the subject to the comings and goings of other conspirators. Egbert reported that everyone he knew was nervous, especially after my visits to Devaney, Weiss and Slaitt. But there had been no word from higher-ups about any change in plans. At last count, all conspirators were still standing by for the call that would swing them into action.

  I jotted my address on a slip of paper. Here’s where I live.” I told him. “If anything really important breaks, come over and tell me about it. If not, keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll stop by your apartment tomorrow or the next day for a routine check.”

  “Roger, chief,” he wisecracked. Then he elbowed through a cluster of sign-carriers and vanished in the crowd.

  I sat back and watched Dina Grey. She was just winding up a tune about how tough life is in the Mississippi Delta. It occurred to me that with the two of three hundred grand she mad each year singing about the poor folk she could probably buy the Mississippi Delta. But I didn’t dwell on the subject. I had more important things on my mind.

  Like plotting my net move.

  I was scheduled to meet with The Big Head the following afternoon for our flight to Washington to meet his and my partners, but the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that the date was a setup. Otherwise, why would Chiquita have spiked my drink?

  Come to think of it, why did she my drink?

  Obviously to keep me away from The Big Head and The Church of the Sacred Acid.

  But why did she want to keep me away?

  She had said that she was afraid I’d upset The Big Head.

  But now that he acceded to my request for a piece of the action, he had nothing to be afraid of.

  Or did he?

  No. He didn’t

  But maybe, just maybe, Chiquita did.

  Maybe Chiquita who all along had been playing Edgar Bergan to The Big Head’s Charlie McCarthy, had suddenly found that His Holiness wasn’t quite so maneuverable once the chips had begun to fly.

  Maybe she had found that he was weakening, wakening enough to want to throw in the towel. And maybe she was afraid the camel’s back.

  It was an interesting avenue of speculation But to find out for sure I’d have to get alone with The Big Head. And unless I missed my guess, Chiquita would see to it that I didn’t

  I was willing to lay odds that she hadn’t left his side from the minute he loosened the knots with which I had bound her to the piano.

  All of which meant that I would have to confront him and her together.

  What better time than the present?

  I got up from the grass and brushed off the seat of my pants. Then I started toward the park’s southwest exit.

  I never got there.

  In fact, I didn’t get more than two steps away from the spot where I had been sitting because suddenly I ran into a big blue wall of cops.

  Little had I realized it, but while I had been engrossed in my contemplations, Dina Grey and her audience of hippies had whipped out their marijuana and begun their smoke-in.

  As a matter of fact, more than half the throng in the entire park had begun sucking on thin, hand-rolled cigarettes.

  The Tompkins Park Blast article had predicted that the fuzz wouldn’t bust three thousand peopleand the article had been right. But evidently the cops had planned on snagging a random sample of the smokers, and fate had numbered non-smoking-me among the group.

  The big blue wall closed in on me and the hippies, nightsticks at the ready, and we were herded toward the edge of the park.

  “Wait!” I told the cop nearest me. “I wasn’t smoking anything!”

  “Yeah, buddy, I know all about it,” he said dryly.

  “I mean it. I don’t even smoke cigarettes. Search me if you like.”
r />   “You could’ve ditched the stuff back there in the grass.”

  “But I didn’t. you’re arresting an innocent man.”

  “Tell it to the judge.”

  Once the group of us was in a corner, the blue d uniforms made their way among us, separating the mass into malleable form. One by one, the hippiesand Iwere herded into the paddy wagon. I flapped down on one of the benches, cursing the law d averages that once again had turned against me.

  In seconds, the beaches were full, but the hippie-prisoners kept pouring in. Some of them huddled in the center of the floor. Others sat on the laps of the bench-sitters.

  A tall, red-bearded guy who couldn’t have weighed less than two-fifty zeroed in on my lap. I waited until he had started to squat. Then I gave him a sideways shove. He bowled into a cluster of hippies a few feet away, knocking them down like bowling pins. I caught his scowl and gave him one back. Happily, he decided not to pursue things any further.

  Then another hippie zeroed in on me. But this hippie didn’t have a beard. She had long chestnut hair and a body that wouldn’t quit. Cradled in her arms, like a baby, was a guitar. Her name was Dina Grey.

  My hands found her thighs and guided her into place on top of me. Her head swiveled around, and her pretty lips parted in a gladtoseeyou smile.

  “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I quipped.

  The wagon lurched forward, then moved out into traffic. Dina draped her legs around the outsides of mine. Her buttocks wriggled deliciously against my ever-rigid rod. “My, my,” she purred “I’ve heard of virility, but this is something else.”

  Her perfume, the same delicate fragrance that had tantalized my nostrils that night at The Church of the Sacred Acid tantalized them again. She draped an arm over my shoulder. Her lips brushed my cheek. “I’m always like that,” I explained. “The technical term for it is pianism.”

  “I how. I’ve read your books.”

  My eyebrows arched. “Then you know who I am?”

  “Of course. I recognized you from the photo on your book covers. That’s why I made a play for you in The Church of the Sacred Acid.”

  “Suppose the guy in the church had been someone who just looked like me. What would you have done then?”

  She chuckled lasciviously. “Sat back and enjoyed it”

  The paddy wagon jerked to a halt at a traffic light. The sudden stop sent all of us occupants sliding forward. Then the wagon lurched forward again and we slid back to the original position.

  Dina’s hand vanished between her legs and began clutching my trousers. “it’s a rough ride,” she explained. “I think I’d better hold onto something.”

  I reciprocated by reaching up under her guitar and clutching her breast. She squirmed delightedly and began working open my zipper.

  “Uh, Dina,” I managed, “do you really think That’s such a good idea? I mean, considering the location and all?”

  She threw her head over my shoulder and kissed me sexily on the neck. “The hippies won’t mind. They’re very open minded about things like this.”

  “How about the cops?”

  “They’re all in the front of the wagon.” She gave me a low, throaty laugh. “What’re you so squeamish about, Damon? You know the old saying-gather your rosebuds while you may.”

  She had it out of context, but I lied the new context a lot better than the old. Reaching under her blouse with both hands, I cupped the lovely rosebuds at the tips of her firm, round breasts. The nipples popped to life in my fingers.

  The wagon stopped at another traffic light. We occupants slid forward again, then slid back as the light changed. “Hey, man,” Dina called to the hippie who was crouched in bent of her. “Hold my guitar for a minute, willya?” He took it, and with both hands free, she arranged her miniskirt over my thighs. Then she began to hum.

  I urged my hips forward on the seat. She arched hers and eased my manhood into place. Then she bore down and engulfed it.

  The paddy wagon rolled dong. The New York Department of Public Works never had been too particular about the condition of its streets, and the one we now were riding was as bumpy as a tank trail. Each bump sent me deep inside her. I couldn’t ask for a more effcient shock absorber.

  “How’s the ride up there?” I asked.

  She didn’t have to answer. Her buttocks pounded a wild beat against my thighs. Her tongue licked provocatively at my neck. Her breath was hot in my ear.

  The road got bumpier. I felt a warm ball of desire swell up inside me. I squeezed Dina tightly, sending my excitement far up into her. She gasped, and her fingernails dug into my thighs. “don’t stop now,” she said.

  I had no intention of stopping. Every stroke was bringing me to a new plateau of excitement. The street had smoothed out somewhat, but the furious rhythm of Dina’s hips more than made up for the bumps we had lost.

  The warmth surrounding my passion became a boiling sea Shock waves of sensation soared through me. I was fast getting where I wanted to go, and Dina was getting there with me. “Ohhhhhhh” she groaned. “Ohhhhh, baby! I’m going to make it”

  All of a sudden the wagon hit another stretch of rough street. Dina and I jounced around like twin riders on a bucking bronco. I reached my boiling point and overflowed into her. The frantic scissoring of her thighs told me that she had made it too.

  Neither of us arrived a moment too soon. I was still savoring the last delicious tingles of sensation when the wagon jerked to a halt and its motor sputtered off. A few seconds later the back doors opened. “All right, everybody out!” h t e d a husky man in blue.

  My hands found Dina’s hips and tried to ease her off my pillar. But she stayed right in place.

  “Hey!” I whispered hoarsely. “let’s not press our luck!”

  “I can’t help if” she whispered back. “Look what’s in front of me.”

  I looked.

  And I looked again.

  What was in front of her was the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bruiser who had tried for a seat on my lap before Dina usurped his prerogatives. He now was sitting on her lap—or more precisely, on her and my laps. To his left, another bruiser was sitting on the lap of the guy who was sitting on my neighbor’s lap. And so it went the whole length of the bench. We were stacked in three tiers.

  “Hey!” bellowed the bluecoat at the door. “didn’t you hear me? I said everybody out!”

  None of the hippies moved. The wagon was packed tighter than the Lexington Avenue Local at rush hour, and the press of humanity inside it was solidly entrenched.

  The bluecoat was getting blue in the face. “What is this?!” he shouted. “Are you bums deaf or what?!”

  The bums weren’t deaf. They were just being obstinate. “it’s an old trick,” Dina explained. “They want the cops to carry them out. it’ll make for better newspaper pictures.”

  The cop at the door had had his fill. He raised his arm and waved it. In seconds, a phalanx of blue coated comrades had come to give him a hand.

  They carried the hippies out of the wagon one by one. I was hoping that they’d clear the top tier of lap sitters first. If they did, Dina’d have a chance to slide off me without anyone’s realizing what had been going on.

  But the cops eschewed the tier approach for one that involved carrying away everyone in order of his closeness to the door. That meant that, unless the carrying officers who wound up with Dina were hopelessly inattentive, the nature of our union was sure to be discovered.

  I watched as one stack of hippies, then another, then another was hauled away. It was taking time, but the paddy wagon was being emptied.

  Soon a pair of burly bluecoats hoisted the two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder off Dina’s lap. A second pair of blue coats promptly moved into place to lift her off my lap. The moment of the truth arrived.

  I’ll give Dina credit for trying.

  She really tried.

  As soon as the bruiser was off her, she slipped off me. Then she hovered over me
, the hem of her miniskirt giving me a cover under which I could reach to secretly readjust my trousers.

  Unfortunately it was a very mini miniskirt and the cover wasn’t quite concealing enough. The cops who had come to carry Dina took one look and knew precisely what was happening.

  “Bless us and save us!” rasped the first

  “I never thought I’d see the day!” gasped the second.

  “I can explain, officer,” I chimed in. “You see, I’m Dr. Rod Damon of the League for Sexual Dynamics, and——”

  “Save the palaver for the judge, buddy,” crooned the duo in unison. “Both you and your pretty little friend here are just now being arrested a second time,” added the first.

  “what’s the charge?” I demanded.

  “Lewd and indecent behavior in an official vehicle of the New York City Police Department.”

  We were ushered into the stationhouse to be booked. A cop behind the desk took our names and addresses. Then Dina was M off in one direction and I was led off in another. I wound up with two dozen Wles in a cell no bigger than ten feet square.

  I glanced at my watch It was six thirty-five.

  I knew that I’d have to act fast if I wanted to get to The Church of the Sacred Acid in time to catch Chiquita and The Big Head before the sermon started.

  I asked the cop in the corridor if I could make a phone call.

  He smiled politely. “Of course you may.”

  I waited for him to open the cell door.

  He didn’t budge.

  “Uh—I guess I didn’t make myself clear,” I fumbled. “What I was trying to tell you was that I wanted to make a phone call. You know what I mean? A call On the telephone.”

  He smiled again. “I know what a phone call is, buddy.”

  “Well, are you ping to let me make one or not?”

  “I certainly am. it’s the constitutional right of every prisoner to make a phone call, and I’d be the last person in the world to deprive you of your constitutional rights.”

  “Well, how about letting me make it?”

  “I will . . . in due time. Meanwhile, just be nice and calm. you’ve got a long night ahead of you, and you won’t sleep well if you let yourself get all upset”