“You are lacking in ethics, sir!” I was panting from the struggle.
“Granted.” He wrenched the garbage-pail lid from my grasp and sent it flying into the alley.
The maneuver took me off balance. I was forced to scamper up the fire escape to avoid his fury. I took my stand on the third-floor level and counterattacked. “How did you happen to get to the Swedish place, anyway?” I demanded.
“One thing leads to another.” It was a cryptic slash.
“I thought you fooled Elsa and Barry into taking you and Hortense to a discipline club.” I lunged.
“They were most obliging.” He parried.
“I suppose it’s no use asking you what you found out there.” My blade executed a figure eight.
“No use at all.” He reversed the figure, and once again we were at an impasse.
“Six-five says No-Tie takes him.” The voice came from a head craned upward from a window beneath us.
“You’re on.”
I launched a spirited series of lunges against my double, and he turned tail. My final thrust pierced the seat of his pants. “Touche!” He jumped.
“Touche?” inquired a voice above us.
“He means ‘tooshy’,” a second voice explained. “That's where No-Tie got him.”
“Touche, hell!” the Russian exclaimed. “That hurt!” He fled up the fire escape and turned as he reached the rooftop to meet my pursuit. “Farewell!” he shouted, and sent his sword hurtling at me point first.
I had to throw myself aside and downward to avoid being struck by it. The hilt bounced against the side of the building with enough force so that the weapon ricocheted through the air and disappeared through an open window across the alley. Immediately, a masculine scream of pain sounded from the open window.
“Yoicks! My husband must be back!” A female voice chimed in with the man’s scream. “You’ve got to get out of here!”
They were visible now. She was trying to push him onto the fire escape. He was having difficulty getting over the windowsill because of the sword protruding like a metal tail from his naked rear end. “Pull it out!” he begged.
“Hurry up and get out of here!” she insisted.
I left them to their problem I swung up over the roofledge to continue my pursuit of my adversary. He was nowhere in sight. It was as if the night had swallowed him up. I dashed to the other side of the roof.
He was already three-quarters of the way down the fire escape on the other side of the building. I started after him but it was no use. He paused for a brief instant as he reached the ground. “ ’Til we meet again, Mr. Victor,” he called, mocking me with a deep, sweeping bow.
“ ’Til we meet again, play actor,” I responded, bowing back and almost falling off the fire escape in the process.
His laughter continued to mock me as the blackness swallowed him up. I continued to the ground and decided the hell with it. There was no way of telling which way he’d gone. I’d had enough musketeering for one night, anyway. I decided to go back to my hotel and grab some shuteye.
I woke up with both arms full of pulchritude. Because of the breasts wrapped around my face, I was having difficulty breathing. I managed to extricate myself from them and saw that the grayness of late afternoon was closing in on my hotel room.
“Oh! But you are a sleepyhead, darling. Did I knock you out that much? I suppose I should be flattered.”
“I suppose so,” I echoed unthinkingly as my bleary eyes struggled to focus on Hortense. There were still a few wisps of her red hair straggling over them, which made it difficult.
“Well, I feel the same way,” she cooed. “My whole body aches. But it’s delicious. Every time I move, I want to groan. But then I think of you and I want to sing. It really was wonderful, wasn’t it?”
“Wonderful.” I couldn’t think of any reason not to agree.
“Absolutely extra-special.”
“Absolutely.” I was having trouble returning her tender glance. “Uh, how come you decided to drop in on me?”
“When you didn’t call, I got worried.” She looked a little bit hurt. “You don’t mind my coming over, do you?”
“Oh, no! Not at all. Glad to see you.”
“I’m relieved.” She beamed. “I was afraid you might think I was being over-possessive.”
“Perish the thought.” I struggled free of her embrace. “But I would appreciate it if you’d let me get a little air into my lungs.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I just want to hug you forever. I'm afraid to let you go. I know it’s foolish.”
“I’m sure you have every right -”
“Oh! You still feel the same.” She clapped her hands. “I’m so glad! I was afraid that in the cold light of morning —”
“Afternoon,” I corrected her. “The cold light of afternoon.”
“Afternoon,” she agreed. “Anyway, I was afraid it might just have been the evening’s madness and you’d regret the things you said.”
“I never regret anything I say,” I assured her. But I didn’t say them, I hedged mentally.
“I never thought anything so wonderful could happen to me, Steve,” Hortense was positively glowing. “I mean, I’m not stupid. I know what I am. A tramp. I’ve never kidded myself. I never thought any man could fall in love with somebody who’s done the things I’ve done. Men just don’t fall in love with girls in my business.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Oh, you are so doggone sweet! But what I’m trying to explain is that it’s not just that a man could feel that way about me. It’s that I could fall in love with a man, too. You get pretty cynical about men when you’re in the profession. Experience makes you that way. You don’t figure to go for a guy seriously. You tell yourself there’s nothing new under the ceiling. And then, out of the blue -- last night! Wow! I still can’t believe it’s happening to me!”
“I can’t believe it’s happening to me, either! ” I told Hortense fervently.
“Oh, I love you so much!”
I went down in a sea of kisses. “Just hold it a minute, will you, sweetie?” I gasped, fighting my way to the surface. “Maybe we should compare notes on what happened last night.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice was a trifle trembly.
“Now, don’t get upset. All I want to do is get the sequence of events straight for the survey.”
“But you were there!”
“It’s a sort of cross-check,” I told her weakly. “I want to see if our recollections jive. Just go through the evening from the beginning for me, will you?”
“It seems awfully silly.”
“Do it for me, baby.” I patted her.
“All right. I'll humor you if that’s what you want. Oh, darling, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you after last night. I’m hooked, that’s what. I’m hooked on love. I’m hooked on you.”
“That’s my girl. Now start at the beginning.”
“All right.” She shrugged. “After you called me, I got dressed and you picked me up at my place. We took a cab over to pick up Barry and Elsa and -”
“Do you happen to remember where they live?”
“Why? Don’t you? You had the address.”
“I lost it.”
“Oh. Well, it was just the other side of the river. Remember? Eucalyptus Drive. I don’t remember the number, but I’d know the house if I saw it again.”
“Good. Go on. What happened then?”
“Barry said you should pay off the cab and we’d take his car. The four of us piled into it, and he drove us back into Washington to the spank-party.”
“Tell me everything that happened there.”
“You mean while we were split up? But I already--”
“Everything. When we were together, too. Describe it all. I know it seems foolish, but I want to confirm all my recollections.”