"You don't get it. The boss supplies them. The girls got to make a deposit, you know, but then we get to keep the thing as long as we work there."
The tough crumb was interested. "Work where?" he asked.
"Very Special Message."
"What special message?"
"Nah. That's the name of the place I work, Very Special Message. You got a message you want delivered it can be delivered by a gorilla, a clown, Santa Claus. But mostly people order strip-a-grams. No one ever sent you a strip-a-gram?"
"You mean you go and do a striptease to deliver a message?" the guy who let her in exclaimed.
"Sure. No one ever sent you a strip-a-gram?"
"Who'd send meone of those?"
"Your boss. Your girlfriend. Just about anybody with fifty bucks and a sense of humor.''
The two hardguys looked at each other. They were both grinning.
"Hey fellas, I came in to use the phone, remember?"
The guy sitting at the desk said, "I don't remember, but I'm sure you could deliver a message."
"Hey, have a heart! This is my night off."
"Why don't you have a heart, baby."
"Yeah," agreed the one who had let her in. "I've never seen a strip-a-gram."
"You're kidding," Babette said. "I've done so many of the damn things that I'd of sworn everyone has seen me personally. And Bernie has ten of us going full-time, plus some part-timers in the busy season."
"Let's see you do your thing, kid," said the man at the desk. It sounded more like a command than a request.
"I ain't dressed for it," Babette complained, but her whine indicated she wanted to be encouraged.
"I thought you got undressed for it," the seated guy scoffed.
"I could just go down and use the lousy pay phone," Babette complained. "But you guys were so nice, making sure I found the right place. I'll see what I can do. It's too hot in here. Open the window. This is hard work."
"The place is air-conditioned."
"Listen. One rule we have is no sex — we're not prostitutes. The second rule is: if the place is hot, we don't do it. We can't shower after and we can't afford to go home between every message. So, either I open the windows, or I go use the pay phone."
"Go ahead. We can close them later."
Babette walked over to the windows and opened them. Her slow controlled walk already had the men excited. Hers was the perfectly conditioned, perfectly balanced body of the highly trained athlete. It was exciting every time she moved.
She then went back to the door area and arranged chairs for the two men.
They took the seats with their backs to the window.
Babette rummaged around in her handbag.
After seeming to debate over a couple of tapes, she put on the sound track for Flashdanceand quickly found "I'll Be Here Where the Heart Is." She pretended to be making up her mind, listening to part of it, deliberately building the suspense and the tension.
She then turned up the volume and stood up, poised, balanced. Babette moved in perfect time to the slow music. Her audience was unaware that what they were really seeing was a slow version of her daily warm-up exercises, stretching and warming every muscle.
As the song moved into the second verse, Gadgets let himself into the room. Babette had locked eyes with one of the men. She kicked her shoes into his chest so he had to catch them.
Gadgets turned his back on the scene and leaned out the window. Before the verse was over, he was dragging the first body over the window ledge.
Babette locked eyes on the really hard case and played with the buttons on her shirt. They came undone with agonizing slowness. Her victim's eyes were riveted on the shirtfront. He was scarcely breathing. One of the corpse's heels hit the floor with a slight thump, barely audible above the sound of the stereo. Gadgets quickly looked around, but neither man had noticed. He decided that he could probably set firecrackers off behind them without attracting attention.
Babette's shirt slipped from her shoulders. Every move was slow, sensuous. Both men were leaning forward.
Gadgets looked around and spotted an office he could reach without coming into the audience's peripheral-vision range. He yanked the rope off the arms and hoisted the body to his shoulders, moving silently through the computer area.
The third verse was playing as he made his way back. Gadgets found it almost impossible not to stop and stare.
Babette was fondling herself in time to the music. The muscles on the men's necks were knotted from excitement. Gadgets forced himself to turn his back and lean out the window. He took a deep breath of air before signaling to Politician to slide the next body down the rope.
The body accelerated through two stories of almost free-fall. Gadgets braced himself and wrapped one arm around it. The force tore his grip loose from the window ledge, but he managed to stop the body by catching his feet on the window ledge. The problem was to get himself back in without letting go of the 160 pounds of dead weight.
Politician saw what was happening. He put on a pair of gloves and then wrapped himself around the rope and quickly slid down. The song was through the second chorus and on to the fourth verse.
Gadgets glanced over his shoulder. The men were about to fall out of their chairs as Babette slowly slid off her slacks.
Between Politician and Gadgets, the body was quickly hauled into the computer room. Politician took one glance at Babette, then hastily turned his face. He and Gadgets carried the body between them.
The last chorus was playing as the two members of Able Team crept back to the window. Babette was strutting back and forth, clad only in a pair of bikini briefs.
Gadgets climbed out as the chorus began to repeat and fade out. There was no time to undo the rope, Politician was already climbing.
Gadgets took up the slack rope in his left hand — he had his knife in the right — and edged onto the ledge toward the pitons. He slashed the rope as far from the window as he could reach. Then, as he lost his balance, he dropped the knife into his pocket and grabbed the rope with two hands.
The rope was nearly taut because of Politician's weight. Gadgets was swinging at a high speed past the face of the building. He put his foot out and bounced himself out from the wall. As gravity pulled him back toward the wall, he managed to get his feet up to absorb the impact. He got himself braced, facing upward, with his feet on the brick surface.
The two worked their way up slowly, hand over hand, to the office two floors above.
Inside the computer room the music faded and Babette froze in an inviting pose with her arms spread open.
"Terrific," enthused the one who had let her in.
"Ahhh, you didn't finish the act," said the other, pointing to the bikini panties she was still wearing.
Babette reached for her shirt. "I went a hell of a lot further than I ever went before. We're supposed to stop at bra and panties. And usually we have another set of skin-coloreds on under those."
The tough one stood up and seized her wrist. He pointed to the sheath, still strapped to her forearm.
"And what the hell is this?" he growled.
Suddenly Babette's voice was no longer friendly. There was steel in it. "It's an ice pick. It reminds the customer that this is only a show."
Her hard voice was punctuated by an authoritative pounding on the door, and Ti's voice. "Babette, are you in there?"
Babette wrenched her wrist out of the tough's grip and proceeded to put her shirt on while she glared at him. Then there was a thump, the door flew open; the jamb was splintered at the catch. Ti stood in the hall, her foot still in the air from the powerful side kick that had sent the door crashing open.
The two men stood staring, unwilling to believe that such a large kick had come from such a small woman. Babette stepped into her slacks.