He lay beneath a sheet on a luxuriously large bed in a beautifully decorated room, and he was naked beneath that sheet. His shoulder was bandaged and the arm was taped to his side. Lying beside him above the sheet and propped onto multiple pillows was a lovely young thing in the briefest of bikini panties and a peekaboo shortie-top of purplish gauze; her face was angled away from him and all but buried in the pages of a book—but yeah, they were the same long legs that had stood over his bleeding body so many dreams ago.
At the far side of the room upon a table at an open window was something equally as interesting. He thought at first that it was a life-size statue or mannikin—maybe a female Buddha. Whatever it was, it was stony-naked and seated in a somewhat awkward pose, facing the open window, legs folded and drawn up under it, ivory skin gleamingly reflecting the sun’s rays, head slightly bent, absolutely unmoving, absolutely stark staring beautiful.
Bolan was gazing at the still figure and trying to get a better focus when another girl entered the room and came directly to the foot of the bed to stare at him in unblinking appraisal. She was clad in a long gown with a bulky shorter overgarment, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, dark hair styled in a soft contour of the very lovely head, sensitive lips, eyes beautifully delineated and tending to brood a bit. Bolan returned her level gaze and presently she broke the silence. “Welcome back to the world of light and beauty.”
He said, “Is that what world this is?”
She solemnly nodded her head but whatever she had at the tip of her tongue was lost as the girl beside Bolan came out of her book and twisted toward him with a stifled little gurgle of excitement. “You’re back!” she squealed.
Bolan recognized the voice. It was one of the last things he’d heard before he died, or passed out, or whatever. He shifted his reluctant focus toward her and weakly asked, “Where’ve I been?”
“Out of it,” she told him. “Absolutely out of it for nearly twenty-four hours.”
The tall girl at the foot of the bed said, “I’ll fix you something light to eat,” and went back the way she’d come, silent as a wraith.
“That’s Paula Lindley,” the girl at his side informed him. “She went almost all the way through nurse’s training. You can thank her for fixing you up.”
“I’ll do that,” Bolan murmured. His eyes had a new focus and his mind was lethargically cataloging the shareholder of his bed. She was a moppet, no more than nineteen or twenty, with luminously inquisitive eyes, gleaming golden hair looping down to softly rounded shoulders in two heavy braids, and the cutey-pie face of a rapturously expectant romantic.
“We knew we didn’t dare get a doctor for you,” the cutey-pie was telling him in that very alive voice of bursting excitement. “We know who you are, you see.” She giggled.
“But you don’t know who we are, do you. I’m Evie Clifford.” She pointed to the girl in the lotus position at the window.
“That’s Rachel Silver. Doesn’t she have a fantastic body? Don’t mind her, she’s a home naturalist.”
Bolan shook at the cobwebs connecting his brain tissues and muttered, “A what?”
“A home nudist. Also she’s hung up on Yoga and she’s meditating right now. At times she’ll sit the whole day through like that, right there, and you might as well talk to the wall. Some roommate.”
“I’ll bet you have very attentive neighbors on the other side of that window,” Bolan commented sluggishly.
The moppet laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll bet. But don’t worry, no one saw us bring you in. We dress-carted you.”
“What?”
“We curled you up in the box of a dress cart, covered you with bolt ends, hung a bunch of fashions on the overhead rods, and just pushed you right through the whole mess, cops and everything.” Her eyes were dancing with the exciting memory. “We thought we’d die when your blood started leaking out.”
Darkly, Bolan said, “Yeah, me too.” He heaved himself to a sitting position then quickly eased back to the pillow when the room began revolving about him.
“How long did you say I’ve been out?” he asked her, his voice suddenly going thick and gutteral.
“Since two o’clock yesterday afternoon. This is Sunday, almost noon. Paula’s been getting worried. She was thinking about trying to rent some I.V. equipment if you didn’t come out of it pretty soon.”
“Rent what?” Bolan asked dizzily.
“You know the bottles and the tubes and needles and junk for intravenous feeding?”
“Oh.”
“So you’d better try eating whatever Paula brings you, unless you want to end up with a needle in the arm.”
Bolan closed his eyes and tried to piece things together in his mind.
The girl beside him was bubbling on. “This is just like a movie. Just wait ’til I write home about this, they’ll never believe me. I was scared to death when I saw the cops in the basement but Rachel just kept whispering, ‘Push, Evie, push,’ and finally I got myself together and I said, ‘Right on,’ and boy we just whisked you out of there and into the van.”
Her voice dropped an octave and she was half-whispering as she added, “Did you know that you slept with me all night?”
Bolan grinned, opened his eyes a slit, and lied. “Sure, I knew it.”
A variety of emotions crossed the unsophisticatedly pretty face and after a brief silence she said, “You’re teasing me. You were out all the time.”
Drawing upon his “dream,” Bolan told her, “Not with those long legs wrapped around me, doll, I wasn’t out all of the time.”
The girl’s face turned a fiery red and she replied, “Well I was probably doing that in my sleep, whatever you’re talking about. I mean, I didn’t lay here awake all night, you know. This is my bed. And Paula said you needed body therapy more than anything else. After all, I wouldn’t attack a wounded man.”
From across the room came a coolly modulated voice. “If you were in heat, Evie, you’d attack a wounded rhino.”
The girl giggled, tossed her head, and called back, “I thought you were meditating.”
“I have been in The One,” the cool voice replied. She shifted about to peer over her shoulder, luminous eyes raking Bolan in a quick, see-all scrutiny. Bolan shivered. It was the face he had carried with him into paradise. “I asked One for your life,” she informed him in a totally undramatic voice.
Bolan was beginning to decide that the dream had not ended. He heard himself asking the cool one, “And what did One say to that?”
The girl twisted about to face him and dropped her legs over the side of the table. They dangled, then crossed at the ankles. She smiled and brought her palms up even with her shoulders. “You’re alive, aren’t you.”
“I guess,” Bolan replied, though he was not all that certain. He lay there and watched her slither off the table. She moved like a cat, all fluid and tawny grace, with the controlled springiness of superbly developed and coordinated muscles. The body was unbelievably exquisite, tight and hard looking yet entirely feminine with all the proper curves and angles in the right places. Her hair was shiny black and fell in a torrent to the small of her back where it clung. The tight flesh of her torso gleamed and rippled, and the motions of her body as she walked created the illusion that she was moving across shifting sand.
She reached the side of the bed and stood there smiling down at him with all the detachment of a Siamese cat. Bolan did not feel like smiling back. For some unaccountable reason, he felt like shouting something offensively obscene.
The sheeny black badge of puffy-soft femininity at the base of that ivory abdomen was at a direct level with his eyes, and it was to this that he directed his compulsive remark. He said, “Hello, One. Okay, this is your life.”
Evie Clifford exploded into a fit of coughing and fell off the bed. The nude girl’s eyes performed a rapid blinking sequence, then she silently spun on her heel to walk away. Bolan grabbed her hand and clung to it, squeezing with all his strength,
which wasn’t much.
“I don’t know why I said that,” he murmured apologetically.
“I know why,” came the cool reply.
“Evie tells me that you helped bootleg me out of the grave. Thanks. And I’m sorry for the silly remark.”
“It’s perfectly understandable,” she replied in a cold purr. “And I’m the one who is sorry. For affronting your sense of modesty.” The girl disengaged her hand from his grip and glided from the room.
Evie Clifford’s eyes appeared over the edge of the bed. “Socko,” she whispered. “Don’t feel sorry, she had that coming. All this bilge about the holiness of the body. It’s about time someone told her that hairy monkey between her thighs isn’t all that holy to look at.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Bolan muttered.
“You got the message across just the same.” The girl crawled onto the bed and knelt there, staring at him with frank curiosity. “Is it true that you’ve killed hundreds of men?”
Bolan returned her level gaze, then dropped his eyes to the perky little breasts peeking through the gauzy jacket. Surely he was either asleep or dead, in purgatory or some concoction of hell. The shoulder was beginning to pulse and he was suddenly feeling very weak. And yet he wanted a woman. He wanted a woman in the very worst way. Yes. He supposed that hell could be this way. He told the girl, “There are worse things than killing.”
“I guess it depends on who you kill,” she replied solemnly.
Bolan shook his head doggedly, as though pleading his case before the keeper of heaven’s gate. “No matter who, there are worse things.”
“What, for instance?”
“Not killing, sometimes.”
She smiled winsomely and told him, “I guess I don’t get that. You should talk it over with Rachel. She’s the deep one.” She giggled and added, “Mentally, I mean. Physically I think she’s all glossy exterior. I bet she doesn’t even have a vagina inside that monkey’s mouth. I mean, I get that feeling sometimes. Know what I mean?”
Bolan hoped to God he did not know what she meant. That would surely be hell. And such statements issuing from that ingenuous face were just another irrational dimension of his mad dreaming. Surely. If it were not a dream, then he must have awakened to madness.
At that moment the tall efficient one reappeared with a tray. She set it on the bed, showed Bolan poached eggs and dry toast and let him sniff a cup of weak tea. “You want to try this?” she asked him.
Yes, Bolan would try anything sane. He thanked her with his eyes and said, “I believe I can handle it.”
She arranged the tray for his easy access, puffed the pillows behind him and helped him to a workable position, then watched attentively as he struggled through the self-feeding. As he ate, she told him, “If you’re wondering about your wounds, you got off pretty easy. There’s a tiny furrow across your hip, no problem there. I dressed it with sulfa salve, just to take no chances with infection. As for your shoulder … well, you’re a very lucky man. You lost an ounce or two of tissue, but nothing vital. If the bullet hadn’t nicked a large artery, you’d probably still be out running the streets. But you lost a tremendous amount of blood. I’ve been worried about … well, you’re obviously strong enough to fight back. You are a fighter, aren’t you?”
Bolan grinned and said nothing, dizzily working at the elusive eggs.
“How long since you’d slept?” she prodded. “I mean, before yesterday.”
He thought about it for a moment, then replied, “I really don’t remember. A couple of days, I guess.”
“Uh huh, that’s what I thought. You’re worn down, physically neglected, and you were probably reaching the edge of your reserves even if you hadn’t been shot. I don’t want you out of this bed for at least another two days.”
“You don’t understand,” Bolan weakly protested. “My enemies know their business. They’ll track me here sooner or later, bet on that, and—”
“They’ve already been here,” Paula told him. “Late last night. They went through here with a fine comb, so I’m sure they’re satisfied. They won’t be coming back.”
Bolan was giving her the uncomprehending stare.
She smiled and explained, “We hid you in the bathtub. With Rachel.”
Bolan groaned inwardly. The dream, the damned dream. It was all coming back now. All of it had not been dream. He murmured, “I don’t know how to thank you girls.”
Evie Clifford laughed and told him, “We’ll think of something, I bet.”
“Yes, we’ll think of something,” Paula assured him in solemn tones.
Somehow Bolan got the idea that the ladies had already thought of something. He mumbled an unintelligible response and pushed the tray away, then closed his eyes and cautiously maneuvered himself back to the horizontal position. The food had filled him with a numb warmth, and the black whirlpool was again summoning him.
As he drifted into the void, he heard Evie declare, “Hey, he’s passing out again.”
“That’s fine,” came Paula’s quiet voice, seemingly from far away.
“Well I can’t lay here with this guy forever like this. He’s tearing me up, just simply shredding me.”
“Okay, Hotsy,” was the crisp reply. “Go on, I’ll supply the body for awhile. Tell Rachel to relieve me at four.”
Bolan distantly heard Evie sigh and leave the bed. Then the sheet was drawn back and something soft and warm moved in beside him, pressing close with sweet scents and cushiony resilience. Satiny arms worked him into a tender embrace and the smooth flesh of softly powerful legs intertwined his in full command. A fragment of something someone had said, “… body therapy …” drifted through his closing consciousness and he said, “Yeah, I’ll buy that,” but he did not know if the words left his throat or not.
“Take my strength,” whispered a soft voice. “Body to body, lover, take it and build upon it.”
Yeah, yeah, here came the bottomless pit and Bolan was slipping into it, but it really didn’t matter. It was all a mad dream in a madhouse, and the Executioner had freaked out for sure. Face to face, body to body, it was a total freakout.
3: CORPSES
Bolan’s recovery was dramatically quick under the constant ministrations of his three nurses. He was fed every time his eyes flickered open, and the bizarre “body therapy” continued around the clock. On Monday he was up and prowling about under his own steam, getting the lie of the luxury apartment shared by the girls. It appeared that they had no money problems. The building was located in the high rise and high rent district of Manhattan’s fashionable East Side. The apartment was one of those garden terrace setups with the ultra-modern decor which is usually associated with modest wealth. There were but two bedrooms, one of which was shared by the moppet and the Yogi. Paula had the other one to herself, but Bolan considered it quite a sacrifice for personal privacy—very small, windowless, with hardly space enough to walk around the bed.
Most of the apartment was given over to a split-level and luxuriously appointed living area, quite spacious and supplying just about every conceivable animal comfort—from a glassed-in massage and sun lamp den to a swinging bar with built-in entertainment center. The kitchen wasn’t overly much, but fully gadgeted and probably adequate for a trio of working girls who perhaps confined their food preparation to dry salads and black coffee. The refrigerator now was amply stocked with gobs of red beef, brought in especially for consignment to Bolan’s blood-building chemistry.
Thanks to the compulsive talker, Bolan had learned that Paula’s age was twenty-six, making her the eldest of the three and obviously a sort of den mother. Rachel was twenty-two, Evie twenty. The girls shared an equal interest in Paula’s Fashions. The fashion design know-how belonged to Paula, Rachel had brought local fame and following as a model, Evie the cash. They had a going enterprise, concentrating on the far-out learnings of the freaky set and, according to Evie, outshining all the competition in that field.
Bolan had been
informed, that morning, that the “body therapy” routine was finis. As he understood it, the idea was a pet theory of Paula’s which she had picked up from some Eastern mystic, having something to do with the flow of life energies from body to body. She explained to Bolan,
“The basis of all universal laws is the principle of balance. Our universe is balanced, the planets and the stars all giving off and receiving energies from one another, and our bodies do the same thing. A body with an ebbing life force will naturally induct the stronger energies emanating from a proximate body. This practice of isolating the sick with the sick is primitive hogwash and it’s self-defeating. Every sick person should go to bed with a strong, healthy partner—someone who can spare a slight diminishing of their own vital energies. The value gained by the vital forces of the patient could easily mean the difference between life and death.”
Bolan could understand why she had not completed her nurse’s training. “Yeah, but something else gets vitalized in the process,” he pointed out, “and a guy could end up losing a lot more energy than he gained.”
“That’s why we are discontinuing your body therapy,” Paula explained. Her eyes flashed mischievously. “Anyway, libidinal energies are the strongest force the body has going for it. Yours seem to be fully restored, so you’ve disqualified yourself from further body therapy.”
It was the nuttiest quackery Bolan had ever heard, but he kept a straight face and let the matter drop. They had saved his life; he would not openly question their methods. Something had worked, certainly.
Paula and Evie had gone off to keep the goldmine in operation, leaving Rachel to babysit the mending houseguest. Bolan had been trying, without apparent success, to penetrate the aloof coolness of the beauteous nursemaid and to repair the lines of communication he had so thoughtlessly ripped asunder on that first encounter. He had not seen the girl without clothing since that awful moment, or at least without what would pass for clothing in any nudist camp. At the moment she wore buckskin hotpants which hugged the hips, deeply plunging at front and rear, and with cutouts that revealed a goodly area of shiny buttock to each side. A fringed leather thingamajig hung from some hidden suspension point across the bountiful chest—like a Kit Carson fringed jacket without the jacket. A narrow headband with a tiny oriental symbol of some sort traversed the forehead just above the eyes to complete the ensemble.
Assault on Soho Page 17