“What is it you do want, Morgan? There are things I could do for you, to you, that may not violate your quaint morality. Tell me, and whatever it is I will give it to you.”
“A gun,” I said. “Standard Army issue Colt .45 automatic.”
Her eyes laughed at me. “That is all?”
“For now,” I said. “So put your clothes on and fill me in.”
Watching her go through the measured motions of dressing was even more torturous than seeing her strip. Everything she did now appeared unconsciously exciting, and I couldn’t stop looking at her.
You could die tomorrow, man, a voice was saying. Hell, you could die tonight. And you don’t want to say yes to this finely stacked beauty?
Maybe she didn’t mean to tempt me. Right. She had to be deliberately tantalizing about the whole process or she wouldn’t have been a woman. When they have you in a bind, they like to put the screws to you all the way.
When she was done, she smiled gently at me and said, “You really could have taken advantage of me, SeñorMorgan. But I do think morality becomes you.”
“I was just thinking it’s a pain in the ass,” I said. “Now fill me in some more on this operation you have working here.”
“Gladly, Señor Morgan. What you have seen up to this point was simply an emergency route, if there was ever necessity to make a quick and safe exit. It leads only to this room.”
These were very special quarters, then—a sort of hotel suite-style safe house.
“I assure you,” she was saying, “that the remainder of the premises are much more elaborate, and more varied in their escape possibilities.”
“Well, you never know when you’re going to have to make a fast exit out of a whorehouse.”
That actually got a little laugh out of her. She gestured. “Come, there are others waiting to meet you...and I can give you a glimpse of what else is on offer here....”
CHAPTER FOUR
Gaita’s brief description of the establishment was much too modest.
From selected apertures at strategic locations, I was able to see the plush bar and tap room, a polished mahogany restoration of the gilt-edged 1900s. There was a casino adjoining with a Vegas-like array of gaming and a small stage at one end, and buffet tables against two walls, prime rib and cracked crab and all sorts of goodies for patrons who had worked up an appetite, presumably having sated other appetites they’d brought with them.
The dark-haired Cuban cutie pointed out tactfully concealed entrances to the upstairs rooms where customers could discreetly avail themselves of certain services. And everything was modernized now—no such thing as cash anymore, this was strictly a credit card business with coded statements at addresses or post office boxes of the client’s choice. Those enjoying the facilities were carefully screened before admittance, vouched for and vetted and to date there had been no police intervention at all.
It took longer than it should have, but finally it hit me.
I was inside the notorious Mandor Club, that ultra-select bordello whose existence was whispered about in elite circles and known to but a few.
I had stumbled across the name ten years earlier, in Rio, when a lovely-but-been-around redhead had invited me out on a cruise on her yacht, which she hadn’t obtained by selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door. She’d been great company and a memorable lay, but had become a little maudlin halfway through a magnum of champagne and damn near told me the story of her life, whether I wanted to hear it or not.
Four years as a Mandor Club hostess had set the redhead up in luxury for life, but the stipulation was that she retire outside the United States, a requirement for all of the club’s retirees. Giddy or not, she realized fairly deep in her tale that she’d spilled too much, got a little pale, spilled some more over the rail of the boat, then said no more on the subject of one of the world’s greatest whorehouses.
“Well laid out,” I told Gaita, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”
A smile twitched the lush lips. “A grand old dream of a grand old man...long dead.” She gestured like a guide on a palace tour. “The building itself was once a mansion, surrounded by others of its kind, but over the years people of wealth moved to other places, and many of the structures were brought down. This fine old place, sitting back on generous grounds, was in a good position for new owners to...conduct business.”
“You’re not talking about last week.”
“No. More like...last century.”
I gazed down at the floor again where several beautiful women in tasteful if low-cut evening dress had gathered, preparing for a cheerful night’s debauch. They were Latin, they were Asian, they were black, they were white. I might have to revise my opinion of the United Nations.
I asked, “Who runs the joint this century, querida?”
“You are about to meet her.” Gaita took my arm. “This way please, señor.”
A door activated by a buzzer from the interior opened onto a room as functionally modern as an insurance company office. Business machines were beside the two empty desks, filing cabinets lined the walls, a new, formidable-looking vault dominated the rear, and the only decorative concessions to the nature of this business were two oil-painting nudes by a world-famous pin-up artist in elaborate gilt frames, and a leather couch beside a paisley wall hanging.
Beneath the paintings, at a gray, glass-topped steel desk, sat a woman of almost timeless beauty, fingering the neckline of a sleek black dress, then idly running her fingers through piled-high blonde hair with weird purple highlights. This stunning, mature beauty was slowly scanning the pages of a ledger.
Her birth name had been Louise Cader Gibbs. Her husband had died in a federal prison ten years ago, early in a term resulting from a stock market scandal that had turned Wall Street upside down and sideways. She hadn’t looked up yet, so she didn’t see me grinning.
I said, “Hell, Bunny, you do bounce back, don’t you?”
Then her eyes rose to mine, and hit with the force of a punch. Her face went through a strange transformation as a montage of reminiscences played in her brain and reflected out her eyes.
Finally she chuckled deep in her throat. “Damn,” she said. “Morgan the Raider. The only son of a bitch who ever managed to take that old fox I married for a hunk of his illacquired fortune.”
“It’s what I do,” I said with a shrug. “Or anyway, what I used to do.”
Gaita was looking quizzically at us both. “Madam...I am not surprised you know ofMorgan...but you knowMorgan?”
Bunny sat back and relished the moment, then rose and walked over to me with her hand outstretched. “Know him? Honey, I once paid out a contract to have him killed.” Her hand was strong and warm in mine. “Remember that, Morgan?”
“Rings a bell.”
“But...” Gaita smiled. “...he does not seem to be dead, Madam.”
Bunny laughed that deep laugh again and shook her head. “No, but two times, guys supposed to do the job were found completely dead. And seemed nobody wanted to pick up my contract after that.”
“Can I help it,” I said, “that you hired accident-prone types?”
“Anybody who takes you on, Morgan, is an accident waiting to happen.”
“Still sore?”
“Hell no, Morgan! A major rule of business is knowing when not to throw good money after bad....I wrote it off as a loss. Even found a way to deduct it off my taxes that year.”