That Old Gang Of Mine

by Leslie Thomas

  She also invited neighbours of Old Creek House who happened to be in residence, including George C. Peckin, the

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  president of United Whisky Importers, who had a group of business associates and their wives as his guests at his waterway home.

  Miss di Milo was busy completing her late guest list a few days before the party when there was a telephone call from the Miami Police Department.

  'I've done nothing,' she said immediately in her famous film voice. At any time of the day or evening, even if she had been awake for hours, it was the voice of a voluptuous woman just roused from sleep. The voice of a long-haired lovely, speaking with her eyes closed.

  'Oh,' she sighed. 'You're not going to arrest me? Oh I'm so glad, captain, so glad.'

  Captain Salvatore on the receiving end of this honey permitted himself to enjoy the sensation. Betty, his wife, had just nagged him for ten minutes on that same phone. 'No, Miss di Milo,' he breathed. 'We're not arresting you, much as we would appreciate your company. The area of this bureau could do with a little glamour.'

  'You're just so kind,' she breathed. 'I'm afraid I don't look very glamorous just now. I'm just- in an old pink silk robe. Nothing else at all. Not one little thing.'

  Salvatore bit his lip fiercely at the thought. He returned to business. 'Miss di Milo, you're having a society party, so I understand, in a few days.'

  'News travels,' she whispered. 'Just a hundred little people. All close friends.'

  'Sure, sure. I bet you've got more than that too. It's just that I'd appreciate it if I could come over and take up some of your time discussing your security arrangements.'

  'Security?' She seemed to wake up at the word. 'Why? What's wrong with my security, captain? I have a little guard at the gate all the time.'

  'I know, Miss di Milo, I know. But you may know from the newspapers that we've had a gang operating in the Miami area over the past few weeks. They already made one raid on a party at a home in Palm Beach. So we're just keeping a surveillance on social events like the one you're proposing

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  to have on Wednesday. And especially social gatherings that are mentioned in the newspapers. There was an item in the Miami News about your party last night.'

  'A gang?' she resumed her wondrous, embedded voice. 'A gang of robbers?'

  'Masked robbers,' confirmed Salvatore.

  'Masked? But, oh, that's terrifying. I'm shaking all over, captain. Somehow I've just got to calm down.'

  Salvatore blinked at the phone he was holding. 'It's just a precaution, Miss di Milo, Don't let it bother you. AH we want to do is have the house watched. A patrol car or maybe two on the streets leading to the property. Perhaps I could just call and familiarize you with the plans.'

  'Any time,' she breathed. 'I'd just love to be familiarized.'

  Salvatore put the phone down and, standing up quickly as if hoping to catch his reflection by surprise, looked in the mirror on the wall. Without much hope he tried to arrange his sparse hair so that it covered more of his scalp. He smiled courageously and brushed his teeth with his. finger. Then he picked up the intercom phone. 'Detective Cook,' he said. 'Are you solving big crimes?'

  'No, captain. I'm looking in the newspaper to see what's on TV tonight.'

  'Well get off your ass, Cookie. We're going to see a lovely lady. Well I am. You can sit in the car."

  Tottie di Milo wondered what she should do while she waited for the policeman. She had bathed luxuriously and attended to the ritual of her make-up. She thought perhaps she ought to put some clothes on and this she did, although she often felt better without. But when she had dressed the detective had still not arrived. Habitually she found it difficult to fill in vacuous moments and she sat down and stood up again several times in front of a full length mirror, each time adopting a different pose, trying urgently to decide which did the most for her.

  Then she brightened because she had an idea and generally they came slowly. She went down to the main salon of her beautiful house, to where the living river flowed through the

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  floor. At the ornamental pool at the top end of the huge semicircular room she took a bowl of freshly cut meat and began to feed the new acquisitions that would, she was sure, be the sensation of the party. Two Everglades alligators.

  The gang left the two cars on a short jetty near Fort Lauder-* dale Bridge, one of the series of cantilever bridges which" opened to allow large vessels to progress along the Intra-Coastal Waterway, the operation being worked by a man in a small wheelhouse on the beach side.

  Zaharran and Lou the Barbender stayed with the cars. K-K-K-Katy had already taken up her look-out post in a telephone booth in the street leading to Tottie di Milo's house. Around the corner out of Katy's view, and Katy out of theirs, Detective Cook and two policemen sat in a car beneath some trees. Another patrol car was two hundred yards away.

  The remaining members of the Ocean Drive Delinquent Society embarked on the fan-boat which Ari and Sidewalk had casually stolen and bro.ught to the jetty. It was ten o'clock on a thundery night and the waterway was shaded although the lights of the district shone all around and the bridge was busy with cars. The robbers arranged themselves carefully, three on each side of the slight craft. Ossie and Bruce in the bow, Gabby and Molly next to Sidewalk and Ari behind them. Nobody was hooded yet. Molly held her hood like a present to be opened at Christmas. Her lively eyes were brimming with excitement and apprehension, and they widened even further when a touch from Sidewalk on the starter of .the boat sent the fan whirring softly and the boat moving through the dark, silky water.

  Sidewalk kept as close as was prudent to the right-hand bank, easing the odd vessel along with all the quiet he could manage. A few disturbed waterbirds croaked as they passed but there were no other alarms. Like commandos the gang crouched on the slight deck. They were approaching the neck of the waterway where the lights of Old Creek House could be seen filtering through the trees. Music, which travels well across water, floated to them. Bruce turned and gave a shadow of a nod to the others. Unhurriedly they began to put on

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  their hoods. Bruce and Ossie mounted a useless Russian mortar in the bow of the boat. They eased its barrel down to the horizontal because it looked more menacing like that. Then Molly Mandy, in the excitement of putting on her hood, fumbled and dropped it into the water.

  'Oh dear,' she whispered. 'Mine's gone over the side.'

  Ossie turned around with Bruce. Both immediately turned to the front again and uttered swearwords. Gabby looked helpless. 'We've got to get it,' she said. 'She'll be recognized if we don't.'

  'And I do want to wear it,' pleaded Molly. I do so.'

  Tight-faced, Sidewalk turned the shallow boat around in as brief a circle as he could. They found the missing hood floating towards them but it had gone by before anyone could grab it, so they had to circle again and chase it up river. Eventually Ari fished it from the waterway and handed it silently to Molly. 'I'll wring it out,' she said brightly.

  'I'll wring her out if she does it again,' said Ossie to Bruce under his breath.

  Gabby leaned forward in whispered anger. 'Drop dead,' she muttered. 'If you take old people on a goddamn picnic you expect jam to be spilt.'

  'Okay, okay,' sighed Ossie. 'Do what you can. We're behind the schedule.'

  'You always were,' said Gabby rudely. She helped her grandmother to twist the water from the hood. They were now moving slowly towards the lawns of the house. The music issued more firmly through the trees. They could recognize the tune. Ossie leaned back and handed a hood to Molly. 'Better wear this,' he said without looking at her. 'Otherwise you'll get pneumonia.'

  'That's mine,' protested Bruce.

  'You're young,' said Ossie. 'You wear the wet hood.'

  'I'll get neuralgia,' complained Bruce. 'Or toothache. I suffer hell from toothache.'

  He took the wet hood from Molly nevertheless and pulled it over his head. Ossie looked around
. He could see they were as ready as they would ever be.

  'Okay?' he whispered.

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  The hooded heads nodded.

  'Right,' he said. 'Get ready. We're going in.'

  It was beginning to look like a good party. Tottie di Milo in her most angelic gown held the hand of her new lover, Herb Specter, and beamed around at all her guests as if she knew and loved them all.

  The wide semi-circle of the salon made an excellent place for such a function, particularly on a night, such as this, of gathering off-season thunder. People did not enjoy being out of doors on lawns and patios in threatening weather and the living river flowing through the huge room lent it an added and welcome coolness.

  Tottie's new alligators had naturally been a great attraction, with the guests gathering around the pool at the headwaters of the river, so to speak, laughing at them and cajoling them from the safety of the low barrier rail. The alligators, for their parts, bared their teeth hungrily, never having seen so many people at one time.

  'It must be like looking at the greatest feast you ever saw -and not being able to touch a morsel,' philosophized Captain Salvatore. He spoke to himself, and possibly the alligators, for Miss di Milo apart, he had never met anyone in the room before and nobody had bothered to introduce him. When she had invited him as her guest he was flattered and delighted. But now he wondered whether he should have been there. It did not feel comfortable. He also realized that his gun was making a bulge in the coat of his best suit.

  Hidden music eased its way through the room, glasses and laughter sounded. The singer Frankie Moon with his dumb wife, his dumb mistresses, his tribe of musicians, dancers, whoo-whoo singers, agents, managers and paid admirers, arrived late, to plan. They were in their normal extravagant mood and infused the party with a lot of noise. Frankie Moon himself got a lot of laughs by pouring a glass of bourbon down the yawning throat of one of the Everglades alligators as it came up and glared from the pool.

  'Gee,' shouted Mr George C. Peckin of United Whisky, 'I'm real glad that was only bourbon, Mr Moon. If it had been our

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  imported Scotch that 'gator would have been out of that darned pool looking for more!'

  It got a laugh as such inanities get laughs at parties. Salvatore abruptly found himself in conversation with Tottie and trying desperately not to look down the front of her dress. Its angelic folds fell away unangelically from the shoulders revealing the twin hills of which Miss di Milo was so proud and which had gone a considerable way to making her famous.

  'I feel really safe with you around, Captain Salvatore,' she said with a sigh that expanded her bosom even more spectacularly and had Salvatore's eyes desperately swinging for somewhere else to look. Her skin was like coffee cream, swollen and sweet with the material of the dress only just making an horizon below which, he knew, oh he knew, hid the loveliest pink buds in the world. God, he would have given half his pension, fuck it, all his pension, just to see them and perhaps touch them and a few other things for a couple of hours. After that he could die, he wouldn't care. Her suntan went zooming right down her cleavage. Jesus Bernard Christ, she must sunbathe in the skin. God, if only he could get a view of them.

  'It's certainly kind of you to invite me,' he managed to say through all his imaginings. 'I don't think we need worry too much about any interruptions. But just in case, I have two patrol cars on surveillance, one at each end of the street. Everyone who comes in and out is checked.'

  'Is there something wrong with your arm, Captain Salvatore?' she suddenly inquired solicitously. 'Why does it stand away from your body like that? Is it a wound of some sort?'

  Salvatore blushed. 'It's my gun,' he explained. 'It don't really fit this suit.'

  'Your gun?' she said in a thrilled voice. 'You have your gun with you?' She descended to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Guns turn me on so.'

  Salvatore smiled like he hoped a television cop would smile. 'Always have this baby with me, Miss di Milo.' He patted the weapon and grimaced as it dug uncomfortably into his chest.

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  'Tottie,' she invited. He felt sure she let her dress slip forward. 'Please call me Tottie, Captain.'

  Salvatore felt a warmth coming up like steam from his boots. Jesus Henry Christ, maybe this sort of woman liked beleaguered police officers with sparse hair and ill-fitting suits. 'Albert,' he whispered.

  He looked around. Herb Specter, a big bastard there was no doubt, was sprawled on a couch with one of Frankie Moon's dumb mistresses. Maybe it was one of those parties he had heard about. He felt the gun moving with his deepening breaths and the strong beat of his heart.

  'I'm calling you Captain,' she smiled. 'It sounds so much braver. And I want to try on your little gun.'

  'My gun?' Salvatore stared at her bosom. 'But it's in a shoulder holster Miss di... I mean Tottie. Here, I'll show you.' With theatrical secrecy he quickly opened his coat and revealed the gun in its holster. He could feel his own eyes shining and a warmth rushing through his veins. All at once his head seemed thick with hair.

  'Gee, that's neat,' she said. 'Come on, Captain, let me try it. Please - just once.' Unbelievably she pulled away the front of her dress at one side revealing a whole flank of exquisite bosom. 'There's room down there,' she said plaintively. 'Plenty of room for a little gun like that. Let me get you another drink.'

  She poured a huge glass of champagne. 'It's difficult,' he said with difficulty. 'Difficult to get the holster off ... and on. Maybe you'd just like to see the gun.'

  Inwardly be cursed himself for being a timid fool but he quickly retrieved the situation. The champagne had given him daring. 'Oh no, maybe you could just get the holster to fit,' he said. 'But I don't want to take it off here. It's too public - and against police regulations, you understand.'

  'Of course I understand, Captain dear,' she whispered like a conspirator. 'And I'm not one to tangle with regulations, truly.'

  'If there's a room where I could take my harness off,' he suggested, his confidence growing wild, 'then you could go

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  to your room and try it. It might be difficult to get it on without er ... some ... adjustments ...'

  She winked at him hugely. 'We'll both go,' she decided to his explosive delight. 'We're both in this together.' She glanced quickly at Herb Specter who had now sunk deeper into the couch and almost deeper into the red-haired dumb mistress. 'Herb's having one of his celibate nights,' she said. 'He won't object. Come on, Honey Captain.'

  Honey Captain blushed all down his chest. He knew it wasn't happening but, God almighty, she was holding his hand. He thought he needed another drink to keep the vision steady but she was insistent. 'I have some champagne in my room,' she said. 'We can drink while we're adjusting.'

  Tottie flitted slightly ahead of him towards one of the distant doors around the circular wall. He glanced quickly around and went at a policeman's creep after her. Nobody seemed to notice. Salvatore thought his heart was going to spoil everything by leaping like an idiot clean out of his chest. He had a fleeting 'if the boys could see me now' thought, went through the door as if he were raiding a cat-house, and followed her through a series of snaking passages until they were at a door which opened at the touch of her fingers.

  Salvatore had never seen a beautiful film star's bedroom before. She stood there on the thick carpet, her luxury body suddenly enfolded by the voluptuousness of the room. Salvatore felt so full he wanted to cry.

  'Honey Captain,' she said in a voice no weightier than a sigh. The bedroom seemed to have an effect on her also. She suddenly became dreamy, wafty, and she moved over the carpet, her feet below her gown hardly seemed to brush the floor. Nor did Salvatore's.

  'Honey Captain,' she repeated, 'you must sit on my bed.'

  'Bed?' he answered hollowly. 'Your bed?'

  'Yes,' she said firmly, pointing to the high altar of the room. Pink, heart-shaped, with silks and frills and pillows like ice cream. Salvatore stared at it as if it we
re the electric chair at Sing Sing and he had been invited to sit in it.

  'But your bed?' he said hoarsely. 'Are you certain?'

  'Sure - I only let people I really love get on to my little

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  bed - even just to sit on it,' she said with sudden coyness. Salvatore knew he was going to wake up in one of his own cells on a charge of drunken fantasy, if there were such a charge. Jesus Bill Christ, she was pouring them more champagne. This was easy, easier than screwing his Betty in the back of his car all those years ago. Betty had kicked like hell. This vision was pouring champagne. She floated towards him, a glass in each hand; the glasses floated before her. He took one, hardly able to stand the devastation of her eyes. He almost missed his mouth when he tried to drink. With a playful push she sat him on the bed. He saw his own knees lock together like a virgin's and he pulled them forcibly apart. 'Now about this little gun,' she said, moving so close her perfume and her warmth added to his giddiness.

  The gun, yes, surely, the gun,' he gabbled, blowing little bubbles of champagne from the top of the glass. 'You wanted to see ... to fit my gun.'

  'That's why we came, didn't we?' she smiled overwhelmingly. I only invite gentlemen in here for very special reasons.'

  Salvatore thought if there was any more of this he would end up a jabbering lunatic. He tried to reach for the gun with the same hand as held the champagne glass. She laughed like a little bell. 'Crazy man,' she said, taking the glass from him. 'You can't reach it like that. You're getting a little confused ...' She leaned towards him and blatantly kissed him on the brow. 'I can't think why you're getting confused.'

  'I'll have ... have to take my coat off,' drooled Salvatore. 'If that's all right with you ... in here.'

  'There's no better place,' she whispered. 'Just wait a moment, don't go away.'

  For a terrible moment he thought she was leaving because she got up and went towards the door. But, to his suffocating delight, it was only to turn the key. She turned across the room and smiled that internationally famous smile. Her bosom seemed halfway to him. 'There,' she said. 'Now you can take your coat off, Honey Captain.'