Chapter 11
Ramey thought things looked rather quiet around the Moratta mansion when he returned from his frigging counter with the amorous Jenny. He felt he could use a little rest after that hot hump. He heard some cries and commotion from the swimming pool area as he approached and realized that the weekend high jinks weren't completely over yet.
With Tino Cavanne and Bud Fallon as ringmasters, all of the girls had been -lined up at the edge of the pool, Iris and Dee among them. The cries of protest apparently came from the girls who had been told to strip to the buff before the leering group of watching men. Tino and Bud ripped off the bikinis of those who hesitated. Finally, seven naked female bodies, all beauties, stood -lined up at the pool-side.
At the sharp commands of Tino and Bud, they all waded into the pool together, arms linked. Ramey watched, fascinatedly, wondering what the men had dreamed up now for their amusement. Tino and Bud went in after the girls. They ordered the girls on their backs, in a floating position, in a line. The hands of each girl held the legs of the girl floating ahead of her. Tino and Bud moved among the girls and arranged them in a circle. The floating nude beauties-brunettes, redheads and blondes-looked like a water ballet in a nudist camp. Then Tino and Bud made some further arrangements with the unresisting girls bodies in the water.
The men at the pool side began to laugh uproariously at the sight in the pool. Ralph Ramey looked unbelieving at the first floating female daisy chain he had ever seen. The mouth of each girl was on the cunt of the girl floating ahead of her ... He wondered when they would begin to run out of refinements in perversion. Now he could really write his book on abnormal psychology.
Fortunately, for the women, most of the men were beginning to run out of steam and the party was beginning to taper off. A noticeable exodus began a short time later, and by dusk, the estate was practically empty of weekenders.
Ramey studiously avoided Mike Moratta, and he was not quite sure whether the Lyman's had left or not.
Just before moonrise, he pawed his way to the bushes where he'd hidden the spade. He waited until there was enough light to move without breaking his skull against a tree, and headed for the mysterious mound back on the estate.
He found it without any trouble.
He worked easily, lifting the soft earth with an increasing sense of excitement as the mound beside the grave increased and the hole deepened.
Gradually, he became so engrossed in his labor that he forgot the time and the place. So the shock of realizing he was not alone almost stopped his heart. A huge shadow looming suddenly above him. He looked up.
It was Mike Moratta.
Perhaps it was the setting or perhaps something more, but Moratta towered there like a dark monster. Then he realized it was more because his host was stripped to the waist and he carried a long black whip in his hand.
"Looking for something?"
Ramey had no words. "I-I"
"Keep on digging."
Ramey had stepped out of the hole he'd made and was on level with Moratta on the opposite side of the grave.
"All right," he said. "You outsmarted me. I didn't think I was that obvious. How did you know I was interested?"
Moratta was wearing a strange, fixed scowl. "Keep digging," he said.
"That's ridiculous now."
Ramey turned and took a couple of steps toward the head of the grave where he'd laid his jacket. But he never reached it. The black whip snaked out and wrapped itself around his ankles. Moratta jerked and Ramey went down.
"I said, keep digging."
The man was mad; so obviously mad that Ramey saw no sense in resisting or arguing. Resistance could get him certain death. Arguing would get him nowhere.
He picked up the shovel and stepped back into the hole. He began to dig. Moratta approached the grave and stood close to the edge.
Ramey's first terrifying thought changed the picture. As he pushed the shovel into the soft earth, he saw the hole as his own grave. A wild vision of being buried alive twisted through his mind. What if Moratta hit him over his head, stunned him-and he came to under several feet of earth?
Desperate measures were justified. There was nothing to lose.
He turned his head slightly to see Moratta's legs within easy reach. If he could swing the shove, perhaps break one of Moratta's legs, he could take command. He threw out three more shovels of dirt. Then he braced himself to swing the shovel on the next lift.
It didn't work. Even as he raised his eyes, he saw that Moratta had reversed his hold on the whip and now gripped it as a club. The heavy black butt rose and fell. Ramey saw a brief moment of shooting stars. Then there was nothing.
When he came too, a scream formed in his throat as he realized his worst fears had become reality. He was lying in the grave and as consciousness returned he felt clods hitting his chest.
He came erect with a howl.
Moratta laughed and Ramey saw that he'd merely tossed a few clods down into the hole.
The big man shook his head. "Uh-huh. You're not going under yet. We're going to take a nice little walk first."
He'd reversed the whip again and Ramey waited where he was, standing in the grave. "Where are we walking to?"
"Back to the house. And if you've got any ideas of running forget it. I can bring you down with this whip before you've gone three steps.
"I saw a demonstration."
"Okay, up and out of there."
"Are you planning to kill me?"
"You're too nosey. Wait and find out."
Feeling he had nothing to lose, Ramey decided to keep on talking. "I didn't think I was as clumsy as I appear to have been. What did I do that was suspicious?"
"My guests don't hide shovels in the bushes."
"I see. Tell me, who's buried here?"
"Nobody. Start walking toward the house."
Ramey obeyed. "I didn't understand the geranium bit. I still don't."
"The kid gets funny ideas."
Ramey walked slowly talking over his shoulder. Any minute he expected to feel the bite of the whip. "Are you planning to kill me?"
"I said wait and see."
"Then I'd be a fool to tell you the name of the man in the Lyman matter."
"That doesn't make any difference now."
Ramey realized what had happened. Moratta had been on the verge of madness for some time. He'd sought a way out of whatever trap he'd been in by devious means.
Now he'd gone off his rocker. So it didn't really matter about the trip. He was breaking out of it now.
"Why did you want that name?"
"Shut up."
Ramey's back tightened. Moratta's tone, more brutal now, could have prefaced a lash from the whip. But they walked on, Moratta directing Ramey with grunts, until they came to a low, foliage hidden door on the side of the house opposite the patio.
"In there."
The door was not locked. Ramey pushed through and found himself in a narrow cement-walled passage that was lighted with a dim bulb.
"First door to the left."
Ramey opened. The room was lighted by an overhead bulb. It was empty except for an odd rack with suspicious looking straps attached.
"Strip," Moratta said.
The tone of his voice frightened Ramey. It shrieked of instability and sadism. But an objection flared and nonetheless.
"Now wait a minute!"
The whip snapped out. Ramey staggered forward as it bit into his back. He fell against the wall and clawed at it for support.
"I said strip."
There was nothing to do now but play for time. Ramey could either strip and see what happened or stand there and probably be killed. It wouldn't take many blows of the caliber Moratta had just thrown at him.
Ramey had left his jacket at the grave. He took off his tie and shirt.
The whip cracked. Ramey jumped instinctively but it did not touch him. He took the hint however and stripped off his undershirt.
"Now the pants. You can leave your shoes and socks on."
Ramey took off his trousers and Moratta grinned as he acted from force of habit and laid them neatly across the odd frame.
"The shorts, too."
Ramey did not obey. He stood there wondering whether he might just as well keep a little dignity and die with at least one piece of clothing on.
"I said, off with the shorts."
"I'd rather not."
The whip cracked. Ramey jumped and suppressed the scream that the agonizing bite of the leather brought to his lips. It cracked him again, a warning this time and Ramey grabbed at his shorts.
Moratta grinned. "All right. Let's see how your reactions are."
He twirled the whip expertly and aimed a blow at Ramey's ankles. Ramey, acting upon instinct, jumped two feet off the floor and the whip cracked harmlessly.
Moratta, his eyes terrible, grinned. "Pretty good. A little higher this time."
Ramey made it three feet. Moratta kept the byplay going until Ramey was breathing heavily. As he kept cracking the whip, Ramey realized he was forced into a corner. He tried to change direction. Instantly, the whip lashed out to cut him off.
Trying desperately to escape, he made the mistake of turning his back on Moratta. He was thus exposed as he whirled around and the whip was fast. It lashed out, entangled around his ankles, and brought him to his hands and knees.
He remained motionless, stunned for a moment, with Moratta behind him. The whip lashed out, cracking like a gun going off.
Ramey squalled in agony. Pain had never before ripped through his body so fiercely. Moratta roared in delight as Ramey came arcing to his feet, clawing at himself.
Moratta handled the whip like a mad genius. It began cracking like an automatic over Ramey's head, forcing him down again.
"So you're a hypnotist, eh?" Moratta snarled. "All right, I'm a hypnotist, too. Down on your face, kiss the floor."
Terrorized, Ramey forced his face to the rough cement.
"Crawl over here."
Ramey hesitated a second too long. The whip snapped over his back, arched down and snapped against him. He crawled forward.
"Kiss my shoes."
Ramey, pain surging through his body, touched his tongue to Moratta's foot. He was close enough to grapple with the madman now, but there was too much pain.
Ramey, sick, defeated, staggered after Moratta pushed him through another doorway and fell to the floor. His senses reeling, he wondered where he was. He heard movement and opened his eyes. Slowly, he sat up.
The first thing he saw was a naked woman. He blinked stupidly and realized it was Nina Lyman. She crouched on a stool hugging her knees. She looked dazed and miserable.
Ramey turned his head and saw Steve Lyman slumped down against the wall. He too was naked.
"We're in the hands of a madman," Lyman muttered.
His eyes met Ramey's and a silent question and acknowledgement passed between them. And it was somehow a comfort to know they had both suffered the same outrage. It gave them a feeling of brotherhood.
"He's gone completely off his rocker," Ramey said. "We've got to figure something out."
"It's unless," Nina Lyman said. "We're all going to be killed and thrown in the same grave."
It was only now that Ramey caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. There was still another person in the room. A woman. She was chained to a wall and she was little more than skin and bones. Her hair was matted and her eyes, sunken deep in her head, bore the look of madness. She stared at Ramey.
"My God!" he said. "Who is that?"
"Moratta's wife, Rosalie," Steve Lyman said.
"You mean she's been chained up down here?"
"Almost two years."
Ramey's eyes narrowed. "You knew about this?"
"No! I didn't know anything about it."
"You knew something."
"What makes you say that?"
"I want answers, damn it! Not questions. Were you blackmailing Moratta? Is that the way you got your money?"
Lyman was completely beaten. There was no resistance in him. "Sure, I blackmailed him. The stupidest thing I ever did." He gulped convulsively and turned his eyes on his wife. "It was her fault! I didn't want to. But she was damned hungry. So damned greedy. She pushed me into it."
"You're a liar," Nina Lyman snarled.
Lyman came up off his haunches and lunged at her. "Don't call me a liar."
She cringed away from him as he swung his arm in a cruel open handed blow that cracked against the side of his foot. She doubled over herself, squalling.
Ramey spring forward and pulled Lyman away. "Have you gone mad too?"
Lyman jerked his arm way and went back to his place by the wall. He hunkered down again, sullen and angry.
"AH right," Ramey said, "Let's have it."
"Moratta loved his wife-I think" Lyman said.
"And-"
"She cheated on him."
"Why would that mean anything with what I've seen around here?"
"But Mike Moratta wasn't the way he is now-not before it happened. This guy knew Rosalie a long time ago. Moratta caught them. I don't know exactly what happened, but he got the idea that the kid isn't even his."
"Where does the blackmail angle come in?"
"It was when I had the place on Sunrise Lake. They tried to get away or something. Anyhow, I was out hunting and I walked in on them when he caught up with them. I saw him beat the guy to death."
"Did he know you saw it?"
"No. Not till later." He sneered across at his wife. "I went home and told her and she talked me into something. You see, I knew where he had buried the body."
"Out back-on the estate?"
"No. Way back in the hills."
"What's in that grave out there? Do you know about it?"
"It isn't a grave. Moratta's been telling the kid his mother was a bum for so long that the kid declared her dead and made her grave for her and filled it up. As far as he's concerned, his mother is in it. But she isn't." Lyman pointed. "That's Rosalie there. What's left of her."
The terrible story was beginning to shape up for Ramey. But there wwere still gaps. "Moratta hired me to get some information from your wife."
Lyman's eyes changed. Life came into them. 'The lousy madman." He shook his head groggily and held up a restraining hand. "Don't tell me. I know. He wanted to find out where I had put the protection letter."
"He involved it with a piece of property you own in Manhattan. He tried to sell me on an idea that if he could discover who held your notes he could buy them up and take the building away from you."
"That dump? Clever! Clever! It takes a madman to really come in from left field."
"What was the angle?"
"I told Moratta when I blackmailed him, that I had an ace in the hole. I'd have been a fool not to plant a letter."
"But how did the building and the loan gag fit in?"
"I knew Moratta was smart and ruthless. I wanted to confuse him-keeping him guessing."
"How did you work it?"
"I made myself look clumsy. I told him the letter I wrote was with the only friend I had in the world-a guy who saved my life financially several times. I eased in bits about loans to save property-oh, I was clever! I even had my man call him on the phone and verify possession of a letter from me to be opened if anything happened."
"Then why couldn't he trace a line to the man himself?"
Lyman snorted. 'There wasn't any man. There isnt a dime against that dump down there. I figured if he started looking for somebody he couldn't find because the guy doesn't exist, I'd have him trapped. The guy calling over the phone was a record I had her manipulate."
Lyman's consideration for Nina, if it had ever existed, did not exist anymore. His gesture toward her was one of utmost contempt.
Ramey noted this. 'The name Moratta then-"
"How'd you get it?" Lyman sneered. "Did you play with her a little bit?"
Nina Lyman came partially out of the sullen stupor into which she'd fallen; long enough to look over and sneer back and mutter, "You rat."
Steve grinned.
"Was Nina aware that the man didn't exist?"
"Are you kidding? Do you think I trusted her?"
Nina blazed. "You got no right to say that! I protected the name never told you but Moratta really put me over the barrel trying to get if from me."
"I got a picture of that," Lyman sneered back. "All he'd have to do is touch you!"
"Stop it! Stop it!" Nina screamed. "I was loyal!"
"She's a nympho. And you know how reliable they are!" Lyman said flatly.
"I didn't give that pig the name!" Nina screamed. "If he says I did, he's lying."
Lyman changed slightly, and Ramey saw that he really wanted to believe her. Lyman revealed this in the way he looked at Ramey-with a faint hope in his face.
"Did she?"
Ramey thought quickly. Had he mentioned the name of Larry Strieker? He could not remember having done so, and giving Nina Lyman a break seemed a small enough favor; particularly so because she honestly could not recall what had happened in his room.
He shook .his head. "No. She didn't give it to me. I tried to get it. I couldn't."
Ramey thought Nina flashed him a grateful look. Did she have a faint subconscious rememberance of having given him the name? It didn't really matter. She looked at Lyman in weary, sullen triumph. "Okay, loving spouse. What have you got to say now?"
"Drop dead," Lyman grunted.
Ramey's picture was as complete as he needed; complete enough to satisfy his curiosity about the hitherto unknown details of the affair.
He swiftly evaluated Moratta; the man had to no doubt long been close to mental disaster. He'd been mad, of course, from the day he committed murder and imprisoned his wife. But a seed of caution had remained. The instinct to survive had stayed dominant through the blackmail-playing and name-searching period, with the torture of his wife, no doubt, feeling the vengeance-need of his ego and keeping from going completely out of control.
But now what? Death? Probably. It was odd, but Ramey's regret had to do with Lee. What would become of her? This was ridiculous of course. Lee had taken care of herself very well for a long time without his help. But it was different now. Quite different.
He pulled his mind away from such thoughts. Nothing is really hopeless until your're dead, he told himself grimly. He got up and went to the door and tested it. No chance there. It was amply bolted from the outside.
Nina Lyman moaned. He turned and saw tears streaming down her face. "He'll kill us now, won't he?" she whimpered.
"Maybe not," Ramey said cheerfully.
"You're a liar," Lyman said.
The woman chained to the wall said nothing. She had not reacted in any way since Ramey had entered. Ramey shuddered mentally at the thought of what had happened to her; what had to have happened to her considering Moratta, the manner of man he was, and the circumstances. Every possible indignity and bestiality would have been visited upon her. His mind, sharpened by madness, would thought up things beyond conception.
Madness at its ultimate.
Lyman also, it appeared, was going off the deep end by way of the sadism route. Resentments and frustrations relative to his wife were turning into active cruelty.
He looked at her and said. "He'll kill us, but you know whatll happen to you first?"
"Steve-please."
"You know how many cock-eyed ways there are to hurt a woman. Moratta would know ways that haven't even been invented yet?"
"Stop it!" Ramey said sharply. "We may be trapped by an animal but let's stay human ourselves."
Lyman snarled. 'The hell with you!"
Ramey crossed to where Lyman crouched against the wall and hit him-an open-handed blow in the jaw. Lyman cringed away, mumbled obscenities and went mute.
The incident was ending by the opening of the cell door. Ramey turned. Joe Toder stood there.
Ramey hadn't seen Toder since the surprisingly confidential talk they'd had early in the weekend. He'd wondered where Toder had gone but hadn't attached any great importance to the disappearance.
Now he scanned the man quickly and his hopes rose. Toder looked sane and self-possessed and non-hostile.
"Greetings," Ramey said. "You're a life-saver. We've gotten ourselves in a little trouble."
Then the hope died as Toder took a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Ramey.
"As you were."
Ramey's smile was bitter. "I thought for a moment that you might not be his man-that there might be some decency in you."
"Can it," Toder said. "I'm playing out the string."
"What does that mean?"
"I think I know what it means. There's something for you in this after the crash. We're going to die-you know that-so there'll be no witnesses. You can see what the end will be and there'll be some fat pieces you can somehow pick up."
"You're clever," Joe Toder said thoughtfully.
And Ramey detected something new. It was in no way incredible, but it was certainly a source of ultimate despair to see, now, a touch of the rotten, the unwholesome, the mad, in Toder's eyes. Deep, carefully hidden, but it was there. And this followed because, as Ramey realized, like seeks like. To each his own. There were many ways of putting it but even madness finds its affinity and there was a bond between Toder and Moratta.
Not friendship, not loyalty. Such things were alien to the decayed natures of both. But they were two of a kind even though Moratta had progressed much farther down the long road to destruction.
Ramey's attention was caught by Nina Lyman. She had come off her stool and was crawling toward Joe Toder.
She was hideous. Ramey could find no other term to describe her. Naked, her hair matted, a fixed, fawning look on her face. Hideous, but only from his desperate point of view. From another possible viewpoint, the reaction produced could have been different. Other eyes could have seen Nina Lyman as a breathtaking opportunity. A beautiful naked woman crawling sensuously across the floor.
Nina's fear and desperation had been transformed into invitation. There was unconditional surrender and invitation in her every move. As she crawled toward Joe Toder, she was offering him herself without restriction in exchange for escape. In fact she was selling herself as she crawled.
Joe Toder stared, fascinated. She crawled forward sinuously, until Toder was looking at her with his eyes turned straight down.
A quick, nervous grin twisted his mouth.
Ramey glanced at Steve Lyman expecting to see his wife's action as a betrayal-a final, high bit of marital betrayal that proved beyond doubt, everything he'd said about her.
But it was not the case. Lyman watched her movements avidly. There was hope in his eyes. Obviously, he saw his own possible escape from death in Nina's action. And Ramey could almost hear Lyman's mind speaking:
"Go ahead baby-go ahead ... You've got the right idea ... Give him anything he wants ... any thing's better than being killed like rats in here ... Give him anything he wants ... Make this good ... show him a good time he's never had before ... Buy our way out, baby ... Buy our way...."
And Nina Lyman had exactly that in mind; to buy a way out, at least herself, and by any means possible. She laid her head on Toder's foot. She smiled sensuously and lifted the leg of his trousers and touched his ankle with her tongue.
This was promise; this was negotiation; a way to indicate the true delights Nina was willing to dispense in return for her freedom.
Ramey watched Toder. He took several steps backward and put his back against the wall. Nina Lyman resting on her extended arms, her face almost touching the floor, watching the floor, watched him silently.
Ramey shuddered. Terrible, incredibly, obscene. The beginning of something unbelievable; but a thing entirely logical under the circumstances.
Nina held Joe Toder's eyes for a long moment. Then she began wriggling forward again.
Ramey's mind groped for some comparison; something that nagged at his memory; something he's seen or read. It came. A book, a fiction story. He could not recall the name or the author, but the scene that had seared itself into his memory was one of an illiterate southern girl crawling across a yard toward an equally native son who had some food-a vegetable of some sort, Ramey recalled. The girl's job was to trap the boy with her physical charms so that a relative could then steal the food the entire family needed very badly.
At the time, Ramey had laughed at the book. The idea had been so unreal. Ramey knew that no human being could fall so low as to lie prostrate in such fashion even to keep alive. The human animal had an inherent pride that would not allow such a thing.
But here it was. He was witnessing the reality. He was seeing first hand what a human being would do-how low a person who still called herself human would go-to save her life.
Nina had again reached Joe Toder's feet. Ramey glanced at Steve Lyman, whose eyes were speaking:
"Go on baby ... Go on like only you know how ... Then we'll kick his brains out."
And Lyman's performance further sickened Ramey because he knew how Lyman would react. Lyman really believed his own mental pleadings. Yet, if Nina were successful, if the danger passed them by, he would contemptuously kick his wife and spit on her.
Nina caressed Joe Toder's shoe. He lifted it. She slipped his shoe off. She kissed the stockinged foot and slowly, sensuously began pulling his sock down. He grinned at her. The sock came off. Nina began making love to his foot. As though it was the fetish she'd looked for all her life, she applied her mouth, her tongue in abject surrender and adoration.
Her hand moved up his trousered leg as though she had to have more; as though the foot was not enough.
Joe Toder, completely spellbound, thoroughly bemused, watched her with the tight, frozen grin on his lips. He was held by the amazement welling from the question as to how far the girl would go.
Nina Lyman's promise broadened. Her caressing hands verified the hope and now the expectation of the man before her.
He shivered under the magic of her hands. His knees trembled as she came up onto her knees and continued her adoration.
And as Ramey watched, his muscles tightened. He drove all revulsion and loathing from his mind deliberately. He forced himself to disregard what Nina Lyman was doing. It was academk; she and Toder were shadow people; they did not exist. The only person who existed in Ramey's mind was the Toder holding the gun. He was interested only in that Toder's physical reaction.
He watched. He waited. The terrible pantomine went on. Toder's grin widened and became something seen only on a death's head; on a gaping skull.
Nina Lyman moaned as she unzipped his fly and took the head of his erect cock in her mouth, and the moan came close to jarring Ramey out of his intense concentration. The thought intruded:
God! Is she actually enjoying sucking his prick?
Toder was. He was in a kind of cataleptic ecstasy of anticipation.
And Ramey pounced.
He came forward like a sprinter at the crack of the gun. He hit Toder high above the waist and toppled him.
Nina Lyman, entangled herself, went over also.
Ramey's weight was on Toder and the resulting tangle was a kind of human sandwich with Toder in the middle.
Smothering, choking, Nina Lyman began to fight. But Ramey could give her no thought and no assistance because the gun was under Toder's shoulders. Undisputed possession of it had not been decided and this was foremost and vital in Ramey's mind.
As the two men struggled, Nina Lyman began fighting desperately. Her nude body whipped and flailed. She braced herself on widely spread legs and tried to pull herself free on that leverage. She failed. She began clawing wildly. This got her nowhere and in desperation, she began to beat the floor with her fists.
Then Ramey's hand closed over the gun butt. He jerked the weapon clear and rolled away from Toder, coming to an erect crouch beyond Toder's reach.
"All right," he snapped. "Let her up."
Toder rolled clear in turn, revealing Nina Lyman's bulging eyes. She coughed. Turning over, she came to her hands and knees and coughed with her head hanging. She pulled a desperate arm across her mouth and gagged as though ready to vomit.
Then she collapsed in a heap.
"Against the wall-in that corner," Ramey ordered. Toder-now lived with rage, stood crouched, undecided.
Ramey leveled the gun. He aimed it coldly at Toder's leg and pulled the trigger.
The impact of the slug whirled Toder. He screamed as he went down on his face. He lay there moaning in pain.
Lyman was on his feet now. The hope of freedom was making him a little wild. "Blow the lock off the door, you fool! Let's get out of here."
"A slug wouldn't reach it. It's on the outside."
"Then we're just as bad off as before."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
And for once, things went as logic told Ramey they would. Two long minutes passed. Moratta had been attracted by the shot and his arrival took just about as long as Ramey had expected.
He heard the bolt pulled on the outside. Then, logically thinking that Toder had been forced to shoot someone, he plunged into the room and without checking.
Still holding the whip, he stood there.
"Drop it," Ramey barked. 'Drop it-now!"
Moratta seemed to have difficulty in focusing his eyes. His head came around slowly, as though by effort. Ramey's finger tightened on the trigger but he did not fire.
Moratta blinked and his expression changed as he saw Ramey and the pointed gun.
Ramey expected him to lunge forward with a roar of rage. But he held back. After Moratta took one step, he would fire. That would bring the maniac to the floor with a few feet to spare.
But Moratta did not fly into a rage. He did not plunge forward. He stared for perhaps ten seconds. Then his face began falling apart. Bit by bit, it collapsed. Tears welled into his eyes. His knees weakened and he came slowly to the floor in a heap of total defeat. He began crying hysterically.
"You never can tell," Ramey observed grimly.
Now Lyman plunged into the action. He seized the stool on which Nina had been sitting and rushed at the cowering Moratta with the stool held very high over his head.
"Stop it!" Ramey yelled. "Put that down."
He didn't have to shoot. The command brought Lyman to a halt. His eyes were wild. "What's wrong? Have you gone out of your mind. Let me kill him before he figures out a way to kill us!"
"Put that stool down. Act like a human being. Go upstairs and call the police."
Slowly, Lyman lowered the stool to the floor. He stared at Ramey dully. Then he turned and went to obey....
Ramey sat beside Lieutenant Hollister in the Police Station. It was hours later and the hours seemed years but the police had worked swiftly and efficiently to clear up the weird mess.
"I want to commend you, Mr. Ramey. You did a fine job. You saved some lives."
"Thank you."
"Moratta is a strange case. They've got him in a straight-jacket now."
Ramey couldn't have cared less. He glanced at the door. 'The young lady who's due to arrive. I wonder-."
"She's not here yet," Lieutenant Hollister said. "I have orders to send her in the moment she arrives."
The door opened at that moment and a uniformed officer came in. He looked at Ramey curiously which wasn't surprising. Ramey had been the center of interest since his arrival.
The officer went out and Lieutenant Hollister said, "There will be some routine questions later, but that isn't important now. We have your New York address. We'll contact you there. No need to hold you any longer. You're tired. You need rest."
Ralph Ramey was lying in bed with his favorite redhead, Lee Fair, in their suite at the Crown Hotel. He wound up his tale of the weird happenings at Mike Moratta's mansion with, "So you see, doll, I'm lucky to have gotten out of the deal with a whole skin."
"It's the skin I love to touch, Ralph darling," she murmured as she moved her beautiful curved, luscious tits lightly across Ramey's chest.
"But we're broke, doll," Ramey said. "I didn't get that fee I was counting on so much."
"I have a little money," Lee said, "enough for you to open up an office using your talent as a hypnotereapist. I know you can make good legitimately if you want to."
Ralph looked at the love and devotion in Lee's eyes and let his lips close over her hard, crimson nipples. He kissed each nipple greedily and Lee's voluptuous cunt and buttocks began to grind under him in a tantalizing rhythm. She defdy engulfed his questing, throbbing prick within the eager passion of her moist, hot cuntlips Ralph still nibbled lightly on her rigid, jutting nipples and cupped her full, quivering asscheeks.
"Shove all of your prick in my cunt, Ralph darling," she gasped as she spurred him to fuck her as fully as possible, her heels digging into the small of his back.
Ralph groaned as each of his pile-driving thrusts was met by her writhing twat-he was beginning to lose control.
Lee suddenly screamed, "Fuck me, more, more, more ... oh, Ralph!" and spasm of ecstasy convulsed her cunt. At her cries, Ralph stiffened as he shot his load of hot spurting scum into her cunt and he was lost with her in a shattering mutual orgasm.
They lay entwined in each other's arms for long moments.
"I have a problem, Dr. Ramey," Lee murmured in his ear.
"Well, let's see if we can't cure you."
"I don't see how you can," she laughed as she dangled her tits over his face. "You see, Doctor, I'm a nymphomaniac with the man I love to fuck-you!"