“He wouldn’t‘ dare!” Mama defoliated the cab driver with a glance. “Just tell me! He laid a finger on you?”
“No,” I lied. It was simpler that way. I didn’t want to start another ruckus. “It just started bleeding by itself. I don’t know why.”
“You don’t know why? I know why!” Mama nodded, sure of herself. “It’s from that macka on your behind not being lanced. Such a macka cuts off the blood and the pressure builds and it has to go somewhere. So your nose bleeds! Just as soon as we get to Miami—”
“Attention!” The uniformed Cuban official who’d greeted us the day before stood in the aisle of the plane and barked out the word, cutting Mama short, which was no mean feat. “The Cuban government hopes that you American capitalist pigs have enjoyed your stay with us and that when you return to your warmongering homeland you will tell your fellow slaves that you have seen the land of the socialist free and that the days of your imperialist government are numbered. Bon voyage!”
He bowed politely, and then the cabin door closed behind him and the engines began revving up. Ten minutes later we were taxiing down the runway. Then we were in the air, on our way to Miami.
Even without jet power, it was a very short flight. Disembarking, however, was an experience in itself. Everybody, it seemed, had a parting thought.
“If you should get down to Delicate Frank’s while you’re in Miami, look me up.” The pretty young man fluttered his eyelids at me insinuatingly and continued on down the aisle to the exit.
The cab driver was less friendly. “On account of you I lost my hotel reservation and I gotta catch the next plane back to New York,” he grumbled. “But one of these days we’ll meet again, you lousy queer!” He slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. However, when Mama hefted her pocketbook threateningly, he moved along.
“Beware Jupiter in the ascendancy of the third moon!” The words were hissed in my ear. “False friends will betray you—and you weigh one hundred and seventy six pounds,” the voice added as an afterthought.
“You keep your hands off my boy!” Melvin’s mother snarled.
“Your boy started with him first!” Mama rushed to my defense.
“Thank you,” Melvin’s father muttered out of the side of his mouth. “I think maybe you taught the brat a lesson.”
“I’m going to do a thesis on you,” Melvin informed me, keeping his distance.
“I checked with the pilot.” Henry had just come back up the aisle and now he was reporting to Marilyn. “All flights to San Juan are booked solid for a week.”
“What are we going to do?” she wailed.
“We’ll go horseback riding,” Henry told her. “Every day.”
“And if it doesn’t work? What will I tell George?” she sobbed.
“Tell him I can get cigars for him wholesale.” Henry led her toward the ramp.
“My psychoanalyst will tell me it was only a dream! I know he will!” The words floated back up the aisle to where my mother and I were inching toward the exit.
“At last!” Mama’s eyes sparkled happily as she fingered the icepick. “As soon as you’re off the plane you could take your pants down and it wouldn’t hurt a bit, you could sit without feeling it for a change.”
But Mama was thwarted. Randolph P. Austin in person was standing at the gate waiting for us as we disembarked.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded indignantly. “You were due in yesterday!”
“I was unavoidably detained.”
“That’s no excuse! At a time like this you’ve got no business taking side trips.”
“Hey, Mister Whatever-your-name-is, what is it you want with my boy?” Mama eyed him belligerently.
“Take it easy, Mama,” I told her. “This is the man who saved my life.”
“When?” The one-word question was delivered in her best courtroom manner.
“About six months ago in Saigon. I told you. Remember?”
“That was six months ago.” Mama delivered her summation. “So what has he done for you lately? ”
“Please, Mama. Don’t interfere. This is important.” I turned back to Austin.
“I canceled the copter and chartered a seaplane,” he told me. “I’d hoped to have a day to go over this business with you, but now we don’t have the time. We’re due at a meeting at Paradise Island in Nassau, by six tonight. So I’ll just have to fill you in on the plane. ”
“You mean we’ll have to leave right away?
“Yep.”
“Wait an instant!” Mama reared like a bucking bronco. “So what’s the big hurry, you couldn’t take a few minutes with the pants down to take care of that macka before it’s infected yet?”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t have time.” I couldn’t hide my relief as I kissed her goodbye. “I’ll write you,” I promised.
“I wouldn’t sleep a wink knowing you’ve got a swell behind!”
“I’ll see he keeps his ass out of trouble,” Austin reassured her brusquely.
“A mother you’re not! To just run away like this! 0y! Vey!” She rocked back and forth on her heels. “0y! Vey!”
“Mama,” I reminded her wearily. “Remember, you’re not even Jewish!”
“Shh!” She looked over her shoulder nervously. “In Miami Beach, this is not an asset!”
“Goodbye, Mama.” I waved back at her as I followed Austin across the airstrip.
“A charming Jewish lady.” Now that I was here, Austin had calmed down and was making an effort to be friendly.
“She’s not Jewish.”
“Now, Steve, there’s no need for that. I have no ethnic prejudices -- not a one. Why, some of my best friends-—”
“So you should live and be well,” I told him. What the hell! Why argue?
We were boarding the monoplane now. It was a jazzy-looking job with a retractable landing gear and pontoons for landing on the water. The pilot had clearance to take off immediately. As soon as we were in the air, Austin proceeded to fill me in on the reason he’d summoned me.
Toilets!
In a word, that was the reason. However, it did take more words to explain the connection between the plumbing necessaries and what was being asked of me. These boiled down to a somewhat unusual business situation.
At the center of this situation was Ali Khat, an oil-rich Arabian sheikh with a pocketful of American pipeline contracts, an insatiable appetite for sex experiences which prompted him to change the ladies in his harem almost as frequently as most men change their socks, and a surprising social conscience. The first of these factors and the chance of cutting himself a slice of the Sheikh’s wealth were what naturally attracted businessman Austin. The second was the reason Austin had brought me into the picture. And the third tied them together in a way that was as immoral as it was intriguing.
Ali Khat’s social conscience had prodded him to philanthropy. He had set aside fifty million dollars—a mere drop from his oily bucket—to build a low-rental housing development for his subjects in his desert homeland. Three million dollars of this was set aside for johnnys and other indoor plumbing. It was a juicy contract, it was up for grabs, and Randolph P. Austin was in there grabbing.
Only he wasn’t alone. Five other international plumbing tycoons were also after the contract. And Ali Khat had come up with a diabolical means of deciding among them.
It boiled down to a scavenger hunt—a human scavenger hunt, a sexual scavenger hunt, a scavenger hunt for girls to replenish his harem. The rules of the game, the conditions of the hunt, the kinds of girls to be sought, the time limits to be imposed-—all of these factors were not yet known by Austin. But the winner of the hunt would be awarded the three-million-dollar contract for toilets.