"An accident!" Peggy shook her head and sank down on the bed. She hadn't really noticed Nora, all she cared about was a cigarette and a moment to catch her breath. "They're crazy! Those girls are the type that ought to be locked away from polite society forever! As for Miss Parsons!" She couldn't think of what to say about the leader of the push, so she shook her head and drew deeply on the cigarette I'd lit for her.
"Miss Parsons?" Nora chimed in. "Hey, are you talking about that lady at the school?"
"That's the one," I said dismissively.
"She's the sister of the psychiatrist I go to," Nora announced with a note of triumph in her voice. "Isn't it a small world? The psychiatrist is her younger sister, you know, lovely woman, but a bit strange. Still, they say they're all a bit crazy, right?" Nora laughed, but we didn't join her.
"Hey Nora, listen honey, I've got a lot of business to attend to," I said, picking up her clothes and hand-big them to her. "We'll get together tomorrow maybe, all right? Right now I'll have to ask you to leave."
"Oh… okay, sure," she said moodily. "But you will be here tomorrow? I mean, you're not just saying that?"
"I'll do my best." Nora left, hardly satisfied. I turned back to Peggy and asked her to tell me what had happened. Apparently she had gone to the school and approached Linda through her contact. Linda had played it straight, pretended to believe her story, and taken her to the gym where Peggy was told to strip and wait. Some minutes later the whole club entered the gym and locked the place up. "It was like a hockey team," said Peggy. "They terrified me. All those tough little girls in their uniforms, eyeing me like cats, and before I could stop them they had me tied against the wall bars. Linda was the one who incited them. She told the girls that I was a spy and that they should teach me a good lesson. Oh Joe, it was horrible. They all came at me with their claws out, mean as bobcats, and I'm hurting all over."
"Alright, let it out," I said gently. "You just lie down and rest while I check on Parsons' sister. By the way, did you see Vinnie before you left?"
"Oh yeah, but he was too busy to tell me what he was doing."
"I'll bet," I said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I had underestimated Vinnie. When I stepped out Of the motel room he drove up and opened the door for me. "They're going crazy in Parsons' house, boss," he reported. "The whole club is there and they're drinking and partying like the world's gonna end tomorrow! They've got the money all over the floor like a carpet and if you want to take it back, now is the time to strike."
"Good man," I said, getting into the passenger seat. "But first drive to this address." I told him the street and number that I'd found in the phone book next to "Parsons, Rita, Psych." We had to ask directions all the way, but at last we saw the house she lived in, a Victorian mansion set on top of a hill overlooking the woods. There was a widow's walk on the roof, and I was willing to bet the Moorehead school was visible from there. I parked the car some distance away and, following Vinnie, snuck through the bushes to get to the house unnoticed. There was no way of knowing whether Laurel was in the house or not; we had to take our chances. Vinnie was very clever at moving through the undergrowth, a skill picked up during his voyeur years. In the minimum of time he brought us to the side of the house, and I peered carefully over a window sill to get my bearings.
The house seemed empty of people. Not a sound could be heard. Inside it looked cozy, expensive, and bookish, and as we circled the place it became clear that Rita Parsons liked the finer things in life. Also, she was an out-and-out dyke. I saw statues of naked women, paintings of them, and framed photos. When we clambered up on the balcony and checked out the bedroom we saw a variety of dildos lying about on the bedside table, and there were men's clothes in the wardrobe. Silently we tiptoed through the bedroom, keeping our ears peeled for the slightest sound. Not till we were at the bottom of the stairs did the first faint sound reach us. It was a tiny scream, and it seemed to come from below us. Vinnie and I looked everywhere to find an entrance to a cellar. There were no doors, no trapdoors, no way of getting below the ground floor.
"Hey boss, come over here!" Vinnie whispered. He had his ear pressed to the join of two bookcases. "You can hear better here!"
I listened until another faint scream arose and, sure enough, it was much clearer there than in any part of the house. "Remember those horror movies?" I said to Vinnie. He nodded and started to push and pull at nearby objects in the hope of finding the lever that would open the door for us. The trouble was that there were hundreds of likely objects within range and, without the guarantee that one of them would work, it was silly to try them all. We stood at that crack for a few minutes, listening and trying to decide what to do. Then the sounds stopped.
"Quick, hide behind those drapes!" I hissed. We waited with bated breath. Suddenly the bookcases swung apart and a woman stepped through them. She was tall and severe looking, a bit younger than the headmistress, but just as angular. When she was halfway into the room she placed the flat of her hand on the breast of a copy of Venus de Milo, and the wall closed again. And, since she was alone, Vinnie and I thought it safe to launch our attack.
She screamed when we grabbed her, and in the next few seconds she almost stabbed us to death with her pointy elbows. She was hitting us everywhere with those formidable weapons, and I finally had to overstep the boundaries of propriety by socking her in the jaw. That kept her quiet for long enough to make her see reason. "Let's take a look in your cellar, sister," I said roughly.
"Who are you!"
"The housing inspector. We suspect you have boarders." Vinnie thought that was funny but Rita didn't. She informed us that if we wanted to go into the cellar we should find our own way down there. "Okay," I said, going over to the Venus and rubbing the same tit, "we'll do just that." Nothing happened. The bookcases stared back at me implacably. Rita gave me a stony look that infuriated me. "Tricky, eh?" I glowered. "Okay bitch, if you want your nose broken just keep on playing with me."
"I'm going to cab the police as soon as your man friend lets me go," she threatened. "There's a law against breaking into people's homes, you know."
I didn't answer her. An idea had taken place in my mind. If the left tit closed it… wouldn't the right tit open it? I tried it and there was no response. But when I examined the statue more closely I noticed a slight departure from the original. This Venus had a clitoris! And that little knob, symbolically, opened the door for me. Rita cursed under her breath and resisted Vinnie's efforts to take her down the stairs. I gave her a little push, and that knocked the underpinning out from her mulish conduct. She lay at the bottom of the stairs, moaning in pain, and not far from her lay someone else who was also in pain.
The girl was nude and disheveled. It looked as though she had been flung down on an army cot covered in a grey, torn blanket. Even though her face had been bruised and she hadn't been washed for a number of days, it was easy to tell that she was extremely beautiful. Her ripe tits poked straight up from her chest, and her fine facial features couldn't be concealed by any amount of dirt or bruises. She didn't look up when we came down. When I checked her eyes I found she'd been heavily drugged.
She wasn't unconscious, though. Just as we turned back to help Rita to her feet, Laurel started to scream at us. "Get out of here you fucking animals! Go on, fuck off! You're ugly, your breath stinks, your mother sucks rats, I want you to drop dead!" A string of insults followed and Vinnie and I looked at her in astonishment.