Chapter 11
For the first time in her life, Phyllis felt frenzy in the full meaning of that ancient word. She fucked Tim like a woman possessed the furies, pumping him dry time after time and then ruthlessly applying her mouth to his phallus to restore it to a condition that would enable it once again to fulfill her seemingly insatiable demands.
It was as if, deep inside of her, having killed for the first time, Phyllis felt an irresistible compulsion to create a life in replacement of that she had destroyed. She was driven by forces she could neither understand nor control. Much of the rest of that frantic night she was not to remember in any detail. If everything did not go blank, it became thoroughly blurred in her memory ever afterward.
There were intervals of lucidity-not all of them attractive in retrospect. She recalled, for instance, at one point, when Tim had to go to the John, masturbating wildly until she could endure his absence no longer, then leaping from bed and mounting his lap in the bathroom and enjoying a resounding experience then and there.
She recalled more than once pressing her wet, wide-open vulva against his face while she sucked his phallus desperately in an effort to restore its rigidity . '. . the first time in her life that she had practiced the magic number sixty-nine. She liked him not only on the bed and in the John but also on the sofa, in an armchair, on the carpet and on the window seat. For the time being, she was literally sex-crazed.
Mercifully, Tim seemed to understand her condition. He was gentle when required, entirely considerate of her frantic need, yet quite capable of taking charge of the proceedings when his dominance was indicated. And he, too, proved virtually tireless, showing once again his remarkable sexual stamina.
There were even moments when the frenzy left her-brief intervals of rationality during which they were able to smoke and sip brandy and talk intimately together. Yet each of these valleys of relative relaxation ended in another surge of the hysterical passion that held her intermittently in its grip.
She recalled at one such moment when they were talking of their childhood and she admitted to having been made miserable by a cruel joke based on her first name. When she was eleven, a couple of her girl classmates, on her approach during recess, had used it. One said to the other, "Did you hear about Phyllis?" And the other said, "No, what happened to her?"
At this, the first tormentor replied, "Syphilis."
Their merriment had been doubled when Phyllis had expressed her ignorance of the word by demanding, "What's syphilis? I never heard of it."
There had been an embarrassed interlude at home that evening when she asked her old-fashioned mother about it-also a six months' period when repetition of the joke had made her so unhappy at school that she actually became ill.
"You think you had troubles," said Tim. "How about me?"
"I can't believe you ever had that kind of trouble," Phyllis replied. "I even grew to hate my own name and asked my parents to change it. But Tim-Timothy Buckley ... how could they joke about that?"
"The full handle is Timothy Buckley the Second," he replied, regarding her narrow-eyed as if defying her to make something of it.
"So what?" she replied. "So it's Timothy Buckley the Second. Am I supposed to swoon or something?"
He diddled her clit outrageously and said, "You know, darling, now I'm sure I love you." He shook his rather close-cut head, said, "Shorten it up a little. No, my name, not my cock!" , This as she bent her head and took that precious organ gently between her teeth. Straightening, she said, "I still don't get it-Tim Buckley the Two. I get it-Timbuctu!"
"Exactly."
"What's so awful about that?" she demanded. "It's not as bad as syphilis Phyllis."
"Unfortunately, there was a novelty song written before we were born that was still remembered in my youth by some very evil-minded people. It was called Two-Buck Tim from Timbuctu. I got that Two-Buck Tim bit until I swore I'd find the writers of the song and shoot them."
"And did you?"
"That's one promise I never kept. Happily, when I went away to school elsewhere, nobody brought it up. But the fights I used to have over it...."
She hugged his naked body to hers, said, "Well, you're no Two-Buck Tim to me, darling. Oh-oh! Do I detect a resurrection?"
"If you don't," he said, "you've lost your sense of touch."
She straddled his lap, lifted her rump with welcome manual assistance from her lover and planted his resurgent phallus once again in the sweet spot where it had spent so much time since its first entry two nights earlier. It proved to be one of their most memorable matings since, by leaning backward and looking down, both were able to watch the meshing of their genitals, the disappearance of phallus in vagina, its reappearance when wished, partial or complete, and all the action that accompanied their moves.
Being able to see what she was actually doing heightened Phyllis's reaction so greatly that, more than once, she was brought to a shuddering halt, unable to endure further movement. But her adroit companion knew how to handle such situations like the master he was. He never let her remain still for more than a second or two, when he initiated some sudden movement that sent her spinning right off the mountain of rapture into the whirlpool of ecstasy, employing her reaction to the unexpected with adroit perfection.
The night was well along when they slept the sleep of utter exhaustion-and again they were roused by the ring of the phone on the bedside table. Tim took the call. He had the faculty of coming instantly awake on such occasions, a gift that caused Phyllis to moan and pull the bedclothes over her head.
She had just dropped off again when she was aroused abruptly by her lover pulling the covers completely clear of her and over the foot of the bed, leaving her completely exposed. As she grumbled at such a rude arousal, he said, "We have exactly nine minutes. Let's put them to good use, darling."
He placed his fingers on her vulva as she lay helpless beneath his own ready body, found her still dry and anointed his phallus with saliva. Then, without further ado, he plunged it into her to the hilt. Inside, she was still dry, and his rude insertion hurt her momentarily, thus bringing her fully awake.
She cried out that he was hurting her, but he went ahead remorselessly, causing her condition to improve almost instantly. Within less than a minute, she was thrashing about on the bottom sheet like a beached dolphin and uttering totally different sorts of cries. Clutching him close so that her thrusting breasts were flattened by his chest, she dug in her heels and bent her knees and bridged her body upward to make their union the more complete.
There was no subtlety, Ho easing of tempo in the course of this matinal bout. Tim put the boots to her like a longshoreman in a waterfront brothel and she responded in kind. When their final flooding came, which it quickly did, he held her briefly in a hug, kissed her and then was over and out.
Her insides throbbed with emptiness as he disappeared into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She was forced to manipulate herself for relief and was still at it when he emerged a few minutes later.
As he ran an electric razor over his chin, he said to her reflection in the mirror, "Better get it together, Phyl. Lem will be here in less than half an hour. He's having breakfast with you."
"Where are you going?" she asked, dismayed.
"Out," was his laconic reply, and that was all she got out of him except for a quick buss, a pat on the fanny and an unforgivably casual, "See you later, hon."
How she managed to shower and dress and don makeup and fix her hair adequately before the attorney appeared, Phyllis never did know. She felt utterly exhausted, buoyed only by a feeling that something important had happened or was happening or about to happen. When Lem Weldon called her on the house telephone, she was ready.
He greeted her with his usual courtly kindness, and though, mere moments before, she had wanted to see no one but Tim, she was actually glad to hear the jurist's beautiful deep voice and warmed to the sympathy of his smile. He led her to the glassed-in terrace overlooking lawn and pond that served as the inn's breakfast room. There they ordered from a king-size menu and Phyllis, as usual, found herself ravenous.
As she ordered orange juice and calves' liver and Irish bacon and English muffins and coffee, she caught a glint of knowledgeable amusement in Lem Weldon's bright blue eyes. Briefly, she felt embarrassment lest he know the source of her appetite. Then she thought, What the hell! If he doesn't know, he's too stupid to be a good lawyer ... And this, she knew, was a far cry from the truth.
He talked little during the meal, eating his own more austere McCann's Irish with sugar and cream and supporting the heavy cereal with a glass of milk. When he finally talked, he talked about Tim.
"I presume you're in love with him," he said.
"Why-I mean, why do you presume that?" Phyllis felt her ears burn.
"All women fall in love with Tim when they're with him for any length of time, Phyllis. He's been catnip to the female of the species almost since his cradle days."
"Well," she conceded, "he is attractive. Don't you think so?"
"For better or for worse, I'm not a member of the female gentler," he replied. "To me, Tim resembles a king-size African midget in white-face." A smile that warmed the room, then, "Yes, he is attractive, and to men, too-don't get me wrong. He has to be to do what he does."
Phyllis laid down her fork, said, "Judge Weldon-"
"Lem-please."
"Very well, Lem please, just what does Tim Buckley do, apart from running around the world rescuing maidens and ex-maidens in distress from assorted horrible fates?"
"He does a great deal more than that." Lem was suddenly and wholly serious. "He's one of the last independent investigators we have."
"By independent, you mean...? "
"I mean he's unattached to any organization, governmental or private. He works with all of them at times-and his fees are astronomical."
"Why is he so valuable?" Phyllis was puzzled.
"Essentially because he's absolutely reliable, he's intelligent, his contacts are fabulous-and finally because he is an intuitive human being of rare talent in an all but wholly computerized and analytical world."
"I see." Phyllis picked up her fork and cut a piece of bacon in half. "So his arrival in my room last night when Gina de Brett had me cold was not mere coincidence."
"That, I fear, was a setup for which I was partly responsible. I rigged the call so that you would appear to be alone and vulnerable."
"You cut it awfully fine," said Phyllis. "That woman wanted to kill me."
"That was unintended-a breakdown in our communications. But Tim grew restless when the signal didn't come in time and took off by himself." A pause, then, "It's too bad you killed her."
"I feel that way myself. I'm not exactly in the habit of killing people, but she had the drop on Tim. Not that her appeal, to me, was exactly sympathetic."
"I understand, but that's not exactly what I meant. We took the risk because we wanted to question her."
"My impression is you'd have had a hard time getting the time of night out of that broad," said Phyllis.
"Perhaps." Lem shrugged, added, "But she was part of a criminal conspiracy, and she knew we could prove it. She also had a criminal record."
"Why did she want to kill me?" Phyllis asked.
"That's still an open question," he replied. "We thought your new will would protect you. But apparently it didn't as far as the fair Gina was concerned."
"Maybe nobody told her about it," said Phyllis. "After all, it's hardly page one headline news."
"In some quarters it is," said Lem.
Phyllis finished her food, then said, "Lem, would you mind telling me what in hell this is all about?"
"Very well." He took time out to light a cigarette. "I'll tell you what I can. I suppose you're quite aware of the chief big money source of the organized underworld ... apart from its so-called legitimate investments, its relative small-fry sources of income like loan sharking, extortion and gambling."
"If you mean dope, I'm aware of it," she told him. "There's been so much written about it and shown on TV."
He said, "Narcotics-you're right. The profits are unbelievable. The results to the victims you probably have some knowledge of. like other illicit trades-like Prohibition bootlegging, for example-it's apparently unstoppable as long as a demand for the product exists. And our friends who depend on its profits see to it that the demand is always there and on the upbeat."
"My phantom millions don't look quite so attractive." Phyllis wrinkled her nose.
"Don't worry, my dear-you'll come out of this a relatively rich woman."
"If I come out of it at all."
It was his turn to wince. He said, "We're being very, very careful in your behalf. Unfortunately, we have not been aware of all the other factors involved. Even now, we're not sure we have all the threads in hand."
"Just what is your connection, Lem-outside of being my attorney?"
"I'm not at liberty to tell you that," he replied "I can only say I became interested while in the service and have been helping where I could ever since I became semi-retired. I imagine you could make an educated guess."
She regarded him thoughtfully, then brought the subject back to Tim with, "And this is Tim's real career, too?"
Lem Weldon shook his graying head, said, "He's in and out of it. Tim's in and out of a great many things." He paused, then added, "I hope you haven't grown too fond of him."
"And what if I have grown-fond of him. Is there anything wrong in that since, as you say, all women do it?"
"I suppose not." There was real regret in his voice. "But I hardly want you to be needlessly hurt. By the very nature of his life, Tim cannot allow himself to become too closely attached to any one women. It is to his great advantage to love the whole sex, and fortunate that most women he meets seem to love him."
"Thanks for telling me now, counselor," Phyllis felt mounting cold fury. "Like most girls, I'm always glad to find out that I'm involved with a male harlot."
Lem looked shocked. "But that's simply not so," he protested. "Tim is one of the finest, best adjusted, most useful men we have..." He paused to look at his wristwatch, then said, "We have a meeting with Jim O'Brien in half an hour."
"Another one?" she asked.
"A second and, I hope, a final meeting," Lem spoke with quiet finality.
"Why must I be there?" she asked.
"Your presence is required, Phyllis-so is Emilio Colucci's. There are paper's, to sign."
"'You mean, don't you, that the deal is all set?"
He winced at her use of the word deal, then nodded. "All set except for a few final details-'Which we mean to thrash out this morning."
Phyllis felt contrite over her recent display of anger. Here, Lem Weldon and apparently Tim had been working overtime in her behalf, and she was feeling peevish because Tim could not give her all of his time. Still, considering what he had given her, she could not help feeling sad as well. Her relationship with Tim had been so sudden, so overwhelming in its demands and fulfillments, that she had not been able to think beyond each sweet moment as it occurred.
But, somehow, deep down inside, she supposed she had taken it for granted that some sort of permanent relationship must evolve out of it. After all, Tim was obviously a gentleman while she had never been a girl to abandon herself lightly, apart from a scattering of brief, experimental teenage affairs.
Dammit! she thought. I would have to fall for a real professional cocksman.
Yet, as she sat beside Lem Weldon while he drove them back toward the city of Boston, she knew that this was not the truth-not all of it at any rate. Tim had to be a lot more than a mere Lothario to hold the respect of a man like her companion and, yes, that of Emilio Colucci. But what a magnificent lover Tim was! Could he be that magnificent if he only went through the motions? Phyllis answered that with a private negative and decided she would do her best to be grateful for the short time she had been with him.
For the first time since the whole ghastly, eerie business began, she considered what she was going to do with her life when it was over. There were going to be pieces to put back together as well as pieces to be discarded. Freddy the Freeloader Gardiner, for one...
Turning toward Lem's well-blocked profile as he watched the traffic patterns ahead of them, she said, "Lem, this is a sort of not nice question, but just how rich do you really think I'm going to be?"
He said without looking at her, "When all the dust is settled, the taxes and other imposts paid and a few others and myself have taken our overlarge cuts, my estimate is that you will net between four and a half and five million dollars."
"And I won't have anything to do with the Whatchamacallit Corporation?"
"That's why you're being bought off for such a sum. Actually, I think we could have held out for more. Emilio and Jim O'Brien seemed actually pleased that we hadn't set our sights higher."
"That will do very nicely, thank you," said Phyllis, beginning to wonder what it was going to feel like to be rich-real feelthy reech.
They did not drive directly into downtown Boston but threaded the Jamaicaway with its well-kept suburban houses behind their well-kept suburban hedges, finally turned into a driveway close to the Brookline border. As they got out of the car, Lem said, "Jim thought it would be more discreet to hold our little meeting at his house. We'll be all alone there-his wife's in Ireland and he gave the servants the day off. Go right on in. Emilio should be along any minute. We're a little early."
Following Phyllis into the house, which was as well groomed as the landscape gardening in which it lay, Lem called out, "Jim, are you here?"
There was no answer. With Phyllis on his heels, he turned left, walked through a comfortable overstuffed living room to a book-lined study beyond and stopped, frozen, on the threshold, trying to block Phyllis's view inside ... But not in time to prevent her getting a hideously unforgettable vision of the beefy attorney seated at his desk, bathed in blood, with a head on his shoulders.