Chapter 8
"There's the first batch of the boys," Harry said. He started toward the kitchenette. "Don't try to run out the front, because the door's locked an' I've got the key. And don't start cryin' for Dave, because he won't be here for a couple hours. I told him to meet me at the club after he got back from the boat ride, so he won't be showin' up here till I'm ready to see him." He paused in the living room doorway to glare threateningly at Nancy, Elaine, and Karen huddled together in front of the sofa. "And don't make me tell you to be nice to the boys, or I'll take it out of your asses with my belt."
"What are we going to do?" Karen moaned when he disappeared from sight. They could all hear him unlocking the back door and removing the chain latch. Then there was the hearty sound of mingled masculine voices, from which no intelligible remark could be distinguished.
Harry's voice rose above the group sound finally. "Cash on the table, boys. What about you, Eddie? Okay, okay, just wanted to see the color of it. Move along inside. They're waitin' for you."
Karen crowded up against Nancy as the noise of shuffling feet sent a quick shiver through the blonde girl. Karen looked as though she were about to faint, and Nancy slipped a protective arm around her nude waist. They could all use protection, Nancy thought, but none was forthcoming.
Elaine took a backward step as the first man entered the living room. He was a young-looking, round-faced boy in the coverall of a service station attendant. He grinned widely at sight of the group before focusing his gaze on Elaine's red-gold pubic hair. "Hey, one of 'em's a redhead!" he said delightedly as Elaine instinctively covered her mound with her palm.
"Shut up, Eddie," the second man through the doorway said. He was middle-aged, balding, and had a half-consumed cigar clamped in one corner of his mouth. Next was a fat man in a dirty white shirt and slacks, with his stomach overflowing his belt. After him came a white-haired man in a neat business suit, and finally a stocky, smiling man with curly brown hair and a ruggedly athletic frame.
"Yeah, stop runnin' your mouth, Eddie," the fat man said to the coveralled boy. Small, pouched, greedy-looking eyes almost hidden in layers of fat peered at the girls. "Let's get this thing sorted out."
"Well, at least for once Harry wasn't runnin' his mouth," the cigar smoker said in a grudging tone. "These chicks are class."
"Yeah," the fat man said. "But let's get with it. Who's your pick, Tom?"
He was looking at the white-haired man when he spoke. Nancy had already noticed that the other men seemed to defer to Tom, who looked like a retired businessman. At his age, Nancy wondered fleetingly what he could be doing with a group like this, even while she tried to control the trembling of her knees.
"I want a blow job from the blonde," the white-haired man said decisively.
"Alec?" the fat man questioned the cigar smoker.
"I'll take the blonde, too, but I don't want no blow job."
The fat man grinned obscenely. "Walter?"
The smiling, athletic-looking man pointed silently at Nancy.
"Eddie?"
"The redhead," the coveralled boy said at once.
"What about you, Tubby?" Alec asked the fat man.
"I got to talk to Harry first," Tubby announced. "Whyn't you get started, Tom? An' Alec? No, that's right, you got to wait for Tom." He pointed to the smiling Walter, then to Nancy, then to a bedroom. Walter nodded his curly head vigorously. "He's a mute," Tubby explained to Nancy. "Eddie, you hop on the redhead."
"Get with it, you guys," Harry's voice floated in from the kitchen. "The second bunch'll be along in twenty minutes."
"Hey, Harry!" Tubby sang out. Harry appeared in the living room doorway. "I'll give you a hundred for a sandwich job on the brunette." He nodded at Nancy.
"Hand it over," Harry said.
The fat man peeled five twenties from a thick roll of bills. "I love to feel that second prick in there," he explained. "You gonna get underneath, Harry?"
"I got to work the back door," Harry responded. "Eddie, you get underneath her."
"But I want the redhead!" the youthful Eddie protested.
"An' Walter already spoke for the brunette," Alec added.
"Let's speed this up," the white-haired Tom said briskly. "I've got to get back to the store."
"You can have the redhead afterward," Harry said coaxingly to Eddie. "An' I'll give you a ten-spot for gettin' underneath for Tubby."
"Well, okay," Eddie said reluctantly.
"Then I'll shift to the redhead," Alec announced. He grinned at Eddie. "I'm allergic to a wet deck."
"What about Walter?" Eddie reminded them.
"That's right," Tom said. "Ask him if he'll wait, Tubby."
The fat man raised his right hand and his pudgy-looking fingers danced in the air. The smiling Walter replied in kind. "He says he'll wait," Tubby announced.
"Good," Tom said. He touched Karen on the elbow. "Come with me, young lady." He walked into the nearer bedroom.
"Well, go on," Tubby said impatiently to the shrinking Karen. He gave her a push in the direction of the bedroom. Harry glowered at her across the room, and the blonde girl, after a final despairing glance at Nancy, walked slowly into the bedroom.
Alec already had Elaine by the arm and was steering her toward the second bedroom. "C'mon," he was saying. "I left my wife shoppin' downtown an' I got to pick her up."
Nancy was left alone in the living room with Tubby, Eddie, and Walter. Eddie had already removed his coveralls and was taking off his shorts. Tubby unbuckled his belt from around his gross-looking middle and stepped out of his trousers. Walter sat down in an armchair, a bright-eyed, interested observer.
In the first bedroom, the white-haired Tom removed his pants, folded them neatly, and hung them over the back of a chair, then sat down on the edge of the bed. He beckoned to Karen. "Don't look so alarmed, young lady. I won't bite, and don't you, either." He removed a stubby, withered-looking penis from his shorts and looked at Karen expectantly.
In the second bedroom the balding Alec, cigar still in his mouth, undressed rapidly. "Listen," Elaine said quickly, "we're not what you think. Give us a break, won't you? Harry has-"
"Let me tell you about my grandmother, Red," Alec interrupted in a bored tone. "She used to say that if everyone stood on the sidewalk and pitched his troubles into the middle of the street where everyone could see them, we'd all break our necks gettin' out there to get our own back. Get the idea? All I want from you is a little ass action." He kicked off his shoes and walked toward the bed.
Out in the living room, Eddie looked down at a sturdy young penis only half-started from between his legs. "I got to work this baby up," he said, and walked over behind Nancy. He put his arms around her middle and rubbed his stomach and groin all over her soft buttock-warmth. "There, that's better," he said, stepping back and looking down at the resultant erection which Nancy had felt prodding her flesh. Eddie went to the sofa and stretched out on his back on it with his penis projecting upward.
"Go ahead an' sit on his spike," Tubby said to Nancy. His little eyes, already almost lost in baggy sacs of fat, narrowed further when she didn't move. "Or do I got to get Harry to help you?"
Nancy approached the couch with wildly beating heart and queasily churning stomach. "Ain't she got an ass on her, though?" Eddie said admiringly, patting the item in question when it came within range.
In the first bedroom, Karen had knelt down between the white-haired Tom's parted legs as he sat on the edge of the bed. She took his eroded-looking penis in her hand. "I won't-I won't be any good at this," the blonde girl stammered.
"My dear, I find your obvious lack of experience most attractive," Tom said suavely. "I assume you have a close girl friend whom you french occasionally? Then conduct yourself accordingly."
Alec already had Elaine on her back in the second bedroom. He had parted the redhead's plump thighs and was piccolo-playing the length of her sex-gash with his fingertips. "That's a real piece of brisket you got there, baby," he told Elaine, who was breathing hard in a melange of emotions. "Don't forget to move that gorgeous ass." He lowered himself on Elaine's belly between her widely separated legs and brought to bear a moderate-sized penile erection against Elaine's fleece-surrounded vaginal entrance. "Stick the Jolly Roger in your cunt, baby," he said.
Tubby had impatiently seized Nancy's arm and forced her to straddle the prostrate Eddie, facing him. Then he pushed down on her shoulders as Eddie guided his spear upward into Nancy's whiskered, gaping slot. Nancy gasped as she slid slowly downward on the sturdy young pole which crammed her pussy-depths. Eddie reached up and pulled her down on top of him, displaying her thrust-back, tautly stretched, wide-beamed nude backside to Tubby. The fat man's little eyes gleamed licentiously as he pulled up the front of his shirt and undershirt and removed gray-looking undershorts that had once been white.
Karen licked at the withered-looking prick on her palm before lipping it into her mouth. The white-haired Tom sat with his hands resting lightly on the blonde girl's head as she sucked on his pipe organ. "I wish I'd had the good fortune to know you when I could have fucked your cute-looking cunt, young lady," Tom said softly with his gaze fixed dreamily on the far wall. "But at my age I must make do with second best.
"Hurry it up, you guys!" Harry yelled from the kitchen. "Customers waitin'!"
An expression of irritation crossed Tom's lined features, but he said nothing as Karen continued to suck the wizened penis while Tom patted her blonde head approvingly.
In the other bedroom, Alec was riding Elaine vigorously. He had spoken sharply to her once, reminding her to move her ass, and she had responded nervously. The quick-thumping prick-assault on her slotted pussy confused her. She was more used to slow-gliding strokes of deep penetration like Dave's. She was just beginning to feel a faint tingle in her interior when Alec clutched her suddenly, gave several rabbitlike quick jerks of his hips, and climbed off her. "Thanks for the buggy ride, baby," he said matter-of-factly as he slid from the bed and reached for his pants. "Now you can tell your grandchildren you got it from the best."
Egotism, Elaine thought witheringly as the balding Alec walked out of the bedroom while zipping himself up. He paused in the living room to stare curiously at the sofa, where Nancy was impaled on Eddie's young prick and the fat man, Tubby, was moving in behind her. Nancy's attention had been focused on the grinning Eddie, whose jogging movements under her had caused a slow-burning fuse to ignite in her depths. She was startled by the touch of a long, thin, ropy-feeling penis between her distended hind cheeks, and she turned her head. "What are you doing?" she asked sharply.
Alec grinned and walked into the kitchen. Harry at once returned with a plump-looking man in tow whom he led to Elaine's bedroom. The man had a round, oily-looking face. "There she is, reverend," Harry said, nodding at Elaine's nude figure on the bed. "She'll do anything you want."
"Reverend?" Elaine repeated incredulously when Harry left the room. "Did he say reverend?"
"That is correct," the plump man said in an unctuous voice, starting to remove his jacket and trousers. "Perhaps you should call at my church, since you are obviously a lamb strayed from the fold." He was looking disapprovingly at Alec's thin deposit dampening Elaine's red-gold pubic hair.
"But you-you're going to-" Elaine couldn't find the words.
"I will have nothing to do with your sinful sexual parts, of course," the plump man said with dignity. He removed his undershorts, displaying a smooth, hairless backside that would have done credit to a middle-aged woman. He advanced toward the bed and knelt up on it.
Karen's red-faced, hard-sucking efforts had produced a slight expansion in the previously slack penis in her mouth. The white-haired Tom's hands continued to rest lightly on her head, patting it encouragingly. Suddenly his thighs stiffened and his middle gave three quick jerks. A stringy, gruely deposit passed Karen's lips and barely reached the back of her throat. Tom stood up abruptly, one thigh catching Karen on the chin and nearly knocking her over backward. She regained her balance and sat on her haunches, swallowing and trying to regulate her breathing while Tom unfolded his trousers and put them back on. "You did very well, my dear," he said benignly before leaving the bedroom.
He passed through the living room without pausing to look at the tableau on the sofa. Tubby had crowded up against Nancy's plumped-out bare behind and was trying to insert his ropy-looking cock, so at variance with the remainder of his physique, in her anus. Nancy was bucking and twisting to evade him, exciting herself by what her movements were doing to her cunt with Eddie's energized young prick embedded in it.
Harry entered the living room with Tom's replacement. "You better straighten this bitch out," Tubby growled at him from the sofa. "I paid for her asshole an' I'm gonna get it."
Harry paused on his way to Karen's bedroom and walked to the sofa. He bent down over Nancy, who shrank from the burning anger openly displayed on the handsome face. "You like the way you look when you see yourself in the mirror morn-in's?" Harry snapped at her. "Then get with it or you won't recognize yourself." He stood glaring while Eddie pinioned Nancy's upper body firmly and Tubby once more probed her buttock-crevice with his ropy cock.
"No!" Nancy pleaded. "No!"
Harry laughed. "Stick it to her, Tubby," he advised, then turned away to usher the new man, an angular, seedy-looking individual, into Karen's bedroom. "Help yourself, Charlie," he said to the newcomer, who was taking in the blonde's naked charms with dull-looking eyes. "No wet deck here. Only action she's had is old Tom's usual twenty-one-gun salute." He left the bedroom.
The oily-looking reverend had climbed high up on Elaine's prostrate body, lodging a diminutive penis between her breasts. "Where are you- going?" Elaine gasped, crushed by his weight on her chest. She could hardly breathe.
"Stop talking!" the reverend said sharply. He reached down and pressed Elaine's large breasts together from the outside, trapping his penis in the warm valley between. He began a fucking motion of his womanly-looking hips while keeping Elaine's big tits squeezed together.
Tubby, with Eddie's assistance, had finally conquered the squirming action of Nancy's behind and lodged the tip of his prick inside her flinching anus. "No!" she cried out. "Help! Help!" Her violent writhing dislodged Tubby, and his erection slid down between her buttocks.
"Sonofabitch!" the fat man gasped. His face was dripping with perspiration.
Harry darted in from the kitchen again at the sound of Nancy's outcry. Without saying a word he slammed a fist into her side with such force that only the sofa back and Eddie's arms around her kept her from being knocked over. "Hey, don't break her all up!" Eddie exclaimed in alarm. "C'mon, Tubby, bang it into her. I want to get to the redhead before too many guys have stabbed her in the cunt."
Numb with pain, Nancy crouched in semi-suspended animation above Eddie, her large breasts on his chest. Her breath came in ragged gasps from burning lungs. She felt Tubby's rough-feeling prick shove between her tender-skinned buttocks and station itself at her rectal orifice, but she lacked the strength to move.
The reverend had worked up a good head of steam fucking himself off between Elaine's tits. She could feel his diminutive prick enlarging as the feel of her billowing, smooth breasts excited him. He moved on her faster and faster while she struggled for breath until a warm, sticky gusher of sperm sprayed her throat, chin, and neck. The reverend slid off her and climbed from the bed with dignity. "Don't forget to attend to your salvation," he said as he pulled on his trousers.
Karen watched apprehensively as the scrawny-looking, sallow-faced Charlie disrobed with a speed at variance with his otherwise lackadaisical manner. Shame enveloped her as Charlie's heavy-lidded stare surveyed her nudity. How could she ever face herself again after this-this lineup had finished with her? She averted her eyes from Charlie's surprisingly meaty-looking cock and heavy-hanging balls.
The gangling man got onto the bed with her, turned her on her side while he played with her shrinking bare behind, then turned her over again to confront a rigorous, rocklike, bulb-headed penis that threatened her flowerlike sex-arbor. Charlie paused as he noticed for the first time Karen's almost hairless state. "What d'you shave it for?" he demanded disapprovingly. "You enjoy showin' it to people?"
"I don't shave it!" Karen returned indignantly. "That's-that's the way it is!"
Charlie grunted and moved in between her legs. With no preliminary foreplay involving her vagina, he plunged his tough-looking sex-prong into Karen's dry hole. "Owwww!" she breathed throat-ily as a smarting, burning sensation enveloped her inner sheath. "Take it easy!"
On the sofa Tubby was breathing heavily but triumphantly as he shoved fiercely at Nancy's partly-pierced rectum. Blinding pain shot through her, and a scream welled up from the back of her throat, which felt so constricted that the scream emerged as a choked gargling sound. She filled her lungs to scream again, but Eddie tightened his hard young arms around her and she lost her breath. Despite her distress, the feel of Eddie's stiff joystick in her downy nest was producing a contrary titillation that stiffened her nipples on Eddie's chest and moistened the boy's erection.
Elaine had stripped a pillow of its case and was disgustedly mopping herself off when Harry came into the bedroom with a Chinese man. Elaine stared, popeyed. She had a "thing" about foreigners, whom she considered to be diseased or at the least unclean. "Okay, Ling," Harry said breezily. "How d'you want it this time?"
"Please to get over end of bed, ma'am," the Chinese said politely to Elaine.
"No," she whispered. Despite Harry's scowl she raised her voice. "No! I won't! You can't make me! I'll-"
She ducked, but in vain, as Harry bent down and slapped her face viciously. "The hell I can't make you!" he shouted. He doubled up his fist, and Elaine plunged her head into the pillow to save her face. Harry changed his mind and instead pulled his belt from his trousers. Elaine shrieked as the leather bit into her buttocks and thighs as the Chinese watched impassively while he undressed. "Get over the end of the goddam bed!" Harry said between his teeth. Elaine scrambled off the bed, blind with tears, groped for the pillow, which she placed over the foot of the bed, then doubled herself up over it. A long red-and-blue stripe crossed both hind cheeks on a diagonal course.
"That's better!" Harry said with satisfaction. "You let me know if she doesn't perform, Ling. I'll straighten her out." He walked from the bedroom after a final fierce stare at the crying Elaine.
Nancy clenched her buttock and thigh muscles furiously as Tubby tried to force his lengthy cock farther into her distended anus. She hurt so badly she had bitten her lip until blood showed. Tubby backed off slightly and slammed his weighty body up against her straining buttocks. Nancy screamed, a high, soaring shriek of pure pain, as she felt the additional penetration in the form of a tearing, rending breakthrough of tissue in her rectum.
"That-shoulda done it!" Tubby wheezed. He moved his hips, and Nancy moaned. "Yeah, I can feel your cock down there, too, Eddie."
"What the hell, you should," the boy replied. "I can feel yours. She's only got a little bit of flesh in between an' that's stretched now like a pizza crust. Will you for God's sake get off in her so I can get at the redhead?"
In the first bedroom, Charlie had paused in his fucking of Karen at the sound of Nancy's scream. "What the hell was that?" he demanded.
Karen wet her dry lips. "My-my friend," she said. "On the sofa in the other room. What-what are they doing to her?"
"Buggering her ass," Charlie said indifferently, and returned to his wood-sawing. The respite had enabled Karen's sheath to exude enough moisture so that the fucking wasn't nearly as painful. The surprisingly stalwart prick in her cunt swooped in steady arcs, and the blonde girl was amazed to feel a quick-glowing ignition in her pussy.
Charlie almost stopped fucking again in his surprise when Karen's athletic buttocks swung clear of the bed as she surged up to meet his down-strokes. Karen whimpered and clawed at his arms with her nails as a fiery orgasm overwhelmed her. Charlie put himself on "hold" until the blonde's twitchings had subsided. "You puttin' me on?" he said then. "A whore like you comin' off like that?"
"I- couldn't-help-it," Karen said weakly, flexing her trembling thighs. "And I'm-not a whore."
Charlie snorted and bent his back to the plow again. He was feeling so pleased with himself for having made Karen come that he spaced his fuck-strokes to prolong his own pleasure. His mood was expansive. It wasn't everyone who could make a whore come like that, was it?
On the sofa Tubby set his knees and drove hard into Nancy, then pulled back before driving forward again. She screamed anew at both in-strokes, not as loud as the first time but still clearly signaling the torment in her riven anus. "God, you better b'lieve she's got a tight asshole!" Tubby gasped.
In the second bedroom Ling, the Chinese, crowded up behind the doubled-up Elaine with an ivory-yellow erection preceding him. He separated her robust nude hind cheeks almost delicately, and Elaine almost cried out with relief when she felt the ivory-yellow prick probing her vagina rather than her anus. She was so wet from her previous misuse that the Chinese cock slid into her easily.
Dave drove the Toronado up to the front door of Harry Scott's house and parked. The boat ride had returned a little late, and he decided against meeting Harry at the club. He got out of the car and was surprised to find the front door locked. He shook the door again to make sure, then shrugged and walked around the side of the house to the rear. When he walked into the kitchen, he stared in surprise at three men standing there along with Harry Scott, who was bare to the waistline.
Then Dave saw all the money on the kitchen table. "Hi," he said. "Crap game? Maybe I'll borrow a few bucks from Nancy and get into-"
He stopped when he saw the expression on Harry's face. He looked again at the men, two of them in oil-stained dungarees and the third, a big man, in T-shirt and dirty-looking slacks. "What the hell's goin' on here? Dave said in a hard voice.
Harry had rallied after his initial shock at the sight of Dave. "Throw him out, Moose," he said swiftly. "He's nothin' but a troublemaker."
The big man started around the money-laden table just as a long, low moan was heard inside. Dave recognized Nancy's voice, and the hair on the back of his neck bristled. He recalled Harry's previous conversation about money, and his delicate probing about the girls. The whole nasty picture became clear in a flash. His hands came up, and he balanced himself on the balls of his feet. "You no-good, lousy, cocksuckin' sonofabitch," he spat at Harry, "I'm gonna change your pretty face for you."
He didn't wait for the big man's advance. Dave met him halfway around the table behind a jolting right hand. Another right and a left followed, and the big man flew backward, the smashing blows knocking him into the refrigerator, which was jarred loose from its mounting.
Moose sagged to the floor and rolled over with blood trickling from his mouth. Harry's expression changed; he had felt confident the big man, bouncer in a local saloon, would handle Dave. Fear showed on the handsome face. "Get him!" he cried to the other two men. "I'll pay you!"
They moved between Dave and his path toward Harry, but cautiously. Dave charged them. His sledgehammer fists swung in short arcs as the hardened knuckles split flesh wherever they landed. The first dungareed man's jaw went lopsided as he bounced off the table, overturning it.
Money fluttered to the floor. Dave hit the second man with a short, chopping punch that turned him sideways before he collapsed.
He charged right past Harry Scott behind a searing left hook to the beltline that doubled Harry up and slid him to the kitchen floor, his face green. "I'll be back after you," Dave threw over his shoulder as he ran into the living room.
He pulled up short at the sight of Tubby on the sofa fucking Nancy's rectum while Eddie held her down with his arms around her upper body and Eddie's prick in her cunt left her unable to move her lower body effectively. The sight of Nancy's agonized face, sweat streaming from it, lacerated Dave's emotions, usually not close to the surface.
Dave sprinted to the sofa and hit the unsuspecting Tubby a backhanded slap that knocked him clear out of Nancy's asshole. She groaned aloud at the ripping pullout from her violated anus. She was in such pain she didn't even recognize Dave. "What the hell?" the startled Eddie exclaimed, looking up at Dave's furious face.
Another backhanded slap knocked the shocked Tubby off the sofa onto the floor. Dave reached down and lifted Nancy up gently, plucking her from Eddie's stiff-standing penis. He laid her down at the other end of the sofa where she curled up into a foetal position, moaning softly.
Dave pivoted back toward Eddie, but the nude youngster was no violet; he had already started a punch of his own toward Dave. The punch landed and drove Dave's head back. He landed his own punch, and Eddie was driven down into the depths of the sofa, which bounced him upright like a rubber ball. Dave stepped inside Eddie's attempted second punch and blasted him over the end of the sofa with a crunching hook.
Muffled squealing sounded from the second bedroom. Dave shambled toward it in a bearlike walk that emphasized his shoulder-breadth. He walked in on Elaine with her head half buried in the pillow over which she was draped while the Chinese, Ling, pinched her lower buttocks cruelly while he screwed her from behind.
The noise from the living room had given Ling a tenth of a second's warning, which he endeavored to turn to advantage. Dave saw the flash of a knife, and he struck the descending arm above the elbow. The arm went limp as the knife went flying, and Ling staggered away from Elaine with his yellow-ivory projection glistening. The Chinese stumbled and fell backwards.
Dave looked at the purpling weal rising on Elaine's plump behind and the red-and-blue pinch marks as she writhed in pain, and his lips tightened. He took two quick strides toward Ling, reached down, grabbed the yellow balls, and squeezed. The Chinese screamed in a falsetto bleating sound as his erection shriveled instantaneously. Dave jammed a heel into his ribs and turned to enter the other bedroom.
He was brought up short again by the sight of a white-faced Tubby in the living room, underwear clamped under his arm and one foot inside his trousers, which he was desperately trying to pull up to cover his semi-nudity. Dave ran across the room and delivered a tremendous kick to the hairy behind. Tubby hit the floor and skidded until he smashed into the wall.
Pivoting, Dave ran for the second bedroom. He collided in the doorway with the gangling, long-necked Charlie, who also had his clothes under his arm. Dave looked inside the room and saw Karen prostrate on the bed, legs apart and pussy glistening, a bemused look on her face. Dave knew an after-orgasmic female expression when he saw it. Disdaining to hit the babbling Charlie, Dave flung him out of the doorway. The cranelike man did a staggering tap dance before he lost his balance and fell heavily.
Dave went to the bed and glared down at Karen. Recognizing him, she turned pink and tried to cover herself with her hands. "It wasn't my f-fault!" she whimpered. "I didn't want to-"
"Get somethin' on!" Dave blared at her. "Go an' help the others an' get them dressed!"
He had only one thing on his mind, and that was in the kitchen. He found Harry Scott, sallow-faced, on hands and knees on the floor, scrabbling frantically trying to scoop up the loose bills that escaped his clutching hands. Harry changed color again at the sight of Dave. Desperately he tried to push the money on the floor in Dave's direction. "No!" he yelled as Dave's big hand sank into his arm and jerked him upright. "No, Dave, no! We were partners! We-"
Dave pinned him against the wall, then straightened Harry's head up with a short upper-cut. Harry tried to break out of the corner he was in, but Dave hit him in the face with short-armed blows that didn't travel more than twelve inches, left-right, left-right. Harry was sliding floorward by the time of the third punch as Dave really leaned into them, and the handsome features disappeared in a wet red smear as Dave's crunching fists hammered him down.
Dave drew a deep breath and looked around.
Moose and the other two men had faded away.
Dave kicked the loose bills on the floor viciously and went back into the living room. He ignored the pasty-faced Tubby and the popeyed Charlie who sidled by him. Eddie went past a minute later, still defiant. Dave went to the sofa where Karen and a shaky-looking Elaine were trying to get a limp Nancy into her underwear. "Just get a dress on her!" Dave rasped. "And on yourselves! We're gettin' out of here!"
Three minutes later, as they went out the front door, whose lock Dave had forced by slamming his heel against it, the last sight Elaine saw in the house was the Chinese, Ling, crawling along the floor like a broken-winged yellow butterfly, dragging his trousers.
Then Dave handed them into the Toronado one by one, got under the wheel, and drove away rapidly from the small house with the bougainvillea hedge and the shady wisteria trees.