“That’s your story.” Dwight shrugged and pressed Petey-sweetie’s head against his belly, comforting him. “How can I explain it?” He played with Petey-sweetie’s ears and thought a moment. “Is my voice the same as the voice you heard?” He threw the question back at Regina.
“I'm just not sure,” Regina admitted. “The water was running. The bathroom door was open, but the stall shower door and the bedroom door were both closed. The voice was muffled. But Faith did introduce the man as her brother.”
“Did she say ‘Dwight’?” He fondled the thick matting of hair on Petey-sweetie’s chest.
“No. She just said her brother.”
“Did she say ‘her brother’? Or just ‘brother’?”
Dwight played with Petey-sweetie’s nipples. Regina had to think about it. “I think she just said ‘brother’,” she decided finally.
“Then maybe he was one of her disciples.” Dwight braced himself as Petey-Sweetie’s nipples distended and he burrowed harder against Dwight’s flat belly.
“Disciples?”
“The people Faith was giving instruction to in Transcendental Meditation. ‘Brother’ was a sort of term of address she used with them.”
“Did she call the women ‘Sister’?”
“Yes. But not all. There was one lesbian she told me about who insisted on being called ‘brother’ like the men. Incidentally, Faith mentioned that this girl had a voice that sounded like a man’s.” Dwight took Petey-sweetie by the ears and pushed his head back. The movement released Dwight’s penis, which twanged to erect attention.
Regina sighed. What Dwight told her meant that she couldn’t rule out the female name on the list of suspects she’d gotten from Angus MacTeague. She tried another tack. “Did you know any of these ‘disciples’?” she asked Dwight.
“No. She met with them privately. Separately. There was no secret about who they were, but it wasn’t a group kind of thing. Faith saw each of them alone. I don’t know if any of them even knew each other.” Dwight’s quivering erection stroked Petey-Sweetie’s cheek.
Regina jumped to yet another point. “You say that when you found Faith's body, you panicked and ran. Now think carefully. Did you close the door behind you?”
“No. I left it open.” Dwight squeezed Petey-Sweetie’s cheeks until his mouth formed an inviting “O.”
If he was telling the truth, Regina realized, then the murderer was still in the apartment when Dwight left. Indeed, the killer might still have been there when Regina found Faith’s body, since Regina herself hadn’t noticed whether the door was open or closed then. “Let’s go back a little,” Regina decided. “Exactly what did Faith say to you before she died?”
“Just the two words: ‘the murderer’, and she held up that list of names.” Dwight forced his way into Petey-Sweetie’s mouth and began moving back and forth, rising up on his toes and rocking back on his heels. “Why don’t you leave now?” he suggested to Regina. “You’re distracting us.”
“I’m not through yet.”
“Doesn’t this embarrass you?”
Regina smiled to herself. She couldn’t remember the last time any sort of sex had embarrassed her.
“Not in the least,” she told Dwight honestly.
“You have no shame!” Dwight panted.
“That’s true,” Regina admitted.
Petey-Sweetie either groaned or growled low in his throat.
“After Faith said ‘the murderer’,” Regina continued stubbornly, “did she say or do anything else?”
“No. She just— Wait a minute!” Dwight remembered. “She sort of crooned her mantra. She died with it on her lips.” He dug his nails into Petey- Sweetie’s shoulders. “Oh, baby! Do that with your tongue again! Ahh --”
“Her ‘mantra’? That’s a kind of chant, isn’t it?”
“Yes. . . . Oh! That feels so goo-oo-ood! . . . In Transcendental Meditation, every person has his or her own individual mantra. Each person’s is exclusively his. Two people might have the same mantra, but they’d never know it because they’d both be sworn to secrecy . . . Yes—-yes——yes! That’s the Spo-o-o- ot! . . .”
“Where would someone get their mantra from?”
“Faith got hers from the Maharishi Unguentinanina. Her disciples got theirs from her. . . . Harder! . . . That’s it! . . . Su-u-u-u-uck! . . .”
“What was her mantra?”
“It was a secret. I told you. She wouldn’t even tell it to me. . . . Ah! . . . Your lips! . . . Heavenly! . . .”
“But she told it to you when she was dying.”
“She didn’t tell it to me. She just chanted it. As if it would help her departing soul on its way to Nirvana. . . . That’s it, Petey-sweetie! . . . Oh yes, love! . . . That’s the way! . . .”
“But you did hear it. Tell me what it was.”
“No. It was Faith’s secret. I’m not going to break her confidence. . . . Lick it! Lick it! Lick it! . . .”
“Even if it will help find her murderer?”
‘Tm not convinced of that. And I won’t tell you. . . . Ah, yes! All the way! Take it all! All of it! . . .” Dwight pushed in to the hilt.
“Yes you will,” Regina informed Dwight sweetly. She strode over to the tub. She put her left hand under Petey-Sweetie’s chin and her right hand firmly on top of his head. Then she pressed down with her right hand and up with her left hand. “What’s the mantra?” she asked again.
“Ouch! Stop that! I told you, I won’t tell you.”
“What’s the mantra?” Regina repeated. She pressed down harder with her right hand; she pressed up harder with her left hand.
“No!”
Regina increased the pressure.
“AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO! . . .”
Regina relaxed her grip. “All right now. Stop screaming and tell me the mantra.”
“AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO! . . .”
Regina took her hands away altogether. “I didn’t mean to hurt you that badly,” she apologized. “Now just take it easy and then tell me the mantra.”
“AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO! That’s the mantra! . . . AHHHHHHH—LOO—OO—OO—OO—OO—OO!”
“No further questions,” Regina said in a brisk, professional voice. She headed for the exit door. Behind her Petey-Sweetie sputtered and choked as Dwight climaxed.
“Did I satisfy you, honey?” Regina heard Petey-Sweetie ask as the door was swinging closed behind her. “AHHHHHHH-LOO—OO~OO—OO—OO—OO!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
"I Love Ewe !"
In show biz, image is everything. But image is a child of the times. The high profile of the ’Forties melts under the glare of the ’Seventies.
Needling yesterday’s Sacred Cow is beating today’s dead horse; bygone knee-slappers lay an egg on the youth culture; hep isn’t hip. If comedy isn’t now-geared, it isn’t funny. The Top Bananas motto must be “Pander, or Perish.”
Boob Roper was one Top Banana who’d had his nose rubbed in the slogan. He’d been a star comedian for thirty-odd years. His rise had been classic-—from the Borscht Circuit to baggy-pants burlesque to a stand-up routine in second-rate night clubs to a radio guest spot leading to a show of his own followed by a Hollywood break parlayed into top box-office stardom and ten years of top ratings on TV. Through it all he’d been conscious of image, as aware of the need to be loved as of the need to be laughed at, always keeping in mind the necessity for Peck’s Bad Boy to render unto Caesar while kidding the Establishment.
Nobody sold more War Bonds in the ’Forties than Boob Roper. Nobody played more benefits than Boob Roper. Nobody—but nobody-did more USO shows through World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam, than Mr. USO himself—Boob Roper.
His name was a household word. His cold, snag-toothed smile and sliding-pond nose were as widely known—perhaps more widely known--as the visage of the President, whom he resembled slightly. His outrageous puns were repeated by three generations of Americans.