“I guess I am,” I admitted.
“And I’m the other one.” The voice came from over my shoulder. I turned around to find myself looking at six-foot-two of pretty-boy beef on the hoof. It took a few seconds for me to place the abundance of capped white teeth and the well-tanned profile. Then it clicked. “Cass Nova,” he introduced himself.
I’d never met him before, but I’d seen a couple of his movies. He was one of those muscle-rippling actors they throw into low-budget movies in a gladiator tunic. Spar-tacus-on-the-Make, only Cass Nova had never quite made it. He couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, and his cutey-cute masculinity turned off as many male filmgoers as it turned on female.
It wasn’t about to turn on Senhorita Procura right now, though. She looked at him disdainfully. “You are the Hollywood glamour boy,” she identified him. “Why should someone like you be involved in this matter?”
“Because Mr. Rustwater here is paying me a lot of money. That’s why.” Cass Nova batted his eyelids in the gesture some director must have told him registered frankness. It was the kind of sincerity a TV shill pours over you with the hair tonic he’s peddling.
“But what makes you think you’re qualified to compete with Mr. Victor and myself?” Nina Procura persisted.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to low-rate a lady, but what makes you think that you and Mr. Victor are in my league when it comes to chasing down women?”
“Sex is Mr. Victor’s business.” Nina had done her homework. “And as for myself, I have a history of success in matters such as this.”
“Really?” I was curious. “How so?”
“The senhorita has been retained by many wealthy gentlemen in our native land,” Di Arrea explained. “In Brazil it is not unusual for a busy man of means to hire someone to obtain female companionship and erotic pleasure for him.”
“You mean she’s a lady pimp!” Cass Nova was shocked.
“It’s more honorable than being a male whore!” Nina shot back at him.
“You’ve got no call to pin a label like that on me.”
“I have seen some of your pictures,” she told him sweetly.
Austin changed the subject before it could get out of hand. “Steve, this is Larry Rustwater.” He indicated the hawk-faced man who’d been standing silently behind Cass Nova while the dialogue was ensuing. “Steve’s going to represent me,” Austin told him.
Rustwater’s eyes compared me with Cass Nova. He nodded—-more to himself than to me—as if to say he was satisfied he’d chosen the better man. “You from New York?” he asked me peremptorily.
“In a way, I guess I am.”
“It figures. Lots of crime and Commies and spic trouble in New York.” He turned his back on me ostentatiously.
My reaction must have shown in my face. I was wondering what would happen if I turned him around and busted him in the jaw. Austin put a hand on my arm as if to stop me, and I relaxed.
“Mr. Rustwater always speaks his mind,” Cass Nova was explaining.
“That would explain why he doesn’t say much.” Senhor Di Arrea looked as angry and disgusted as I was.
“He’s a very patriotic man, though. Takes a real interest in the welfare of the country,” Cass babbled on.
“God help your country.” Senhor Di Arrea nodded to us, took Nina by the arm, and led her away.
A few moments later, dinner was announced. Somebody on the Sheikh’s staff had a sense of irony. Rustwater was seated between the two Brazilians, and Nova was on Senhorita Procura’s other side. I was between Krapinadytch and the unidentified Russian beauty. But before I had a chance to make small talk with either of them, our host arrived. The assemblage was quiet as he greeted us.
“I am honored at the presence of each and every one of you at my table,” he told us with what I can only describe as arrogant humility.
I studied him for a moment after he sat down. Ali Khat was a powerful-looking man of indeterminate years. His manner was polished, his skin darker than many American blacks I have known, his features pronounced, well-defined, craggy almost. It wasn’t so much that he was handsome as that he exuded an aura of that overworked word “charisma.”
Business was not discussed during the lavish meal. I introduced myself to the Russian on either side of me and learned that the statuesque girl’s name was Natasha Jambonski. Neither she nor Krapinadytch was very informative. They were polite enough, but all my efforts to find out just what Natasha’s particular bag was met with a blank wall. Dinner was over, and I knew no more about her qualifications for the business to come than I had when I sat down.
After dinner we gathered in the Sheikh’s library. Here, over brandy, Ali Khat at last got down to the particulars. He recapitulated the terms under which he would grant the plumbing contract—they were just as Austin had explained them on the plane—and then got down to the specifics of how this scavenger hunt for females was to work.
“Each of those competing will be asked to supply five girls for my harem,” Ali Khat explained. “These will be no ordinary girls. Each of them will be defined in certain specific ways. The descriptions may be different in each instance. For instance, the subject might be described by race, nationality, height and weight, hair color. Or, she might be defined by political affiliation, employment role, psychosexual classification. In another case, the desired female might have to have certain background experiences, family connections, physical sexual qualifications. In each case, I repeat, the definition will be different.”
“Will each of us be given the same description in every case?” Archibald Snoopleigh asked.
I clicked off the fact that the Aussie had a knack for being pertinent.
“Yes,” Ali Khat told him. “That way, when it comes down to a final judgment, there will be a fair basis for reaching it. But that’s getting ahead of myself. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment. First let me explain how the contest will actually be conducted. Tonight, some time after this session, each of you will receive a slip of paper on which will be a description of the first girl you are to procure. As I’ve said, this will be the same for all of you. Presumably, you will then set out on your quest to find a suitable female. You will also be given a phone number to call. When you have found such a girl and she has expressed a willingness to join my harem—and only then—will you receive the description of the next girl to be procured.”
“Excuse me.” Senhorita Nina Procura interrupted politely. “Are we to understand that the girl must be willing to join your harem?”
“That is correct. She must come of her own free will. You may induce her to take such an action, but you may not force her.”
“Just what sort of inducements do you mean?” Nina Procura spoke as if she’d had experience in the use of both inducements and force. She went up in my estimation; her experience would be an asset in this contest, and I’d have to be ready to cope with it. “Can we offer them money? Will you pay? And how much?”
“I was just coming to that.” Ali Khat thought a moment. “I will pay five thousand dollars to each girl who comes willingly. Each of you will be free to use that as an inducement.”
Cass Nova whistled. “That could come to quite a tidy sum,” he whispered to me. “If each of us gets five girls, that’s thirty females for a total of a hundred and fifty grand! Maybe I should up my fee.” He eyed Larry Rustwater speculatively.
“How much are you getting?” I was curious.
“Fifteen G’s. And you?”
“I’m doing it as a favor.”
The look on Cass’s face said I was a liar.