by Paul Kenyon
"What bullet wounds?" Farnsworth said innocently. "There wasn't enough left of the bodies to tell."
"And the FBI report?"
"Clean. The director was able to assure the President personally."
The Baroness leaned back in her chair, looking cool and businesslike in her Geoffrey Beene pants suit. Her desk was piled high with accumulated fashion sketches, and her In basket was overflowing.
"And what about the shooting of The Golden Ass?" she said.
"The survivors have been… ah… persuaded that they never witnessed any actual scenes of death. It was all make-believe. Cleverly staged, and all that, with lots of ketchup and rubber corpses with their guts spilling out. But certainly no one got thrown to the lions. Such things don't happen."
"Then you and I are off the hook, John?"
"Yes, and privately the President's very pleased. And so is the U.S. Intelligence Board. The porno ring is smashed. The films have been destroyed. No one is going to be blackmailed anymore. You've struck major blows at two criminal organizations — the Syn and the Org. And what's more, you've got them fighting with one another."
"Would you say I've earned a vacation, John?"
His expression grew cautious. "We've got to run International Models, Inc., at a profit, you know. I can only doctor the books so much. Harper's Bazaar is clamoring for another spread from you. And that cosmetics firm wants you to do a television commercial."
"Just a little vacation?" she purred.
"How little?" He looked unhappy.
"A three-day weekend. Just long enough for me to fly out, stay overnight and fly back."
Farnsworth relaxed. "Oh, just over a weekend? I guess the firm can spare you that long. Where do you want to go?"
She gave a rich, throaty laugh. "Why, Hollywood, of course."
* * *
The straight razor nicked the lobe of his ear. A drop of blood splashed on the striped sheet.
Vito backed away, his face drained white. "I swear!" he babbled. "I swear you moved, Mister Head! I couldn't help it!"
Mister Head was trembling with rage, but not at the barber. He crumpled up the memo that Teresa had handed him and threw it at the wall. "Get out!" he choked. "Get out now!"
Vito picked up his barber's bag and scurried gratefully off. Mister Head glowered at Teresa. "Conference call!" he said. "Right away!"
He waited impatiently while the checkerboard of videophone screens lit up with faces. One square was empty.
He pulled a lever and the back of the barber's chair propelled him to an upright position. There was still lather on his face, and a slow drip of blood. He pounded the arm of the chair, and all the images in the checkerboard jumped.
"They dare!" he thundered. "They dare to challenge us again! The Ruby Bill estate is burned to the ground, blown up. They sent an army out there! Thirty men that we sent there — slaughtered! Gabriel is dead! He was like a son to me!"
"What more can we do?" one of the faces said. "Since their last raids, we've been hitting them everywhere. Regional offices, warehouses… even their legitimate businesses."
"We're going to raid their national headquarters — go after the Big Cheese himself."
The eleven faces looked horrified. "But the Accords?" one of them said.
Mister Head's wide nostrils flared. "The Accords are abrogated," he said.
* * *
The Big Cheese looked as if his face were on fire. It was almost as bright as his carroty hair. He stabbed a finger at the nine vice chairmen sitting at the conference table.
"It's the Syn that escalated, not us," he said. "The Accords clearly state that legitimate businesses aren't to be touched."
"Damned right!" Pecorino said.
"We oughtta take this straight to the Grand Council," Mascarpone said.
"Screw the Council!" the Big Cheese said. The nine men recoiled. "This calls for direct action!"
"What do you want to do?" whispered Fontina.
"We're gonna…" He chuckled at his own cleverness. "We're gonna cut off Mister Head."
"But Las Vegas is off limits," Pecorino said.
"Not anymore, it ain't."
The room shook. There was the sound of an explosion. It seemed to have come from downstairs.
Lavina came running into the room. Her blouse was torn, and there was a smudge on her face.
"They're throwing bombs!" she sobbed. "They're going through all the offices and throwing bombs!"
The nine vice chairmen were all on their feet, reaching in their briefcases for guns. "Who?" Mascarpone said.
"Soldiers," she said. "From the Syn."
* * *
Penelope tickled Mitch with a feather. It came from the feather boa that was a part of the Roaring Twenties costume she'd worn for their date. The rest of the costume was draped over the wax dummy in the gangster suit that stood beside the bed. All she was wearing now was the boa.
Mitch said, "It tickles." His clothes were scattered over the floor, all the way from the projection booth to the bed.
"I thought you liked artificial stimulation, darling," she said. "Feathers are supposed to be sensuous."
"Yeah?" he grunted. "Let's see."
The boa was draped strategically around her neck, one end lying on her left breast, snaking upward in a fluffy collar, down across her right breast and belly and ending modestly between her thighs.
Mitch started at the left. "Hey, there's something under there," he said. He moved the end of the boa back and forth. Penelope felt static electricity up and down her body.
"How did you get out?" she said.
"Like I said, when all the commotion started with the elephants, my guards took off. It was no trick at all to unlock the chains."
His hand moved under the boa, up to the back of her neck and down the other side.
"Is the Syn leaving you alone these days?"
"Yeah, they dropped me like a hot potato. The word is that a gang war's going on. I saw some of it myself. Thirty guys drove up in limousines, with a bulldozer. They must have been from the Org. They really creamed the place."
Penelope said nothing. That was a useful story to get spread around. She felt Mitch's hand exploring her right breast.
"The feathers are softer," she teased him.
"Yeah, but this feels better," he said.
His hand left her breast and continued to move down the boa. He reached the end of it. Penelope gave a sudden gasp.
"Let's start the main feature, darling," she said huskily.
"Speaking of main features…" he said. He reached across to the bedside lamp.
"Turn it off, darling," she said. "We don't need a blue movie to stimulate us."
"This is special. One of a kind. I snitched it from Sully's private collection while the riot was going on."
The film was rough-cut and unedited. It started with a Roman emperor in toga and laurel wreath eating a banquet with his concubine.
Penelope laughed delightedly. "But that's us!"
"I figure the camera was behind that big mirror."
The eating scene was right out of Tom Jones. Then the emperor and his concubine stripped and took a bath together.
"Decadent people, the Romans," she murmured.
"Yeah, well, I protected America from this, sweetheart. I destroyed the negative. This is the only print."
"It's very interesting, darling, but I prefer live action." She reached across his bare chest to turn off the projector switch.
"Hey, don't do that…" he yelled.
She caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. A Tommy gun chattered hysterically. A line of bullets stitched its way across the sheets.
Moving like an uncoiling spring, she shoved Mitch off the bed and rolled after him. She landed on top of him. He hugged her to his hairy chest while bullets thudded into the mattress.
The firing stopped. She raised her head cautiously and saw the wax dummy of Mitch staring at her. Smoke was still drifting out of the muzzle of the Tommy gun the du
mmy held.
The bed was a mess. The bullets had torn the sheets and mattress to shreds.
Mitch's head came up beside hers. "That was a close one," he said. "Sweetheart, the switch for the projector is the one on the left."
"Is it safe to get back into bed?" she said.
"Yeah. He's out of ammunition."
She used a convenient handle to haul Mitch to his feet. "I hope you're not out of ammunition, darling," she said.
He wasn't.