Chapter 17
THE MASTER LOVER....
Kay was the murderer!
"You shot Mary Lou" Nickie accused.
Kay smiled. "Yes," she admitted. "I didn't intend to, you know. Thought it was that fat wife of yours."
"Lila is not fat!" protested Nickie.
"Well, anyhow I'm sorry about Mary Lou, though I don't really think it's any great loss to mankind. Just a mistake. Just awhile ago I made another boo boo too. There was a girl in the suite below yours, making out with that Sam character whose room you bugged. I was hiding in the dumb waiter trying to sneak back into your room and look around a bit, when your wife went tearing down there like the devil had her.
"Naturally, I saw she was a jealous woman and that's a perfect set-up for murder. So I lowered myself down there. I was going to kill Lila and then let Sam or his girl friend take the blame"
Nickie's heart sank. "You mean Lila's dead?" he asked.
"No," said Kay. "I told you I goofed. Really, though, it wasn't my fault this time. That stupid girl of Sam's opened the door to the dumbwaiter and saw me. She was going to scream. I absolutely had to stab her. Not that I really feel too bad about that, either. In my profession you don't really think much about things of that sort."
Her profession? For the first time Nickie realiz-ed what that profession must be. Her job was to murder Lila! And that job had been assigned to a member of the dreaded Executive Action Division! He had been warned not to get in the sack with girls, and he had bedded down with the serpent itself!
For all he knew, her orders might now include his own assassination!
Kay saw the look on his face and knew he had realized her identity. Her smile tightened. "Comrade Nicholas Mravinsky!" she said. "As a master lover, you're quite passable. But as a spy-" She shook her head.
"You couldn't even kill the American agent by yourself. I had to do it for you!"
"But who?"
"Honey Milch, of course. You didn't think that the surfboard turned over by accident? I pushed it! I'm sure it hit her on the head. She'd have drowned by now of course!"
"But" Nickie could hardly believe that poor Honey was a secret agent. Poor Honey who never learned to grunt only once. Honey, whose mother thought she was studying to be a dental assistant.
"Fool!" said Kay. "She was a member of the Beach Brigade. Didn't you learn about them in spy school?"
Nickie shook his head. He could only reason that he had spent too much time mastering the fine art of love-making.
"It's because of Cuba, naturally," Kay explained. "Now that Cuba is on our side the shores have to be patrolled. But the businessmen were afraid that too many G-men hanging around would scare off the tourists. They compromised with the Beach Brigade. Actually, it's wonderful for business."
"Every member of the Beach Brigade is a highly-trained, extremely capable spy. And every member is a beautiful, bikini-clad girl! Honey was just patrolling the beach the night you came ashore. The circumstances under which you arrived were, to say the least, suspicious. So she kept you under surveillance."
"She lost track of you when you went to the Bahamas on your honeymoon. That was why she showed up this morning-to try to learn what subversion you might have accomplished during that time"
No matter. She's dead now. And from here on out, Nickie after we get Lila killed, do stay out of trouble!"
But more trouble was on the way. The palmettos rustled and Honey stepped out, holding a gun. Nickie stared. He stared at the gun, but he also stared at the girl. She was still minus her bra. She held the gun in front of her, so that it was flanked on each side by the admirable breasts.
Kay said something conventional about how Honey was supposed to be dead. Honey said it had been very interesting to listen to Nickie and Kay's conversation.
She also said it had been most instructive to watch the other proceedings. She would have to try it sometime herself. She had almost split laughing when Kay and Nickie had fallen over the barrel.
Well, too bad, she was going to have to turn them over to the F.B.I. Curtains, Comrades Nickie and Kay.
Nickie was thinking. He had much to think about. It was the end of his career-the end of the borrowed time he had received in Moscow. What a shame! And he could have made a success of his mission, too! He didn't even need to give any more psychological tests.
What did Soviet propaganda lack? Joyful labor-turbines-healthful mudbaths-what they lacked was-undoubtedly, naturally, certainly-SEX! Could it be that if the leaflets were spiced up-? But Nickie would never know whether his theory was correct. Honey had the drop on them.
A figure came up the beach behind Honey. A man's figure. He stopped and seemed to contemplate Honey. He was trying to tell whether or not her bra was really missing. Yes, by heaven, it was! The sight excited him tremendously.
He broke into a run and grabbed her from behind, his hands closing over the ample globes of her breasts.
"Eeee!" cried Honey. Her aim was jerked away from Nickie and Kay.
"Bam!" A shot went skyward.
"Oh, stop it Bruce!" said Honey. "Not now! You always want to do it at the wrong time!"
Nickie and Kay ran for it. Bam! Another shot went skyward.
But this time it hit something. A cocoanut was severed from the crown of a palm tree. It catapulted downward and connected with Kay's head. Curtains for Comrade Kay, assuredly. She was dead.
Nickie was still free. He had one chance of escaping Honey's bullets. He had brought his diving gear with him on his outing with Honey. Had thought he might do a stunt or two to impress her. If he could get into it, he could exit the way he'd come!
Honey wouldn't be able to follow him far without equipment.
He struggled into it. Soon he was far out in the blue water of the Atlantic Ocean. He swam deep down among schools of shining fish. He was far a-way from Honey, from Lila, from all other girls, from sex itself. It was a strange place for a master lover to die.
And die here he surely, would, he thought.
Now that he had escaped he had no way of getting ashore, he realized. The Beach Brigade would be alerted. The shore would be lined with beautiful girls waiting to capture him. He didn't have a chance.
Nickie surfaced. He thought he would like to look at the sky just one more time.
"Hello! Say, what're you doing down there?" Nickie had come up by the side of a small yacht.
"I'm only taking a swim," Nickie called back.
"Well, you'd better get aboard now, you're going to miss all the fun! You are one of us, aren't you?"
"Certainly," said Nickie, who had no idea who they were.
"Good! I'll put down the ladder and you can come aboard."
Nickie came. There were a dozen or so men and women on the yacht. They were all wearing gear similar to Nickie's. They were rainwear enthusiasts, he discovered. They got their kicks by dressing up in rubber outfits. Nickie could not figure it.
But they figured him. The girls kept coming up and stroking him and telling him he was sexy. Nickie got himself a double martini and sat in a corner, trying to be inconspicuous.
It was after dark when the yacht docked in Miami. Nickie went ashore among the cultists. He was safe among them, just one more kook after a few kicks.
Ashore once more, Nickie decided it might have been better if the cruise had lasted longer. Maybe a year or so. He was in a bad spot. He had flubbed up his mission continually, and his latest crime had been getting Kay killed. She had apparently been a residentura, an agent whose life was highly valued by his country. They would never let him go home to Russia, and of course, he would never be safe in America.
Nickie had been thinking about Lila. It seemed so long ago that he had buried his head in the pillow and refused to let her arouse him. So long ago that he had told her he didn't mind if they never saw each other again. He wished he hadn't done that He wished he hadn't left her unsatisfied. He wished they might have just one more time in bed together.
Wouldn't it be fine if he could sneak back into the hotel and ease her need? He imagined her lying on the bed, her peach-colored negligee open. Her bosom would be pointing ceilingward. One hand would be cupped lightly over her best delight, as if to hide from the world the need she felt there.
She would be sipping champagne. Nickie could almost imagine the bubbles tickling her nose as she took the glass and swallowed the rest of its warming contents. Her thighs, which had been lying close together would part--
Oh, but what nonsense! The hotel would be guarded, of course. But maybe he could sneak in the back way!
Before long Nickie was in the basement of the Tropic Sands Hotel. It was the same place he had been the night he had first been overcome by Lila's magnificent bosom and fallen into the pool from his balcony.
But this time Nickie did not take the freight elevator. He had a better idea. The dumbwaiter. He called it and got on.
As he pulled himself up, he noticed that there was another dumbwaiter on its way down in the same shaft. There was garbage on it. But there was something else on it. Something that did not look like garbage. Wasn't that a big, plump thigh sticking out from that greasy sack?
Wasn't that-Lila?
"Nickie!" she gasped as she saw him. "What on earth are you doing here?"
He countered that he might ask her the same question but she hopped onto his waiter and Nickie forgot Nickie was stroking her breast.
This was what he had come for, he remembered. He would make love and ask questions later. He lifted a breast out of her bodice. He could never resist doing that. He could never resist just holding the big mounds, marveling at the weight.
Lila sighed. She lay down and propped her feet up against the cables of the dumb waiter. Her dress rode up over her wonderful thighs. Her fingers were on Nickie's zipper.
"You know what?" said Nickie. I'm not at all sorry we're married. It's nice to have a wife to do little things like that for you."
"Yes," Lila said, and did still more. She put her hand inside his trousers.
Nickie's lips moved over hers. His hands were everywhere. He exercised every bit of expertise he possessed. Lila squirmed under his touch. He knew just how to play on her stomach to make the muscles quiver and the little hairs stand on end with desire. He knew how to touch her thighs. His lips knew how to kiss her breasts, one, then the other, so that they would be erect, goosepimples on the flanks.
He was going to make this an event to remember!
To remember? Yes, indeedy. For just then someone called the waiter. A door slid open and a middle-aged woman placed a sack of garbage on it, pushing Lila's leg aside to do so.
The woman did a double take. She started to scream, decided not to and slammed the door.
Nickie tried to get back in the mood, but it was impossible. There was sour cabbage in the sack. Nickie had always thought of sour cabbage when he was trying to delay himself during his erotic training at spy school.
"What did you say you were doing here?" asked Lila.
"Running from the law! And you?"
"The same."
"There was a girl in Sam's suite," Lila said. "The police found her body in the dumbwaiter. Right here as a matter-of-fact. They questioned Sam and me."
"But you didn't do it, Lila. Why run?"
"Oh, you're so sweet to believe in me, Nickie!" said Lila.
"It's nothing. I believe a husband should be loyal."
Lila sighed. She pulled her dress down over her thighs. "Oh, Nickie," she said sadly, "you're not my husband."
"What! But the license! Who is your husband if I'm not? Sam? Is Sam your husband?"
"No," said Lila. "Nobody's my husband. I'm not married. Sam was my partner. You see, we had a racket. We'd get millionaires interested in me, and then we'd drug them. When they came to, I'd show them phony marriage documents. That was where Sam came in. He did all the forgeries. Didn't he do a good job on ours, though? You were completely convinced."
"Anyway, after I 'married' the millionaire, I'd spend lots of money and I'd exhaust him sexually and then for a huge settlement, I'd agree to go to Mexico and get a quick divorce."
"And Sam forged the divorce papers, too?" Nickie guessed.
"Right," said Lila. "So you see, even if I beat the murder rap, there's extortion-fraud-all sorts of things! Oh, Nickie, whafll I do?"
"How should I know?" said Nickie. He was extremely put-out with her. He'd thought she cared for him.
She started to cry. "Even if all this hadn't come up, it would have been the end of our racket. Because of you, Nickie. You were the one man I couldn't exhaust! You were the one man that ever really satisfied me! If I ever had had a husband, I'd have wanted him to be just like you! Remember what fun we had, Nickie? On our honeymoon?"
"Yes," said Nickie. He had forgiven her. "Remember how you pretended to be the shy bride and I had to tell you everything I was going to do to you?"
She giggled. "Yes, and remember how I almost drowned and the lobster bit my rear while we were making love? And best of all, the orgy on Sex Cult Cay?"
"Mmm," said Nickie. "I remember it all!"
"Nickie! That's it! Come on! This cabbage is making me sick!"