Chapter 1

Have you ever been broke? I mean flat, tapped out, beat and hungry broke?

It's a hell of a feeling, isn't it?

You see all the good stuff of life around you stuff to eat and drink, things to wear and ride and play with-and you can't afford even to step up and greet it, let alone make a deal.

That's the way I was that July night when I sat in Shorty Bleek's bar and thought about the women I'd had last month and had tossed aside.

That can give you a bad feeling, too-thinking about the broads you've let slither away because you were bored or had a new one on the line. There comes a time in the life of every man when those lost ladies would come in handy. But, alas, then it's too late.

From this you should have a fair idea of the mood I was in when I met Diana. To say that I was lower than a dachshund's nipples would have been no exaggeration.

Before I tell you about Diana, I should clue you on how it happened that I found myself in such miserable straits. Not that I'm looking for sympathy, you understand, but it will give you some idea of the kind of guy I am. I figure that if we're going to spend all this time together, you should know something about me.

First off, my name's Jack Bartley and I'm twenty-eight years old. As to looks ... well, I try to be neat and to look alive. Nature didn't give me any more or less of a starting break than most other guys.

I've knocked around quite a bit since I got teed off at my eleventh grade English teacher and walked out of George Washington High in San Francisco. I did a hitch in the Army, sold cars, peddled water softeners in suburbia, barked for a carnival girlie show, and helped another guy fleece the suckers at a clip joint we ran in San Diego.

My two vices are babes and gambling.

I can pass up just about anything except hot thighs and hot dice, and thereby hangs the tale of my undoing.

There was this chick named Suzie. Susan Bradford, if you prefer being formal. But Suzie was a hard girl to be formal with. She had dreamy blue eyes, the kind of softly tousled blonde hair that you'd like to get fingers into, and a body that cried out for the kind of treatment which only a hungry male could give.

It happened that I was hungry. Hell, I'm always hungry for stuff like that. So we blew San Diego together-me with about three grand in my pants and Suzie with what I took for a healthy all-American itch in hers-and we landed in Los Angeles.

I'd spent quite a lot of time in L.A. before, so I knew my way around. That didn't prove to help me, though, because I didn't happen to know a cat named Pete Randale. And Suzie did. Oh, how Suzie knew him!

Pete had this floating crap game.

Well, do I need to tell you the rest?

In just a few hours my three grand was gone. So was Suzie. And Pete. And there I was with a fairly good wardrobe, an unpaid hotel bill, a severe case of unsatisfied libido, and a handful of pocket change.

Luckily, I still had a few contacts around town including Shorty Bleek, who ran this bar and grill and I still had a prosperous appearance, with enough gall to parlay the two into a few meals and drinks. But my credit couldn't last forever.

So I was faced with the dreary prospect of going back to work much sooner than I'd expected.

That brings us up to date, and it should give you an idea why the Scotch and water at Shorty's place just wasn't doing much for me that night.

Now ... enter Diana.

She was sitting at the bar when I first noticed her. She'd come in some time after I had, and she seemed to be alone. I looked her over.

I'm a girl-watcher from way back. That is to say, I've been doing it since I was twelve years old. After sixteen years of practice, a person is bound to gain a certain degree of proficiency at anything, and I claim in all modesty that girl-watching is an art which I practice quite well.

There are guys who would tell you there's nothing to it, that you just ogle babes the way you'd ogle a new Cadillac, a Pacific sunset, or an eight-dollar steak.

Those guys are wrong.

Girl-watching is very definitely an art. This is true because in order to gain the maximum possible pleasure from it you have to stimulate the girl to display herself at her best. You have to give her an incentive to do that. Understand?

Well, look at it this way: Unless you're a peeping Tom and do your watching from a place of concealment (which isn't nearly as much fun, incidentally) the girl can see you as readily as you can see her. Now, if there's one thing that most all girls have in common, it's a desire to be appreciated by desirable men. That word desirable is the key. Not many chicks care to be admired by bums or obvious lechers.

Desirableness in a girl's eyes doesn't have much to do with the cut of your features or even how much weight you carry around. It has to do with grooming, sure, and with such intangibles as poise and attitude.

Assuming that you are well-groomed, in keeping with the locale and occasion, it only remains for you to act poised-sure of yourself, in other words-and to display the right attitude toward the girl herself. An attitude can reveal itself in a glance. Girls dislike equally slobberers and snobs. They are attracted to healthy, bushy-tailed, red-blooded males.

So whether you are healthy, bushy-tailed, red-blooded or not, it will behoove you to act that way if you want girls to be attracted to you. Such attraction pays off in a casual encounters as well as on dates.

Example: A girl is walking toward you on the street. She sees you at the same time you see her. If she likes what she sees-particularly your reaction to the sight of her-she will usually reward you with an inviting countenance, a straightening of her shoulders and perhaps a little extra sway of her hips.

Example number two: A girl is seated opposite you in a club or restaurant. If she is pleased by the way you look at her, she will more likely than not treat you to an extra-scenic crossing of her legs. If she reacts adversely, she will keep her pretty knees primly side-by-side and perhaps even turn them the other way, at the same time elevating her nose as she would do upon encountering anything else unpleasant.

Well, enough of that. I think you have the idea.

Maybe you knew all this already and, if so, forgive me. But there are lots of guys who don't know it and those clowns can't possibly get as big a charge out of girl-watching as the ones who are hip.

Okay. End of lesson one in the Jack Bartley course on girlsmanship.

Back to Diana:

She was seated at the bar, a couple of stools down from me, and I was giving her my standard once-over. She was pretending not to have noticed me, but I knew she had. I knew it by the way she was arranging her dress hem above her crossed legs, and by the way she was holding her shoulders so that her boobs bulged out.

She was no kid, which is to say that she'd never see thirty again. Or even thirty-two. She was somewhere around the midpoint of the dangerous decade in a woman's life.

As I told you, I'm twenty-eight. From that you might assume I wouldn't be interested in a woman who'd reached her middle thirties. If so, you flunk lesson two in Jack Bartley's course.

I won't burden you with a long harangue on the point, but I'll say this: Women are apt to be their juiciest at around Diana's age. Not only that, but plus-thirty dolls usually appreciate the attentions of minus-thirty men, and they are very apt to make it more than worth the man's while.

Knowing this, I sized Diana up carefully. I was without loot, true, but sometimes a guy can make out with a light or even an empty wallet. In this connection, also, his chances are much better with an older dame.

Diana carried her age well.

She was dark brunette, with her hair long enough to tickle her shoulders. She wore a blue flowered dress with a scooped-out neckline. Her large, rising boobs threatened to bubble over its top, especially i he way she was shoving them out there. She seemed passably trim in the waist, though she couldn't have been called slender. Her bare arms were rounded and well-fleshed, and her legs likewise gave evidence of having lots of meat on them.

She was sipping a Manhattan. Once she glanced my way, and our eyes met. There was a flicker.

Lesson three could well be devoted to the reading of feminine eyes, but this is neither the time nor the place for a long to-do about that. Suffice it to say that I was satisfied with what I read in Diana's.

Immediately after facing front again, she twisted on her seat and cocked her crossed calf at a slightly more rakish angle. Her calves and ankles weren't fat, and that's a good sign to look for, especially with women who are a bit plump in other departments.

I took a firm grip on my Scotch-and-water glass and moved to the stool beside her.

Lesson four should concern itself with introductions, pickups, breaking the ice, or whatever you wish to call the process by which male and female get to know one another. There are a hundred approaches, all of them suitable to certain occasion. A lot depends on the woman, and here's where a sizing-up process is very important.

I had noted the way Diana sat-confidently erect-and the levelness of her gaze. I had also taken into account that she was in a bar alone and that she was five to eight years older than me. On the basis of this, I had decided on a direct, no-nonsense pitch.

I have guessed wrong on occasion, but not often. Another thing, incidentally: A woman's first response doesn't always tell you how well you're succeeding. So don't give up too soon. Sometimes you have to be darned persistent.

In Diana's case, persistence was not called for. I had no sooner said, "Can I buy you another one?" than she gave me a thorough once-over, smiled conservatively, and said, "Why not?"

I told myself that I was in like Burton. (Joe Burton, I'm talking about. He's a tiger with the ladies in my old home town.)

Actually, of course, I wasn't buying at all. I was charging. But, for my purpose at the moment, it was all the same thing. I ordered and charged, we sipped and smiled at one another, and then came the introductions.

Her last name was Manzer, and she told me right away that she lived just around the corner.

Lesson five? Look out for professionals.

Now, I've got nothing against them, you understand. As far as I'm concerned, the working girls should be allowed to ply their trade. They actually represent a great boon to many guys who might otherwise find themselves out in the cold, in a very literal way.

For myself, I've never cared to go that route. The few times I've tried it, it's been depressing. In the first place, most prostitutes are sexphonies. They don't really dig men-not after their first couple of hundred, at any rate. Many of them dig females. Some just dig money. As I said ... depressing.

There's no thrill of conquest; a man is left with the unpleasant impression that he doesn't have what it takes to make a woman fall over and play cozy unless he pays her for it. Now, money has its place in the art of girlsmanship-there's certainly no doubt about that-but it's in the build-up, not the payoff. The payoff should be for sweet mutual pleasure and nothing more. That's where the real boot comes in.

So I suddenly became wary of Diana Manzer.

She didn't have the look of a hooker, I'd thought, but I recognized the possibility that I could have been wrong. I decided to do some verbal feeling-out.

"An interesting crowd comes through this place, don't you think?" I asked. "I like to hang out here just to watch them."

"Really?" She gave me a calm look and expelled cigarette smoke.

"How about you? Don't you find the place entertaining?"

"I hadn't really noticed, to tell the truth," she said, picking up her glass. "I had something unpleasant to do tonight and thought a couple of drinks might help me."

"Oh?"

"But, then, you wouldn't be interested in my troubles."

"How do you know? I've had some of my own."

She looked at me again, more closely this time. "What do you do?"

I grinned. "That covers a lot of territory. You want me to start at the top of the alphabet?"

"I mean for a living," she explained. "Most people specialize in one thing."

"I don't," I told her. "Right now I'm uncommitted."

"Mmmm." She let her eyes tour me and then looked front again. But I noticed that she continued to watch me in the dark-shaded mirror.

I had just about convinced myself at this point that she was no pro. She was, I took it, a woman with a problem. That meant she was a woman who needed the help of a man.

I took heart.

"Go on," I said. "Tell me about it. It will make you feel better."

"I don't know if it will or not. Talking makes some things worse."

"Let's try, shall we?"

She looked directly at my again. "You're a funny one, do you know that? You can't really be interested.

You're just trying to make out, aren't you?"

"Mm-hmm." I nodded pleasantly. "But I'm interested, too."

Our eyes held one another's for quite a time, each of us sort of half smiling as if we'd discovered something worth further exploration. But then she glanced at her expensive watch.

"It's too late," she said. "I have to meet this man at nine o'clock."

"Oh?"

"A business conference. He's offered to take my troubles off my hands."

"Accommodating fellow," I said. "What's he getting out of it?"

"He's getting a sight-seeing business that I just about broke my ... back ... trying to keep on a paying basis. I took it over two years ago when my husband died. But I couldn't make it stay in the black."

"Sight-seeing, hmm?" I sipped my drink. "Sounds Kke it might have possibilities."

"That's what I used to think. My husband made it pay, of course, but times were different then. Anyway, there are some businesses that it takes a man to run."

"Maybe that's your trouble," I suggested softly. "You need a man. To run the business, I mean."

This time our eyes held for a very long while and there was an openness about her dark-eyed gaze that zinged me.

"This man," I said. "The one you were going to meet. You could probably meet him tomorrow just as well, couldn't you? I mean, his offer won't be closed by then, will it?"

"No," she said thoughtfully. "I don't imagine so. He's been after me for quite a while to sell out."

"Call him. Tell him you can't make it tonight. Say he'll hear from you in the morning."

"And?"

"And we'll go up to your apartment and talk it over."

"You have nerve, haven't you?" Her tone revealed grudging admiration ... and interest.

"That's right." I smiled. "What have you got to lose?"

"Well ... not my virginity, at any rate. But I don't know you."

"That's why we should go to your apartment."

After searching my eyes for another few seconds and evidently finding what she wanted to see, she slid off the stool and edged past me. As she did so, my eyes tested her rounded white breast-tops much as you might visually test cantaloupes on a produce counter. I graded them A for succulent ripeness.

Diana's hips, though heavy, moved with lithe promise as she walked from the bar in front of me. And her calves, as I've said before, were very good in nylons that were extra-sheer.

Things are looking up, old boy, I said to myself as I headed for what I hoped would be a rewarding evening in Diana's place.