“Ahoy the Stardust.”
“Come aboard, Chris.”
The N Man looked up and saw Gortoff standing at the stern, looking down on him. He hoped he hadn’t seen the skin diver’s arm. Gortoff helped make the dinghy fast to the stern. Padgett held the two parcels in his left arm and pulled himself aboard with his right.
“Wouldn’t want to drop this ‘stardust’ in the water,” he quipped without a smile. Padgett held out the parcels to Gortoff. And the heroin king accepted them.
“Come below, Chris. Might as well have a drink before you go ashore.”
Padgett looked along the starboard side of the cabin as Gortoff reached for its door. He saw the first of his skin-diving N Men fellow workers climb aboard. He waited until they had slipped quietly towards the cabin and followed Gortoff inside. When Karl Gortoff turned he saw the.38 revolver aimed directly on a level with his heart.
“You’re under arrest, Gortoff...”
Gortoff laughed and jeered, “You forget, Chris, I’m the careful one. You’re covered like you think you have me covered.”
Until Padgett felt the pressure of a gun barrel in his own back, he momentarily felt Gortoff’s statement was another form of the old ruse. Then he recognized Garcia’s voice. “Drop the gun, senor.” The pressure increased on Padgett’s back with a sharp jab. He dropped the.38 and was suddenly jammed against Gortoff, propelled to the cabin berth as Garcia’s body slammed against his own. For a few, wild struggling moments, the tiny cabin of the schooner was filled with grunts and curses of Garcia and Gortoff. Garcia screamed as his arm was broken by a blow from a rubber-clad figure, one of the three N Men skin divers who had hurtled into the cabin. Padgett was briefly overlooked in the melee. His fingers clutched at Gortoff’s throat and the narcotics king was beginning to choke when another N Man knelt to snap handcuffs on him.
“You wouldn’t choke a handcuffed prisoner, would you?” the skin diver N Man laughingly asked.
“This one? Yes. I think I would — if it were not against Bureau regulations.”
The four N Men and two prisoners moved from the cabin into a gleaming bath of light. A Coast Guard boat had slipped through the fog and spotlighted the Stardust. Gortoff blinked as he faced the blinding light ten feet away. He cursed when Chris Padgett taunted him, “Light too bright for you, Karl? You’ve made your last move under the stars or on the Stardust. Your stardust days are all over now!”
He turned to the Coast Guard lieutenant, “Can you put us ashore at the Presidio? We’ll stay right with these boys. They’re tricky. But we are careful.”
“Glad to help out, sir,” the lieutenant replied.
Past Imperfect
by Frank Gay
She was an ex-stripper... with a capital “X”. Then Widget came on the scene.
Widget decided he would go for die flesh this time, and not the money. He made three circles of the block, then parked in front of the house. He was squat and flabby, almost beetle-like in the big car.
He thrust his head toward the windshield to get a better look at the blonde digging in the garden. His face was a melon of freckles decorated with puffy eyes and a bulbous, hairy nose.
He emerged from the car with his sample case and strode aggressively toward the blonde.
“You Mrs. Gideon?” he asked bluntly.
The woman rose from her knees and puzzled a look at him.
This was the way he remembered her, lean and petite with full hips and breasts. She had a beauty that took his breath. She also had a dignity about her that made his lip curl — he could recall her in less dignified postures.
“You’re the encyclopedia salesman?” she asked.
“That’s me. Name is Widget. I’d like to show you samples.”
They moved toward the house, a large brick and cedar shingle colonial on a lot planted with maples and oaks.
“So you got yourself a doctor,” he said when they were in the living room. “Some furniture! Did all right, didn’t you? Got yourself a real deal.”
She was looking at him again with the same puzzled expression.
“Are you selling encyclopedias?” she asked sharply.
His mouth was amused this time. “Come on, Pepper,” he told her, “don’t get sassy with me.”
Only her eyes changed.
“Pepper Patsy,” he said, “The Hottest Tomale This Side Of The Border! Remember that tag?”
He let it sink in, then twisted the knife again. “You were my favorite stripper. I saw your dance in strip joints in Baltimore and Chicago. I even bought you a drink in Chicago.”
She still showed no reaction, but she watched him and listened to him carefully.
“About three years ago you disappeared from the circuit and were never again heard from.”
Now she lit a cigarette and said, “And then one day you happened to walk down the street in Akron, just by luck, on your way to the grocery store to buy anchovies and walnuts and you happened to see your favorite stripper disguised as the wife of a respectable doctor with her hair dyed blonde.”
“Not quite,” he said. “I make a business of finding people who used to live it up and are now trying to live it down. Profitable business too.”
“You’re wasting your time. My husband knows.”
“How about your neighbors? your husband’s patients?”
She turned away from him, drawing heavily on the cigarette, and walked twice back and forth along the length of the handsome living room. The body had mellowed and the lines softened, but she was still the same exquisite piece. The blonde hair made her, if anything, more striking.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Not a cent. Like I said, you were my favorite stripper.”
“What then?”
“You,” he told her. “Just you.” He watched her bite her lip. Sweat beads ran down his own round face between and over the freckles.
“All that is behind me,” she said finally. “I have a good marriage. I might give you some money, but that’s all.”
“You’ll give me what I want!” A drop of his sweat splattered on the hardwood floor. “I’m no amateur. If I go to work on you, you’re done in this town. Finished. Both of you.”
She walked the length of the living room again and drew deeply on the cigarette, the body still lean and firm.
“Money,” she said. “Money I’ll give you, but nothing else.”
“What’s one more man to you?”
“It’s different now. I’m in love.”
He laughed, but there was no joy in his face. “I’m going to have you or I’m going to get you. Which is it?”
She turned to him with a plea. “Won’t you leave me alone?”
He shook his round head slowly and coldly.
She took another trip down the living room and back before she nodded to signal her defeat. “When?” she asked.
“Now. Here and now. Upstairs.”
“Impossible. My maid’s due.”
“Maid?” he laughed, his face sarcastic. “In my motel then.”
Widget showered, lighted a cigar, tossed down a banger of scotch and sat impatiently in the comfortable motel room. He wore a long, handsome, blue silk robe, but he was still squat and flabby.