“You do and you’ll dive youselves right into a coffin. You listen to me, Pete Henry. I’ve made contact with the boss-man and he’s hiring some hit men to put bullets in all of you.”

  There was a pause. Pete said in a weak voice, “How long’s this going to keep up, Cherry?”

  “Until I can find a way to put an end to it.”

  “Couldn’t you just shoot this guy?”

  “If I did that, somebody else would take over in his place, maybe this Chick who seems to be his right-hand man. I want to break up the whole organization, Pete. Just trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s hell being cooped up in here.”

  “So make love to your wife.”

  He snorted. “I can’t get near her with a ten-foot pole. If you think I’m nervous, she’s climbing the walls.”

  I took the phone from my ear and studied it. Then’ I put it back where it belonged. Apparently Jill and Pete didn’t hit it off too well. This wasn’t my concern, I was no marriage counselor

  “These things take time. Play backgammon or something.”

  “Easy for you to say, having a good time the way you are.”

  I was losing patience with the guy. “Look, Pete. You want to stay alive, you’ll stay close to that cabin. Now I can’t make you do this—it’s up to you.”

  “I know, I know.”

  I said a few more words of encouragement, then hung up. As I padded around looking for my undergarments and laid out my evening gown, I thought about the Henrys and Rod McCarty.

  It’s tough enough on me just fighting the Mafia, without worrying about the people I’m sent to protect. I could understand Pete’s nervousness. He and the others were used to going out on their ketch, to diving, to traveling where they wanted whenever. Now they were like prisoners in their own homes, and they were resenting it.

  I slithered into lace panties and then inside a slit-to-the-knee gold-beaded sheath gown that had set me back a few hundred dollars in New York. It hugged my figure, it showed off my breasts, it looked great against my tanned skin and red hair.

  Vic would like it, I told myself.

  He did more than that. He positively drooled when he came to get me. His eyes lighted up like neon signs, and he bobbed his head back and forth as though each bob were a special sort of compliment.

  We drove north to Miami Beach and walked into the dim confines of a supper club. There were men in formal dress, and women in evening gowns, at all the tables. Vic was in a tux, I was wearing the gold-beaded sheath, so we were right in style.

  The feast started off with cocktails, then crab-meat cocktail, and finally lobster. We danced between courses, we laughed and had a great time. I kept thinking about the Henrys penned up in their cabin, but I didn’t let it spoil my evening. They were still alive, and they were richer than anybody I knew, so a few more days and nights of sweating it out wouldn’t hurt them.

  It was after the waiter took away the lobster, and while he was about to bring us the dessert menu, that Chick came rushing up to Vic Favelli.

  “This just came from Cleveland,” he muttered, and pushed a telegram into Vic’s hand.

  Vic read it, face like an empty page.

  Chick hadn’t waited for an answer, he’d whirled on a heel and walked off. He had done his job.

  Vic pushed the telegram into a pocket. My fingers itched for the feel of that yellow paper, I had to control my nerves so I didn’t bounce up and down in my chair.

  “Let’s dance, Vic,” I suggested.

  We did a slow number, I laid my head against his shoulder and my breasts against his ribs. I didn’t move my head, but I did slide my breasts around. Vic started getting hot, I could feel him growing down there where my thigh brushed him.

  I got the chance to pick his pocket when the music ended. He turned to one side of me to hide his erection. I let the two first fingers of my left hand dip into his right hand pocket. They tightened on the telegram. I brought it out swiftly, in a practiced motion, then walked a little behind him as he started off toward our table.

  I snatched up my evening bag, hiding the telegram with it, and said, “I’m on my way to the little girl’s room, Vic. Be right back.”

  He nodded and sat down.

  I all but ran into the Powder Room. I spread out the Western Union message and read it.

  DELIVERY DUE SATURDAY. STOP. AM

  EQUIPPED FOR

  EMERGENCY. STOP.

  Mossi

  So, then. The hit man was coming two days from now, and he was bringing along his own weapons. I wondered when he and Vic would get together, and if I would let them. I could have showed up at the airport, I suppose, and got this Moss character there, but I preferred to do it a different way.

  I also wondered how I was going to get this telegram back to Vic without his guessing that I’d stolen it. I walked from the Powder Room, and didn’t see Vic at the table.

  I sat down, bent over to adjust a stocking, and dropped the telegram on the floor close to his chair. It was a damn good thing I did, too, because almost at that same moment, I saw Vic Favelli heading my way from the men’s room.

  His face was like a thundercloud.

  “Where is it, Cherry?” he snarled.

  I widened my eyes. “Where’s what, Vic?”

  “That telegram Chick just brought me. I slipped it into my pocket. You’re the only one who could have taken it.”

  I stared at him. The veneer was gone, he was no longer the polished gentleman but a primitive street fighter, a crude button who’d clawed his way up from the lowest ranks of the Mafia to its top echelon. There was hate in his black eyes, along with suspicion.

  No matter how nice they seem to be at times, when you scratch a Family man, you show part of the jungle under his hide.

  I said frostily, “I haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”

  Gathering my evening bag and my mink wrap, I rose to my feet. “I can go. home without your help, Vic. And I’d rather not see you again. Ever!”

  He stared at me coldly. The suspicion was still in his eyes, but the hate was gone. He barred my way, holding out a hand.

  “The evening bag, Cherry. I want to see what’s in it.”

  I handed it over to him. There was nothing in it, naturally, except my compact and handkerchief and lipstick. He examined everything, face hard.

  We were drawing stares. Me, I didn’t give a hoot, but Family men have a horror of drawing attention to themselves. Finally I decided the farce had gone on long enough.

  So as he handed the bag back, I pointed floor-ward and said coldly. “Is that what you’re so furious about? That telegram on the floor?”

  He muttered something and dove for it. I gathered my mink wrap closer about my shoulders and stalked out of the night spot with my head high.

  Vic came running after me, full of apologies. He caught my elbow as I was going out of the double glass doors and hunting a taxi with my gaze.

  “Cherry, I’m sorry. Damn it, I have worries and…”

  I swung about and smiled at him sweetly. “No need to fret, Vic. Just go away from me. You aren’t at all the sort of man I thought you were.”

  “Now look, I can explain. This was business, see? And—”

  “And you thought I was going to steal your business away from you?”

  “No, of course not! Look, listen to reason.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Is that quite clear? I’m disappointed in you, Vic.”

  I lowered my voice for that last sentence, putting hurt and grievance into it. It tore him up, the way I hoped it would.

  “Cherry, please. You’re the only girl I’ve ever been with that I could spend the rest of my life with, and—”

  I cut him off again, my eyebrows arching. “The rest of your life? Vic, forget it. Tomorrow or the next day you’d be after me again, accusing me of something or other. I can’t live that way, Vic. I—I’m not tough enough, I guess.”

  He damn near wrung his hands as he paced beside me toward a taxi stand. I didn’t want to push this too far, but I had to act out this part. If I’d begged or cajoled Vic Favelli into forgiving me—or into forgetting he had accused me of swiping his telegram—he would have lost respect for me.

  No, I had to play the injured female.

  Because I wanted Vic to respect me more than ever. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t the ordinary run of the mill pickup. I was something special, with a pride of my own. He wouldn’t be so quick to accuse me next time.

  My hand beckoned a taxi.

  Vic caught my arm. His voice was agonized as he said, “Cherry, don’t run off like this. I’m quick to fly off the handle, but I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “Some other time, Vic.”

  He stared at me. “Tomorrow? Can I see you tomorrow? Come on, say yes.”

  “Give me time to think it over.”

  I stepped into the taxi and told the driver my address. The taxi pulled from the curb, leaving Vic Favelli standing there and staring after me.

  Let him stare. Let him realize, when he got back to his empty pad, what it was he gave up tonight when he accused me. Let him sweat for a day or two. He’d appreciate me all the more when I let him make up his error.

  I got a good night’s sleep.

  Next morning before I was fully awake, there was a ring from the desk. It was Joe Adams, and there was an awed numbness in his voice.

  “There’s a man here from the florist, Miss Delight. He has—er—some flowers for you.”

  That would be Vic Favelli’s way of begging forgiveness. I caroled, “Give me a sec to throw on a robe, then tell him to knock.”

  Three dozen American Beauty roses, that’s what the delivery man had. He put them in vases that he had brought along. I gave him a good tip and went around sniffing their aroma, smiling to myself.

  Vic Favelli wanted forgiveness, all right. His bed must have been damn lonely last night. Maybe he’d appreciate what I could do for him even more, now.

  I got dressed in one of my bikinis and beach robe and had breakfast at the motel. I ordered up a couple of sandwiches to take with me, and walked out to the rented Pinto.

  For today, I was going to be conspicuously absent. Let Vic Favelli fry in his own juices for a while. It would do him good. The sun was hot, the ocean would be cool. I would loaf all day, get in some swimming, and be back at the motel to eat my dinner by myself.

  I would stay far away from the Henrys and Rod McCarty at the same time. Let them do a little frying, too.

  Saturday was two days away.

  It was like taking a holiday, really. I sunbathed all I wanted, I munched sandwiches. I swam. Three guys tried to pick me up, all at various times, but I told them I was recuperating from an operation and gave them a phony telephone number so they could call it and get no response. At least, from me.

  When I drove back to the Seaport City Motel, a big white Mark Continental was parked in front. Vic Favelli was pacing up and down, smoking a cigarette. When he saw the Pinto his head came up, he threw away the butt, and came striding toward me.

  “I came to apologize,” he said, rather contritely, I believed. It must have cost a big-shot in the Family to say something like that.

  I gave him a dazzling smile, even as I stretched out a hand to clasp his and draw him closer.

  “No need for that. I was upset, that’s all. You were right to be angry, if you suspected I’d done something wrong.”

  This was great psychology. I was telling him he was correct, that I was the one who was in the wrong. He gave me a chuckle, then leaned in and kissed my pouting mouth.

  I murmured, “Then you do forgive me?”

  He protested that I had it all wrong, he was the one who should be forgiven, so I linked my arm in his and let him escort me toward my motel room, brushing up against him with my hip and batting my eyes at him. He ate it all up, he was almost dancing when we stopped so I could give him my room key.

  Inside, he watched avidly as I shrugged out of my beach robe. My skin was tanned the color of mahogany by this time. I’m a fast tanner, and I must say I looked scrumptious in the white bikini, with all my red hair.

  “Dinner at the house tonight, a little dancing to a private orchestra I’ve hired,” he murmured, his eyes glowing. “How does that strike you?”

  “Like this,” I whispered.

  I walked up to him, threw my arms around him and my belly in against him, and gave him a wet-lipped kiss. I also did a little bump and grind at the same time.

  His hands were stroking my nude buttocks. “We could lie down for a rest,” he suggested, glancing at the bed.

  “I’m all over salt from the ocean,” I whispered against his lips that I was kissing, open-mouthed. “However, if you’d like to take a shower with me, I think that would be nice and friendly.”

  His eyes got hot. I don’t think the idea of taking a shower with a girl had ever occurred to him. He couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough.

  He had no trouble with his male apparatus. It was the most outstanding thing about him when he was in the buff and I had wriggled out of my bikini.

  My hand caught his, drew him toward the glass-enclosed shower. I turned on the taps, stuck a hand in to make sure the water was warm and not scalding hot, then slid in under it. Vic came right along with me.

  I handed him a bar of soap.

  He was a little clumsy at first, not quite knowing what to do, or how, but he caught on soon enough. He lathered up my breasts until they looked like big cotton beach balls, then he went to my belly, my hips, my thighs and buttocks.

  He was wheezing and puffing like a broken-down steam calliope by the time he slid soap and hands between my thighs. I stood spraddle-legged to give him room to move about with his fingers.

  I don’t know how long he kept it up. He had me jiggling about in heat, and he was damn near dying himself, before he got to his feet and lunged, catching me about the hips and lifting, thrusting forward.

  My back rested against the tiled wall of the shower. My legs locked about his waist, my arms clasped his neck.

  Our frantic hip movements made his feet slide on the floor tiles, but he tensed his muscles and rode out the storm. It was super.

  When he finally let me go, I grabbed the soap where it had fallen and washed him off. He showed signs of new life, but I merely gave him a pat and a squeeze and told him to save it, there was no sense in wasting all his ammunition in one braquemarder bout.

  He let me towel him off, then he did the same to me. He lingered a long time over his task; he had never enjoyed himself so much.

  “You’ve opened up a whole new life for me, Cherry,” he told me. “I’ve never realized how much fun there was in sex.”

  “You’ve always been too serious about it,” I laughed.

  “No matter what the reason, you’ve opened my I almost felt sorry for him, at that moment.

  “What shall I wear tonight?” I asked him, standing pinkly nude in the middle of the room and tapping a fingernail against my teeth.

  “It’s just going to be the two of us. We aren’t going out. It’ll be a private dinner.”

  “Oh. In that case…”

  A knock on the door interrupted me. I glanced at Vic who had turned to stare at the door. Throwing a towel around me, I ran to open it.

  I should have known.

  Pete Henry was standing there with a big grin on his face.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Honestly, I damn near died.

  If Vic Favelli saw him, my goose was cooked. I would have loved to have been able to reach out and clobber Pete Henry. After all I’d done, he had to show up and spoil it.

  I made a hideous face at him.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “I—I’m s—sorry. I must have the wrong room,” he managed to choke out.

  I slammed the door in his face.

  Vic was staring at me with an utterly expressionless face. I knew that look, it was Mafia all the way. The eyes were hard, suspicious, the facial features were tightened into something resembling a mask.

  “How long have you known Pete Henry?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Pete Henry? Who’s that?”

  “The man at the door. I caught a look at him when the door opened.”

  “I never saw him before, Vic. Why? Is he a friend of yours? No, he wouldn’t be a friend, not the way you’re staring at me.”

  I clapped my hands together. “I know! He’s some sort of business rival, isn’t he? You hate his guts, and you think he came here to ask me questions about you!”

  Under my breath, I cursed Pete Henry up and down and sideways. If Vic Favelli suspected me, if he had any hint at all that I was just not the girl tourist he imagined me to be, I was going to be a dead girl in maybe two, three hours.

  Not only that, but if I died, Pete Henry was sure as hell going to die, too. And his wife Jill, together with Rod McCarty.

  Deliver me from helpful people!

  I didn’t even wait to look at Vic when I spoke, other than to throw him a flirtatious laugh as I paraded past him to a bureau. My hand drew out the drawer, I lifted a black lace and elastic garter-belt from the drawer and hooked it about my slim waist.

  Then I selected a pair of nylons.

  I sat down in a chair and lifted one leg, rolling up the nylon and slipping it over my toes. Vic was standing just about in front of me, getting a good look at my privacy.

  He said in a choked voice, “I’d hate like hell to think you were working against me, Cherry.”

  I giggled. I’ll never win any Academy Awards, there would never be an Oscar on my mantel, but I earned one right then and there.

  My face was all innocence and laughter, as though I shared a joke with this capo. His face was still hard and unrelenting, death-fire smoldered in his eyes. I pretended not to notice, I acted as though I hadn’t a care in the world.

  “There’s only one way I want to work against you,” I whispered, and spread my thighs.

  I had one nylon on and my other leg was bare.

  Vic looked where I wanted him to look. His lips twitched, he gave a grunt. Reluctantly, his lips formed into a weak smile.

 

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