by Troy Conway
“Who killed her?” I rasped.
Annette’s naked shoulders shrugged.
“I do not know. That particular night Wan Lo and I were at the cinema. No one in the group will talk either. It is just one of those things. And those things happen. C’est la guerre.”
“Was it Corbeau? After all, he was the one who loved her, wasn’t he?”
“He too was not there at the time. He was busy with his fine government work.”
“Everybody’s got an alibi, huh? Nice. Very nice.”
Madame Annette smirked. On her it looked like the kiss of death. I had a horrible picture of Danielle Lebeau getting her comeuppance at the hands of sadists, stranglers and just plain garden variety fiends. My blood began to rise.
“Please,” Wan Lo whimpered pleadingly. “Be a nice man and start on me. . . .”
“None of that,” Annette growled. “Ladies first, you fat pig. Remember who commands here!”
“Oh, you!” Wan Lo pouted. “You’re always hogging all the fun. Let the man decide for himself.”
The whip began to twitch in my hands. My temperature shot up higher and higher. This gay giggling Chinaman and his French consort were a duet from those private hells we all know exist somewhere. But this one was a lulu. In a class by itself.
“That’s all you can tell me,” I asked, “and no more?”
“That is all,” Annette agreed, lowering her lashes and raising her hips for the lash.
“You’re not holding anything back?”
“What is to hold back? A woman died because she was not built or equipped to stand the superior strain that our strange cult places on the human body. It is as simple as that.”
“Sure,” I said. “A piece of cake, huh?”
“So, my dear Monsieur Damon, if you will proceed to the main event, we shall be delighted . . . .” Her soft, drooling purr was like a combination of snake oil, molasses and pure acid.
The whip danced in my hands and I fought back a mad urge to stick it in her where it would do the most good. My skin itched.
“Please stop talking and do what you promised,” Wan Lo urged, his fat flesh gleaming with sweat. “This isn’t fair, to make us wait like this, oh Honored One.”
“Oh, crap,” I roared and let fly. I was mad, real mad, and few things have pleased me more in this life than letting those two weirdos have it. Of course, the rub was that I was doing exactly what they wanted. Being cruel and nasty to them was like giving candy to babies. They drooled, slavered, moaned with delight and generally had an orgy of self-satisfaction. Wan Lo was beside himself with glee and two more disgusting fat guys you have never seen. As for Annette, she was creaming with machine-gun rapidity, timing her orgasms with each fall of the lash. By that time, I was seeing green, purple and orange. I flung the whip aside in disgust and drew back. I raised my right foot and the same great toe that used to deliver the football for dear old Denver did its best to dropkick Annette and Wan Lo through the goalposts of the leopard-skin walls.
There was nothing more to do at Les Deuces and certainly nothing more to discuss. I again had the feeling that Walrus-moustache had erred and all this Lebeau business amounted to was a nasty little sex murder. Aberratively speaking.
As Anette and Wan Lo howled their joy, I scooped Brigitte Lebeau over my shoulder and for the second time in twenty-four hours (or less) I carried her out of Les Deuces. On our way out, we passed Mei Ling High and Francoise lying on a chaise lounge of some kind in the murky environs of the deserted place. What they were doing requires no translation. In French or Chinese. Or any other part of the world. Simply it was, you-be-the-six-and I’ll-be-the-nine-and-then-you-be-the-nine-and-I’ll-be-the-six. They were smacking all the lips they had.
Mei Ling High was on the bottom. Her sleepy eyes opened as I stalked by, carrying Brigitte Lebeau.
“Leaving so soon?” she purred.
“Go back to sleep, doll. I’ll catch your act the next time.”
“Very well.” She closed her eyes and continued with her work. Francoise giggled. She was always giggling. That great brain. She carried her intellect between her thighs.
Up above in the clear clean world, the fog had thickened. But it was good to get out. I started to look for a cab. Madame Brigitte was getting heavier. And I had a lot to tell Walrus-moustache on the telephone. Like give me my hat and let me get out of Paris. I was wasting my time. There were good books to be written, there was my work in the university and I didn’t really care if I ever saw the Academie Sexualite ever again. The murdered pussycat had soured me on the whole deal.
I didn’t need a cab. A snappy little Renault wheeled around the corner into view and skidded to a stop just in front of me. I gaped and then gawked. The man wearing the bowler hat behind the wheel with moustache drooping was my friend, mentor and employer, Ye Olde Walrus-moustache.
“Lordy, Lordy,” I hollered, “how the hell did you get here?”
“Get in,” he snapped, flinging the door wide. “With your lady companion. I thought you’d never come out of that hellish place.”
“You mean you’ve been waiting out here all this time?”
“Damon, do obey me, old sport. There’s no time to dawdle. I’ve really no business being here like this. Headquarters would have my scalp if they knew.”
“Then to hell with you. We’ll catch a cab.”
“Really, Damon.” He was about to panic, looking to the left and right, up and down the street. “This is still hush-hush!”
“Sure it is but you’re just the guy who’s going to tell me what is going on. Check?”
“Check! Now will you have the decency to get in?”
“Okay,” I laughed. I gave him Brigitte Lebeau’s address. “Let’s park Madame and have a heart-to-heart talk. Or your Peace Mission is for two other guys, not me.”
He nodded, cursed, and shot away from the curb in high gear. His bowler hat was rammed down over his forehead and his mood was ugly. I didn’t care. Once again, he had dumped me into the soup and held back the spoon until he wanted to give it to me. What a recipe for business!
The Renault zipped and zoomed through the crooked Paris streets. Walrus-moustache drove like a skilled hackie. I huddled Brigitte Lebeau against me. I hadn’t learned too much in two days but I had learned a very important bit of information, apart from the Lebeau case.
Madame Brigitte snored.
And she had had a daughter who simply had drifted into the wrong crowd and gotten hurt in the process. Very hurt. Like dead.
What the hell could the Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation do about private messes like that?
Nothing, if they asked me.
It’s a different kind of peace problem altogether.
“Aren’t you going to apologize for sending me on this wild gay goose chase?”
He stared straight ahead but he spoke softly and carried a big stick.
“You fool. This is neither wild and it is certainly more than gay. You will learn shortly that you have just stepped out of the place that is the very core of your assignment. I congratulate you for discovering it on your own. Good work, Damon.”
“What good work? Any queer and every queer in the world goes to Les Deuces. Big deal. What does it have to do with the peace talks and my assignment?”
“Everything.”
“Prove it.”
“I shall, but before we talk this thing out I will tell you that you have located the very ring of spies and agents who are doing their utmost to sabotage the conference here in Paris.”
I got sarcastic. “How? By killing one little misguided French girl?”
“No,” he muttered, “by taking pictures. Miles and miles of film that will soon be produced to scandalize the world and kick the peace talks right in the teeth. Think it over. When you have thought, we will discuss it sanely and sensibly.”
“You held out on me again,” I rasped. “You knew something I didn’t, you bastard.”
“Of course,” he agreed a
miably. “After all, who’s working for who?”
I shut up. He had me there. And I had just remembered Danielle Lebeau’s coded message sent to the Coxe Foundation for one Rod Damon. I just hadn’t been thinking at all. I told you. I’m a lover not a spy. Or a detective.
Walrus-moustache had read my mind again.
“I’m afraid you’re truly a lover, not a spy,” he sighed. “Be the death of you yet, Damon.”
“For once I agree with you.”
“Bully for you.”
Madame Lebeau snored on, hugging me in her sleep. Walrus-moustache looked pained but said no more. The Renault raced on, finding the cobbled streets of Montmartre. The fog was lifting. A weak sun shined down. I didn’t feel very much smart at all. Fact is, I felt dumb. Maybe my brains were between my legs, just like that blonde dope, Francoise Marnay.
“Would you like a bar of chocolate, Damon? There’re some Milky Ways in the glove compartment.” It was just his way of being kind.
“No, thanks,” I muttered. “I’m eating already.”
“And what are you eating, might I ask?”
“Crow.”
It tasted awful.
For a guy who was usually on a straight meat diet, it was a starvation routine.
Nobody needs protein more than I do.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Madame Brigitte Lebeau was still pounding her ear when we got back to her domicile. So I made her comfortable on the four-postered love bed and covered her with a blanket. As my Walrus-moustache sniffed around the place, I unearthed the bottle of cognac and poured us a couple of drinks. My employer removed his iron hat for once and we parked around the table in the lean-to and talked things out. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want cognac. I had to wash down the lousy taste of stupidity in my mouth.
“All right,” I said after a swig that took the enamel off my teeth. “Give.”
“You wish to know all, is that it?”
“I wish to know all, that’s it.”
“Very well.” He wiped the moistness from his scrubby adornment. “We have all downed tools and come up with a few answers. Lord knows how long these peace talks will continue, but if they are to continue we shall have to move fast. Trouble may break over our heads any old time now.”
“Stop talking in circles. Give me some facts.”
“Very well. Facts. It seems our old friends the Red Chinese are behind this scheme to shame the peace-talks people with luscious sex scandals. They have complete dossiers on the Viet Cong and North Viets representatives; which is to say they know their men and have exploited them. All men have weaknesses and Les Deuces is the tool the Chinese Reds are using to make their foul schemes come true. In effect, they have privately bankrolled this perversion palace to suit their own ends. Are you following me, Damon?”
“Loud and clear. Continue.”
“So then. They have taken many many films of these ambassadors and men of good will in their cups, as it were. The more perverted the better, you see. Orgies of sex, sadism, the most barbaric deeds. Now they want more explosive material with which to dynamite the conference. They want to include France in the three-cornered scandal. When they do—voila!—they will expose the filthy footage, send it to heads of governments all over the world and the peace mission will crumple. Who will take seriously men who come to save the world and indulge their nighttimes in orgies?”
“Who, indeed?”
“Now—to make this incident international, they had chosen some willing and immoral ladies from the Academie Sexualite and there was to be a filmed orgy with a handful of French officials to make the thing stick real good.”
“Such as Gaston Corbeau?”
“Precisely. He is the liaison man for the French ambassador. But plans went awry. Danielle Lebeau got wind of the scheme, was dragged into it, thanks to Corbeau’s peculiar fetishes, and, sadly, was killed when one of the perverts let his worst nature get the upper hand. They want a sex scandal; not a murder party. That changes matters. So you see, the ‘incident’ is still on the menu, as it stands. Danielle got the message to us in time but too late to save her own life.”
I thought about that and got mad again.
“Did Corbeau kill her? According to what I know, he once used a giant dildo on her.”
Walrus-moustache shuddered. “Afraid not. Oriental knives are more the speed of the Chinese. There’s a fat official who is particularly corrupt and who is involved in all this——”
“Don’t tell me. Wan Lo, by name?”
I had topped him. His eyebrows rose. “And how do you come by that timely name?”
Briefly I told him what had happened at the club before I vamoosed. He eyed me sadly throughout the whole tale.
“Damon, Damon. They lied to you. Madame Annette is a notorious liar and Wan Lo is very probably Miss Lebeau’s murderer. Still, we need proofs.”
I was thinking even as I downed the rest of the cognac. Brigitte wasn’t snoring any more on the bed. I flung a glance toward the inner room but she wasn’t stirring either. Not yet, at any rate.
“We can’t let la belle France down,” I said. “Let’s make like Lafayettes.”
He shrugged. “The road leads back to Les Deuces. I don’t see what we can really do except sit tight and wait for a leak of some kind. It’s unfortunate. Our hands are tied now, really.”
“No dice. I’m going back to the Academie SexualitS. I made a few contacts there. I can learn something. Besides, Coxeman representative, did you know that your subsidy is being run by a broad no less queerer than dear flagellating Annette?”
“Lilly de Jussac?” His smile was a sneer. “Of course. We are aware of that too. Reports do get back to us. Perhaps there is a connection with Red China but we haven’t found it yet.”
I was amazed and told him so. “You let a stainless steel Lezzie like that teach sex to a bunch of innocent young things? You ought to be ashamed. The Foundation ought to be ashamed. I’m ashamed.”
“Damon.” He sighed again, shaking his head. “Do leave the espionage to us, old sport. We are simply giving Madame de Jussac enough rope to hang herself. We thought perhaps she would provide a link to all that has happened. Including the Lebeau murder. You see? So far we have no evidence other than her—ah—queer tastes.”
“Yeah, I see. What the hell did you need me for then if you knew all this?”
He almost snickered. “You’re not serious? Why, your greatest strength and value to us is that incredibly long, infernally insatiable secret weapon of yours. We knew you would draw flies. And you have. You drew out Madame de Jussac yesterday, spent a rather fine time in the broom closet—I think it was with one Mady Morrow—and you even managed to make a date with another fille named Viviane Fresnay. Also, you quickly made your way to Madame Lebeau’s, took her pub-crawling, staged a fiasco at Les Deuces and then returned today for an encore performance of sorts. Shall I say more?”
“Yes. Who’s your other lousy spy?”
“Let us say that the Coxe Foundation is served by many people. However, we aren’t all clairvoyant. Some of the material came forth this morning when a bronze giant named Michel-Duval Fountainbleau staggered into a police station demanding to be locked up so that he wouldn’t kill himself. When pressed for details, he told the officers all about how the great American Rod Damon had shamed him before his friends and co-workers in Les Deuces. That’s how it is, Damon. We get reports, calls and details and we piece it all together. Indeed, Fountainbleau, like myself, was absolutely incredulous about the state of your equipment.”
“He’ll have to stand in line,” I growled. “All right. You know what’s going on and you know who’s responsible. What do we do now? We can’t just sit and wait for your incident to explode, can we?”
“No. That’s where you come in again.”
“I’m always interested in coming in. What did you have in mind?”
“You named the play yourself. Go back to Académic. See your contacts. Perhaps you can
get a lead.”
“I am supposed to give a symposium for Madame de Jussac. I also half-promised that screwy Annette that I might attend a big shindig at Les Deuces that she wanted to throw for me at some later date. Say—are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Capital.” He glowed like a light bulb. “Yes, there are possibilities. Let me think. Yes, yes—perhaps you can arrange a party of your own and take pictures too.”
“Your ESP is working fine, Walrus-moustache.”
“You begin to understand me, Damon.”
Just as we were both wrestling out the angles in our own minds, Madame Brigitte Lebeau sleepwalked into the lean-to. She was tousled with sleep and naked as a jaybird. Walrus-moustache eyed her slowly up and down and twirled the ends of his moustaches like an old Prussian Colonel. I told you he wasn’t all bad.
“Rod—” Brigitte murmured. “Why did you hit me like that? Did you think I was one of them with their love of cruelty?” She yawned sleepily and her chest muscles flexed wondrously well. She epened her eyes wide, saw Walrus-moustache and didn’t miss a beat. “And you, sacre! Are you one of them too with that awesome nose piece? What do you do with it—tickle their derrieres?”
“Introduce us, Damon,” Walrus-moustache purred with great aplomb. “I should be delighted.”
I made the introductions and Brigitte Lebeau, who had crammed a lot of living within an overnight period, yawned again and trotted back to the bed. Before she left, she said, “Come to bed, cheries. We can talk much better while we make ourselves more comfortable, yes? Brigitte is soooooo tired. . . .”