“Not particularly,” Shaw answered, freeing his arm.
The patrolman looked at him in mock disgust. “Limey,” he said. “Might have known. Well, Whites don’t come down this way, specially after nightfall, not if they want to go home in one piece. Not if they don’t want a yoking. For your information… this is a tough precinct.”
“Thanks for the tip, officer. I’ll bear it in mind.”
“If I was you,” the patrolman said heavily, “I’d do more’n bear it in mind. I’d goddam act on it.”
“Thanks again, but I’ll chance it a while longer. I’m not committing any crime, am I?”
The man shook his head slowly, his jaws moving on a piece of gum. “No crime, mister, no crime… not unless you count it a crime to incite other folks to violence. Which I guess is what you’re doing, just by bein’ here. Don’t expect no sympathy from us if you get mugged.”
“I won’t,” Shaw promised. The policemen strolled on, swinging their nightsticks, revolvers bumping their right buttocks. The one who had spoken glanced back and sadly shook his head.
It had been soon after that when Shaw found himself in the night spot — a dive like all the others except for one thing: its name.
It was called the Sex Kitten.
The something kitten… the Sex Kitten? Maybe Siggings’s ears hadn’t been off pitch after all. A visit might pay off.
Distant, muted music thumped out a very insistent and highly sexy beat. The place was just a tarted-up restaurant with a floor show and prices to match and, as in other such places he had been in, a twenty-dollar bill did away with any necessity to produce a membership card. It was time to eat, so Shaw dined; the menu was comprehensive, the floor show even more so. As he sat at a discreet table and waited, interminably it seemed, for his order to be taken, six girls stepped around the dimly lit room, before an audience which was mostly male but included a handful of drably-dressed women among whom one or two more colourfully clad and with Farah Diba hair-do’s stood out like oases in the Sahara. Six brown-skinned girls, tallest in front and shortest in rear, wearing cat’s masks for faces and cat’s tails hanging from their buttocks, and nothing else at all. But nothing… They snaked in and out of the tables, to the beat of that erotic music, each girl holding the rump of the girl ahead, sinuous hips twisting, breasts trembling to their movements. Followed by a spotlight that caught their middle regions, they passed close to Shaw’s table. He watched, fascinated, saw their rolling eyes on him provocatively as they went past, smelled the tang of sweat and dusky bodies. The cat’s-tailed bottoms passed on, flesh glistening in the spotlight’s beam. Shaw felt hot, felt his blood pounding riotously. After that the White girl came on; she seemed to be the star of the show even though she was White… she was white all over, or more strictly lightly sun-tanned all over, and her hair was natual ash-blonde… and she was a peach. She was long-limbed and supple, with a neat, flat stomach and small, tight, upthrust breasts and the curve of her thighs was a sheer delight to Shaw’s jaded eyes. Arms snaking, pelvis thrust provocatively forward, she sang the sexiest, most suggestive little number Shaw had ever heard. The black audience, which so far had shown little reaction, responded, as she ended, with an animated applause unusual in modern Harlem, where the inhabitants seemed to take even their pleasures sadly — even here there was that flat, joyless atmosphere. The White girl gave them another song; Shaw found her slightly husky voice growing on him. After that she went into a kind of dance routine, miming what was quite clearly a bedroom scene, ending up on the floor in the centre of the restaurant, spotlighted in a self-induced ecstasy.…
Shaw made a perfectly detached decision, purely in the interests of the Western Security Services and democracy, that she could be well worth getting to know.
The lady is a hard cookie right enough, Shaw decided three Old Fashioneds later; but he didn’t mind that because for a career stripper it was inevitable anyway, and he knew she would soften up wonderfully the moment he could do some close, uninterrupted work on her. And handled right she could be the best initial contact he was likely to get in Harlem.
He asked her now, “Are you the original Sex Kitten, by any chance?”
She said, “They didn’t name the joint for me, if that’s what you mean.” Slowly, she rattled the ice in her glass, watching Shaw over the top of it, with an almost unwillingly inviting look spreading into her eyes and widening them. The eyes were green-flecked amber. She said, “But as to the sentiment… why, you could be right on the ball, I guess. At least, they pay me here to give that impression. So I give it.”
He studied her with amusement. “Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy it. And don’t tell me there isn’t a man in your life?”
“I never did tell you that, did I? Currently there isn’t, but…” She stubbed out a cigarette in an ashtray on the bar and gave him a quick upward look. “Do I strike you as that virginal?”
“You strike me as superb,” Shaw answered gravely, gallantly and tactfully.
“Thanks. You look good and strong yourself.”
“And my looks don’t belie me, either.”
“Care to prove that?” She opened a small gold-mesh bag and studied her face in a mirror, pushed some strands of the ash-blonde hair straight, and dabbed some powder on a neat, straight nose.
Shaw said, “If you insist.”
She laughed at that. “Mister, I don’t ever insist. I let the guys do that. But seriously, I’ll tell you something and it’s this. Except a guy’s something special, I don’t let him get that far… and you can believe that or not.” She shut the bag with a snap and slid off the stool, her skirt riding up as she did so. “Now I have to get back to work. The show’s not over yet.”
Shaw stood up and looked into her eyes gravely. He saw a small vein pumping in her temple. She was interested. Quietly he said. “Limeys aren’t supposed to be so forward, I know, but I’m seeing you again.”
She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Why, who says?”
He grinned back. “I do. So how about it?”
“Okay,” she said with a touch of sudden breathlessness that he would have considered uncharacteristic. “I’ll see you… outside at 2 a.m.”
“Clients permitting, of course?”
He had almost spoilt it. She said steadily, “Mac, I don’t go to bed with jigs,” and the look she gave him was cold. He apologized; she didn’t respond but he felt in his bones he was going to be forgiven this time… his eyes followed her as she walked gracefully out of the bar. Being an agent wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but the job had its moments and this promised to be one of them.
Chapter Seven
When the girl had gone Shaw bought himself another drink. The bar filled up as the late diners finished their meals and Shaw sat and watched and listened as he had done in so many similar bars since his arrival in the States, studying the clientele, trying to form some conclusions. This time in New York, he had found a subtle difference in the Negro attitude, and there had been a bitter taste in his mouth because of it. Harlem — the city within a city — was undeniably drab, dispirited, almost disinterested, yet there was a decided under-current of imminent violence in this district that had been accustomed to riot; Shaw had an uncomfortable feeling inside that something was building up, that soon the surface would erupt into a volcano. The activities of the Dead Line were not in themselves a disease; they were merely a symptom of something just beneath the surface, something corrosive eating into the hearts and minds of the world’s coloured peoples.