Chapter 9
It's hard to say how long I was there before I heard someone coming.
I'd gone through Zimmer's files of photographic negatives, other files containing correspondence with his victims, and records relating to the sex resorts he had m the country.
The evidence had surprised me in one respect: Zimmer had been operating one of his properties in town as a house before he'd made his deal with us and had set up the country locations. Now the Los Angeles operation had apparently been closed down.
There was enough evidence in that room to hang Hugo Zimmer by the short hairs and to blast his entire operation to hell. But I knew I didn't dare turn it over to the authorities. If I did, Diana and I would go down the drain with him, since we'd been aiding and abetting his felonious deeds. So that meant we would have to take care of him ourselves ... somehow.
I hadn't gotten around to pondering the problem when footsteps sounded on the concrete stairs outside the studio. I closed the drawer of the cabinet I'd been searching and bolted across the room to snap off the light. The metal door fit so tightly that I was pretty sure no light had shown from under it.
I had barely enough time to drop on my haunches behind a filing cabinet before the door opened and the light went on again.
It was Zimmer, of course, and he was not alone. There was a girl with him.
She was brown-haired and almost as young as Leona Temple, but she did not have the Temple girl's naive, open-faced quality. This one seemed a great deal more mature.
As Zimmer watched her carefully, she looked around the room and asked questions about the equipment. Then she asked what sort of pictures he needed of her.
"They must be nudes," he said firmly, his blue eyes intent and calculating.
The brunette lifted a brow. "You didn't say anything about that."
Zimmer opened his hands, palms upward, in an innocent shrug. "I thought you would understand. People who hire models ... they must know what they're getting. They have to be certain there's no fakery no padding to make the girl's figure look better than it really is."
"I'm not sure I want to do this," the girl told him as she ran her finger casually along the edge of a metal cabinet. She was still walking around, evidently trying to decide what her best move would be.
I was pretty well situated, in a corner where neither of them was likely to go, but I was worried just the same that I'd be discovered. I didn't want Zimmer to find me hiding in his studio like that. I preferred to confront him later, when the time was right and on my own terms.
Zimmer was saying, "But you'll have to do it, my dear. I'm afraid you have no choice."
She stopped her slow pacing and gazed at him directly. "I most certainly do have a choice. As a matter-of-fact, I can tell you and your modeling outfit to go climb a tree if I want to."
She was a scrapper, this one. I could see that Zimmer was going to have his hands full with her.
His eyes narrowed. He seemed very sure of himself. "I don't believe you will want to do that," he said.
Watching the two of them made-me think of a cunning jungle animal stalking its prey. Only, Zimmer was not going to make a "kill." George would do that ... or so Zimmer thought. And Zimmer would have the pleasure of standing at the side and watching.
The girl walked up to Zimmer. "I've made a mistake. I can see that now. So we'll forget about the whole deal, shall we?"
She turned away from him and began striding toward the door.
Moving with a quickness that surprised me, Zimmer rushed up behind her and grasped her bare arm, turning her around. Her mouth opened as if she were about to scream, but she didn't get it out. She merely stared at the man, apparently too astonished by his sudden action to make a sound.
Zimmer spoke, his voice smooth and nard as glass: "You're not leaving." And then he issued a sudden bark that reminded me of the Nazi storm troopers you see on The Late Show. It was the single word, "George!"
I was in it now, I knew. When George didn't show, Zimmer would investigate. Then, when he found the big man bound and gagged....
I stood up.
The girl, who was facing directly toward me, gasped.
Zimmer muttered an exclamation, his eyes narrowed to slits. Then he said, "What the devil are you doing here?"
"Checking up on you," I told him, walking to the center of the room. "What do you say we talk?"
Zimmer looked quickly from me to the girl. "Not now."
"Yeah, now! Right now, before you have a chance to add another head of human stock to your stables."
"What's he talking about?" the girl demanded of Zimmer.
Ignoring her, he said to me, "This is none of your affair, Bartley. Our deal...."
"Our deal didn't cover anything like what's been going on here," I stated firmly.
He studied me for a minute in cold detachment, and then he snaked a hand inside his jacket. It shook me when he brought out a gun. I hadn't even considered that he might be armed. The weapon was a small but competent-looking automatic.
He leveled it at me. "As much as I hate to do it, Mr. Bartley...."
The brown-haired girl interrupted his speech with a scream. And then she bolted for the door. It was obviously a hysterical reaction with no thought behind it.
Zimmer swung the gun in her direction. He could have cut her down with a simple squeeze of his finger, assuming he was crazy enough to do it. In the split second that I took to consider the matter, I decided that Zimmer might be just that crazy.
I dived at him, but he whirled with an agility that once more surprised me, and I sprawled on the floor. The gun went off. The bullet missed me, ripping into the far wall of the room.
At the sound of the explosion, the girl had gasped and flattened herself against the wall, where she hung for a moment as if she were pinned.
Zimmer, breathing hard, stepped back. He held the gun levelly to cover both of us. "You're a foolish young man, Mr. Bartley," he said in a tight voice. "Very foolish."
The girl remained against the wall, wide-eyed, not making a sound. The high mounds of her breasts moved up and down with her ragged breathing.
"Come here, Abby," he said, his voice softer but still carrying a lot of menace. "Stand beside me."
Numbly, she did as he ordered. Though Zimmer turned slightly to watch her from the corner of his eye, it was clear that he wasn't concerned about her so long as she was away from the door.
He said to me, "Get up, Bartley. Then perhaps you can explain what you did with George. I assume you forced him to let you in here."
I stood up. "George is bound and gagged in his room. I took the keys from him."
"I see," Zimmer said. "Well, that will be fine, then. Yes, indeed. Everything is working out beautifully."
"I don't know what the devil you're talking about," I told him.
"You'll see." His voice hardened: "Now, take your clothes off, Mr. Bartley."
"What?"
"Disrobe," he said firmly.
The pretty girl, Abby, was still in a state bordering shock. She looked from Zimmer to me, her brown eyes wide.
"I'm going to have you help me solve our little problem," Zimmer went on. "Then there will be no question about our working together in harmony. Take off all your clothes, please."
"You're out of your skull!" I shouted.
"Oh, no," Zimmer smiled. "On the contrary. I'm doing the most sensible thing that a man in my position could do." His expression became smooth and determind once more. "Don't assume that I will hesitate to shoot you, Bartley, if you don't cooperate, because my own life is at stake, in a manner of speaking. Now this is the last time I'll ask you: Will you please disrobe?"
I had figured out what he had in mind. It didn't take a genius, after all, to see it. He was going to force me to enact the role of George and he would take the pictures while he held the gun on me. Then he would be in a position to blackmail both Abby and myself me even more effectively than the girl, for he would have graphic evidence of my commission of rape. The fact that he was forcing me to do it would constitute a point of defense, no doubt, but I was afraid that it wouldn't be strong enough to get me off the hook inasmuch as Zimmer and I were business partners. The mere fact of the partnership made me at least partially liable for whatever Zimmer did.
The question that really concerned me was whether he would shoot if I refused to play along with his scheme. I didn't weigh the matter very long. I didn't have to. Zimmer, by pulling the trigger a few minutes ago, had proved his determination. The bullet hadn't missed me by far.
Maybe you're saying to yourself that if you were in my spot you wouldn't have done what Zimmer was demanding, that you wouldn't have committed rape under any conditions. If that's true, then it proves you're a bigger hero than I am, I guess. I didn't like the thought of rape. It was repugnant to me-and yet I was damned if I was going to let Zimmer shoot me down for not doing it. As crazy as he was, I wouldn't have put it past him. By that time, I was prepared to agree with Diana that the man was capable of anything.
So I began to get undressed.
Zimmer enjoyed the whole thing, beginning right at that moment, and then convinced me that I'd been right about his sexual perversion. He seemed to be contemplating with glee what was about to happen. I wondered if perhaps he was incapable of treating a woman in the normal way.
Brown-haired, brown-eyed Abby-whose last name I never learned-watched me with something close to horror as I took my clothes off and as she, too, began to realize what was going to take place. It was a study in contrasts-the expression on her face compared to that of Zimmer's.
As for myself, I can tell you that it was no fun stripping down, under those conditions.
Normally I get kind of a kick out of undressing in front of a girl. I'm not exactly an exhibitionist, but it does give me a minor charge to see the look on a chick's face when I doff my clothes, and let her get an eyeful of what a man looks like. It isn't that you meet many girls (if any at all) who haven't seen men in the nude before, but most of them seem to remain at least mildly fascinated with the sight.
Even Abby was fascinated, as stunned with fright as she was right then. Her face began to assume a rosiness, her lips parted, and her eyes became even wider than they had been before.
"Excellent!" Zimmer pronounced when I was nude. "Now take the girl's hand and lead her to the couch. And just in case you think that the two of you might succeed in rushing me together, consider this: I could surely kill one of you before the other one gets to me."
Abby walked along stiffly, looking straight ahead. She reminded me of the Christian girls in those movie spectacles about ancient Rome as they marched to meet the lions in the coliseum.
We reached the couch and I said to her, "It will be better if you don't fight. There's no way to get out of this."
"But I don't understand," she protested feebly.
"The man's crazy. We'll have to humor him. I'll try to make it up to you later." I could only hope that she wasn't a virgin.
Numbly she sat on the couch, then let me ease her into a reclining position.
"No!" Zimmer shouted. "Not that way. I have ... something else ... in mind."
As Abby and I stared at him, Zimmer told us exactly what it was that he wanted us to do. He could hardly keep from chortling as he described it, his eyes and mouth having assumed a vicious leer.
"Damn it!" I exploded. "The girl's just a kid!"
"Oh, she's old enough, Bartley. Don't worry about that. She'll probably even enjoy it. Anyway, I want a variety of pictures of you, so that you won't even think of giving me any trouble. Now stand in front of her."
"We'll have to do what he said," I told her. "It will be over in a few minutes."
Her hands trembled as they reached for me, then touched, and she began the ministrations which were necessary in order to consummate the act in the manner Zimmer wanted.
Zimmer had switched on two sets of floodlights which now bathed the couch area. He stepped over to the camera.
It's strange, but even under the threat of force that hung over me-with Zimmer watching and preparing to take pictures, and with me actually loathing the fact that I was being forced to take advantage of the girl-nature still responded in the usual way.
Abby's fingers were soft and caressing, though they trembled with fear. And her lips, when they touched me, were wonderfully warm and exciting. My entire body stiffened and my hands clenched into fists at my sides. There were two clicks of the camera.
I didn't look at Zimmer as it was happening, but I could imagine the naked lust that was etched on his face. When he spoke, his voice betrayed it:
"All right. That's enough. We don't want to waste you." And he laughed fiendishly.
I stepped back. By then my nerves were taut. I had to take the girl; there was no longer even the slightest question of choice.
"Pull the clothes off her, Bartley!" Zimmer demanded. "Make it look good. And, Abby, you fight him even if you don't feel like it. This part has to look like rape."
I'd been wondering about the other. I mean, there had been no suggestion of force in the first two pictures he had taken. Now I realized that Zimmer had insisted on those shots in order to give him an extra leverage on me. By using those pictures, he could smear me very nicely without involving the girl in a rape charge; the rape angle would have to be used only if Abby or I first pointed a finger at him. I could imagine the result of the first two pictures were shown to Diana.
I bent over the girl.
"Fight him!" Zimmer howled at her, sounding exactly like the madman that he was. "Fight him now!"
The girl squirmed on the couch, her thighs twisting. Her eyes had become suddenly intense. And then she erupted into savage action, Zimmer's command having apparently served to unleash a pent-up reaction to the fear she felt.
She began to fight me, and there was nothing phony about it. Her fingers clawed, striking at my arms. I tore at her blouse, trying to shield myself at the same time, but her fingernails gouged me painfully, drawing blood.
A sudden fury rose inside me: Why should I be forced to endure punishment at her hands? None of this was my fault. I couldn't help what Zimmer was making me do.
And I reacted by increasing my effort. I pulled her blouse open, ripping it savagely. Beneath it she wore a pink brassiere that was temptingly loaded. Her breasts rose in full ripe orbs, packed closely together. The white flesh quivered as she fought me.
"That's it ... that's' it!" Zimmer cried out. I could almost hear the saliva on his lips.
Abby wailed as she struck at me more furiously than ever. I fought off her arms and succeeded in opening her blouse all the way. I was about to pull at the waistband of her skirt when she lifted her right leg, aiming her knee in a sudden jab at my groin.
I dodged the thrust but realized then that I couldn't hold anything back in my effort to subdue the girl. She wasn't acting. She was really fighting me with all she had.
I dived forward, pinning her against the couch and trapping her left arm between her own body and the couch-back. Then, throwing my side against her churning thighs, I held her other arm with my left hand and pulled at her skirt with my right.
Her skirt came up, a lace-fringed pink slip with it, and this exposed the long lovely lengths of her tempting thighs.
What is it about girls' legs that make them look so much better when they are flexing upward and twisting, as Abby's were right then? Maybe it's only in the mind of the male-the thrill of forceful conquest and all that, or maybe thighs are more aesthetically pleasing when they are tensed and up-raised.
Whatever it was, the sight of Abby's lovely lush thighs agitating wildly thrilled me to the core, stirring me in such a way that I began actually to relish what I was doing and what I was going to do.
I was going to rape her and glory in it!
The girl wore flat shoes and no stockings, and her legs were a light even tan all the way up. They were kissable legs, if I'd ever seen them-legs to draw a man and thrill him, and hold and press him in their warmth.
I tore her skirt and slip-one mighty yank rending both garments from hem to top-and then, without a moment's' hesitation and while Abby was still churning violently beneath me, I reached for the elastic band at the top of her pink silken pants.
The camera clicked and I heard the sound that escaped Zimmer's lips, indicating his satisfaction with the shot he'd obtained. I didn't care. Now I cared only about what I was doing.
I was an animal now-no less than Zimmer, though in a different way. I was making a sexual "kill." As for Abby-even in spite of the perverse circumstances, it was plain that she had gotten caught up in the spirit of the sexual drama. She was fighting fiercely, and yet I seemed to see revealed on her face a desire for me to go all the way with her-to force her to submit to me.
I would not disappoint her.
I pulled the panty elastic away from her belly, yanking it fiercely. It popped. Then the nylon split all the way down.
Continuing to pull, I began to bring the pink flimsy garment down, tearing it more as I did so. She was revealed nakedly to me now-a twisting churning target for my lustful desire.
Her pants came all the way down her legs, and I threw them aside. Then there was nothing between us. There would be nothing to stop me, once I'd gotten her legs sufficiently open, from completing the act which Zimmer ordered.
Yet her breasts were still brassiered, and I wanted to see those beauties bared, as well. I wanted them to shake and bobble nakedly as I took her.
So I hooked two fingers under the band that was between the loaded cups and once more I yanked with all my strength, even as Abby continued to claw me and tried to knee me in the groin. But she was not a large girl and was therefore no match for me at all. She couldn't rise from the couch; I had her pinned.
Her brassiere broke and the contents of its cups spilled free. Full and round and white, the twin entities of her bust hobbled before my gaze, the nipples large and coral-pink and puckered but still not taut.
I grabbed at them fiercely and Abby cried out. My thumbs pressed and rubbed at them and then, pincer-like, I sought to draw out the tender tips. They surged up, stiffening nicely.
Holding a breast in each hand, I shook them back and forth. Abby kept lashing at my arms and once succeeded in raking her nails across the side of my face. The smarting of the wound made me all the more determined.
I pressed myself down upon her as she still rolled and tossed, and I used my knees to help pry her thighs apart. I could hear the click of Zimmer's camera again.
And then I was surging forward, heedless of the flailing fury of Abby's' arms and the bite of her nails as they raked my flesh. I only knew that I was taking her, finding the target of my assault and hitting it with lust. She was no virgin and I was glad of that, but either way it would not have affected the outcome of my effort.
Zimmer giggled from behind me, and it was a sound that I had never heard issue from a man before. It was a rattling, jarring giggle that sounded as if it might have come from the devil himself. But that didn't bother me, either. Nothing mattered now but for me to probe the warmth I'd invaded. Again and again and again, harder and harder, until I was at the apex of sensual fulfillment.
Abby was no longer fighting. She was pushing against me now, lifting and pushing her lower body and moaning and pulling at me with the hands which moments before had seemed intent on scratching out my eyes.
Zimmer continued to laugh gleefully. I heard the shutter of his camera snap several more times.
Finally I forced Abby to the brink of release and we hurdled over it together. There was no more fight in either of us as we lay with our arms and legs enmeshed.
Perhaps half-a-minute later, when I looked at Hugo Zimmer's face., I saw that it had changed. It was looser than before, the lines around the mouth more slack, and his eyes had taken on a haunted look. He still held the gun quite levelly, however.
I got up and dressed.
"You will drive the car for us, Bartley," he said, "since I doubt that George will feel up to doing it. By the way, we must untie him, mustn't we? The poor boy.
"Abby will come along and cooperate and do everything I tell her to do. Either that or the pictures I've taken will go to her family in ... where is it? Glendale? I would send them the first two pictures, I believe. The last ones were a little violent. We wouldn't want her folks to think that she was being raped." He laughed fiendishly again.
Abby had pulled her fragmented clothes around her but hadn't risen from the couch. Strangely, right then she seemed more interested in me than in Zimmer or what lie had been saying. And, even more strangely perhaps, the look in her eyes was not exactly a hateful one. It might even have been described as warm, in a way.
When I arrived at the love nest I shared with Diana, I had to face a fusillade of questions. She was like that.
Either she was basically insecure or else it was because of the fact that I was younger and she was afraid she wasn't going to be able to hold me. She always had to know exactly where I'd been and what I'd been doing. Rarely did I tell her the complete truth.
This time I said, "There was something I had to check out-a report on Zimmer that might have caused us some trouble if it were true. I found there was nothing to it, so there's no point in yakking it around."
"Don't you think I should know about it?" Diana asked. She was seated on the couch, wearing a pink dressing robe which was fastened up to her throat and falling loose around her lower body. It split away at her crossed knees and I found myself staring at her naked white thighs.
The sight didn't move me at that moment.
Lately Diana hadn't been moving me very much at all, and that fact had been giving me a quiet fit. I didn't know what the hell I could do about it without upsetting what had become a very profitable apple cart. Now there was the additional complication of Zimmer-what he was doing and the evidence he held against me.
I said, "If I told you, you would only get upset, and for no purpose. As I said, I checked the story out and found it wasn't true."
"All right, Jack."
I had been pouring myself a drink, but now I glanced at her. Her tone had not been right. It had been detached, as if her mind had switched to another track altogether. Now I caught her studying me through narrowed eyes.
"What is it?" I said. "Is my nose on crooked or something?"
"That scratch," she told me, suspicion rearing its horned head. "No. There are two of them. Two scratches. Woman scratches, Jack."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said.
"You were with a woman, weren't you?"
"I said not to be ridiculous. I won't even dignify the question with an answer."
She leaped to her feet. "You'd damned well better dignify it! Were you with that tramp Eleanor, after all?"
"Diana...." I warned, "that's enough."
"Enough, hell!" She began advancing toward me. "Were you, Jack? Were you with that scum?"
"She's no scum and I wasn't with her," I said heatedly. "Now are you satisfied?"
She was looking at my face at close range. When her eyes found mine, there was trouble in them. Bad trouble ... for me. "No, I'm not satisfied at all. I've suspected for a long time that you've been cheating. I've suspected it but I didn't have any proof. Now...."
"Now you think you have proof?" I shot back. "Because of a couple of lousy scratches on my face?" I slapped at my own cheek.
She stood stock still and stared at me, her eyes delivering a verdict.
"You want me to tell you how I got them?" I said, my imagination having conjured up a story in the few seconds I had paused. "You won't believe it, probably, because you seem bound and determined to think what you want regardless of what I have to say, but I got those scratches from the underbrush when I was scrounging around at one of Zimmer's resorts."
Her eyes widened, admitting a trace of doubt. "You were out at ... on of the country places?"
(We very seldom spoke about the sex resorts and had no specific name for them. It was a matter of unspoken mutual consent that they should remain out of our conversation-and thoughts-as much as possible.)
"I had to go there," I said. "Now that's all I'm going to tell you about it."
She softened. "All right, darling! I'm sorry."
It surprised me that she should come around so fast. But, then, I guess she had really wanted to believe I was faithful, in spite of What her anxiety-bred suspicions had whispered to her.
It was my turn to be petulant now. I wanted to try to discourage her from raising an issue like this again., I said, "So you've been suspecting me, have you? The next thing I know, you'll be having me followed. You're a big girl. Di, but sometimes you don't act like it."
She approached me from behind, pressing her soft body against me and running her hands upward across my chest. Her voice was liquid warm: "I said I was sorry. What else can I do, Jack?"
I gave her the silent treatment.
"You want me to prove how sorry I am? Is that it?" She hesitated. "I will if you want me to, baby. I'll prove it in a way you'll like."
The prospect didn't interest me. I could still feel the warmth of Abby. My conquest of the young girl had rocked me so thoroughly that I had no desire for another woman-least of all, Diana.
"Never mind," I said and moved away from her. I went back to preparing myseif a drink.
Diana didn't say anything for a while and I could tell that she was still standing where I'd left her. Then I heard a rustling. I turned.
She stood in the center of the room stark naked.
I said, "Is that supposed to be the answer? Is that the answer to everything?"
Concern crossed her face. "It used to be enough answer for us. Not just the flesh ... but what was behind it, too. We've never talked much about love, Jack, but I ... "
It was necessary to interrupt her before she said any more: "And this isn't the time, either. Not after you said the things you just did. I think we should each take a little while to think."
Her. lips parted and she stared at me. She didn't say anything. A slight tinge of what seemed to be shame appeared on her face.
I set my highball glass down, untouched. "I think I'll go out to a bar for my drink," I told her. "And don't worry. I won't be with any other woman. You might as well go on to bed. You can throw some blankets on the couch for me."
I walked out before she could say anything.
When I returned a couple of hours later, the apartment was dark.
I snapped on the living room lamps. The blankets were there, with a pair of pajamas laid out beside them. I stepped to the bedroom door and eased it open. Diana seemed to be sound asleep.
After showering, I got into the pajamas, darkened the living room, and stretched out on the long couch. I pulled the blankets around me.
The first light of morning woke me up. A glance at the wall clock told me it was ten minutes after six. I shucked off my pajamas and walked nude into the bedroom.
Diana lay on her side in a flimsy blue nightgown, the covers crossing just beneath her bust. I stripped them down and over the foot of the bed. The lacy hem of Diana's nightie was around the tops of her thighs.
I looked at her as she slept, her features beautiful in repose and innocent of make-up. Her black hair lay tangled beneath her head and fanning across the pillow. The large red eyes of her nipples showed through the flimsy stuff of her gown. And at the base of her belly was the vivid darkness which promised so much.
Desire built quickly in me.
We had to make up and I had decided that this was the way to do it-to go to her on my own and to awaken her with the thrusting force of my maleness. It was not entirely a matter of duty, however. Diana had not lost all of her power to tempt me.
I turned her onto her back. She stirred and made a slight sound, but didn't awaken. I bent and lowered the shoulder straps of her gown. Her breasts were two soft spreading mounds, crowned with circles of dull red, each of which was punctuated at its center by a soft nub.
I got onto the bed beside her and pressed my open mouth against the pillowed softness. My tongue began to tease a lip-surrounded nub into erection, and then I drew upon it.
Diana moaned as she began to emerge from sleep.
I pressed my mouth upon her other aureole and caused its nipple to rise, as well.
When I raised my head I saw that Diana's eyelids were fluttering. Time to get on with it, I thought, and so I dropped my hands to her fleshy thighs and spread them apart.
Diana's eyes opened. "Dar-ling...." she said, in a voice still dulled by sleep.
I hauled the bottom of her nightgown up until it met the top part, just below her breasts, and then I vaulted over one of her thighs, settling myself where I could take proper aim.
I moved forward, touched her, and made her say, "Oh!"
And then: "Oohhh ... oh, darling!" She was wide awake now; there was no doubt about it.
She clutched me with arms and legs.
I didn't say a word but just rocked up and down on top of her for all I was worth.
And that proved to be all that was called for in order to make us lovey again.
On the way to work, I stopped off at Eleanor's place. She had dressed for the office but was waiting to hear from me before she left her apartment. Leona Temple, looking more child-like than ever in one of Eleanor's too-large dressing robes, was with her.
I told Leona, "It's going to take a little while to straighten things out, I'm afraid, but I'll promise you that Zimmer won't use the photos he took of you as long as you don't make trouble for him. On top of that, I'll give you enough money to pay for some clothes and a bus ticket back to Montana."
She gazed at me soberly. "I don't really want to go back to Montana, Mr. Bartley."
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
She looked down. "I wanted to be a model, but I guess maybe that was just a childish dream. I'd still like to stay in California, though. There must be something out here that I can do."
"Whatever you want is fine with me," I said. "How would it be if I gave you a little extra to tide you over for a while-until you find a job that you like?"
She smiled wanly. "That would be very nice of you."
"Then that's what I'll do. You get dressed and we'll all go to the office."
When the Temple girl had disappeared into the bedroom to put on the old blouse and skirt which were the only clothing she had in the world, Eleanor said, "She could hurt you a lot, Jack-you and Uiana and all of us, for that matter. As far as Zimmer's concerned, she could probably fix his wagon for good."
"I know that," I said. "But I don't think she's the type to make trouble. A little money and the chance to make a clean start for herself is all she wants."
"Maybe," Eleanor admitted. "She does seem like a pretty good kid. But when you stop to think of the way Zimmer treated her...."
"Let's not, huh?"
She looked at me questioningly.
"We've got to live with Zimmer for a while yet, whether we like it or not. So let's try to forget what Leona told us."
"Can you forget it?" Eleanor asked. "I'd damned well better," I told her.
But I couldn't forget, of course.
When I'd first seen the evidence against Zimmer, neatly filed and catalogued in his basement studio on Arapahoe Street, I'd thought I had him by the short hairs. Now he was the one who had me. It didn't feel good, I'll tell you.
Though I figured I had made amends to some extent for the way he'd treated Leona, I couldn't keep from thinking of Abby and the other girls, many of whom were probably no older, who were being held as virtual or actual prisoners in Zimmer's out-of-town resorts and being made to serve the men I transported out there.
I knew, also, that Zimmer couldn't maintain the operation for long. It was too fraught with hazards.
Zimmer was clever as many madmen are clever. But there was no wisdom in his schemes, which is another way of saying there was no sanity in them. So it was just a matter of time ... for all of us.
I kept coming back to the conclusion that I would have to face up to him myself, get hold of the pictures he had taken of Abby and me and destroy them. Then I would have to settle with Hugo Zimmer.
But that was when my plans hit a roadblock. The only way I could think of to stop Zimmer without destroying myself and Diana at the same time was to kill him, and I didn't want to contemplate committing murder.
Yet, I couldn't stand by and do nothing.
Sacrifice myself in order to get Zimmer? Well, maybe I deserved it. But Diana didn't. I didn't love her and I was tired of having her around my neck, but I still appreciated what she had done for me and I couldn't escape the knowledge that I had been the one to insist we do business with Zimmer in the first place. Diana had actually been blameless, her only sin having been that she had trusted me to run the business.
A hell of a spot, huh?
So while the "tours" to Zimmer's sex resorts continued, and our legitimate business grew, and Sunnical prospered, I stewed in a caldron of guilt and frustration.
In spite of myself, I began taking it out on Diana.
I stayed out more and more, with Ellie and others, and I made less of an effort to explain myself to Diana or to smooth her hurt feelings. Her suspicions of me began to grow again.
Somehow I almost welcomed them. Maybe I was subconsciously courting punishment because of the guilt I felt, I don't know.
I was in a particularly vile mood when one night, in the midst of the night club tour, I saw a ghost from out of my recent past, and the sight set me off like a trigger does a gun.
Who was it?
I mentioned her a long way back, so maybe you'll recall her name. In case you don't, however, I'll refresh your memory:
Her name 'was Susan Bradford, and I had a very special reason to hate her. She was the girl who'd helped bilk me out of my bankroll just before I met Diana.