Chapter 2

The elevator sliding to a halt on my floor pulled my thoughts back to the present, and after I'd shoved the door open I stepped out of it and started down the hallway to my room. I saw the pairs of shoes outside the doors, placed there by the hotel guests upon retiring, so that they would be shined during the night. I wondered briefly whether Trixie had already arrived in Switzerland and whether she'd put her sandals outside the door, whoever she might be.

After my visit to her stateroom, I'd gotten involved with the porters the next morning, and I never had an opportunity to say goodbye to her when the boat docked at Genoa.

Now as I got to the door of my room, I unlocked it, stepped inside and turned on the light.

I couldn't believe it.

It had been hot during the day, and although it was now past midnight, it was still balmy. Even in the hotel room. I suppose that was why Trixie was sleeping nude in my bed, and it also must have been why she hadn't pulled the sheet over her.

She was lying on her left side, with her right leg pulled up and bent a little. A beautiful sight. Just to be sure I wasn't dreaming, I pinched myself and then I walked over to the bed and pinched her fanny.

That awakened her and she flipped over on her back. She squinted her eyes sleepily against through every restriction and confinement to rocket unchecked onto the straightaway. Then we were coasting out of control, holding onto each other powerfully and frantically so that we wouldn't fall off, and everything moved beautifully and continued for long moments until we'd lost our momentum and there was only the pleasurable and relaxed slowing down and finally stopping.

Finally I found Trixie's damp hair caught in the pressure between her cheeks, grinding into the side of my face. And even with my teeth still clamped cruelly onto the lobe of her ear, I found that I was seeing Zora standing seductively before me and I could not get her out of my mind.

When I awoke in the morning, I felt Trixie beginning to stir beside me. I glanced at the watch and saw that it was not even eight yet. Trixie was catching her train a bit after nine-thirty. So I touched her hip lightly with my hand, and sleepily and languidly she turned to me, and already it was mutually and silently agreed that we'd have one for the road. A long delicious meeting to say our goodby.

After that Trixie scurried back to her room and I ducked into the shower. Later we met downstairs in the lobby. Trixie looked fresh and lovely and snug as a well-fed cat.

I walked over to the train station with her. We planned to make her departure one of embraces and lovely moments, but at the last second she got involved with the porter taking her bags to the train. "My watch is running slow. I'm late. Goodby, Chris."

"So long, Trixie."

She hurried down the wide concrete steps and a second later she was lost in the crowd.

When I turned around to leave I saw that one of the uniformed ticket sellers was watching me. He winked elaborately and then twisted the tip of one forefinger into the center of his cheek.

"Bellissima!" he said reverently. "Very beautiful, that girl."

At that second I wondered what he'd do when he saw Zora. Now that I was thinking about her again, I wondered just what I'd do. After I took off my skis, that is.

Outside the station I saw a bar across the street and I walked over there and went inside.

I'd just ordered my espresso and standing at the counter getting ready to sip it when Johnny Longo walked in. The moment he saw me, a grin lighted up his face.

"Johnny," I said, "you're up pretty early this morning."

He glanced at his watch. 'Ten o'clock is not very early for me."

"You just reminded me about something. I'm supposed to be out at the Heatherington's shortly."

Johnny was wearing a coat and hat, even in the heat. Now he unbuttoned his shirt collar and loosened his tie. 'The party is still going on?"

"Terry-Mrs. Heatherington, is going to show me around Genoa today. And I believe she said something about going to the Lido."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "It was a very good party."

"Terrific." That made me think about the moment Zora had arrived. "Do you remember that blonde there last night? Zora, I believe, was her name."

He stared thoughtfully at the espresso placed before him. "Yes. She's very beautiful."

"What do you know about her?"

He pulled his head back and the little brown eyes were studying me guardedly. "What do you mean?"

The tone of his voice and the look he gave me was pure cop. A cop in Burbank, Beverly Hills, or Baltimore. Or any other town. It teed me off a bit, but I covered my annoyance.

"A woman like that gets a man to thinking. You know how it is."

He nodded and looked away. "Si, I understand. I met her for the first time last night."

I had the feeling he really didn't understand. First of all he'd given the impression he'd had to concentrate to remember her from the night before. That didn't make sense. Not when she was so beautiful and he was an Italian. Italian men react differently to beautiful women.

"Oh, well," I said. "I'll have to go through the rest of my life just dreaming about her."

"It could be worse," he said.

I didn't know how it could be, but I didn't want to discuss it any further. I apologized for having to run; we shook hands, and I went outside and got a cab at the railroad station.

I punched the doorbell of the Heatherington apartment and a few seconds later the door was opened by one of the servants who'd been passing out the hors d'oeuvres the night before.

"Chris Cody to see Mrs. Heatherington."

She stepped back and I stepped inside.

"I'm in the front room, Chris," Terry called out.

She met me in the living room and of course we were very formal and shook hands. Terry was wearing a light, coral-green housecoat and holding a tall glass of something red in her left hand.

"How are you this morning, Terry?"

"Well, I'm better than I was." She held up her glass. "How about a Bloody Mary?"

I declined. "I guess I'm just a sissy."

She excused herself and went into the kitchen. When she returned a few minutes later, I noticed that her glass had been refilled. "Let's go out on the terrace, Chris."

There was a table out there with an umbrella and four rattan chairs. While we were getting settled she told me about the hideous hangover she'd had that morning, and that if it hadn't been for the Bloody Marys she'd have died long ago.

By that time the maid came out with a tray loaded with orange juice, coffee, and some brioche, deposited it, and went back inside.

"Eat hearty, mate, it may be days before we see land again."

"This is terrific, Terry." I helped myself.

"No hangover this morning?"

I shook my head. "A party as nice as yours never gives me a hangover. This is a real treat. Espressos are fine, but American coffee can't be beat for breakfast."

While I ate, she drank, and we made light, polite chit-chat. Then she was telling me about their two children going to school in Lucerne.

"Can you imagine that, an old bag like me having two daughters in their early teens?" She brought up her feet and flipped open her house-coat, showing me her legs, shapely and tanned, up to her knees.

I admired them as I settled back with my final cup of coffee. "They're very nice legs. I mentally complimented you on your figure last night."

She crossed her legs and flipped the sides of the housecoat together again. "I hope you had fun at the party."

"I really did. I had a wonderful time."

She took a quick sip of her drink. "We used to have some fabulous parties when George was assigned to embassies. Embassies-large Foreign Service posts-are more fun than a small post like this one in Genoa. Lots of things going on, lots of action."

She paused to laugh softly. "I'll never forget one night while we were stationed in Buenos Aires. It was a huge party given by the Ambassador, and held in one of the plushiest hotels. When things were really going well someone missed the wife of an Argentine general. Moments before one of their Consuls had also disappeared. With everyone feeling good we all decided to go look for them. We finally found them under a palm tree out in the garden. The zipper on his trousers got stuck and he was frantically trying to get it working while she was down on her hands and knees, frantically searching for her diamond earrings."

"It sounds like fun." What else could I say?

She was smiling as she recalled the incident. "Those are the things that you can expect to liven up things at larger posts. At smaller posts, things are on the smaller scale. I doubt if any of the guests at my party got laid before the night had ended."

"I wouldn't bet on it," I said casually.

She sat up and peered intently at me. "Touche. Not that sweet Pat Gordon-George's secretary?"

"I wouldn't know, Terry."

She got to her feet. "Want to go to the Lido now?"

I just remembered. "I left the hotel without my swimming trunks. Do I have time to run back and get them?"

"George has a pair he's never worn." She glanced at my waist, then below it. "They'll fit you, I believe, but you're probably bigger than George."

"We never measured."

"We'll have to do it sometime. Come on."

I followed her inside and a moment later she handed me a pair of flame-colored trunks. "Try these on. The second door on your right is a guest bedroom."

I went inside, tried them on, and I found them to be a perfect fit. I took them off and dressed again. When I stepped out Terry had disappeared. So I went out on the terrace to wait for her.

My breakfast dishes had been cleared away, and I sat down in one of the chairs and lit a cigarette. Briefly I remembered the way Terry had scrutinized Zora the night before, and I wondered whether Terry had an inkling of the thing between her husband and Zora. It might have been only my imagination.

But that's why I'd been sent to Genoa, to find out what George Heatherington was involved in and to get a full report back to the States. It had been a very easy procedure, getting me over here without arousing his suspicions. Working for that other agency in Washington, they'd merely given me this assignment and for all intents I was now on vacation. After getting off the boat and checking into the hotel I'd gone to the consulate and met George Heatherington. Because I was a government man and on vacation, he'd extended his hospitality and invited me to his cocktail party.

It wasn't exactly honorable, but I'd accepted Terry's invitation so that I could talk to her and find out all I could about her husband's activities.

I heard Terry calling my name now, and following the sound of her voice, I finally got out into the kitchen. The cook and the maid were standing to one side while Terry was corking a large thermos. She was now wearing a matching light-colored skirt and blouse, with bright lei designs in each, and she'd slipped on a pair of high-heeled wooden clogs.

"Our martini jug," Terry explained. She nodded towards a large beach bag beside her. "Want to pack it for me, Chris?"

I dug out two heavy beach towels that had been jammed into it. Underneath I saw her bathing cap, and personal items. I shoved the things to one side and settled the thermos into the bag. Then I stuffed the towels back in again, to keep the jug from tipping over and leaking. Heaven forbid.

"And the glasses," Terry reminded me. She handed me two small ones and I tucked them into the folds of the towels. When I straightened up with the beach bag Terry was slipping on her sunglasses and saying something in Italian to the maid and the cook. They listened intently, nodded in unison, and finally both of them got pleased looks on their faces as we departed. I had my borrowed trunks clutched in my hot hand.

After we were in the elevator Terry said, "I hope that's everything." She ticked off on her fingers, "Martini jug, give the servants the rest of the day off, martini jug, bathing cap, martini jug, trunks for you, martini jug-"

The elevator stopped and we came out of there and got into a red Mercedes Benz. She drove fast and in a few minutes we were at the Lido.

I carried the beach bag while Terry picked up the key to the dressing room at the desk. We walked past a small bar and a large dining room, and then we started down a long flight of stone steps. Off to the right and below us I could see a large swimming pool with a high board, and then in front of me and extending to the left were rows of cabins set back about thirty feet from the edge of the Mediterranean.

Terry went into the cabin and when she came out I saw that she'd merely taken off her blouse; she was wearing her suit underneath. And now her fingers were working at one hip and the next moment the skirt unwrapped itself and she tossed it aside.

At that second I knew that it hadn't been the martinis at all the night before that had made her look so good to me. She had a terrific figure. And she knew it. Otherwise she wouldn't have been wearing the white bathing suit.

She noticed that I was staring at her. She glanced down her front and then asked, "Is something wrong?"

I shook my head. "Please be informed that you're a long ways from being an old bag."

"Thank you," she said appreciatively. "Now enough of this lovemaking. Take off your clothes."

When I'd slipped on my trunks and came out again I found Terry sitting in a metal chair with her feet propped upon a little stone ledge. Another chair was beside her and she was holding two martinis.

She said, "Take this one before it gets hot and spoils."

I took it and sat down.

"Cheers, Chris."

"Cheers. Thanks for having me to your party last night, and for being such a wonderful hostess and guide today."

"Like the feller said-you ain't seen nothin' yet." After we'd touched glasses she added, "I have to apologize for forgetting the olives."

"The hell with it," I said. "Let's rough it today."

We sat back in our chairs, relaxed, and talked idly of Genoa and Rome and the rental on the cabin here at the Lido, and the way Italian men like to pinch women.

She told me about her arrival in Rome, her very first time in Italy. It had been necessary for her to get from her hotel to the embassy in a hurry. Normally she would have taken a cab, but because a bus was just leaving from the front of the hotel, she'd decided to take it rather than wait for a cab. Naturally, the bus had been crowded. They always were. The moment it had started up she'd felt a strange hand and fingers through the back of her dress. It hadn't really been a pinch. More like a gentle massage. And it had upset her. The entire bus had been in an uproar before she got the driver to stop and let her out. That had happened the second day after she'd arrived in Italy, before she'd been aware that being pinched was considered a compliment by many women.

Terry added, "Since then I've been getting it pretty regularly. You never know when you'll get it, either. Sometimes when you're standing on a busy street, looking at a display in shop window, you'll get a nice, painful pinch."

I glanced over at her firm thighs and fanny and I could understand the urge. But before I gave in to it I brought up the thermos and found that there was just enough left to fill our glasses one last time.

"What a shame," I said, squeezing the last drop into my glass.

"We'll just have to whip up another batch, Chris." After a sip she asked, "Do you feel like taking a swim?"

"Well, I don't know," I hedged.

"The sea's not too clean today," she said.

It was news to me but I said, "Yes, I suppose.

"There's probably oil on the surface, from the port. It happens once in a while."

"That's right."

"Oh, the hell with the swimming," Terry said.

We drank the rest of our martinis and I was beginning to feel as reckless as she'd sounded. I glanced at her and felt like a sissy because she'd had the Bloody Marys and she was still functioning wonderfully.

She asked, "I wonder what time it is?"

When I told her it was after two she said, "It's still too hot to be driving around Genoa looking at the sights."

"Way too hot," I agreed.

"The best thing to do is go home and mix up some more martinis. One has to stay in the shade during this heat."

"You said it, Terry."

"Actually there isn't much to see in Genoa," she continued, "an old cemetery, Columbus' old home, the port-and that's about it. Plenty of churches, art galleries and museums, of course."

"Terrible," I said.

"Unless you're interested in old stuff."

"Just in young stuff."

"Pat Gordon?"

"Oh, come on now," I kidded her.

She got to her feet. "All right. Shall we get dressed? You may use the cabin while I visit the little girls' room."

When I'd dressed and came out of the cabin too, I saw Terry returning. She picked up her blouse and skirt. "I'll only be a second, Chris."

"I'll get the things together," I said. It didn't take me very long and then Terry stepped out of the cabin, wearing the blouse and the skirt and carrying the white bathing suit in her left hand.

I straightened up quickly because I knew she wasn't wearing anything underneath, and yet her breasts were riding high, firmed straight out as if they were propped, the nipples pushing at the material of her blouse.

I vaguely realized that she was handing me her bathing suit, and I must have stuffed it into the beach bag. I put my trunks in on top of the heap and then we walked to her car. A few minutes later we were back in the apartment.

The servants had apparently gone. The drapes had been drawn over the big window overlooking the Mediterranean, and it was nice and cool in the apartment. Terry asked me if I'd like to come into the kitchen and help her with the drinks. While I got the ice tray out of the refrigerator and busted the cubes free, she brought in a fresh quart of gin and a little-bitty bottle of vermouth and set them on the small table near the end of the sink.

While I was putting the ice cubes into the mixer she was tearing the seal off the bottle. In doing that, she leaned against the edge of the table, pulling aside the material of her skirt and revealing an exciting bare leg, all the way from her ankle to the inside of a firm thigh.

A little ripple of panic stirred through me and I wanted to get out of that apartment. A little more gin and a little more of her bare leg and I was afraid of what might happen. Up to that moment I hadn't asked her any questions about George that I wanted to; and there was another reason. I didn't want to make a pass at her and maybe make a stupid ass of myself.

She was saying now, "We'll make a full batch because George promised he'd leave the consulate early this afternoon. He'll probably be here within the hour."

"Wonderful." I breathed a sigh of relief. "I really haven't had an opportunity to visit with him."

"He was planning to meet us at the Lido for lunch, but he had a luncheon date at the last moment. Anyway, he'll be home soon."

Terry brought out some hors d'oeuvres left over from the party, and we took our food and drinks into the living room and put them on the coffee table in front of us. Then we sat down on the couch and ate and talked and had some more of the martini juice.

Suddenly from somewhere in the house I heard the telephone. Terry excused herself and walked barefoot out of the room to answer it. I couldn't hear any of the conversation, but she wasn't gone long.

When she returned I noticed that the corners of her eyes had tightened up a little, just like the night before when she'd watched George talking to Zora.

"Anything wrong?" I asked.

She slumped onto the couch and held out her glass. "Fill me up," she said quietly.

After I'd poured she said, "Help yourself, Chris."

I did. Then I sat back and watched her sipping thoughtfully and steadily at her martini. Finally she said, "That was George on the phone." She was trying to sound casual. "He won't be home until later this evening. Something apparently came up and he has to go out of town."

I tried to joke about it. "I wonder who tried to sneak across the border."

"I doubt if it's that serious," she said.

"Well, let's hope not. Let's not have any international incidents today. This is a day for drinking. Cheers, Terry."

She started to raise her glass, but suddenly she slammed it down on the coffee table. The glass didn't break, but she did.

"Oh, hell!" she said bitterly. "I've got to get it off my chest."

"Is it that bad?"

She nodded. "I've been sweating out that phone call all day. Ever since I saw that blonde last night I could feel it coming. But today, just for once, I was hoping that this time it was all going to be different, that this time he'd live up to the promise he made last time, and the time before that, and all the other times before that. It wasn't going to happen anymore, not today, not ever, I told myself ever since I got up this morning. I've just been kidding myself."

I was thinking about George, recalling that he was tall and lanky with a narrow face. His hair was black and straight and he wore it parted on the left side, and there were flecks of grey in it on the sides. He didn't impress me as being overly virile and sexy, but I'd seen some less impressive figures fighting off the beauties. So maybe George did have something. Definitely, if he had a little thing swinging with Zora.

I said, "Maybe George is honestly out on some official business. Don't condemn him so quickly."

She squeezed my hand gratefully. "Thanks for trying to help, but it's no use. I know the pattern too well."

"How long has it been going on with this-Zora?"

"It started last night," she said positively.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. It was the first cocktail party we had here in Genoa, and it was the first time George met her. The last woman, a brunette, we left behind in Rome. That's one of the reasons I encouraged George to take the job as principal officer at this post. I wanted to get him out of Rome and away from that woman. And I was hoping that maybe-just once-the thing wouldn't repeat itself here in Genoa."

She bit her lower lip and shook her head. Then she finished her martini. Before I could reach out and help she'd poured herself another one.

"I'm all right now. Thanks for putting up with my problems."

"Don't let it bother you, Terry." After a pause I asked, "Do you know where Zora lives?"

Terry shook her head. "All I know is that she's a friend of that Spaniard. She wasn't on our guest list. He just happened to bring her along."

"Is he in the diplomatic corps?"

"He's in shipping, I believe." She suddenly twisted herself around so that she faced me. "Are you interested in Zora, too?"

"She's a lovely woman," I said. I sipped at my martini, thinking how I might tell Terry that I planned to bust it up between George and Zora, and at the same time try to bust something of Zora's myself.

I didn't get a chance to say it.

"I'll be damned!" Terry said angrily as she jumped to her feet. "If you aren't just like him!"

She stepped into the center of the room, her fingers clawing and tearing at the buttons along the front of her blouse. She tore it off her and flung it aside, and then her fingers were working at that spot on her waist, and the next moment she'd whipped off the skirt and hurled it aside. There just wasn't any more for her to take off.

"Take a look," she said. "What do you see?"