Chapter 2

Edward Morgan was fifty-two, a mountain of strong, solid man who might have been a sawmill foreman, or a longshoreman-but he was neither. Even in a perfectly tailored suit, he looked like the outdoors imprisoned behind a flattop desk. He was president of Portrait Photographers Inc., and he had suddenly found trouble dumped into his lap.

I hadn't had the privilege to work for Edward, heretofore. I played golf with him on occasion. Upon rarer occasions I had taken his daughter, Judy, to a club dance or out to dinner.

But I was working for him now.

It had all started several days ago.

Carol Evans, who is the pulchritudinous barrier between my inner sanctum and the office front door, said very coyly over the intercom: "Big man to see you, Mr. Bonner."

"Quit being so evasive or I'll come out there and paddle your tail. Who is it?"

Carol was out there for two reasons. She was a very smart, very alert female, with three years of police work behind her. She oozed sex from every feminine pore. Just sitting down, Carol exuded sex. Walking, she permeated the air with it.

"Mr. Edward Morgan," she said sweetly. "Now may I replace my chewing gum?"

"Yes, luscious. And send in Mr. Morgan."

Edward came in, stood there for a moment looking at the decor in the lush office.

"My aching back!" he said at last. "Have you gone snazzy!"

"Strictly upper bracket for the carriage trade."

"That fancy name on the door! Bonner Evaluations. I've heard a shamus called a lot of different names, but never an evaluator."

I grinned at him. He came forward and we shook hands.

"It's about time we had a round of golf."

His cold steel eyes came up and he frowned. "I'd like to rock a golf ball off someone's head!"

"In that vicious frame of mind, you need a drink," I said, and proceeded to part with some of my precious bourbon. He took the drink, sat down in the chair I suggested.

He took a swallow of the bourbon, rolled it around his mouth before he swallowed it. "I see you know your liquor as well as your women."

"You alluding to Carol?"

"Is that her name? If I was as young and virile as you-"

"Well, you're not Methuselah!"

"No, but I wouldn't last long with that chick on a hot blanket."

"I never fraternize with the help."

He almost choked on his last swallow of whiskey. Setting the glass down, he suddenly became serious.

"Do you know Barry Morris?"

"That rent-a-car magnate?"

He nodded.

"Yes, I know him."

"His only daughter, Luann, goes to that girls school on Euclid, Miss Wormsby's, I believe it's called, or Parkview Academy.

"Just another society school, with a padded entrance fee."

"So I've heard."

"Morris almost flipped when he got a registered letter yesterday. Inside was a picture of his daughter, nude as the day she was born, awaiting her stud."

"What's that got to do with you?"

"It seems the school permitted a photographer to take the usual yearbook pictures. Morris' daughter claims that she went to this jerk's pad one night and he took the nude of her, but without the stud."

"It's been done before."

"But this has a new twist to it. The smut boy wants ten grand for the negative!"

"Wowie! Blackmail! Wasn't the school photographer one of your association members?"

He shook his head. He fished inside his coat and came up with a card on which were some typed figures. "Something's happened in this business-almost overnight. Most of our legitimate boys are suddenly faced with cancelled contracts, competition they can't meet."

That didn't entirely make sense. "You mean, some outside groups have learned to buy film and paper cheaper, learned to process cheaper and thus outbid the regulars?"

"No, it isn't that."

"Then how did they grab up your accounts?"

"That's what I want you to find out. I think they've been bribing some of the school principals and purchasing agents."

I got a cigarette going. "Ed, let's admit something that you know and I know. School photographers have been bribing school men for years to get their business."

"I realize that. Little things. A fountain pen, a cheap camera, an electric shaver, things like that."

"Still termed a bribe if it ever came into the public eye."

"I'll admit that. But these bribes are a bit different."

"What's that mean?"

"Big bribes." He looked at the typed list. "In schools with an enrollment of five hundred, it's a television set or something in that price category. At some of the really big schools, it goes up. I've heard of a new car, even."

Something didn't make sense. "There isn't that much profit in this work, is there Ed?"

"Not if it is legitimate."

"One more thing. These fellows cutting in-are they working all the schools, elementary up to college level?"

He shook his head. "They haven't touched the elementary school, not as yet, and very few high schools."

"That figures."

"Nothing figures to me."

"Think a moment. If they're not bothering with elementary or high schools, it at least classifies the work. Young people. And breaking that down, what does it suggest?"

"Girls?"

"Girls!"

"Ye gads! Don't tell me that the smut bops have turned to our educational systems!"

"Doesn't it look that way to you, considering this blackmail thing that Barry Morris had had thrown in his lap?"

He nodded. He seemed to be very disturbed. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, a habit he has when he is thinking deeply on some problem. Finally his eyes raised.

"Mike, this is nasty. It's nasty in more ways than one. If the newspapers and radio find out about it, they'll make it even nastier-smear a lot of innocent people-young people."

"They won't need to find out about it."

"They will, the moment we start cleaning up this mess. And we've got to stop it in a hurry, or it will spread."

I shook my head. "I think we can work it very quietly."

Hope gleamed momentarily in his eyes. "You're merely trying to make me feel good, Mike."

"No, I wouldn't sugar coat the pill for you."

"Well, you're the only one I can go to for help. So I'm asking you-just like that."

"All right. How much time do we have?"

"You answer that. The school photography work is just now getting into full swing. It will continue until about March 1. By that time, all the copy must be in for the year books."

"So right now, the smut boys will start striking hard."

"I would say so, if this Morris thing is a gauge."

"All right," I said. "The first thing you do is get in touch with Barry Morris. Tell him to button his lip. Then make an appointment for me. I want to see his daughter."

"Okay. I think that can be easily arranged. Barry and me are old war buddies."

"Then I want a lost of yearbook shootings: school, photographer, date."

"How can I do that," he argued, "if the smut boy gets the job? He doesn't belong to our organization, remember."

He had a point there. 'All right, let's compromise. Pick out half a dozen schools you lost. Try to find out from some reliable school official when the photos will be taken. Tell them it's only good business to check on the competition. They can't object to that."

"That sounds like a workable plan. I presume that you want to check some job, personally?"

"More than check. I want to send a few sexy girls to school that day, so they can get their pictures taken."

His eyebrows raised. "You're a cute one-I'd never thought of that."

"You live and learn."

"Where will you get the girls, the decoys?"

I thought a moment. "I've got friends. And there's always Carol."

He pulled in a big breath. "If they don't drool over her, I'll miss my guess."

"It won't be cheap"

He shrugged that off. "We don't worry about money if we get results."

That was about all there was to say at the moment. He left, promising to call me the moment he could contact Barry Morris. I was trying to wrack my brain. Did I know a girl named Luann Morris? No doubt she'd be a buck toothed, flat-chested society deb with about as much sex appeal as a frozen earthworm. And then I realized my negative thinking was all wrong in this instance. She had been chosen for a nude by the smut boys, hadn't she? That told me that she was a sexpot, with a lot of physical yum-yum on view.

I buzzed for Carol.

She came in, seated herself very adroitly on the dictation chair facing me, pad and pencil poised.

I grinned at the fuzzy rat's nest hairdo she was wearing at the moment, let my eyes travel downward, until they rested on the third button of her frilly white blouse.

"Don't tell me. I've lost a button."

"No baby. No loophole in the prison."

She crossed her legs and the subliminal part of my mind registered a lightning like glimpse of some bare shank. "It's near closing time, Mr. Bonner. Lefs get on with the letter."

"What letter?"

Her eyes raised, she licked at her full lips with the tip of a very naughty looking tongue.

"You rang. Naturally I presumed you wanted me to take a letter."

"When did you last have your photo taken?"

"Ages ago."

"I want you to have it taken, real soon."

"You want my photo?"

I grinned some more. "In the nude. In the absolute nude."

She uncrossed her legs and one high heel made a dull thud, even through the carpet, as her foot stomped down hard.

"What is this, some cheap trick of yours?"

"I want you to pose as the daughter of one Alexander Robinson, a very rich oil man, newly moved to this community."

Her eyes were growing more puzzled by the moment, and there was a fleck of anger in them too.

"Swallow your temper, honey," I said. "I'll tell you all about it."

She recrossed her legs and took a deep breath.

I told her about the smut racket that was presumably invading, of all places, the public schools. I told it in detail, for despite our tongue-in-cheek, on the surface regard for each other, down at the core Carol was fifty percent of a team that, until the present, had done quite well together.

"Ed is troubled no end," I said, "and I can easily see his point. If this gets any publicity, a lot of clean, innocent people might get hurt."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"I want you to be a college deb. Sit in. Get your photo taken. See if they approach you in any way with an offer."

"An offer to pose in the nude?"

"They've got to make a contact in some way. As soon as Ed calls, I'm going across town to visit the Barry Morris home on the beach. They got to his daughter in some way."

"What if I don't like this idea?"

I grinned and patted her on the knee. "We won't discuss that. I don't like it either."

I sat back, and looked at her in an objective way, if that is possible. "You're a sexpot, seven days a week, even if you dressed in a sack. But when you go to this school, I want you to look even sexier."

Her fingers dipped to her skirt. She pulled it above her knees, possibly an inch. "As short as this?"

She had very pretty knees, no knobs, no bumps.

"The elite of fashion; you know what I mean" My eyes raised. "And change to a tight slipover sweater-say a fire engine red."

"Mike, I look horrible in red!"

"And no bra under the sweater-nothing under it but you!"

She pulled in a big lungful of air that threatened to pop the buttons off the frilly blouse. "You want me to get arrested?"

It was a good question. She had a glorious set of breasts, elongated and steep-coned, and still with such muscular stability that there was virtually no sag. If a bra didn't flatten those pointed cones, they'd punch holes in that sweater.

"Yes," I said dreamily, "a bright red sweater."

"Quit staring at me!" she said. "You're drooling."

I reached over, got hold of her hand and pulled her onto my lap.

"Don't fight it all the time," I told her. "You know I love you."

She was stiff. "I know what you love-the physical me. Here, and here," she pointed, "and a couple of other vacation spots."

"Honey-"

She raised up, put my hand back to a safe place. "I know, and you know, that you're dying to go to bed with me. In fact, sometimes I think the obsession is so great that you're even contemplating rape."

"How'd you guess it? The human body can resist just so much."

She made a face. "Well, lover boy, build up your resistance some more. I've told you before and I'll repeat it-we'll play hanky-panky after you've said the magic words and slipped a ring on my finger. Not one second before."

She tugged to get off my lap, but I held on. I pulled her head down and finally got my lips on hers. For a moment she resisted. Then the tenseness left. She gave me a very womanly kiss. I felt the quick touch of her tongue and then her hands pushed at me.

Don't be fooled by Carol's hands. They look very feminine, but they are strong. And she knows how to use them, a la judo and all the other flip-fling-gouge-poke sciences of self protection, thanks to her police training. She used them now and I slowly released her, although I didn't want to. I had held on once before, a bit too long, and she had given me a sore nose that lasted for a week.

She stood up, adjusted her skirt and blouse. "What you can do to a woman's clothing!"

"I want you to look not a day over nineteen, the day you go to school."

"How'll I eliminate four years off the calendar, tell me that?"

I got hold of her shoulders. "Honey, you look nineteen right now."

She liked that. She knew I meant it, too-

"You really mean that?"

"You know I do."

She leaned against me and kissed me hard on the lips. Just one long, demanding kiss, a minute of ecstasy with her glorious breasts digging into my chest, then she backed away.

She chortled in glee and headed for the outer office. She had me over a barrel and she knew it. And she was just smart enough to keep me across the barrel until she was ready for me to climb down.

The phone rang.

I'll say one thing for Ed Morgan. He gets things done in a hurry.

I had an appointment at 8:45, he told me over the phone, to meet Luann Morris.

"She looks sultry," he said with meaning. "Think you can handle the situation?"

I assured him that I could.

The Barry Morris ranch house sat alone on a green hilltop on Briarcliff Road, away from the city. Around it cluttered the houses of a sprawling new subdivision that stretched through the sand hills like some colorful serpent. To the left the land fell off abruptly, and down below was the sea, immutably hushed and calm at this time of day.

The Morris house was sprawling, made to look even more so by the fringe of high eucalyptus trees that frowned down on its low, clapboard roof from the rear of the yard.

I was a bit impressed. Barry Morris, seemingly, was a man who could easily pay a ten grand blackmail bite without getting hurt, if he so chose.

But I didn't think he was that gullible. At least I hoped he was not. I was more interested in how the actual photograph of his daughter had been secured than in the eventual payoff. First things first.

I parked the car, headed for the front door. My hand was hovering over the bell when someone spoke.

"Hello there!"

I saw the girl then, sitting at one of those small yard tables that are usually crowned by a gaily-colored umbrella.

The light was dim, but she looked like a doll. I pivoted and went down the walk, across the lawn.

She was a doll, a very petite girl, whose face resembled a delicate china figurine. At first glance she looked Asiatic, a small face, slim body, small, pointed breasts pushing at the black and gold silken lounging jacket she wore. The jacket could have been Balinese or even Chinese or Japanese. But on her it looked good.

"Luann Morris?"

She nodded, showed some very pearly teeth in a tight smile. "You're Mike Bonner. Father said you wanted to see me."

"Yes. I hope I'm not upsetting some previous plans?"

"No plans." She pointed to a chair.

I sat down and found myself looking at the broad expanse of the Pacific, still visible under the darkening skies.

"What a stupendous view!" I said in appreciation.

"Yes, one of the grandest in miles. In the early morning the fog patches look like gray ghosts, hugging the rocks out there."

This girl had imagination and an appreciation of natural beauty. Suddenly I was sorry that my visit was one of business.

"May I call you Luann?" I asked, finally.

'Yes, please do. I hate formality. Your name is Mike, isn't it?"

"Has been for twenty-seven years," I said.

I got a gracious smile now. Perhaps it was the light of dusk, but her teeth looked like perfectly fitted pearls.

"Luann, I need you help," I said at last, thinking of the business at hand.

She moved closer. Suddenly her hand was a-top my own. There was something in her eyes that I could not quite interpret.

"I need your help as well," she said. "The first thing you can do for me is simple: ask me to go walking with you" Her voice suddenly was so low that it was almost a whisper.

"It promises to be a gorgeous evening," I said, talking louder. "The beach should be breathtaking."

"I'm so glad that you, too, like my sea," she said, her voice raised to the normal level now. "I'll show you my very secret place."

We moved away from the house. She took my arm. Then when we were at the end of the driveway, heading across the sand dunes toward the cliff, her grip tightened.

"She was listening, in the shadow of the patio"

"Who was listening?"

"My stepmother."

"I presume there is some friction between the two of you?"

Her laugh was low, guarded. "That is putting it mildly."

We were on the beach now, the sand tugging at our feet. She pulled up presently. "Shall we take off our shoes and really enjoy the sand?"

"Wonderful idea."

I sat down and she eased down at my side. Her skirt was up now, she worked at her garter belt, first one creamy leg then the other. She was small in stature, but she was still a mighty nicely put together girl.

"We'll leave the shoes right here," she said, and we scrounged around until we found some driftwood to mark the spot. Then she took my hand and suddenly it seemed the tension flowed out of her body and peace and relaxation came into her face.

We walked, saying little. She was taller than I had first presumed, now that we walked side by side. But even her hand felt small-boned and tiny within my own. I judged she weighed a hundred pounds at the most.

And at last here was a huge cairn of jumbled rocks-We crawled through the rocks, inching forward, climbing. And suddenly we were inside the jumble and the white sand beckoned with the wash of the waves only feet away.

"My secret trysting place," she said, something like an explorer showing a new land-She eased down to the sand.

"I'm jealous," I mocked. "I should have liked to be the first to share this with you."

"You are."

That was rather amazing.

"I always come here alone," she continued. "The sea is so-what shall I say?-solacing, after a binge with her."

I eased down beside her as she sat facing the sea. The moon was over her left shoulder, outlining her face.

"Is your stepmother a thorn, Luann?" She half turned. "Yes, very much so"

"Is it because you're-" I wasn't certain. I hesitated.

"Say it," she urged. "Surely you've already noticed."

"I've noticed a rare beauty in your face, if that's what you mean. A beauty of form too. You're something like a delicate flower."

"My mother was Japanese," she said. "She died when I was born. My father moved to the States when I was six. I hardly remember Japan at all."

I got hold of her hand. "Does the present Mrs. Morris object to the fact that you are part Japanese?"

"I think she objects more to the fact that she is his second wife, that my father still is in love with my dead mother and that I am a product of that marriage."

That at least made sense.

"You attend school at Miss Wormsby's?"

"Yes, my senior year."

"Is it a good school?"

"I would say it is a very good school."

I started to ask the question I had to ask and still it was a chore that I definitely didn't relish.

She leaned closer and she pulled up my hand, until she brushed her cheek with it.

"Say it, Mike. Ask me why I had the nude picture taken."

"I suppose you had some very valid reason."

"I did," she said. "But I fear I've been very naive."

"Tell me about it."

Her eyes were wistful. 'There is nothing much to tell. Evidently the photographer thought I had some beauty of an exotic nature and he preyed upon my ignorance. Anyway, I was among several girls in the senior class that got offers to pose for glamour shots."

"Were all of the girls good looking, sexy?"

"I think so," she said, chuckling. "All but me."

"Don't under-rate yourself. You are about as sexy as they come."

"Mike, please don't kid me!" There was a sudden seriousness in her young face.

"Honey, I'm not kidding, not in the least."

"Anyway, I decided I would pose in the nude for the gentlemen."

"Why?"

She let my hand drop, leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. It was surprising, yet somehow it seemed the proper thing to do at the moment. Let's call it mood.

"I'm afraid you don't understand, Mike. It wasn't that I was neurotic or something like that. I wasn't going out for kicks, like some of the other girls did."

"Some compulsion made you pose for the picture, then. What was it?"

"In Japan, it would have been quite proper," she said. "I merely wanted to send my mother's family a nude of myself. Physical perfection, to my people, is sort of a religious thing."

There it was, so simple! So utterly simple! But she had fallen victim to something far more insidious. Or her father had, in reality.

I reached over and kissed her on the lips.

"Honey, I'm so glad that you said that. Now I fully understand. I hope your father understands as well."

"I think he does," she explained. "But my stepmother must never know"

"Of course not!"

"And now this blackmailer wants to be paid for the negative-a horribly retouched negative-and my father is furious."

"I know."

Suddenly she was in my arms, her lips mashing against my own. Then she pulled back. "Mike, can you help me? Will you help me?"

"I hope so, honey."

There were tears in her eyes now.

"I was so-so utterly ignorant of what this man could do with an innocent looking negative."

"Just what did he do?"

She was long in answering, as if she were building up enough willpower to tell me.

"I posed on a high, backless stool" She looked about, evidently for something to demonstrate the pose. "Pull up your knees," she said at last.

I was lying on my back. I merely pulled up my legs and she struck a pose and sat down on them. One arm was higher than her head and her face was half-turned toward this hand, as if she was perusing something held dangling from her fingers. The other hand was at her side. Her legs were not clamped, but in a natural pose, one leg outstretched and the other dipping downward.

"Like this," she said at last.

"You were alone in the pose, when the picture was taken?"

"Of course;"

"But when the print was delivered to your father, they had used superimposition and retouching."

There was something in her face that was not nice to see. It was a loathing, a sudden repugnance.

"There was a nude man in the picture with me-We were-"

It figured. These smut boys were good at superimposing and at all types of retouching.

She was off my knees now. She flung herself atop me and I felt the quivering of her body as if she had a sudden chill.

"Oh, Mike, I believe that even my father doubts it all now, doubts the fact that I was alone. I tried so hard to explain, but he merely sat there, looking straight ahead, his face like marble."

She was crying. It was instinct to pull her into my arms. I kissed her and it was a very salty kiss.

"Cry it out and then you'll feel better," I said and held her even tighter, caressing her back and working my hand up her neck, to the base of her skull.

And at last she quieted down and her arms crept up around my neck.

"I think your father believed you," I assured her. "No doubt it was the shock that turned him immobile. Even if he does not yet believe, I'll soon convince him."

"Mike, you will help me then?"

"Of course, honey."

"But how will you get this negative back?"

"There are ways."

Her kiss was spontaneous now and she didn't let go. And after a few moments of indifference I didn't want her to stop. I pulled her still deeper into my embrace and suddenly I touched her.

Her breasts were tiny, but they were pointed and topped with puffy aureoles upon which the nipples sat like tiny chocolate haystacks. I caressed her soft, satiny body, and felt the tension slowly leave her, only to tauten in another way. And suddenly she pushed up and the silken jacket was open and she pushed those delectable mounds into my face, first one, then the other.

"Please love me, Mike."

There was a longing in her request that bespoke a loneliness or some equal compulsion of long duration. She wasn't a tramp, soliciting. She was very human and desirable.

Each time I kissed her, the longing grew in both of us. The soft satin of her skin was velvet under my fingers. At last the ecstasy grew into a fury that would not be longer denied and we were together.

She was small, but she was a tiger, tawny and demanding. And at last the sea surged in with a tumultuous roar, and it was over. She lay in my arms, in the hot sweat of fulfillment, a wistful smile wreathing her lips. At last she pulled my head down to her breasts and caressed me, much as a mother might caress the face of a child.

"Mike, I'll never forget this moment."

"Neither will I"

The thing we called civilization-the cluttered noise of men and machines-seeemed to be a million miles distant at the moment. This was our own world, a tiny sheltered island, with the sea singing a love song to us. That's how wonderfully peaceful it felt, holding her in my arms, that tawny little body imbued with so much fire and longng.

At last her lips were on mine again and she pulled up my hand and I felt the quickening and it started all over again. There was a soft moan of sweet pain in her throat and I was in a distant land, in love with a lotus.

Somewhere came the sound of voices-perhaps some couple seeking the same solace we did-and suddenly the magic was gone. In its place was the hard reality of tomorrow.