That Old Gang Of Mine

by Leslie Thomas

  He struggled out of the stiff best suit coat and sat there in his trousers, his white shirt and gun. 'Oh, I'd really like to wear that, please. It would turn me right on.'

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  His fingers rushed to the buckle and, fumble though he did, he got the harness from around his body in quick time. He took hold of the gun in the holster and handed it to her like a knight surrendering his sword to a noble lady. 'Is it loaded?' she asked.

  'Yes ... no. I can't remember,' he confessed. 'All that seems so long ago Miss di Milo ... Tottie. I guess it's not. Yes, I remember it clearly - it is. So please be careful.'

  'It's you who's loaded,' she joked, silkily kissing him again, this time on the cheek and then on the edge of the mouth which he moved swiftly sideways to catch the kiss. Her full breast lolled across his shoulder. If he died later that night he would not have given a damn.

  With a long, delighted, deepening smile she held the harness like the coils of a delicate dead snake. He watched her fine cream fingers run along its length and imagined them doing the same along his backbone. Then she got to the holster, bulging and polished. She removed the gun and set it aside with careful casualness. Then she began to massage the holster with her pink nails, "running them over the worn, soft leather, and then, turning the palm sensually, revolving over the leather bulge at the end. Salvatore watched every movement of her fingers as though they were caressing his skin. His eyes grew wider and wider until they hurt.

  'Beautiful,' she said throbbingly, still fondling the holster. 'So sexy, Honey Captain.' Her eyes came up like slowly moving moons and glowed at him. He could actually feel them on the skin of his face. He gulped at the champagne as a man in a desert might gulp at saving water. There was nothing left in the glass but he was unable to notice.

  'You want another drink?' she said, noticing. His hand went to her urgently. 'No, no thanks, Tottie. Just don't move. Don't go away. You may never come back ...'

  She laughed in a whisper. 'The little thing you put the gun into really sways me, darling,' she said. 'It turns me on just like nothing's ever going to be able to turn me off again."

  'Would you ... would you care to ... er, try it on?' he inquired like a lingerie salesman with a speech impediment. 'I'll help - it's kinda difficult.'

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  'Sure, please,' answered Tottie. There were some noises coming from the party but they were two corridors and many ages away as far as Salvatore was concerned. He would have shot anyone who had come into the room just now and would have stood a fair chance with a plea of self defence. She eased her lovely body and picked up the gun. 'And this,' she breathed, 'is beautiful, really beautiful. It double turns me on. Yes ... double.'

  She held the police revolver in both hands, abandoning the holster and the harness like used toys. She rubbed it in her hands and closed her eyes with the feel of it. Salvatore with exquisite alarm saw her breasts heaving more quickly than ever. Jesus Cyril Christ, it was all going to happen; he knew it was going to happen. Why couldn't the boys from the precinct see him now? He'd show them! He'd show Betty! He'd show her! By God, he would.

  'It fits,' she murmured, her eyes half hinging towards him. She had picked up the harness from the bed again and had slipped the gun into the holster. 'So snug,' she said. She began to move it with blatant sensuousness in and out, in and out, up and down, up and down.

  This was more than a police captain of twenty years' involuntary blamelessness could stand. Salvatore's hands, trembling on the ends of his shaking arms, went out to touch her. They homed on to the right, blatant breast. He hovered like a man seeking a landing place in a planet and then sumptuously closing on to the flesh and holding on to it, soft and warm and vibrant. Tottie did not seem to notice. Men frequently had their hands on her bosom. I want to put the gun on,' she said in her normal voice. 'Will you help, darling?'

  Salvatore was beyond words. He withdrew his hands with enormous difficulty, as if they were metal on a magnet, but was immediately rewarded because she bent and kissed his thumbs, left then right, as they were reluctantly moving back towards him. Then* with the merest easing of those laden eyes towards him, she slipped out of the top of the dress and pushed away the encumbrance of the lace bra. There she was, beautifully spread out and displayed, yards of bulging cream skin, it seemed, and large rosy nipples. 'Okay God,

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  you can come and get me now,' challenged Salvatore.

  'God's seen them already,' she said a little primly. 'Do you like them, Captain Honey?'

  It was the most fatuous question Salvatore had ever heard. 'Big,' he managed to mutter. 'Big and ... big.'

  'Thirty-nine inches at the last count,' she said, smiling fondly down at them. Like a careful housewife she brushed an imaginary piece of dust from the surface. Salvatore reached out and obligingly did the same. She continued to smile.

  'Just tidying up,' he explained lamely. Then he reached out again and deliberately pressed one nipple and then the other with his bell-ringing finger. That was it. With a sob he abruptly collapsed forward on to all the magnificence and buried his face and even his ears deeply into it.

  'Poor Captain,' said Tottie, stroking the sparse tundra hair at the back of his neck. 'Poor, poor Captain.'

  Salvatore emerged, because he urgently needed to breathe. She leaned forward and kissed his wet face. 'It was real nice in there Tottie,' he shuddered. 'Real cosy. Like ... like ... home.'

  'Did you find what you were looking for?' she inquired with a familiar laugh. She abruptly moved a yard further away from him. 'Now I want to get this gun belt thing on. You help, Honey Captain.'

  He did not care a damn what he did now. Haplessly he lifted the gun from the holster and put it on the silken bed. Her fingers went to it and caressed it fondly. He took the harness and, never for a moment able to take his tormented eyes from her bosom, he fumbled with buckles and straps and eventually got the contraption undone. 'Excuse me, Tottie,' he said, leaning towards her. 'This has to go round your ... er, top.'

  'Put it round then, baby,' she droned. 'Just hang it on me.'

  From the eerie distant past he could hear the voice of his instructor at the police academy calling out the instructions necessary for the fixing of a shoulder holster. The voice echoed from the days when he was a clean-faced kid, all eager to serve the people and the law of the country. How things had changed. Jesus Willard Christ.

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  'I'll need to get very close to get this on you, Tottie,' he mentioned nervously. 'Very, very close, indeed.'

  'Be my guest,' she said, moving forward the yard she had previously retreated. 'Honey Captain.'

  He passed the main strap around her back, leaning against those lovely human pillows as he did so. Then came the strap around the front. He failed twice. 'I'll have to kinda ... hold these two still,' he said and put his hand firmly below her right breast before she had time to do it herself. He got the strap below that and then held the left breast still while he did the same that side. It was like holding a pound of warm jelly. Clumsily he buckled the straps and then fitted .the revolver holster below the armpit so the side wall of the splendid gland decorating that side was lying snugly against it.

  That seems to be safe,' he said, professionally patting the holster into place and then arranging the breast more comfortably. 'I don't think that will move.'

  'Now ... put the gun in, please,' she requested. Her voice was a husky drone. Her opaque eyes were on the holster. Trembling he picked up the gun. He checked the safety catch. 'We don't want any accidents now do we, please?' he murmured. 'Not in that locality.'

  He slotted the weapon into the leather container. Her eyes closed. 'That's dreamy,' she whispered. 'Oh God, that's dreamy.' She began to rub her hands over the gun, the holster and the harness and then massage her nipples with her palms. 'I really like it, Captain,' she said as though she had forgotten him but then suddenly remembered he was there. 'I honestly do. It's so good. So very good.'

  It's time, thoug
ht Salvatore. Now go and get it, you jerk. He made himself move forward, but she slid from beneath him with an unhurried agility born of extended practice. Suddenly the wonderful body was heading towards the door. Salvatore sat shipwrecked on the bed, his arms going beseechingly towards her as she went. At the handle she called back. 'I must show this to Herb, darling. It'll really turn him on too.'

  She unlocked the door and was gone into the corridor and towards the crowded party in the salon. Salvatore sobbed with

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  frustration. He rose hopelessly from the bed and sadly ran his hand down the luxurious quilt. Then he hitched himself together and went, a figure of disappointment and despondency, towards the door. He could hear the sounds of excitement coming from the main room. What an entrance she must have made.

  Salvatore followed. He got to the main room just as Tottie di Milo was displaying the gun, and much more besides, to a group of entranced guests at one side of the room. Her lover Herb's eyes were wide with anticipation. Other guests were moving over to see what there was to see. Male shouts and exclamations of appreciation, like those from a football crowd, and some startled envious cries from the ladies filled the room.

  Then there came a new diversion. Through the tunnel leading from the waterway came a humming that abruptly filled both the tunnel and the room. It was as though a creature fro'm another world had made its arrival. All the people turned. Even the vision of Tottie di Milo was unable to hold them. Through the tunnel and into the living river of that extraordinary room roared the sharp little fan-boat and aboard it, armed and amazing, were the hooded members of the Ocean Drive Delinquent Society.

  Salvatore, eyes unbelieving, mouth like granite, reached for the gun he didn't have.

  Naturally at first the guests thought it was all part of the entertainment, especially when Tottie herself suddenly opened wild fire with the police revolver she had been so lovingly displaying. Certain that the bullets were blanks, everyone laughed when she began shooting, but the laughter curdled when one of the wild shots brought a large oriental vase in fragments to the floor. Herb managed to stand up from beneath the nerve-wracked wreckage of Frankie Moon's dumb mistress and attempted to take the gun from the trembling Tottie. She refused to be parted from it.

  The hooded Gabby; stepping ashore from the fan-boat, pushed her Russian pistol into Tottie's slim waist to make

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  the point. Tottie dropped the gun. Gabby checked it, saw it was empty, and kicked it aside.

  'Okay, everybody, just listen,' ordered Ossie loudly. 'If nobody fools about anymore we can get this over with nice and quick and you can get on with the party.'

  The gang were deployed three one side of the artificial living river and two the other. Bruce remained aboard the fan-boat, the propeller now idling to a standstill. He lay behind the fierce horizontal barrel of the unloaded Soviet mortar. The guests, collectively shaking, had backed towards the semicircular walls of the room, which was where they were wanted. Around the walls they formed a nervous half-moon.

  'Please take it from me, folks,' continued Ossie, waving his pistol like a rich man waves a cigar, 'we've come on business. Anybody who tries to stop us doing business will have only seconds to regret it. Okay?'

  There was a mumbled obligatory assent from the guests. Ossie glared at them through the slits in his hood. So did Gabby. 'Okay?' Gabby shouted. 'Let's hear you!'

  'Okay.' 'Yes.' 'Surely.' The words tumbled from the crowd to be followed by stares and mumbles towards Gabby, now that they realized it was a woman below the mask.

  Gabby nodded towards Ossie. 'Right,' he ordered. 'This is how we play the game.' He was enjoying himself. It was going right. 'Everybody empties their wallets, their pocketbooks, purses, pockets, right on to the floor in front of them. All the way along there, see. Then everybody takes off watches, jewellery and anything else of value and places it - get me - places it, so it stays undamaged, in the same spot. Our collectors will be circulating.'

  Salvatore felt he had to do something. 'And if we don't?' he said bravely, Tottie standing just in the corner of his eye.

  It was Gabby who answered. She took a step towards him and nodded backwards at Bruce behind the menacing mortar. 'If you don't we blast everybody,' she said quietly.

  'Ball brain!' Tottie called at Salvatore. He bit his lip with hurt.

  'Okay,' he mumbled, stepping back. 'I only asked.'

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  'No more questions,' said Ossie. 'It's not a debate. Right, empty the goodies. Come on - move."

  Bruce in the bow swung the mortar first to one side and then the other. Its grim barrel and wide mouth made it a serious sight. Sidewalk, Ari and Molly began to prod the captives on their side of the river and Ossie and Gabby encouraged them on the other. The people reached for their movable wealth from pockets and wrists and fingers. They placed the valuables on the floor until on each side of the room there was a high-tide mark of glittering trinkets, cash, and leather wallets and pocketbooks. On her bank of the river Molly took a canvas bag and began to scoop the loot into it. Gabby did likewise on her side. A sniffling woman complained to Molly: 'Please don't rob me. I'm just a little old lady.'

  'So am I,' said the voice behind the mask.

  It was all accomplished speedily. 'Now,' called Ossie. 'Has anybody forgotten anything? I bet there is somebody.' He leaned forward and took a fat wallet from the coat of a stiff-faced man. 'Personal things,' said the man. 'Private things.'

  'Stand over there,' ordered Ossie, looking fiercely into the man's eyes. 'We're going to shoot you.'

  The words brought a fresh avalanche of wallets and other valuables piling on the floor. From both sides of the room they appeared. Salvatore's police badge was with them. Ossie picked it up and felt himself go pale inside. He felt for the policeman's gun. 'It's not there,' said Salvatore resignedly. 'The broad had it, remember. The broad who called me ball brain.'

  A cop in the house spurred Ossie to get it over with now. He gave a low whistle and the members of the gang backed towards the captive river and their slim craft. 'Sidewalk,' whispered Ossie.

  'Okay, I'm going,' came the return whisper. Sidewalk Joe climbed aboard and started the fan. It whirred softly and the boat fidgeted. They knew they would have to reverse through the tunnel. That would be the tricky part of the operation.

  'We're going out ass-first,' Ossie called to the white-faced crowd on either side of the room. He pointed to the mortar. 'But just take it from me folks, that weapon will be pointing

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  straight back into this room. If we hear a pin drop before we're clear we'll fire it. If the ladies present don't know what a piece of hardware like that does, maybe their husbands would just whisper it to them.'

  He was about to signal the other members of the gang to step carefully aboard the fan-boat when he heard Sidewalk's soft curses. He half looked round. 'The reverse ain't working,' muttered Sidewalk. 'It can't make it.' Ossie swore but still calmly. 'It was in the repair yard,' Sidewalk reminded him.

  'Never mind why,' snapped Ossie. He looked up. The semicircular crowd could see there was something wrong. 'Stand still!' he bawled. He waved his pistol and Bruce swung the mortar from side to side. The guests stood still.

  Gabby leaned to Sidewalk. 'Turn the boat in the pond,' she said, nodding at the circular oriental pool. 'You can get it around in there.'

  'Good girl,' said Ossie. He whispered to Sidewalk who nodded. Gabby edged towards the metal grille gate that separated the pond from the river. It had a removable bolt. She took it out and with Ari holding the other side of the grille eased it up and out of its housing.

  'Watch the alligators,' laughed Tottie di Milo suddenly. 'They haven't been fed.'

  'Button up,' barked Gabby. 'Or I'll shoot you where you're biggest.' She was feeling the strain.

  'Tell the alligators to button up,' giggled Tottie.

  They did not believe her. The 'gators were lying at the bottom of the pool away from the lights
and it was only when Sidewalk and Bruce, temporarily forsaking the mortar, began to push the fan-boat around the pond, just big enough for the manoeuvre, that the truth surfaced. The wooden mouth of a large and hungry Everglades alligator suddenly appeared at the low edge of the boat within inches of Bruce's hand. Then another long, jagged jaw surfaced alongside the first.

  The creatures were jostling each other to get to the most obtainable man they had seen for some time.

  'Oh Christ!' exclaimed Bruce. 'She's right!'

  Sidewalk stepped ashore smartly. Bruce was quickly after him. Ossie was staring at the vertical jaws. But Gabby was still

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  aware. 'Turn it round,' she said sharply. 'Get it out of there.' Gingerly the young man and the old gangster returned to the deck and eased the craft around in a full circle. The alligators had a snap or two at the smooth hull but could get a hold of nothing. Then the bow was pointing the right way again, out towards the waterway. 'Get the gate back,' said Ossie to Ari and Gabby. 'We don't want those bastards following us.' The pair slotted the gate into its housing. Sidewalk pressed the starter button and the fan whirred. With relief and with their loot the gang boarded the small craft. The robbed guests were still standing against the walls. Then at the moment Ossie was about to say. 'Let's go,' Tottie broke drunkenly away from the protective arms of Herb and recklessly running forward plunged up to her lovely armpits in the river, blocking the river and their exit. 'Nobody ain't going from here,' she howled extravagantly. 'You bastards!'

  The gang stared horrified. Salvatore, Herb and some of the more gallant were about to advance to her. Gabby turned her gun and shouted at them to get back.

  The boozy Tottie was a different problem. She floated magnificently on the river, her great breasts like life preservers, bobbing on the water. 'Nobody leaves,' she shouted. 'It's over my dead body.'