"How profane," she groaned. "And after all we've been through together."
"Time to rise and shine."
She giggled sleepily. "That's your department."
He slapped her again, more briskly.
She yowled and rolled away, coming to rest slumped upon the edge of the bed, feet on the floor "Give me a push," she requested in a small voice. "Maybe I can make it."
"Make it where?"
"To the bathroom, Captain Ignorant Don't you know anything about girls? We puke every morning after. That's a reaction to male exploitation."
Bolan chuckled.
She declared, small-voiced, "If I try very hard, I'll bet I can make it. But then I'll probably never walk again."
He told her, "Nothing visibly wrong from here. You look all systems go." "Went, Captain Ecstasy. Went."
He pushed her with his foot. She slid to the floor and sat there, cross-legged, scowling back at him.
He said, "If it's all that bad, hell ... give it back."
She turned away, head drooping toward the floor. Mack ... ?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"I mean, pardon the cliche, I needed that."
He told her, "We both did."
"So what now?" she asked, still drooping. "Will you marry me?"
"Marry a cop? Me?"
She laughed quietly. "That would be far out, wouldn't it? Well ... I guess I've got to marry somebody."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. For the first time in my life, I feel like an ex-virgin."
"Is it that bad?"
"It's that good," she said.
"Well... Toby... Maybe we'll cross again ... somewhere."
"Let's quit. Both of us quit. The business, I mean."
"What would that solve?"
She swiveled that lovely head about to gaze at him over a rose petal shoulder. "For you, I guess, nothing."
"And for you?"
She shrugged daintily. "I don't know. I get confused, Mack. I don't know what the hell it's all about, even. You ever get that way?"
He told her, "Yeah. Occupational hazard. But it passes."
She sighed. "Mack..."
"Yeah?"
"I'm not on an assignment. Not officially."
"What are you on, then?"
"I'm looking for Georgette."
"For who?"
"You remember Georgette Chableu. The Canadian — "
Sure he remembered. The body shop, tall, dark, and juicy, the Canuck member of the Ranger Girls. "What's happened to her?"
"That's what I've been hoping to find out. Logic tells me that she's dead. But I have to know. You understand?"
Bolan understood. People who lived large also grieved large, and there was no shrugging off the uncertain fate of a comrade in arms.
He left the bed and pulled the girl to her feet, then hustled her along to the bathroom, where they shared another shower, much briefer and considerably more subdued this time. Later he shaved while she put a breakfast together, and it was not until they were facing each other across the dining table that the conversation was resumed.
"Tell me about it," Bolan commanded.
She nibbled daintily at crisp bacon and said, "Well … where do I start? Some background, I guess. Toronto, let's start there. It's Georgette's home town. They've been having this problem for — oh, I guess a couple of years. Small at first, but growing all the time. Now the Canadian authorities are in full alarm. Girls disappearing, see, I mean, vanishing. Never to be seen again. Each of the victims is a kid, still in her teens or barely out of them. All beautiful. All from the edge of show business and — "
"Which edge?"
Toby wrinkled her nose. "Mostly legitimate. A few of the victims had been playing around with porno movie makers. But most were just kids looking for a legitimate start somewhere. Beauty contestants, singers, go-go girls, you know the routine. Someplace to showcase beauty, a speck or two of talent, and a dream. A lot of those dreams turned to nightmares, I'd guess."
Bolan sipped his coffee, then stared into the cup with see-nothing eyes. "Prostitution, eh?"
"That's the general impression. But not just prostitution."
"Slavery." He spat it, like a bad taste in his mouth.
"That's the nice name. Two of the victims turned up recently. One was found in the gutter of a Mexican border town, across the Rio Grande from Texas. She was dead from a heroin overdose. The other took the quick way down from the top of a posh resort hotel near Acapulco."
"Canada to Mexico," Bolan muttered.
"For those two, yes."
"Sending prostitutes to Mexico," he commented heavily, "is like carrying coals to Newcastle."
"Toronto thinks that Mexico is just one stop on an international circuit. Big time. Jet set party girls, sort of. This idea is based mostly on the missing girls themselves. They're not just pretty girls, Mack. They're spectacular girls, without exception."
"Will it never end?" Bolan growled.
"Name of the game, friend," Toby replied soberly. "Sex for sale is damned big business, or hadn't you heard?"
"For sale or trade," he reminded her. "Some guys will sell their souls to hell for a free peek into that cosmic sprawl."
"What?"
"Pet theory of mine regarding the basis of sex. Forget it. What about Georgette now?"
"Well, back to Toronto. They decided that the victims were either kidnapped or lured with false promises. Which means, then, that most of the girls will have to be broken. You know the routine."
Yes, Bolan knew the routine. Terror, repeated rape, degradation, shame, drugs — and, if nothing else worked, the threat of "dirty pictures" being sent-home to families and friends.
Toby was continuing the report. "Georgette has this friend in Toronto who is someone big with the police establishment. I don't know the whole story, but I do know that the contact was made through our office in Washington. She got a release from Washington and volunteered to help Toronto with the usual undercover gig. Georgie's a real phantom at that stuff, as you should know."
Yes, Bolan knew. "This was when?"
"About six weeks ago. She took a job at one of the suspect places, go-go girl. Had one meeting with her contact man a few days after she started. She reported at that time that she had been introduced to Tony Quaso, but not by that name. He was posing as a talent agent from New York, but she recognized him immediately. As the story went, he was supposed to return the next night with another agent, to catch her routine. Toronto had her under constant surveillance. They had her room bugged, two of their men had jobs in that club. But Georgette vanished a few hours after that report to her contact. Hasn't been seen or heard from since."
"Six weeks," Bolan growled.
Toby tossed her head and said, "I gave her a couple of weeks to surface. Then I asked the home office to put me on the case. They didn't say no. They said hell no. So ... I hadn't had a real vacation for two years. I had leave coming and I took it."
Bolan sighed. Half of his breakfast remained untouched and forgotten. He lit a cigarette and glared at the wall. Finally he said, "So you cultivated Tony Quaso."
She nodded her head and made a wry face. "I figured that would be the most direct approach."
"So what did you learn?"
"Not much, I guess. But I was getting there, until tonight. And I did get at least a sniff of Georgette's trail. I believe they found out about her federal connection."
"What made you think that?"
"Personal experience I had. I walked into Quaso's joint out here on Six Mile Road and asked for a job. The manager auditioned me and hired me on the spot. I was billed as Linda Lakemont but I was on the payroll as Linda Walters. Three nights after I started, Quaso himself came in during the last act and issued a royal summons for me to join him at his table. One of the bartenders brought the drinks, in a joint that has a cocktail waitress for every three tables. That put my teeth on edge, and I was scared to death to drink it, but I did. Then the same bartender came back for the empties. He used the old two finger trick when he picked up my glass. You know, two pinkies inside to preserve the fingerprints outside."