“I can pull them up right quick, Peter. But not this corset. You wouldn’t believe what a job that is.”
“I believe. I believe,” he grumbled, poking away for all the world as if he was testing a roast beef to see if it was ready.
“Passion’s final hurdle is the girdle.” Amanda giggled. Coy yet!
“I think I got it!” Pete’s hand vanished up to the wrist.
“Oh my, yes!” Her hands locked around his neck, and she bounced up and down on the edge of the desk.
Using one hand to push the girdle out of his way as much as he was able, the sheriff advanced a few steps until he was wedged between her waiting limbs. He lunged forward, and her knees grasped at his hips. His naked bun moved in a blur of motion.
Amanda was propelled, sliding, from one side of the desk to the other and back again. The sheriff managed to get one hand under her, wedged between the girdle and her bottom, and whatever it was doing had her yelling “Whoops! Whoops! Whoops!” over and over again.
“Not so loud, Amanda,” he cautioned her, panting.
“Nobody can hear. Everyone’s still asleep.” She wriggled, pushing as tight up against him as she could get. “I want all of it!” she demanded. “Give me all of it!”
“I would if it wasn’t for this damn corset!”
“Then play with my bosoms.”
“Like this?”
“Oh, yes! Oh, that really is the whammies!”
Her large, bra-freed breasts bounced in his hands like twin footballs in mid-pass. The sheriff moved his hands to her hips then, leaning his weight forward, pinning her to the desktop. He was pounding away so determinedly that he didn’t even notice that his gonads were bouncing against the steel handle of the top desk drawer. Her ankles, still stretching the bloomers, were straining farther and farther apart. I was getting ridges in my cheeks from pressing against the bars to look in the mirror.
“Hot damn!” The sheriff came up off his feet and landed on top of her on the desk. She muffled a scream; her legs shot out straight; the ankle strain was too much for the bloomers; the elastic snapped.
Half a moment later they rolled off the desk and fell to the floor with a dull crash. That’s when I realized that my head was wedged so solidly between the bars that it was caught there. And that’s when the first knock sounded at the outer door to the sheriff’s office.
“Hell!” He got to his feet, struggling to pull up his boxer shorts and pants.
“That’s no language to be usin’ in front of a lady, Peter!” Amanda chastised him.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Amanda. But maybe you’d best get dressed in the closet. I reckon it’s that New York prevert with the bail money.”
“Well, all right, Peter, if you think it best. But see you hurry him on his way now. I have to be gettin’ back to fix Julius his breakfast. You know how the judge is about hot victuals when he wakes up in the mornin’.”
“Wouldn’t want to cheat the judge of his breakfast.”
The sheriff shooed her gently into the closet and shut the door. He took a few seconds to tuck in his shirt and unrumple his hair, and then he opened the outer door. It was Lancelot Twitchcock. All three hundred pounds of him. A welcome sight. He was huffing under the weight of the clothes he’d brought for Randy and me.
The sheriff relieved him of a hundred simoleons and had him sign some papers. “You understand that the accused ain’t ’lowed to leave the jur’sdiction of the court,” the sheriff told Twitchcock.
“I understand.”
“Well, see that they do. They can’t leave town till after the trial, which is set for a month come next Tuesday. They do, it means they’s jumped bail and is fugitives. Bail’s forfeit, an’ we call in the FBI to hunt ’em down.”
“All that for indecent exposure?” Twitchcock said. “They’re lucky they didn’t commit a really major crime like stealing a horse.”
“They had, there wouldn’t be no trial,” the sheriff told him. “Hoss thievin’s still a lynchin’ offense in these parts.”
“I see.” Twitchcock shuddered.
“You can let ’em out yourself.” The sheriff tossed Twitchcock a bunch of keys. “ ’Round that corner down the hall.” He jerked his thumb.
Twitchcock filled the mirror as he came toward it. Then he blocked it out entirely as he made the turn and started for my cell. When I could see it again, I was just in time to catch the reflection of the sheriff letting Amanda out of the closet. He gave her a quick kiss and sent her on her way to prepare the judge’s victuals.
“What are you looking at?” Twitchcock wanted to know.
“Nothing.”
“Why is your head between the bars like that?”
“It’s stuck.”
“Oh.” He considered it. “Have you ever tried sheep?” he asked out of left field.
“What?”
“Sheep. Soft and furry, you know. Not as exciting as porcupines, perhaps, but really much more—”
“I don’t dig animals,” I told him firmly.
“Really? Then how come those porcupine quills are sticking in your—”
“They’re not porcupine quills, dammit! Look, it’s a long story.” I forestalled further questions. “Just do me a favor and see if you can push my head back through these bars so I can get out of here.”
The penalties of voyeurism! It took some doing. Finally, with Twitchcock’s help, I managed to work loose. He unlocked my cell door and handed me my clothes. I dressed while he went on to Randy Beaver’s cell.
The sheriff let the three of us out the front door of his office. I was the last one through it, and his hand fell heavily on my shoulder as I passed him. I turned around to face him.
“Mister . . .” His voice was soft, but his eyes were like pissed-off granite. “You’re a stranger here’bouts, so I’m gonna tell you somethin’. I’m head man of our local Wildlife Preservation Society. You take my meanin’?”
There was a long silence. It got longer. What the hell was he talking about?
“You don’t take my meanin’,” he decided finally.
I smiled ingratiatingly and bobbed my head in agreement. I didn’t “take his meanin’.”
“I set great store by our local animals. They’re part of our national heritage, see what I mean?”
I didn’t see what he meant.
“Ain’t nobody gonna molest ’em. Not a cricket gonna be molested while I’m ’round! Not a gartersnake! Not a cow! Not a goddamn pussycat! You follow me?”
I didn’t follow him.
“Don’t you be playin’ games with me, mister. Don’t you be actin’ dumb! I’m givin’ you fair warnin’!”
“I don’t know what you -”
“Then jes’ hear this!” he roared suddenly. “You stay away from our porcupines! You jes’ haul ass clear of ’em! I catch you within diddlin’ distance of one, you’ll have a load of buckshot in your rear ’stead of some poor dumb animal’s quills! You got it now?”
I had it. I stuttered reassurances. I backed out of the door solemnly promising that never-—never again! -—would I sexually molest a local critter, quilled or not. I went back to the furnished room I’d rented and sacked out. I put myself to sleep repeating the phone number Randy Beaver had given me before we were busted, Phoebe Phreeby’s number. It was the only lead I had to Tom Swift, the only valid thing that had come out of all I’d been through during the past twenty-four hours.
I woke up early the next afternoon. After a healthy brunch, I put through a call to Washington, D.C. The call was to a private number Charles Putnam had provided me.
The brisk voice that answered wasn’t familiar to me. But when I identified myself to him, he confirmed that his instructions were to cooperate with me to the fullest extent. “I want a fast tracer on a phone number.” I told him the number.
He repeated it. “I’ll get right back to you,” he said crisply. He took the number of the booth I was calling from and hung up.