The Erection Set (12 page)

“Small world. You never should have left the countryside. What the hell you see in the city is beyond me.”

“Commerce, big Dog. One has to clothe and feed oneself. I'm not exactly the factory type and there was nothing left for me in the old hometown once Dad died. You ought to know the feeling.”

I pulled over the peanut bowl and stuck it between us. “My leaving wasn't entirely voluntary. I was encouraged. Hell, if you haven't heard the old stories you're missing a lot of scoop.”

“Oh, we heard things, but mostly it was overhearing what the grown-ups were talking about. It didn't make much of an impression. Just before I left, there was a lot of hoopla going on about those girl cousins of yours. I never paid much attention to it. You're going to be quite a shock to them, aren't you?”

“My lawyer is preparing them for the strain,” I glanced at her. “Why are you so curious about the Barrins?”

“I guess I'm still hungry for any news from home. I haven't been back since I left.”

“Good. Let's take a crack at it together.”

She looked at me a few seconds, smiled and nodded. “Okay. When?”

“Tomorrow ... if you can get off.”

“Mr. S. C. Cable is damn well indebted to me, Kelly boy. My time is my own for a while.”

I looked at my watch. It was after one in the morning. “Then let me get you home. It's going to be a short night. Where do you live?”

“Not far. We can walk.”

I shook my head and laughed, threw some money on the bar, grabbed a handful of peanuts and held out her raincoat. “Come on, seal,” I said.

Her apartment was a high rise on the East Side, a modem slab of polished concrete and glass that towered next to its twin, presided over by uniformed doormen with calculating eyes that could read through any pretense but couldn't quite accept reality.

Sharon's offer of a nightcap was warm and for real and she let me open the door of her apartment, entered ahead of me switching on the lights, then hung our coats in the foyer closet. “You make the drinks,” she said. “The bar's over there and I'm going to change, as they say, into something more comfortable. At least dry.” She let out another tinkly laugh. “You'll just have to suffer. I don't think you'd look very good in one of my housecoats.”

“I'll live.”

I made the drinks, then toured the room, wondering how the hell anybody could stand the cold efficiency of modem living. Everything was functional American, conscientiously decorated according to the rulebook of Manhattan. It took a few minutes before I recognized what was wrong. There was nothing personal about the place at all. It was just that ... a place. Like hotel suites that came out of their own rulebooks.

Her voice came from the darkened comer of the room and I could feel her eyes watching me. “What are you thinking, Dog?”

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years. Why?”

“This isn't a girl's place at all.” I turned around and she walked into the light, a picture of loveliness in a sheer blouse knotted under her breasts and a gamin skirt that swirled around those lovely legs. Her hair was up under a turban that made her look like something from the Arabian Nights and I felt a thump in my stomach before I got hold of myself.

“Strange observation. Most men would never notice it. But you're right.” She took the drink I held out and folded up on the plastic couch with her legs tucked under her, then settled back, smiling. “I can't call an apartment in Manhattan home. I just live here. I don't even want to fake it with all the nice little goodies women usually enjoy playing with. I'd rather wait.”

“For what?”

“The real home I'm going to have.”

I rattled the ice in my glass and tried the drink again. “Positive little gal, aren't you? Who you got picked out?”

An impish grin tugged at her mouth. “Oh, I'm already engaged, so I can afford tq be positive.”

“He's going to have his hands full with you, kitten.”

“Yes, I know.” She put her drink down and uncurled from the chair, then walked slowly across to me. Her arms went up and encircled my neck, her mouth moist and open. “Wouldn't you like to have your hands filled with me, Dog?”

It was a strange kiss, slow, easy, then like magnets pulling together hard and frenzied with her body melting into mine, fusing with heat and crazy wanting. The knot of the blouse became undone and her warmth was pressed against me, a low moan deep in her throat.

When I held her away my breath was coming too damn fast and I had trouble keeping my voice under control. “You're an engaged woman, Sharon. Remember?”

“There are times when I could forget very easily.”

I tied the knot back under her breasts. “Quit making me pant. I'm beginning to feel like one of the toadies at Walt's party. I have to go.”

“You can stay if you want to.”

“No I can't.”

“Why not?” Her tone was teasing and that impish grin was playing around her mouth again

“I didn't bring my can opener,” I said.

“I can lend you one.”

Then we both laughed and she got my coat. At the door I kissed her good night, a small, brushing kiss with my hand under her chin. I looked at those big eyes again and took a deep breath. “Any trouble from you, kitten, and you're going to get bounced.”

“Wonderful!”

“I didn't mean it that way,” I laughed.

“Tomorrow?” she said.

“Tomorrow.”

 

 

A war movie from the late forties was thundering through the apartment when I walked in. Lee was sprawled on the floor, a soft cushion under his head and a drink in his hand, staring glassy-eyed at the TV screen, an overflowing ashtray beside him. He jerked around, startled, when I touched him with my toe, taking a full second to recognize me and relax.

“Buddy, do you cut a path when you move.”

I walked over to the bar and poured myself a ginger ale. “Now what?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Nobody can get near that Cass doll without it being plotted like the D-day invasion and you walk out with her on your arm in five minutes. Just how do you pull it off, Dog?”

“I'm polite.”

“Balls. I don't know what you're after, but you got everybody watching you like a hawk. From now on, a nonentity you ain't.” He burped and finished his beer, tossing the empty can at a wastebasket and missing. He pushed himself to his feet and stood there, swaying. “Dick Lagen made a phone call.”

“Good for him.”

“It was about you.”

“Great,” I said.

Lee made a disgusted face and weaved over to a chair. “Look, Dog, when that guy starts a project, he just doesn't let up. I didn't get most of the conversation, but he's doing a rundown on you and Barrin Industries.”

“So?”

“If you have anything to do, get it done fast”

I finished the ginger ale and started taking off my clothes. “Why should I?”

“Because if you have anything to hide, forget it. That newspaper syndicate of his lets him go all the way out. They've got contacts all over the world and ...”

“Lee,” I cut in, “knock it off. If he wants a biography, I'll give it to him personally.”

“Sure you will. How much of it will be true?”

“None of it,” I said.

“That's what I thought.” He stared into his hands a second, then wiped them across his face. “Dog ... no shit now, you in some kind of trouble?”

“Just staying alive is trouble,” I told him. I folded my coat across a chair and stripped off my shirt. His eyes saw the scars and went wide, his tongue flicking out nervously to lick his lips.

“Dog,” he said, “you know this apartment is being watched?”

“Who says?”

“The doorman, Danny ... he's a retired cop. He spotted them this afternoon. I heard him telling Clarence when they changed shifts. Look, nobody ever cased this building before, even when the whores had an operation going in the penthouse. These guys aren't cops, either.”

I walked over to the phone, picked up the receiver and dialed a number. When a voice I recognized answered, I said in Spanish, “Chet, you have a tail on me?”

Chet Linden had just awakened, but was totally alert. “Uh-huh,” he said. “We decided to keep you under surveillance until we're sure. Have a good time with that pretty blonde, Dog? If you want any information on her I can give it to you.”

“Friend, you wouldn't want to aggravate me, would you?” I asked him.

“Certainly not, Dog.”

“Then cancel the tails. The next time out I'll simply lose them. If I pick them up the second time I'll lean on them a little. If it happens for the third time I'll hurt them good and come after you.”

“You change colors fast, Dog.”

“Let's keep it pleasant, Chet. This isn't amateur night. You should know better. Now, do you lift the tails?”

After a moment he said, “What's your itinerary?”

“Tomorrow a meeting with the family. Then back here, I suppose. I'll be glad to let you know if you don't deactivate this number.”

“You wouldn't screw me, would you, Dog?”

“Chet, if I did you'd never know it.”

“Okay. We'll keep this line monitored.”

“Chet ...”

“Yes, Dog?”

“What are you leaving out?”

He chuckled, and I could picture his face wrinkled in a grin. “Still the shrewdie, aren't you?”

“Let's have it, kid.”

“There's a rumble on in the Paris area. Some of your former associates are trying to locate you. Pretty soon they'll tumble and pick up your trail.”

“Hell, I'm not hard to find. I used my own passport and came back the way I went out.”

I heard that same laugh again. “That's what fooled them. They never figured that angle. It looked like a beautiful decoy.”

“So tell them where I am.”

“Yeah, sure. Take it easy, Dog. You know conditions in this racket.”

I grunted and hung up. Lee had an uneasy expression on his face, not able to tell what it was all about. Finally he said, “Just answer me one thing, Dog. Do I have anything to worry about?”

It was too good a question to resist. “Hardly a thing,” I told him.

He looked a little pale around the mouth, swallowed hard and shuffled off to his bedroom. “Hardly.” he said.

“Oh, boy!”

The three of us sat in the back compartment of the limousine. Not the back seat. The compartment. When it came to practical luxuries, Leyland Hunter hadn't been niggardly with himself. He perched in his own specially made swivel chair, idly rocking, grinning at Sharon and me like a kid showing off a new toy.

“Like it?”

“I've misjudged you, mighty Hunter,” I said.

He tapped the back of the partition beside him. “Color TV. The bar comes out of the wall on your side. Well stocked, I might add. Radio, freezer compartment for Ice...”

“If this back seat makes up into a bed you'd have a nice rolling bordello, friend.” Sharon's elbow gave me a nudge and I knew she was trying to suppress a smile. “Don't laugh, kid,” I told her. “The old goat can still deliver. In fact, he's thinking of taking up the sport seriously.”

Sharon said generously, “I believe it.”

Leyland's eyes twinkled. “He's right, you know. Of course, it will be on a carefully calculated ... and timed basis. My age doesn't allow for too much exuberance these days.”

“Men,” she laughed.

“And now,” Leyland answered her, “let's talk about women. Specifically you. Dog here has told me about your forays onto Mondo Beach. Is it possible I knew your father? Was he Larry Cass?”

Sharon's forehead wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “Why .. yes.”

“Ah, then I did know him. Quite well, in fact. At one time he was in charge of new projects at Barrin. A valuable man. Too bad they lost him.” “He couldn't stand the new management,” Sharon told him bluntly.

“And I can't blame him,” Leyland said. “The era of big business came to a standstill when the giants died off. Industry has succumbed to the computer age. The incompetents move in and make up for their inadequacies by the sheer weight of numbers, college degrees and inherited wealth. Nobody pounds a table anymore or walks down in shirt sleeves for a head-on clash with a foreman who screwed things up. Cameron Barrin was a giant. It was a shame to see him go too.” The faraway look left his eyes and he glanced at Sharon with a little smile. “I remember Larry having a daughter. She went fishing with us one day.”

“In a boat?”

“Yes, a rowboat. We caught flounders. You didn't want to put live minnows on the hook ...”

“And cried! Yes, I remember that. But you were so ... I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It was many years ago. From the way it looks I'll be having more fun now than I did when I was young. Incidentally, pretty little lady, I hope you have no designs on my unscrupulous friend here. There are better prospects in the world, I'm sure.”

“I'm engaged, Mr. Hunter.”

“That is no excuse. Would your fiancé approve of your being on a junket with someone like him ... even for a day?”

“I doubt if he'd object. He's very broad-minded.”

“So is Dog. That's what I had reference to.”

“Aren't you an acceptable chaperon?”

“Not anymore, little one. Dog has seen to that. I've become quite lecherous.”