“What are they up to?” Penny asked.
“Let’s get up closer to them and you’ll see.”
“But won’t they see us?”
“Not if we’re careful. I do it all the time. It’s the only way to really see the hood-peckers and categorize them. Come on, I’ll show you how.”
Penny followed the little man, and soon they were behind a clump of bushes on a little hill overlooking the teenage gang. She watched as they sized up the occasional passersby strolling along the sidewalk just outside the park. A middleaged woman, fat and housewifely, came up parallel to where they were hiding. They stalked her for a moment, and then they pounced.
With practiced teamwork, one boy closed his hand over her mouth to cut off her screams while two of the others lifted her bodily and pulled her into the bushes. It all happened so fast that from the outside of the park it must have looked as if the woman had vanished by magic. Penny watched, appalled, as they spreadeagled the woman on the grass and efficiently stripped off her clothes.
“Scream, and we’ll kill you,” one boy hissed, holding a knife to the woman’s throat.
The hand was removed from her mouth. “What are you going to do to me?” It was half a whimper, half a whisper.
“Whaddaya think? This is a gang-shag, lady; An’ you’re it.” He unbuckled his tight pants and dropped them to his ankles. His rape-eager manhood twanged towards the sky.
“There! See!” The little man nudged Penny excitedly. “There’s a fine example of the hood-pecker! A truly exciting specimen! And larger than most!”
The young hood fell atop the fat lady and ravished her quickly. As soon as he was finished, another boy replaced him. Then another. And another. “Your turn now, Tony,” the last boy said.
“Nahh! I don’ wanna.”
“Why not?”
“She’s too old and fat!”
“Yeah, but she’s all we got.”
“I don’t care,” Tony said. “I ain’t gonna.”
“Now just a minute, young man!” The defiled victim sat bolt upright and wagged her finger angrily in Tony’s face. “You have to! After all, a gang-bang is a gang-bang!”
“Well, of all the shameless—” Penny exclaimed. Her voice was louder than she’d intended it to be.
“What was that?” One of the hoods sprang up and peered into the darkness.
“Over there!” A second one pointed. “They’ve been watching us.”
“Why, the dirty—! Let’s get them!” The gang was on its feet now, making for Penny and the birdie-watcher.
“Oh, dear!” The little man wrung his hands.
“What’ll we do?” Penny said, frightened.
“Run!” the little man said. “Run as fast as you can!”
He suited his action to the advice and disappeared into the darkness.
Penny followed. She ran. Once again she was running as hard as she was able. But it wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the little birdie-watcher. Soon he was lost to her in the darkness. And behind her she could hear the gang crashing through the underbrush, mouthing vile curses, and getting closer and closer.
They were right behind Penny when she ran, by chance, through a tangle of bushes and emerged on one of the park’s crosstown transverses. Their footsteps on her very heels, she kept running—but now she had a goal. Halfway through the transverse, she could see the stone-block walls and little green light of a fortress-like police station. Penny ran up to the stout oaken door and pounded on it.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help!” She was hysterical and the words came pouring out. “Help! There’s a gang after me! Help! There’s tigress eating a man! Help! There’s a man with poison ivy chasing me too! Help! They’re naked and jumping all over each other. Help! They’re robbing the museum! Help! They’re going to rape me! Help! Like they raped that poor little woman! Help! They’re going to kill me”
Behind the stout wooden door of the police station, the rookie cop looked up at the wizened old desk sergeant who was playing solitaire. “Do you hear something?” the rookie asked.
“No, laddie, that I don’t.”
“It sounds like a woman screaming.”
“ ’Tis surely a possibility, but I can’t say as I hear it.” The desk sergeant studied the cards.
“Do you think I should go and investigate?’
“That I don’t!” the desk sergeant said positively. “I’m older an’ wiser than you are, laddie. Even if it were a woman screamin’, wouldn’t it be foolish now to laive this nice warm place an’ go out into the cold?”
“It’s not cold. It’s summer,” the rookie pointed out.
“I know. I were spaikin’ metaphysically. What I mean is, it be dangerous out yonder. A man could get killed in the park after dark. Why go lookin’ for trouble? Just be doin’ your duty an’ ticketin’ the cars an’ breakin’ up the ball games an’ you’ll get ahead on the job, laddie. Don’t be lookin’ for trouble.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The rookie peered over the desk sergeant’s shoulder. “The red jack goes on the black queen,” he pointed out.
Outside, Penny had stopped screaming. She had her back to the wall now and watched from fear-struck eyes as the gang closed in on her. There was a certain ballet-like grace in their movements as they approached. And there was murder in their cruel faces, murder for the frightened, precious girl.
On the mall, the band was playing something by Leonard Bernstein . . .
CHAPTER FIVE
“SOME PIECE!”
“What a pair of boobies!”
“Come on! Let’s get her! What are we waiting for?”
“Please!” Penny begged. “Please! Don’t rape me. I’m a virgin!”
“She’s a virgin!” The pack of young hoodlums laughed. “Catch her!” They crowded the street to close in on her.
Fate intervened. A large truck barreled down the transverse and they scattered to avoid being hit by it. The driver, experienced in the ways of park hi-jackers, sped up when his lights caught them. As the truck swept past, Penny darted from the wall to the gutter, grabbed hold of the truck’s tailgate, and pulled herself up.
The boys gave chase, yelling threats and curses, but the truck was going too fast for them to catch it. Luck was with Penny. The truck caught the green light at the park exit and the one at Madison Avenue after it. By then she was completely out of the gang’s clutches
She dropped off the truck at York Avenue. She was right near her house. She scampered through the shadows until, at last, she was home.
That is, Penny was at the house in which she lived. But she wasn’t inside it. Her keys were in her handbag back at Studs’ bungalow in Arverne. She entered the vestibule and pushed the buzzer beside her landlady’s nameplate. There was no answering buzz. She pushed it again. Still no answer. Again. Only silence.
The landlady wasn’t home! A fine kettle of tuna! What was she going to do now? Penny thought about it. While she was thinking, a young couple came up the stoop behind her and entered the vestibule. They rang one of the apartment buzzers and stared at Penny curiously while they waited for an answer.
“Some doorman!” the man whispered, eyeing Penny’s bikini-sculpted curves.
“Don’t be silly. This place doesn’t rate a doorman,” the girl replied. “We must be on Candid Camera. It’s one of those tricks they pull to see how we’ll react.” She fluffed up her hair and a self-conscious smile that was all but ghastly appeared on her face.
“So where's Allen Funt?” he asked.
“Probably waiting for us inside, behind the staircase, or something. And the microphone’s probably hidden behind those buzzers there.” She turned the smile on Penny. “I’ll bet the camera’s right behind her,” she whispered.