by Paul Kenyon
"Fine, gentlemen," Mister Head said. "Shall we put it to a formal vote? Teresa, will you record the ballots?"
One by one, each of the faces voted yes. The wall stared at him expectantly.
"It's unanimous then," Mister Head said. He unpinned the striped sheet and thrust it away. "The Org needs to be taught a lesson."
Chapter 9
The bellboys put down her luggage and stood smartly to attention, like a row of tin soldiers. The manager hovered just inside the doorway, gingerly holding onto the chains of the two enormous Russian wolfhounds.
"Will there be anything else, Baroness?" the manager said.
Penelope took the chains from him. The two borzois wagged their tails and looked up at her, their long narrow jaws open in a smile that showed the wicked rows of teeth.
"I don't think so," she drawled. "I'll have tea promptly at four. For breakfast, have them send up croissants, honey, a pot of coffee and a bottle of chilled champagne. And tell the kennel man that the dogs are walked at eight, three in the afternoon and eleven."
"Very good, Baroness," he said. He began to back out. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay in Hollywood."
Penelope had already turned, heading for the terrace of the penthouse suite, the dogs trotting at her heels. Inga fished in her purse and handed each of the bellboys a fifty-dollar bill. They burst into smiles and followed the manager out.
Penelope slid back the glass doors to the terrace and stepped outside. It was a brilliant, smog-free day. She looked out across Wilshire Boulevard toward Beverly Hills. It spilled out like a doll's kingdom in front of her, the expensive mansions nestled among the slopes and canyons. Mitchell Lloyd was somewhere there. He was her best lead now.
The dogs were acting peculiar. They whined and strained at their leads. They were trying to pull her toward the glass door opening on the bedroom. Inga looked at her questioningly. Penelope put a finger to her lips and handed the chains to Inga.
She unbuttoned the jacket of her white sharkskin pants suit and reached under her armpit for the little gold automatic tucked into her bra. Smoothly and silently she slid back the door and stepped inside, the gun in her hand. She stepped immediately to one side to keep from being framed against the drapes, and scanned the shadows.
"Don't shoot, Baroness," a man's voice said. Eric stepped out of the closet. He was dressed as a floor waiter, in black pants, white coat and black bow tie. There was a towel over his arm.
Penelope tucked the gun back into the side of her bra. "I didn't expect you this early," she said.
"You're being watched," Eric said. "Word is out that the Syn is keeping an eye on everybody who survived the massacre at Baynard Warren's apartment. I may be attracting a little attention myself. I've been asking a lot of questions around town. It didn't seem to be a good idea to tie you in with me."
"What have you found out?" Penelope said.
She had to wait for her answer while the dogs greeted Eric. They came running through the door, their chains trailing, and flung themselves over him. He laughed, trying to fend them off, while they knocked him against the wall and licked his face.
"Sorry, Baroness," Inga said. "I couldn't hold them." Her eyes widened when she saw Eric. She kissed him correctly on the lips. He stood with an arm around her waist while he gave his report.
"The town's seething with rumors," Eric said. "Every bit player and extra seems to have heard them.
Some kind of enormous underground enterprise is getting underway. It's eating up film technicians, costume designers, makeup men, set decorators. All anybody knows is that it's an 'A' property, and that there are some very hard guys behind it. It sounds like our friends, the Syn."
"An 'A' property," the Baroness mused. "A porno film with a budget of over a million. It doesn't seem possible."
Eric frowned. "One other thing. A couple of people who seem to be in the know let something slip about 'The Flick' before they clammed up. I don't think they were talking about the film itself."
"All right," the Baroness said. "Keep working on it. Have you seen Skytop?"
"Not today. He told me yesterday that he was working on some kind of lead."
"I beeped Skytop," Inga said. "He signaled that he had to stay put while he flushed someone out."
"All right," the Baroness said. "We won't bother the Chief for a while. Keep tabs on his direction finder."
Eric kissed Inga again and strode to the door, the towel over his arm. He paused to straighten his waiter's tie and run a comb through his blond hair, then stepped out into the corridor.
Penelope peeled off her jacket and tossed it over a chair. She put the gun on the night table and loosened her bra. Kicking off her shoes, she dropped with a bounce to the bed and lay there on her back, her hands folded behind her neck.
"What do we do now, Baroness?" Inga said.
"We wait," Penelope said.
The call came about an hour later. Inga lifted the extension and said, "Yes?" She listened. "Yes, she's here. Just a moment." She held her hand over the mouthpiece. "It's Mitchell Lloyd."
Penelope picked up the phone. "Why Mitchell, darling, what a surprise."
The familiar lazy voice said in her ear, "I heard you were in town, sweetheart."
Now how did you hear that, the Baroness thought. Did your Syndicate chums tell you? They passed the word fast. I didn't expect this call for at least another hour.
Aloud, she said: "And you just thought you'd call? What a nice idea."
"I've got a better one. How about dinner tonight?"
"Why darling, don't tell me you've changed your mind about me?"
"Hey look, it's too bad about O'Shea, and all that. But he's out of the picture now, isn't he?"
"And you're in it, is that it, darling?"
"That's life, doll."
"That's death, darling."
There was a pause at the other end, then a harsh laugh. "Hey, you're a pretty tough broad, Baroness."
"You like that, darling?"
"Yeah, Now how about dinner?"
"Pick me up at seven, darling. We can have a drink first in memory of Terence."
"I'll tell you what, you come here. I want to show you my pad. You know how to get here?"
"I can find out. It's a landmark, isn't it?"
He laughed. "Just follow the tour bus."
After she'd hung up, Penelope turned to Inga. "Lay me out something to wear tonight. My God, I think I'm going to need a chastity belt! I won't take the gun. But let's see what we've got in the way of bugs."
* * *
"To be frank, Sully," said Richard Tombs, "there are problems with the story outline."
"Yeah?" Sully Flick said. He picked his nose. "What kind of problems?"
"Well, for one thing, Julius Caesar died about eighty years before Nero was born. And he couldn't have been a soldier in the Punic Wars. They were finished long before Caesar's birth."
Sully waved a hand airily. "Details, Dicky boy, just details. Don't worry about it."
Tombs looked unhappy. He was a distinguished-looking man in his sixties, with a craggy face and a thick shock of white hair. He'd won a Pulitzer Prize some thirty years earlier for one of his Roman novels. That was before Hollywood had hired him as a screenwriter at a salary of five thousand dollars a week. Since then, he'd been through three marriages and approximately eleven thousand bottles of whisky. He hadn't worked for more than four years.
"Another thing, Sully," he said. "The Colosseum was built by the Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus. That was after Nero's death."
"Look, are you crazy?" Sully said. "We got this terrific set, already built. We got an approved screen treatment. Are you trying to rock the boat?"
Tombs sighed. He looked longingly at the rows of bottles behind the saloon bar. "I understand your point of view, Sully. Believe me. You're making a porno film, even if the budget is a million five. You don't want to clutter it up with a lot of scholarly dust." His voice took on a pleading quality. "But let me
write you a new screenplay. I'll place it during the reign of Domitian. It'll be historically accurate. But I'll give you all the sex and violence you want."
Sully looked interested. "Yeah? For instance?"
"Well… Domitian used to wow the Roman mob by practicing his bow and arrow marksmanship on slaves in the arena…"
"Forget it."
"You could change the title to The Golden Hump. According to Suetonius, Domitian dreamed that he had a golden hump growing on his back, and he thought it was a sign that Rome would become prosperous…"
Sully tapped his foot. "Dicky boy, you're boring me. Do you want the job or don't you?"
Desperately, Tombs said: "Domitian had a bestiarius — that's an animal trainer — named Carpophorus who trained lions and leopards and bulls — even giraffes — to rape women. He'd stake out these naked slave girls…"
Sully's eyes glistened. He stroked his goatee. "Yeah? I seen it with police dogs. What happens with a bull or a giraffe?"
"It kills the woman. Of course you'd have to fake it…"
Sully clapped Tombs on the shoulder. "Okay, Dicky, you're on. This is all top secret, so you don't leave the ghost town till we're finished. And no booze on the job."
Tombs' eyes were miserable. "Thanks, Sully."
"Cheer up, kid. I may even change the title to The Golden Hump. But we keep Julius and Nero and the Colosseum."
He left Tombs sitting there under the bartender's watchful eye while he went upstairs to the editing room. Snips was there, sitting in front of a Moviola. The skinny little film editor looked up when Sully entered.
"Sully, I called the hospital. We're in trouble. Max's hands are smashed real bad. They say he won't be able to handle a camera for six months, a year. That Indian worked him over good."
Sully stroked his goatee. "I checked the Indian. Joe Skytop. He's a hotshot cameraman himself. He shouldn't of picked that way to apply for a job."
"What are you gonna do about it, Sully?"
A mean little grin appeared above the goatee. "I sent Ottorino and a couple of the boys over to talk with Skytop. Maybe he ain't as tough as he thinks he is."
* * *
Skytop rolled off the girl and handed her the wet towel. When she'd finished using it on herself, she scrubbed helpfully at his crotch. Instantly his thick rope of a penis began to lengthen and grow stiff again.
"Wow," she said. "Don't you ever get tired?"
"Yeah," he said. "Sometimes I take a little rest about Saint Swithin's Day."
"I mean like we've been going at it all afternoon. I'm getting hungry. How about taking time out to eat?"
"Sure, kid. I'll call room service." He reached down alongside the bed for the bottle of bourbon. He shook it. It was almost empty. He poured himself another drink. "We're starting to run out of booze anyway."
Amber's Barbie doll face pouted. "How about going out to eat, Joe? We've been cooped up here for almost two days."
He held out the bottle. "So what? We've got everything we need."
Amber shook her head. "No thanks. Got any more pot?"
"In my left pants pocket."
She lit up and sat back against a pillow, her breasts squashed against her knees. After a couple of drags, she said, "I mean it's like you're afraid to leave this room. Is it on account of that guy you beat up at the Topless Towers?"
"Afraid?" Skytop rumbled. He looked amused. "Let's just say I think it's a good idea for me to stay put for a while."
"Come on, Joe," she wheedled. "Let's go out to eat. I'll give you a nice head job when we get back."
He picked up the phone. "Room Service," he said. He ordered drinks and a couple of steaks. "Eat, eat, eat. That's all you ever think about."
There was a knock at the door about ten minutes later. Amber tucked the sheet over her breasts and said, "That was fast."
Skytop pulled on his jeans and padded barefoot to the door. He unlocked it and opened the door a crack.
Instantly the door shot open, cracking him in the face. He staggered back, blood oozing from his split forehead. Three mean-looking hoods in pinstriped suits burst in the room, brandishing guns. Amber screamed. One of the hoods made a gesture with his automatic and the screams stopped immediately.
The other two hoods held their guns on Skytop, very professionally, positioned so that he couldn't get to one without the other one shooting him.
"Back, injun, back," the shark-faced leader said. "Play it cool."
Skytop let his big, bulging arms drop to his sides. He waited, a neutral expression on his rough-chiseled face.
"Get dressed," one of the hoods said to Amber. The other two showed how professional they were by watching Skytop instead of the girl when she emerged naked from the sheets and wriggled into her white flares and star-spangled top.
One of the hoods tossed Skytop's shirt to him. "Put it on, injun. We're going for a ride."
Skytop pulled the blue tee-shirt over his head and started to work an arm into one of the sleeves. At the precise moment when his head was covered and he couldn't see anything, one of the hoods stepped quickly behind him and slammed the butt of a forty-five into his skull. Skytop hit the floor like a falling tree.
They dragged Skytop toward the door. When they were halfway there, Amber said, "What about me?"
The shark-faced man turned. "You stay where you are, babe. You don't leave this room for an hour, dig?"
Her voice was shrill. "You can't take him away like that. He owes me. I at least need fare to get back downtown."
They stopped. One of them said, "Hey, the Indian owes the broad. What do you figure she's worth?"
"Oh, about fifty cents." They all laughed. The leader dug into the pocket of Skytop's jeans and came out with a half-dollar. He flipped the coin over to the girl.
"Remember what I said, babe. You don't leave for an hour."
Grunting and straining, they hefted Skytop's unconscious form to an upright position and walked him out of the room as if he were a drunken friend.
* * *
Putting the final touches on her makeup, the Baroness looked over at Inga. The blonde girl was sitting in front of a miniature console the size of a portable television set.
"Is Joe Skytop still at his hotel?" the Baroness said.
Inga kept her eyes on the red dot flickering on the screen. "Yes, he hasn't moved. He's got an FM body tag in his pocket. It's inside a hollowed-out fifty-cent piece."
"Good," the Baroness said. "Keep monitoring that tag. I don't want to lose contact with him."
Chapter 10
When she came out of the hotel, the Lincoln dealer was waiting at the curb with the new $30,000 Bugazzi she'd ordered. It was a long, low, gleaming shape that looked like a cross between a Duesenberg and a Continental Mark IV. The handcrafted body had detached headlamps, wire wheels, a black leather bonnet and running boards.
The dealer fell all over himself to show her the interior. "That's Italian marble on the instrument panel," he said. "The upholstery is glove suede. There's a bar and color television in back, as you specified…"
"I've already bought the car," the Baroness said dryly. "I don't need a sales talk."
She plucked the keys from his hand and slid behind the wheel. There was Italian marble on that, too. She put the Bugazzi into gear and the parking brake released itself automatically with a thunk.
She floated in a cloud of quadrasonic sound along Wilshire and turned north at Beverly Drive. All along the route, heads turned to stare. In a town filled with spectacular custom cars, the Bugazzi was something special. The woman who drove it was something special, too: a dazzling beauty with a midnight sweep of hair and a face like carved ivory, her sumptuous figure molded by black silk evening pajamas.
The Baroness felt inside the beaded evening bag beside her for the little gold-plated gun and shoved it into the concealed compartment under the seat, next to the Mark Cross folding umbrella that came with the car. It didn't go with the careful selection of junk she and Inga
had stuffed into the bag.
She pulled into Mitchell Lloyd's driveway, spraying gravel. Mitch was waiting outside for her. "Nice," he said when he saw the Bugazzi. He took her hand and helped her down off the running board.
The mansion was Hollywood Spanish, with orange-tiled roofs and stone balconies and Moorish arches. It was set in the midst of an acre of landscaped grounds, surrounded by a cement wall. The iron gate she'd driven through swung shut automatically behind her.
"Not bad for a guy who once drove a truck for a living, huh, baby?" Mitch said.
The door was an Aztec sun wheel, a heavy round stone, elaborately carved. It swiveled open as they approached.
"Cost me forty Gs, not counting the installation," he said. "The museums are after it."
Inside, it was severely masculine. The couch was a twelve-foot puff of soft leather, framed in steel and polished wood. The bar must have been appropriated from some old Hollywood set; it was an enormous slab of paneled oak, with a buxom Gay Nineties nude in a gilt frame hanging behind it.
"What's your pleasure?" he said, stepping behind the bar.
"Can you get a martini out of that… that installation, or does it only dispense boilermakers?"
He laughed, and poured gin into a stone jug in the shape of a squat, ugly little Toltec god. The martini he made was dry, cold and competent. For himself, he poured a tumbler of scotch, without ice.
"For O'Shea, right?" he said, tossing back a hefty gulp.
She sipped her martini, her enormous green eyes staring at him over the rim of the glass. "Good martini, Mitch darling. Terence would have enjoyed it."
"Yeah, the guy liked his booze. And his broads. Good guy! I liked him."
"I suppose we're both lucky to be alive, darling."
"Yeah. Lucky." He drained his glass and poured himself another. Penelope held out her own glass for a splash.
"You were going to show me your pad, darling," she said.
He brightened. "Sure thing, baby. You hungry?"
"Dinner can wait."