"I might have an angle. I'm going to have to know you better."
"You just said you knew the minute you saw me I'm a regular. What's wrong now?"
Gus snorted impatiently. "If you're regular you know what I mean. I don't give a good damn about this job with Edman. But a gold operation is another story. A lot of the boys have made fortunes. I mean escorts, pilots, stewards, airline officials. But quite a few have wound up in barred furnished rooms. And in some of the countries they got busted in, the service where they're staying is real lousy." Gus paused and made a little shiver. "It ain't nice — five years with the lice. I worked hard for that pun but it tells you what I mean. If you've got a man on the scene working with you, say a customs guy in for a slice, you're home free if he's a hot operator. But if you're pushing in cold, you take some long chances. You can buy most of those Asian boys for a sliver off the cake, but they need victims all the time to show they're doing their jobs and cover up the deals they are getting cut in on. So if they make you, you can fall hard."
"I have a friend in Calcutta," Nick revealed. "He's got enough weight to help us but the riming has to be set up in advance."
"Maybe we'll get a chance," Gus answered. "Keep in touch with him if you can. It's a gamble operation unless you've got a smooth lock. The boys who run the stuff in in dhows figure automatically on a ten percent loss to let the government boys look like they're doing their job, and ten percent more for grease. That's off the gross, mind. Sometimes you go in, especially with a badge on that says Amex or Edman Tours or some such, and you're passed right by. They never even look under your spare shirts. Other times you get a full check and it's sudden death."
"I handled quarter-bars once. We were very lucky."
Gus was interested. "No sweat, huh? How much did you make on a bar?"
Nick smiled briefly. His new associate was using the admission to check his knowledge and thus his truthfulness. "Figure for yourself. We had five. A hundred ounces each. Profit thirty-one dollars an ounce and grease expense fifteen percent. There were two of us. We split about $11,000 for three days' work and two hours' worry."
"Macao?"
"Now Gus, I already mentioned Calcutta and you haven't told me much. As you say, let's get acquainted and see how we feel about each other. I'd say the main angle is this. If you can help set up a source in Rhodesia, I have the gate to India. One or both of us can travel the route on a pretended tour or en route to join a party in Delhi or what-have-you. Our cute badges and my connection will take us right in."
"Let's give it plenty of thought."
Nick told him he would. He would be thinking every moment, because a pipeline to illegal gold from Rhodesian mines should, somewhere along its joints and connections, reach into the world of Judas and Si Kalgan.
Booty returned to the seat beside him and Gus rejoined Janet. The stewardess gave them pillows and offered blankets as they tilted their seats to the almost horizontal level. Nick accepted one blanket, and switched off the single reading light that had been aglow.
They entered the odd quiet of a dry womb. The monotonous roar of the body that contained them, their own lightweight iron lung. Booty had made no protest when he took only one blanket, so he made a little ceremony of tucking it in over them both. If you could ignore the projections, you could fancy yourselves in a cozy double bed.
Nick looked up at the ceiling and recalled Trixie Skidmore, a Pan Am stewardess he had once spent a few cultural days with in London. Trixie had said, "I was raised in Ocala, Florida, and I used to go back and forth to Jax on the Greyhound and believe me I thought I saw everything in the sex world done on those back seats. You know, the long ones that go right across the bus. Well, honey, I just never had an education hardly at all till I hit the air. I've seen fornication, hand jobs, blow jobs, sidewinders, spoon tucks, down the Y, and whip dillies."
Nick had laughed heartily. "What do you do when you catch them?"
"I wish em luck, darlin'. If they need another blanket or pillow or if knockin' out another light or two will help, I help." He recalled how Trixie had pressed her plump, full lips against his bare chest and murmured, "I love lovers, honey — because I love love and I need a whole lot of it"
He felt Booty's soft breath against his jaw. "Andy — are you very sleepy?"
"No, not especially. Just drowsy, Booty. Well fed — and it's been a busy day. I'm pleased with it."
"Pleased? How?"
"Meeting you. I know you're going to be good company. You've no idea how deadly a trip can be with nobody who is interesting. I don't mean because you're — very pretty and you've got beautiful bulges. You're a smart girl. You have ideas and thoughts that you hide."
Nick was glad she could not see his expression in the semidarkness. He meant what he said, but there was so much he left out. She had ideas and thoughts that she hid, all right, and they might be interesting and valuable — or warped and deadly. He wished he knew exactly what her connection was with John J. Johnson and what the Negro had given her.
"You're a strange man, Andy. Have you ever been in any other business than travel? I can imagine you as an executive of some kind. Not insurance or finance but some kind of business with action in it"
"I've done a few things in other lines. Like most everybody. But the travel business appeals to me. An associate and I may buy a piece of Edman's operation." He could not tell if she was pumping him or just interested in his background. "What are your hopes, now that college is over?"
"Work at something. Create. Live." She sighed and stretched and squirmed and snuggled, a rearranging of her soft curves that distributed them along his body, touching at many points. She kissed his chin.
He ran his hand between her arm and body. There was no resistance; when he drew it up and back he felt the soft breast push at him. He caressed it gently, a slow Braille reading of the smooth wool. When his tactile fingertips detected the stiffening of the nipple he concentrated, reading the stirring phrase over and over and over again. Booty gave a small purring sound and he felt light, slim fingers explore his tie clip, unfasten shirt buttons, pull up his undershirt He thought the pads of her hand might be cool, but they were like warm feathers above his navel. He drew up the yellow sweater and her skin felt like warm silk.
She fastened her lips to his and it was better than before, their flesh molding like ductile, buttery taffy into one sweet mass. He solved the brief puzzle of her bra catch and the Braille became alive and real, his senses rejoicing in the ancient contact, subconscious memories of well-being and nourishment stirred by the warm thrust of her firm breast.
Her manipulations sent the memories and anticipations coursing along his backbone. She was deft, creative, patient. Just as he found the zipper on the side of her skirt she whispered, "Tell me what it is..."
It's the nicest thing that has happened to me for a long, long time," he answered softly.
"That's nice. But I mean the other thing."
Her hand was a magnet, a vibrator without wires, a milkmaid's cloying persuasion, a tender giant's paw containing all of him, the clutch of a butterfly on a throbbing leaf. What did she want him to say? She knew what she was doing. "It's delicious," he said. "A swim in cotton candy. Being able to fly on moonbeams. A roller coaster ride in a good dream. How would you describe it when you..."
"I mean the thing under your left arm," she murmured clearly. "You've been keeping it away from me ever since we sat down. Why are you carrying a gun?"
Chapter Two
He was yanked off his pleasant pink cloud. Oh, Wilhelmina, why do you have to be so fat and heavy to be so accurate and dependable? Stuart, AXE's chief weapons engineer, modified the Lugers with shortened barrels and thin plastic grips, but they were still big guns to hide even in the perfectly fitted underarm holsters. Walking, sitting, they rode snugly without a trace of a bulge, but when you wrestled with a sexpot kitten like Booty sooner or later she bumped metal.