Hard-core Murder

by Paul Kenyon

  "I know."

  "Here, try some of this." He handed her the stub of a stick trapped in a split wooden match. "It's the real Panama gold."

  She took a long, deep drag. It was low-quality grass, full of stems. She handed back the jefferson airplane. "It's the dubee-do," she said with a straight face.

  Terence was threading his way toward her, balancing two martinis. He stepped over a lanky blonde who was lying full length on the rug, writhing in time to the rock music coming from the stereo. "Hullo, Joey," he said. "How's tricks?" He handed Penelope a martini. "You've got a fan. Mitchell Lloyd over there is trying to burn a hole in your backside."

  "Steady on, darling. The eyes do not have it."

  "I'm not jealous, luv. But do be careful. The man's tied up with the Mob. He can make a dangerous playmate."

  "Oh, Terence, I'm sure all those stories are exaggerated."

  He frowned. "The word is that they helped him get where he is. And he still has some friends and business interests that won't stand the light of day."

  Joey giggled. "Mitch is so tough looking. If he isn't tied up with the Organization, he plays a marvelously convincing part."

  "Bugger off!" Terence said savagely. "What organization do you belong to? The green fairies?"

  Joey drifted off, looking hurt. The party was getting noisier around them. The animals were getting restless.

  "Where's that movie that Bay promised us?" a petulant voice said somewhere behind Penelope.

  A deep baritone that she recognized as Ray Faye's said, "It's only eleven. It'll get here."

  Baynard Warren was moving through the crowd, looking harassed, stopping to drop a placating word or two to various people. A couple of guests put on their coats and left.

  Penelope was having her second martini when the apartment buzzer rang. Warren brightened. "That must be them now," he said. He moved toward the door.

  Two men entered, weighted down with projection equipment. A third man followed them in, carrying nothing except a slim attaché case. They were all square, wide shouldered, dressed in dark suits and wide-brimmed hats. The man with the attaché case had his right hand in his side pocket. Penelope thought she saw the outline of a gun.

  "I see it's a complete rental service," Penelope said. "Projector and screen included."

  "That it is, luv," Terence said. "And the three hoods stay with it until the show is over. They're not taking any chances on the film getting out of their hands. Not with a one-time rental of ten thousand dollars and up."

  "I heard twenty thousand."

  He raised his eyebrows. "Twenty thousand is it? This must be a very special film then."

  Baynard Warren rattled a silver swizzle stick against a gin bottle for attention. "This is it, kiddies," he said. "If everybody will suspend their other activities for a while, I'll turn out the lights. Popcorn, hash and happy dust during the intermission."

  One of the hoods was efficiently setting up rows of folding chairs that had been stacked against the wall. Another hood was unfurling a movie screen. The one with the attaché case stood with his back to the wall, his eyes darting back and forth, his hand on the cannon in his pocket.

  "They deliver the chairs beforehand, pick them up the next day," Terence said. "Like a bloody catering outfit."

  Penelope nodded absently. She was gauging the chances of planting a tracer on the film. Not much at present, she decided, with the Syndicate messenger hanging onto his attaché case as if it contained the Godfather's marshmallows. Later, maybe.

  The projectionist finished setting up his 16mm machine on its folding table. He flicked his eyes at the man with the attaché case. The other unlocked it and opened the lid. Inside were a couple of flat square fiber-board cases, the kind used for mailing reels, with straps buckled across them. He unstrapped them and removed the metal film cans. He brought the cans to the projectionist, leaving the attaché case and the fiberboard containers behind on a chair.

  The projectionist threaded the film. "Any time, Mr. Warren," he said.

  Warren nodded happily and turned out the lights. A pleasurable murmur went through the rows of folding chairs. Penelope was delighted to see that the man with the gun was sticking close by the projectionist, his hand resting suspiciously on the second reel.

  "Hope this is what you wanted to see, Penny," Terence whispered. A square of light flickered on the screen, and then, to an appreciative snicker from the audience, there actually were titles and credits.

  "A Syn-Apse Production," Joey Jardine giggled somewhere in the darkness. The logo on the screen was a dome in the form of a woman's breast.

  A moment later, there was a groan from Ray Faye. "I don't believe it. Socket Toomey. Babra Blacksheep. Iron Man. Lotta Leg."

  Terence leaned over. "Ray's real name is Lester Schultz."

  The film opened with a shot of the Washington Monument. There was a long dissolve to a symbolic microphone, which in turn became a close-up of an upright phallus. The camera drew back to show that the phallus belonged to a wispy little man lying in bed next to a beefy Thurberish woman with short black hair. The little man looked across longingly at the sleeping woman and sneaked a tentative butterfly hand over to her breast.

  Penelope recognized the little man. It was the Milquetoast from the rough answer print that John Farnsworth had shown her in London. The film was the same one she'd seen, its scenes tightened up somewhat, the color adjusted, and some of the cuts changed to fades and dissolves.

  The audience was eating it up. There were titters when the beefy woman spanked the little man for his audacity, loud laughter when he retreated into his first Walter Mitty fantasy: a harem scene with the Milquetoast as sultan, rejecting his tearful spouse in favor of an acrobatic slave girl. The scenes in the torture cellar, with the Milquetoast being abused by the trio of sadistic girls, caused a stir of excitement.

  "I wouldn't say that this film was made by a healthy mind," Terence whispered.

  "It was made for people like Baynard's friends, darling," Penelope said.

  She waited until the audience seemed to be engrossed by the torture scenes. The three hoods from the Syn were paying rapt attention, too. She slipped unobtrusively from her chair and crossed to the sideboard. There had been a little traffic back and forth during the early scenes — people helping themselves to hash or cocaine — so her passage didn't attract any attention.

  The bugs Sumo had prepared for her had been contrived to meet likely situations she might encounter. They nestled in her evening bag: a button, a hollowed-out coin, a couple that looked like jolly beans or goofballs, on the chance that she might be able to feed one to a pill popper she wanted to tag.

  The one she chose now was in the shape of the metal tip that fits over the end of the fabric strap on the fiber-board containers that are used to mail film cans.

  It was doing service now as the clasp on her makeup case. No one who might peek inside her evening bag would have any reason to think twice about it. Like everything else in her bag, it looked as if it belonged there.

  She pulled the metal tip free as she walked. By the time she passed the chair with the mobster's attaché case on it, she had a little manicure scissors in her hand. Her hand brushed against one of the fiberboard containers and, with a deft movement, she snipped off the end of one of the straps. A split second later she snapped the bugged metal tip onto the severed end of the strap.

  She continued walking toward the sideboard. She'd made the switch without even slowing down.

  The strap on the film case was perhaps an inch shorter than it had been. It wasn't likely that anyone would ever notice.

  The tiny transmitter didn't have enough power to broadcast continuously. But she could trigger it at will with an FM signal.

  She loitered by the sideboard, waiting her turn. A brassy blonde in a Gatsby-style pants suit was ahead of her, dipping into the snuffbox of coke with a tiny gold scoop in the shape of a Tommy gun. The blonde took a snort in each nostril, then turned t
o Penelope, her eyes glittering madly.

  "Bay's such a dear!" she said. "So generous!"

  The blonde's escort was a tall chinless man in a black turtleneck. He resembled, Penelope thought, a well-fed lizard.

  "I've seen that chap before," he said. "He's in all the flesh films. Remarkable apparatus!"

  Penelope looked around at the screen. It was the sequence where the Milquetoast turned into a muscle man with long blond hair tied with a leopard band. He postured for the camera, his enormous biceps rippling. His fantastic member stood out like a leg of lamb.

  "Oh?" she said casually. "Do you know who he is?"

  "He goes by the name of Iron Man. For obvious reasons. Goodness knows what his real name is. He's probably forgotten himself. None of those types from the nether world have a past."

  The blonde in the Gatsby suit clung to his arm adoringly. "Upton knows just everything! Of course he'd never act in that kind of film himself."

  Upton's reptilian eyes fixed on Penelope. "The chap interests you, does he?"

  "Just as an anatomical curiosity."

  The lizard mouth stretched, showing rows of small white teeth all around. "Not to be immodest, but I think you'd find me more than adequate."

  The blonde hung onto his arm. "Upton's got this fantastic whang."

  Upton looked smug. "Why don't you join Cynthia and me for a threesome after the party?"

  "It's always such fun," Cynthia said. "Upton never gets tired."

  Penelope sprinkled some pot into a Zig Zag paper and rolled it into a tube. "I don't know," she murmured, "I'll have to ask my escort if he wants to."

  "Escort?" Upton became indignant. "What do you think I am? I don't have anything to do with that scene! Do you think I'm queer?"

  Penelope licked the seam of the tube and sealed it. "I don't know about you, darling. What about Cynthia?"

  "Upton just loves to watch," Cynthia said, her eyes bright and stupid.

  "Upton, baby," a deep lazy voice said behind Penelope, "are you trying to peddle Cynthia again?"

  Penelope recognized the voice as Mitchell Lloyd's without turning. Upton's face grew purple.

  "Now Mitch," he said.

  Mitch reached past Penelope and helped himself to some of the pot. He rolled himself a joint, one-handed, and took a long drag.

  "You're the broad who came with O'Shea," he said flatly.

  "I thought you might have noticed," she said.

  "Oh, I noticed you, baby," he said. "Don't worry about that."

  "Are you trying to move in on Upton?" she said cruelly.

  Upton took the hint. He moved off with Cynthia still attached to his arm. A moment later they were trying their pitch on the girl in the mosquito netting costume.

  Mitch's expression was amused, in the ghostly light from the screen. "It's O'Shea I'm not trying to move in on," he said. "Never diddle a man out of his dolly in public. It's bad manners. And bad publicity."

  "You've had your share of both, haven't you?"

  He smiled insolently, "My publicity is very good these days."

  "But your manners haven't changed."

  "Don't confuse me with the parts I play, baby."

  "That's right. In your last picture "you were a Mafia don. Before that, you played mostly hoods."

  He laughed. "I've come up in the world, sweetheart. But don't forget the time I played a minister. And a prizefighter. And a private eye."

  "You said you don't steal dollies in public. What about in private?"

  "I wouldn't move in on O'Shea, period. He'd have to be out of the picture first."

  He took another drag on the joint, his eyes hooded and dark.

  There was an uproar from the audience. They both turned to look. On the screen Iron Man was screwing the administration official's wife.

  "Jesus Christ, I don't believe it!" someone said loudly.

  "Will you look at that!" a female voice said. "And I always thought she was one of those tea party ladies!"

  Penelope watched grimly. The secret was out now. But if she could trace the Syn's film lab quickly and destroy the negative and whatever prints they'd made from it, perhaps things could be hushed up. There would be no proof of the scandal except the foggy memories of a couple of dozen hopheads — no worse than the unsubstantiated gossip that was always being spread about public figures anyway.

  "This is some kind of breakthrough in porno films, isn't it," Mitch said, the joint dangling from his lips. "That print would be worth a fortune to the right people."

  "It is worth a fortune," Penelope pointed out.

  "Excuse me," Mitch said abruptly. "I've got to make a telephone call." He turned on his heel and headed for one of the bedrooms.

  The film ran for another forty-five minutes. By the time it finished, the air was thick with hash and pot. Baynard Warren's guests seemed flushed and overstimulated. The apartment was noisy with excited conversation. One or two couples had disappeared into the bedrooms, and by the amount of heavy fondling going on, several more would follow shortly. Over in one corner, a couple of bleary guests were egging on an aging character actress and a long-haired boy who was naked from the waist down, as they moved, groaning, against one another in a tidal rhythm. In another part of the room, the gray-haired man with the bandanna sat enthroned while the girl in the see-through blouse knelt between his legs, her head bobbing industriously.

  Penelope was over by the window. Terence had disappeared to visit the john. The three hoods from the Syn were packing up their equipment, looking disgusted at the goings-on around them. Penelope allowed herself a smile. None of them knew it, but all three had one of Sumo's bugged coins mixed in among the loose change in their pockets.

  The apartment buzzer rang. Baynard Warren went to answer it. One of the guests called, "Some people are always late, aren't they, Bay?"

  "They don't know what they missed," Warren laughed over his shoulder. He took the chain off the door and opened it.

  A horde of dark-suited men burst through the door, bowling Warren over. There must have been a dozen of them. The ones in front had sawed-off shotguns. There was at least one submachine gun. And the rest were waving pistols around.

  "Freeze!" the leader shouted.

  "It's a heist!" yelled the projectionist.

  The three Syn hoods tried to get out their own guns. There was the thunder of shotguns and the chatter of an automatic weapon. The three hoods went down, shredded into bloody rags wrapped around hamburger. A pink rain spattered the closer guests. A woman screamed.

  It was pandemonium. The guests milled around, bleating like sheep. There was a tidal surge toward the door. It was turned back by the sight of the guns. The dark-suited invaders began to spread efficiently through the room.

  A naked woman appeared at one of the bedroom doors and stared glassy-eyed at the scene. Just behind her a hairy man, still pulling on his pants, took it all in with a glance and turned back toward the bedroom. The machine gun rattled. Bloody stitches marched across their flesh. The woman's body slammed against the man and they both went down twitching.

  The guests ran back and forth frantically. The room was filled with terror. A tall man — it was Upton — lost his head and tried to run past the line of mobsters toward the front door. The slug from a forty-five caught him through the neck. A dreadful crimson flower opened up there, and his head fell over as if it were on hinges. Cynthia flung herself screaming on top of his body. A sweating mobster took aim and shot at her. The first shot missed. His lips stretched in a mindless grin, the mobster emptied his forty-five into Cynthia. A pattern of ragged red polka dots appeared over the back of the Gatsby pants suit.

  It was out of control now. The mobsters panicked. They opened up on the guests, cutting them down like turkeys at a turkey shoot. There were the sounds of smashed glass, cries of pain, confused shouts.

  Penelope backed up a step. The window was at her back. It was fifteen floors up.

  The machine gun stuttered again. To her right, a skin
ny man in green corduroy tottered in an insane dance step. He spun around on tiptoes and crumpled to the floor, like a puppet with cut wires. It was Joey Jardine.

  The, smoking muzzle of the machine gun swung in Penelope's direction.

  Without hesitation, she took another backward step and dived through the window. The shattering glass cut into her bare back, and then she was falling like a pinwheel toward the street, one hundred and fifty feet below.

  Above, in the apartment, a swarm of bullets flew like angry hornets through the window, then slammed into the plaster wall as the gun barrel continued its swing. The line of slugs reached a youth in a cowboy shirt and cut him in half at the waist.

  At about that moment, the heavy sideboard began sliding across the floor toward the window. It moved a good eight feet, like haunted furniture at a séance, before the windowsill stopped it. No one noticed.

  Outside, Penelope's tumbling fall through the night air was brought up short. She felt the tug at the hem of her gown, as bone-wrenching as an opening parachute. She bounced up and down like a rubber paddle ball at the end of an elastic.

  She was dangling, head down, about thirty feet above street level. Below she could see the tops of taxicabs and buses, the foreshortened figures of nighttime strollers. Nobody noticed the half-naked woman dangling like a spider at the end of a thread. In New York, only the tourists look up. And this was definitely not a tourist neighborhood.

  Penelope's supple body bent at the waist and knees, and she hauled herself one-handed to an upright position. The little gold-plated automatic was in her other hand, having been snatched out of its holster at the beginning of her fall. She thrust it into the vee of the fabric between her breasts.

  She wasn't wearing an evening grown anymore. She was wearing a micro-mini-skirt with an indecently bare top. The rest of the matte jersey fabric was unraveled in a long thread between her and the window, its other end tied to the leg of the heavy sideboard.

  The incredibly strong elastic filament that was woven into it was the same long-chain polymer that she used in the Spyder pistol-winch and the threadlike bolas that was hidden in her hair. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Inga hadn't made the thread thirty feet longer, or that Baynard Warren hadn't lived three floors below. In either case, she would have splattered against the pavement liked a smashed bug.