by Ted Mark
Still, I had to be cagey. So I kept going past the first floor of bedrooms to the second. There I began flinging open doors at random and shining my flashlight into the rooms.
"Get the hell out of here!" Candlelight flickered in the first room. The naked man with the whip turned from his target and snapped the lash angrily at me. I ducked it and shined the light at his target. The nude girl, bent double and holding her ankles, shot me an impish grin from between her shapely legs. She wasn't one of the two I was seeking.
"Sorry," I apologized as the whip cracked at me again. "But there's no need to get nasty." I slammed the door shut.
"What are you, some kind of voyeur or something?" was the next response I drew.
"I see your belly button," I sang out as I slammed the door behind me.
"Jeez! You get more privacy in a parked car than in this joint!"
"Watch it! Your brake is slipping," I advised, moving on to the next room.
"Hey! Can't you see we're busy?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to get unbusy, and fast." I'd struck pay dirt. The body beneath the speaker belonged to the brunette S.M.U.T. pixie, one of the two girls I was looking for. "It's time to go home," I added to her. "Your mother wants you."
"That light is blinding me," she complained. "Go 'way."
"S.M.U.T.," I told her. "I'm one of you. And the orders are to evacuate fast."
"I don't dig that kind of jazz," the man complained. "I'm pretty broad-minded, but there's some scenes I draw the line at."
"Don't knock it until you've tried it," I advised him. "Come on, let's go," I told the girl.
"Can't you wait 'til I get my girdle on?"
"Hurry it up. I'm having a busy night."
"Some nerve!" the guy called after us as we exited. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
"Just start without me," the chick called over her shoulder.
"Just how the hell am I going to get you out of here?" I wondered aloud. "Those hoods are sure to be watching that staircase."
"I know." She snapped her fingers. "Just follow me." She led the way down the hall and pointed out a dumbwaiter set into one of the walls. "You can work the ropes and lower me from here," she suggested.
"Okay." I helped her in and began lowering away.
Everything went well for a minute, and then she suddenly yelped up at me. "Stop! stop! Sto-"
"What's the matter?"
No answer. I leaned over the shaft and shined the flashlight straight down. It lit up the bottom, where the shaft widened. There was a heap of garbage down there. As I hit it with the light, the girl was just crawling out from under it. Evidently the dumbwaiter platform had tilted and dumped her there.
Suddenly another head, a man's, leaned out into the shaft from the floor below me. He looked down at the girl floundering in the garbage pile and then looked up at me. "You shouldn't throw her out," he advised. "She's good for at least another ten years yet." He shook his head sadly and vanished.
"Are you all right?" I called down to the girl.
"Yes. I missed my stop. But it's probably better this way. I can get out through the basement."
"So long, then." I waved goodbye and resumed my quest for the other members of S.M.U.T.
Jock O'Steele was easy to find. I just listened outside a few doors until I heard the sound of running water. My light picked up a girl wearing only pasties and a G- string. She was lying on the bed alone. I guessed this must be Bubbles.
"Where's Jock?"
"Taking a shower. Can't you hear him?"
I certainly could. A booming, off-key rendition of A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody was coming through the bathroom door. "How come he's singing?" I wondered aloud.
"If you really want to find out -" Bubbles stretched insinuatingly.
"Sorry, I don't have the time. But are you trying to tell me that he – umm – made it with you?"
"And how!" She held up four fingers.
"Then how come he's taking a shower now?" I was confused.
"He told me he believed in moderation so he was gonna take a cold shower to prove to himself he still had the will power to stop."
"I'll be damned." I crossed over to the bathroom door and banged on it with my fist. "Jock. It's me, Steve."
The sound of rushing water stopped, and the door opened. Jock looked shamefaced but rebellious as he confronted me.
"S.M.U.T.'s got trouble," I started to tell him. "We have to-"
But he interrupted me. "The hell with S.M.U.T.!" he said. "I resign! I've fallen off the wagon. And I don't give a damn what you think."
"I don't think anything," I assured him. "Your secret's safe with me if you want it to be. I don't blame you one little bit. But that's aside from the point right now." I explained to him about the hoods gunning for us.
"Don't worry. We'll get out," he assured me, flexing his muscles, which were indeed impressive. "We'll use Bubbles here for a decoy." He outlined his plan to me as he got dressed.
A few minutes later Bubbles sashayed down the staircase with a lit candle in her hand. She spotted the hood at the bottom of the stairs and wiggled over to him. Then, holding her candle in front of her, she went into a slow, sexy bump-and-grind routine. The hood's eyes bugged out as he watched her.
With him distracted, Jock and I crept down the stairs. Jock moved over right in back of the gunman and raised his fist. He brought it down just once – hard. The hood crumpled on the floor, unconscious.
But neither Jock nor I saw the second gunman coming out of the parlor. I had shined the light on the unconscious hood, and as I raised it the beam inadvertently focussed on Jock. Two shots rang out before I could douse the light. By that time Bubbles was already trying to drag Jock out of what had been the line of fire.
I helped her as she felt her way into a closet. She closed the door silently behind us, and I turned on the light again, shielding it with my hand. One look was enough to see that Jock had had it.
He looked up at Bubbles with a big smile. He winked. And then he died. I do believe he died happy.
I let Bubbles slip out of the closet first. After a moment or two, I followed. It was still pitch black, and I didn't dare use the light. There was no telling where those killers might be.
I went back up the stairs. It didn't take me long to find the third of the S.M.U.T. girls, the blonde. She was putting on a little show for some of the men in an upstairs parlor. About two dozen candles had been arranged in a circle to light up her playing area.
As I entered, she was just dousing herself with lighter fluid from head to toe. She held one foot daintily over one of the candle flames and immediately her body burst into a flaming torch. She moved quickly around the circle, blazing away, her nudity peeping through the crackling flames.
I saw through the impressive stunt. It's a fact that if the body moves fast enough to create a semi-vacuum in its wake, only the fluid on the surface and not the flesh itself will burn. But the other men were awed by it. "That's the hottest show I ever saw," one of them remarked as she rolled on the floor to put out the fire before it was too late.
The show wasn't over yet, though. Now she applied the same principle to specific portions of her anatomy. She sat in a bowl of the lighter fluid and lit up her derriere. Then she did it to one breast, twirling it quickly so the flames wouldn't scorch it. It was quite a sight, with the long, red nipple quivering in the flames. She repeated it with the other breast, and then she was ready for the grand finale.
"I need a volunteer," she said, as she poured handfulls of lighter fluid over the curly triangle beneath her belly.
I had to get to her somehow, so I volunteered.
"Make love to me," she instructed, lying down on the floor.
Under ordinary circumstances, that wouldn't have been any hardship – but these weren't exactly ordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, I did my best to comply. The murmurs from the onlookers said my best was more than adequate.
"Now," she panted, "move very hard and fast."
I did as she said, and she reached out for a candle and ignited the lighter fluid- covered area. Immediately, she began moving like a motor being raced. I hurried to keep up with her, prodded by a sudden singeing from the flames flaring up where we were joined. I found that if I followed her rhythm, I wouldn't be burned.
So I followed her rhythm. All the way. And with one final surge of passionate release, we put out the fire.
"Come with me," I murmured to her as we clasped each other in the moment of exhaustion following our exertions. "They've caught wise to S.M.U.T., and there are gunmen after you."
Her eyes got very wide, and she followed me out of the room unquestioningly. We stopped off in another room for a moment while she threw on some clothes and I explained the situation more fully to her. After that, figuring the dumbwaiter was worth another try, I started to lead her to it.
Halfway there, my flashlight beam picked up one of the hoods standing guard at the dumbwaiter. Mrs. Vendergash must have tipped him off to its possibilities as an escape route. I pulled the blonde back around the bend in the hallway before we were spotted.
The question was what to do now. The other bullyboy was bound to be conscious again by now and covering the staircase. How was I going to get the blonde out?
The sight of a fireplace in the room inspired an answer. I lay down on my back and peered up the chimney. It was quite wide, and I could see a couple of stars dotting the top of it. "I wonder what the roof of this place is like?" I mused aloud.
"I've been up there," she told me, catching on fast. "There's a fenced-in sundeck for the girls there. And you can reach out and touch the fire escape of the building next door."
"Then let's go." I gave her a boost up the chimney.
It was easy climbing. The bricks had been staggered, probably for the benefit of a chimney sweep, and provided more than adequate footholds. A few moments later, covered with soot and looking like refugees from a minstrel show, we emerged from the mouth of the chimney and dropped the few feet to the roof. I helped the blonde onto the fire escape of the building next door, directed the light so she could see her way down, and then waved a goodbye. I wasn't sure she could see in the blackout.
I had to go back. There was still one more member of S.M.U.T. to be rescued: Singh Huy-eva. The thought of his name brought a curse to my lips as I went back down the chimney. It was more difficult going down than it had been coming up, and I slipped at one point. Only a fast grab saved me from joining Singh's rather exclusive fraternity. As it was, I skinned a few inches of fat from my derriere.
Fortunately, it wasn't too difficult to find him. He was inside the third room I tried. He was naked except for the white turban around his head. Tabby, the girl with him, was even more nude. She wasn't even wearing a turban.
Singh was sitting with his legs crossed, staring off into space. He was oblivious to my entrance. His features were transformed as if he was off in another world somewhere – which may well have been the case.
Tabby was sitting at his feet, her chin cupped in her hands, also staring fixedly. But the depth of her concentration didn't begin to approach his. Still, she didn't move her eyes as she asked me what I wanted.
"What are you staring at?" I asked her in turn.
"His navel."
"His navel? But why? Why are you staring at his navel?"
"Because," she sighed, "he has nothing else to stare at."
I could see what she meant. Poor Singh! But I had no time to waste on sympathy. "How do I get him out of his trance?" I asked Tabby. "I have to talk to him."
"What is it that you want, Mr. Victor?" Singh's voice seemed to come from very far away.
"I thought you were in Nirvana," Tabby said disillusionedly.
"I am. But I have dual consciousness. I have mastered the art of being in two places at the same time."
"Then you better stay in the other place," I told him. "Because this one is getting to be quite a hot spot." I continued talking, explaining the situation to him. By the time I finished, his return from Nirvana was complete.
"I think we had best make haste to leave," he summed up and began pulling on his clothes. "But, Mr. Victor," he added, surveying my soot-covered nudity, "don't you think you too should dress?"
"It's too risky going back for my clothes," I told him.
"Ah, I see. Then we shall have to improvise." Singh pulled a sheet from the bed and draped it around me.
Tabby looked on with interest as he twisted and tucked it here and there. "You look like Sammy Davis, Jr., in drag," she observed when he'd finished toga-ing me.
"Don't be chauvinistic," I told her.
"But she is right, Mr. Victor. At a quick glance, the way you look at the moment, you and I could be brothers."
"Okay, brother, so tell me how we're going to get out of here. I've just about exhausted all the possibilities I can figure."
"I can help you," Tabby said. "There's a back staircase that used to be used by servants. It runs all the way down to the cellar. You can get out that way."
So we let Tabby lead us, and the escape proved simplicity itself. Singh gave her his blessing in the basement, and we slipped outside to an alley running alongside the building. As we emerged from the alley, I got my first real look at New York in the blackout.
There's only one way to describe it. It was dark. Very dark. Park Avenue might have been some underground cavern. And the skyline looked like a subterranean horizon of stalagmites. Here and there, in the distance, car headlights flitted like twin fireflies coming in low for a landing. Candles in windows dotted the facades of the buildings like flickering rebukes to Tom Edison. An occasional flashlight drew chalkmarks across the blackboard of the night with the impudence of a naughty child whose teacher has left the room.
I turned on my own flashlight as we started up the Avenue. A sedan, large and black, its headlights out, moved slowly up, pacing us for a moment. Then an extremely bright searchlight beam was aimed at us from one of the windows. The tone of the voice behind it said that the speaker had a gun and that the lightbeam was meant to pinpoint a target area. Needless to say, we were the target area.
"Get in." Only the two words.
Singh and I looked at each other.
"Don't try it," the voice advised.
We didn't try it. We got in the car.
"Smart." The voice approved our compliance. "Neat, the way you got out, too. We almost missed you."
"What do you want with us?" I asked.
"You're from S.M.U.T." The voice assumed the statement was explanation enough.
"What are you going to do to us?"
The voice laughed. It was an extremely unpleasant laugh. "Kill you, of course." The tone said the answer should have been obvious and that it was childish of us to have even raised the question. Still, it was an indulgent tone as it repeated the answer: "We're going to kill you!"
CHAPTER FOUR
"We're going to kill you!"
Cheery words; a cheery prospect. That's how they were spoken, anyway. But somehow I couldn't get into the joyful spirit of the occasion. Neither could Singh. We both fell quiet as the car moved slowly through the pitchblack streets of the crippled city.
Finally Singh broke the silence. "I do not smoke myself," he said, following it up with more relevance. "But perhaps my companion would like a last cigarette."
It was very considerate of him, but his choice of words sent a chill down my spine. Still, I did want a smoke. "Is it okay?" I asked.
The hood in the back and the one sitting beside the driver exchanged shrugs. "Go ahead," one of them said.
So I reached for a cigarette, reached down to where my pocket should have been. No cigarette. No pocket. There are no pockets in a toga; not even in a homemade toga. Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but he sure as hell couldn't have done much smoking in that bedsheet he was wearing. I spread my palms to indicate my predicament.
"Here." One of the hoofds passed me a cigarette.
"Allow me." Singh reached over with a Zippo lighter, which burst into flame as he lit the coffin-nail for me.
What happened then was done so quickly and so casually that it was a moment before either I or our captors realized it had happened. Just prior to it, Singh must have manipulated the window handle beside him with his elbow so the window was open a few inches. Now, as he finished lighting my cigarette, he tossed the lit lighter over his shoulder and out of the window as naturally as if it was an ordinary match. But he tossed it calculatedly and with accuracy.
The flaming lighter landed neatly in the open coat collar of a traffic cop who had just waved us past a corner. It lodged there. Jumping up and down to beat out the flames, the cop began blowing his whistle and waving his flashlight at us. These actions also served as a signal to the cop at the next corner to stop us, which he did.
It all happened so fast that both cops were alongside the car before our captors had a chance to react. The first cop was singed and mad, and he was waving his pistol around furiously. The second cop, probably more jittery than usual because of the blackout, also had his gun out.
"Did you see him jump?" Singh said loudly as the cops leaned into the car.
"Who threw that?" The first cop looked apoplectic.
"It was an accident, officer," one of the hoods tried to explain.
But Singh overrode his explanation. "I did," he admitted loudly. "But it was my friend's idea." He pointed at me.
"All right, you wise guys. Get out!"
Singh got out. The hood in back followed him. I emerged last.
"They had nothing to do with it," Singh told the cop, pointing at the hood on the sidewalk and the two still in the front of the car. "They don't even know us. We just asked them for a lift because of the power failure and they agreed."
"All right." The cop motioned the hood back into the car. "You three can go."
"But -" the driver started to protest, realizing that Singh and I were about to slip out of their clutches.
"No buts," the cop said firmly. "You wanna go to jail with these two, just hang around. Otherwise, get out of here fast before I change my mind."