by Robert Colby
“What about the sister?” asked Earl Lubeck.
“Anita? She’s practically on the payroll,” Tony replied.
“She may be on the payroll,” Rosen contributed, “but she don’t know there’s anything she’s got to hide—nothin’ more than to keep Emrick off Marian’s neck. You want my opinion, I think she’s a snooty bitch who only puts out for Yale and Harvard grads.
You got to show ’er the key—you know, the ole Phi Beta Kappa.
“Spit out the sour grapes and shut up,” Tony snapped. “You had a lotta laughs with Wymer. You got no kick.”
“Yeah, I was laughin’ all the way to her door. Then I was cryin’. Besides, she’s bein’ paid to laugh. What a joke that is. A dollar a chuckle.”
“I pay ’er because I want her to hop at the right time,” Tony came back. “I’m gonna need her, like tomorrow morning when Marian calls her at Food Thrift and pumps her about the next move Stienmetz is gonna make. Hell, we got a spy in the enemy camp.”
“Still, I think Harry is right,” Lubeck said. “She’s an outsider and she’s dangerous to the whole operation. We’ve checked everyone who knew this address and she’s the only logical possibility.”
“Marian,” asked Tony, “did Emrick know your friend Anita?”
“No. I don’t think I ever mentioned her. I did get a couple of letters from her. But he’s not the type who would read my mail.”
“Yeah? Well, I wouldn’t lay odds. Anyway, he knew you were from Miami and he knew you had friends here. He’d try to get a lead through them. You must have told him a few things—where you worked, stuff like that.”
“Yes, I told him where I worked, though I doubt if he remembered.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Tony. “He came down here and somehow he got to Anita. If not, who else? She has to be the one.”
“She’d never talk,” said Marian. “Never. I made her promise.”
“Oh? So you did think maybe he’d get in touch with her, didn’t you?”
“Well,” said Marian warily, “there was always an off-chance he might locate her, so I asked her to play dumb. I was just being careful, Tony, and smart.”
“You’re smart all right. You left a trail as big as the Grand Canyon. If I wasn’t afraid you’d leak all over the place, I’d toss you out on your can right now.”
He turned to Lubeck. “You and Harry hold the fort here. I’m gonna go over and have a little chat with Anita.”
“At this hour?” said Lubeck.
“At this hour, buddy.”
“You want us to come along?” asked Rosen.
“No. I’ve got an angle. I’ll do better alone. You guys just take care of Marian. See that she don’t go anywhere. Even if you have to sleep with her, see that she don’t leave the house.”
“Tony!” cried Marian, gaping in shock, her rich mouth an open wound.
“You mean that?” said Lubeck, grinning lewdly and winking at Rosen. “You mean that, Tony?”
“Take it any way you like,” said Viani coolly. He gave Marian a hard, calculating look in which there was the barest trace of a smile. Then he strode from the room.
There was the sound of the door closing and then the polite murmur of the Cadillac departing.
Earl and Harry Rosen again exchanged glances. They wore the sneaky faces of schoolboys about to commit some naughty prank, though undecided as to how they should begin.
Marian caught the full implication and for a moment studied her nails. “Think I’ll wash my hair,” she said casually. “I never seem to have time for things like that, we’re on the run so much.” She stood, yawning and stretching, an unfortunate posture because it caused the uptilting cones of her breasts to extend invitingly beneath the sweater. “More coffee, you guys?” Silence.
“Well, take care. I’ll be in the bathroom, soaping the locks.” She chuckled, the sound dying quickly as she turned to leave.
Lubeck caught her from behind before she had taken three steps. His arms closed around her, hands clutching her breasts. “Jesus God!” he said. “What a prize! Tony must be off his nut.”
“Yeah, well there’s plenty for both of us,” said Rosen, approaching and resting a heavy, stroking hand on her buttocks. “Don’t hog it all, Lubeck.”
“Listen you fellows,” Marian whined, “Tony will kill you. When I tell him, he’ll tear you apart. Don’t you understand? He was just kidding! Honest, you don’t know him like I do. That was just his crude way of making a little joke. Sure, he’s mad at me,” she hurried on, selling them desperately, “but he’ll realize when he gets two blocks away that none of this is my fault. Then he’ll come roaring back, ready to apologize. You better not let him find you mauling me like this. Please!”
“On the way home tonight,” said Rosen, still stroking her body, “did you see what I saw in the mirror, Earl?”
“You kidding? You damn near broke a rib when you nudged me. I saw it all right. This one is hot. I mean she’s an all-roads, no-brakes, got-to-have-it, crazy-for-it chick. Man, I thought if she didn’t stop with Tony, I was gonna scream. I mean, the pain was delicious, but unbearable, you know?”
“I know, I know, I know,” chanted Roesn. “I only met one like her. A little redhead in Brooklyn, years ago. She got a bang outta the whole gang. You dig?”
“I dig.” Lubeck hoisted the sweater. “Like this one, she had to have men. Men, men, men!”
“And that lets you bastards out!” Marian snarled. “Now let me go!” She wiggled frantically.
“Did you ever notice,” said Rosen, “how a dame will take pleasure in throwing it at you when she knows you can’t get to ’er?”
“Yeah, yeah,” agreed Lubeck. “All this time she’s been snaking around the house, tempting us. She serves it up on the table, then she grabs it away and puts it back in the Deep-freeze with big Tony to guard it. Well, Tony’s gone, baby. And he left the lock off the goody box. So you got no choice. Either you play it cool and you don’t get hurt, or we do it this way!”
Twisting her arm behind her until her face became contorted and ugly, he gave her bra a mighty downward wrench. It came apart and fell to the floor.
Uncaged, like great white doves taking flight, her breasts soared free. Tautly pink-nippled, impudently demanding, they rose and fell, beckoning in the quick current of her breathing.
“Holy God, what a woman!” said Rosen in a voice hoarse with awe and excitement.
“They can’t be real,” said Lubeck, reaching to convince himself.
“My arm,” groaned Marian. “Earl, you’re hurting me! Please let go and I’ll— I’ll—”
“You will?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes, anything you say. If you guys promise not to hurt me.”
Lubeck released her. “Baby, you got a promise.” He thrust an arm around her and began walking her toward the bedroom, whispering in her ear. Rosen trailed close behind.
At the door she turned. She had not bothered to pull down the sweater and her breasts poked out enticingly.
“Harry,” she said, her features flaccid with resignation, “be a good boy and go make yourself a little drink.”
Nodding in approval, Lubeck grinned outrageously. “Yeah, make yourself a good stiff drink, Harry boy.” He winked. “You might need it.”
“Oh, no! No you don’t,” Rosen protested. “Either I’m in the first act or the show don’t go on.”
Marian turned to Lubeck for aid, but he seemed only amused. After a moment of injured silence, she sighed and made room for Rosen to pass. He and Lubeck both entered the room.
Slowly, abjectly, Marian closed the door. But in that moment when her face was hidden, a small, twisted smile reshaped her abundant lips, a perverse gleam brightened her eyes.
Then she locked the door and bravely faced her attackers.
Lubeck grabbed the bottom of her sweater with both hands and whipped it over her head savagely. With a yank he freed her arms and now she stood half-naked before them,
waiting with limp indecision, her eyes darting fearfully from one to the other.
“Remember, you promised not to hurt me,” she pleaded.
“You want her?” said Lubeck to Rosen, who was sprawled on the bed, devouring Marian with obscenely bright and hungry eyes.
“You kidding?” he answered. “Send ’er over!”
Lubeck gave her a massive shove and she fell atop Rosen with a little cry of shock. Holding her in the squeezing vise of his arms, Rosen kissed her fiercely, wetly, until she moaned for air. Then he flipped her over on her back and began clawing at her breasts, bending to bite at them with all the tenderness of a rabid dog.
Meanwhile, Lubeck was wrestling with the zipper of her skirt, finally wrenching it down to the limit of its track. His face a drooling portrait of lust, he hauled the skirt from her body and tossed it to the floor. He was beyond caring, was too demented for patience with her panties. He simply caught them in his paw and ripped them away.
For a moment he stood staring at the wonder of her total nakedness, at the writhing spread-eagled thighs, the beckoning arch of loins starkly revealed in the glare of light from an overhead fixture.
Staring up from the brutal embrace of Rosen to that depraved, twisted face with its relentless mouth and degenerate eyes, Marian was suddenly in a panic of fear. It was, after all, not going to be a kind of playful orgy, but a rape of bestial cruelty by two merciless animals.
With the last of her strength she pushed Rosen off and hurled herself from the bed. But Lubeck caught her easily, his laughter mocking her as she fumbled madly with the door.
“Now,” he said, as he unbuckled his belt, “it’s time to stop fooling around and get down to business! Eh, Rosen?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tony Viani turned off Biscayne and wheeled the blue Cadillac swiftly over the long, dark finger of the MacArthur Causeway toward Miami Beach.
He enjoyed the power and luxury of that seventy-five hundred dollar complex of steel. It spoke of his superior rank in the world. It was at least a pretention to that social status for which he secretly yearned.
Tony lighted a cigarette, collapsed his cheeks and pulled deeply. Exhaling little jets of smoke, he squinted in thoughtful concentration. Really, he didn’t care what use Lubeck and Rosen made of the liberty he had given them. Unless he could recover, Marian had caused him to crap out—a total loss. Further, he was tired of her, up to here with her. Too much fawning, too much begging at the barren table of his heart, gave Tony the same uncomfortable feeling which followed when he gorged himself with an overabundance of food. His surfeit of Marian bordered on loathing. Tony’s interests were fickle anyway, and there had always been great wads of money with which to purchase variety.
But in his limited circle there were so many crusty, unpolished dames that at first Marian had seemed a windfall. She was an attainment, her shallow refinement adding to his prestige. It had never occurred to him that in her own way she would find him just as fascinating. More, that she would behold him as the object of a long search for some everlastingly unobtainable god and, in the end, destroy the image she had created of herself by kneeling at his feet in whimpering admiration. For like most rock-bound egocentrics, Tony demanded obedience but yawned in the face of servility.
No matter how inventively acrobatic in bed, women were much the same to Tony once all their little tricks had been displayed. There were just so many variations and Tony knew them all. Only those females he could not buy, beat or con into submission excited him, for they were mysteries still unexplored.
Anita was one of these and now there was an excuse to catch her alone and offguard, dulled by the narcotic of sleep. Maybe with a little help, Marian might disappear. Then Anita could take her place.
In truth, Tony had been finished with Marian when he left for Los Angeles. But once back in Miami, the plan had developed in his clever mind. Anita, so well placed at Food Thrift, had unknowingly set off his chain of thought. But when she told him that Marian was secretary to the president of Proctor Drug it struck him that Marian was ready-made to furnish information, to spy in the enemy camp. Proctor would be first on the list, replacing Food Thrift, since Anita’s boss was in Europe and until he returned she might be out of contact with executive decisions. Besides, Tony would have to find a way to con Wymer—unlike Marian, she wasn’t going to be a willing tool.
The scheme worked beautifully. After the blasting of a Proctor drugstore, Tony had been able to anticipate every move the company employed against him. Armed with Marian’s inside track, he had completely outmaneuvered Proctor and the police in the extortion of a quarter million.
Again, he might have discarded Marian. But she would be useful in the Food Thrift operation. She could pump Wymer casually, make her an unwitting spy. Furthermore, if deserted, she might talk. And finally, she offered forty-seven thousand of her husband’s money as a kind of dowry. Tony was a greedy man and such a bonus delighted him.
Altogether it was a jackpot of luck to find two dames in key positions to help his plan. Spies were not necessary to carry out the scheme, but they were the best kind of insurance against failure.
Tony swerved around a lone car, relaxed against the cushioned seat and smiled. Given the signal, Lubeck and Rosen would waste little time with Marian. They would give her a romp she wouldn’t forget.
Tony’s sensual instincts were strange and perverse and for a minute he composed a close-up picture of Marian, nude and helpless, being ravished by his henchmen. It was a miniature reel of pornography which stirred Tony to a pitch of exquisite excitement. Perhaps later he would have his turn, too.
In any case, Marian would get the message. She was on her way out. When the Food Thrift thing was done and she had played her part, she would have to get lost in a hurry. Tony hoped his disdainful treatment of her would ease the way. If not, there were other methods. As long as he was left free to play the ever broadening field without the annoyance of her cloying possessiveness and her jealous tongue, he would be satisfied. The all-important problem was to make certain she kept her mouth shut.
Tony pulled himself out of his reverie when he reached Anita’s apartment. He parked the car and strode toward the building.
She was a long time answering his summons, and even then she stood well behind the door and kept it chained.
“Who is it?” she asked sleepily.
“Who else looks like me?” Tony flashed a loose, good-natured grin and spoke thickly. He carried his coat and his tie was askew.
“Tony—my God! Listen, I’m half asleep.” Her voice was pleading, though Tony knew she was secretly irritated.
“You’re half asleep an’ I’m half loaded. Makes us even. Been partyin’ around, ya know? I’m on the way home. Left the crew at a joint couple blocks away, came over for a little chat. Got to talk to you. Important, understand?”
“Tony, have a heart.” Behind the door she rubbed her eyes. “I’ve got to go to work in a few hours. Won’t it keep?”
“Nope. Won’t keep.”
“I’m sorry, Tony,” she said more firmly. “I can’t possibly see you now. Be a good guy and call me at the office.”
She began to close the door but Tony had his foot wedged.
“Anita,” he said, a trace of menace altering his tone, “when Tony Viani wants conversation, he wants conversation. No little door an’ no little chain is gonna stop him. C’mon now, baby. Won’t take a minute.”
After a nervous silence she said, “All right, Tony. I see you’re determined.”
Tony smiled and removed his foot. “That’s a girl, that’s my good little girl.”
“Just gave me a few seconds to put on a robe and comb my hair.”
“Well now, I could wait inside and—”
But she had quickly closed the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For a moment, Anita leaned against the other side of the door listening, breathing rapidly. Then she raced on tiptoe into the bedroom. The hotel number
Warren Emrick had given her so that she could keep him posted was on the back of an envelope by the phone. She dialed swiftly, asked for Mr. Bradford, the name Warren was still using as a cover. He sounded wide awake. “Warren, it’s Anita.”
“Funny—I couldn’t sleep and I was just thinking about you.”
“Not so funny. Tony’s here!”
“There?”
“Outside the door. I’m stalling him but I’ve got to let him in because he won’t go away. Listen, I’m scared silly of that man. He pretends it’s just a friendly little call, but I know him, there’s something terrible on his mind. He can’t keep it out of his eyes, for all his sick smiles. I think he’s been home and found that money missing and he suspects I know something. Lord, what shall I do? Even if there was a reason, I couldn’t call the police because of my brother. He may be involved with Tony.”
“No, don’t call the police. Just go on stalling him. I’ll be right over!”
“Don’t be insane, Warren. He’d kill you!”
“Do what I say! Stall! Now hang up so I can get started.”
“It’s impossible to stall him much longer, he’d break the door down. I’ll have to let him in. So if you must come over, just stay near but keep out of sight. I’ll leave the door unlocked and if I need you, I’ve got good lungs. Otherwise—please, please don’t get mixed up in this! Promise?”
“Okay, okay. Don’t excite him, pretend to play ball. I’m on the way!”
She heard the receiver fall heavily.
Quickly Anita crossed to the closet and removed her blue negligée. She draped it tightly around her and hurried to the bathroom. She had made three passes with the comb when she heard Tony pounding on the door. She paused, chewed her lip, and continued combing. When Tony’s fist threatened to splinter the wood, she dropped the comb and went to let him in.
“Thought you fell asleep,” he said, grinning savagely. He stepped into the living room and tossed his coat over a chair.
While his back was turned, Anita released the lock and closed the door. “You know women, Tony. Even at four in the morning they have to preen for a man. It’s a matter of pride.”
