Penny followed her into a small living room. The slip-covers on the sofa were rumpled. Two hall-filled highball glasses stood side-by--side on the coffee table. A pair of cigarettes smoldered in the ashtray; only one of them bore traces of lipstick. A man’s sports jacket was thrown over the back of an armchair. Brandy spotted it and hastily picked it up, hung it in a closet and closed the closet door. only other door in the room—presumably leading to the bedroom-—was tightly closed.
Adding up the evidence, Penny came to the obvious conclusion. Brandy was not alone in the apartment. She had a man on the premises.
“There’s someone else here.” Penny voiced the thought.
“Don’t be silly. Of course there isn’t.”
“A man.”
“No. Believe me, darling, there hasn’t been a man in my life since we split. There’s just nobody else for me except you." Brandy spoke with utter conviction. “Now, about the money . . .” Again she eased smoothly into the topic without pausing.
What a bitch! Penny’s feminine mind was reluctantly admiring. It took a real innate talent to lie in the face of the evidence with that kind of conviction. Penny would have bet that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have bought the lie despite what their senses told them. What a bitch!
But Penny’s admiration was tinged with sympathy for Pennington P. Potter. How this ex-wife of his must have wound him around her little finger! Now that she’d seen Brandy, Penny was sure she’d found the one responsible for Potter’s actions. Brandy had everything it would take to make a man steal, everything it would take to drive a man to kill himself, everything irresistibly physical plus a completely amoral talent for manipulation. A man wouldn’t stand a chance with her. But Penny was no ordinary man!
“What about the money?” Penny played along with her.
“Well, don’t you think we should talk about it?”
“I certainly do.”
“All right, then,” Brandy began. “Remember what I told you about the money the other day?”
“No. I don’t. What day was that?”
Brandy pinpointed the day. It was the same day that Pennington P. Potter had committed suicide. “I called you in the afternoon and told you all about how desperate I was. Remember?”
“No. I don’t remember. Tell me again.”
“Well, it all started when they upped the stakes in my Mah-Jongg game.”
“I never would have figured you for the Mah-Jongg type,” Penny remarked.
“I had to sublimate with something after the divorce.”
“Why not with that guy in there?” Penny’s thumb jerked toward the bedroom door.
“Why are you so suspicious? There is no guy in there. I told you. You could have a little faith in me, Penny.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Anyway, I had a few bad weeks with the tiles and it put me into this financial hole. So I borrowed some money from a shylock to get out. Only then I could see I’d only have this problem of paying off the shylock. Because of that, instead of settling the Mah-Jongg debt, I went to the track, figuring I could win enough to take care of the shylock too. But it didn’t work out that way.”
“You went for broke,” Penny guessed.
“Stone cold. And there was only one thing I could do. I went to another shylock and borrowed the money to pay the first shylock.”
“Did you pay him?”
“Yeah. But I borrowed enough so I could invest at the track again and recoup my losses. The trouble was I lost again. Then it was back to the first shylock.”
“And while all this was going on, the interest was going up-up-up,” Penny figured.
“Right. It was the damn interest that really got me in the end. That’s why I called you.”
“How deep were you in, then?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thou-—Whew!” Penny stared at her. “You really do things in a big way.”
“That’s what you said the day I called. But when I told you what they were threatening, you agreed to help me.”
“What did they threaten?”
“Well, by this time the Syndicate was handling my markers. The interest was exorbitant. They wanted their ten grand. They said if they didn’t get it, they’d dip my nose in acid. That really scared me. They meant it. You can’t fool around with those guys. And when I told you the alternative-—”
“What alternative?”
“They offered to let me work it off as a hooker. They’d set up contacts and collect and deduct it from my debt. They seemed to think I’d do pretty well at it.”
“Well, you’ve got the right equipment.”
“That’s what you said the day I called.” Brandy shot Penny an injured look. “You said even if we were divorced, you couldn’t stand by and let me do a thing like that. You said you’d help me somehow. You said you’d get me the ten thousand.”
“I said that, did I?”
“Yes. You still cared. I could tell that.” Brandy moved up very close beside Penny on the sofa. “Don’t you still care?” she whispered softly. Before Penny could answer, her mouth pressed down, kissing, grinding, hot, moist, insistent. Her tongue flicked like an erotic dagger. Her breasts under the terrycloth were warm, their tips hard as they pressed against Penny’s chest. One of her legs stretched out straight with the effort to balance herself and the robe had ridden up over one pink and perfect cheek of her behind. The thigh of her other leg pressed insinuatingly against Penny’s thigh. The kiss lasted a long time, showed no signs of stopping, seemed calculated to go on forever.
Finally it was interrupted by the opening of the bedroom door. A man stood there and stared at them for an instant. The man had a short moustache which looked like two splotches of dirt, one under each nostril. His straight black hair tumbled over his forehead. When Penny stared back the man waved his arm in a casual, upward gesture, the wrist stiff.
“Hygiene!” the man said.
“Hiya.” Penny replied automatically.
“Hygiene!” the man repeated and wagged his finger at the two of them. “Hygiene!” He turned around, went back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
“Who was that?” Penny asked.
“Who was what?”
“That man.”
“What man?”
“That man who came out of the bedroom.”
“Oh, Penny, are you starting again? I thought you promised to have faith in me! I told you there’s no man in the bedroom. Now, are you going to believe me, or not?”
“Not!” Penny told her succinctly.
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t phantasize when I’m kissing you.” Brandy resumed the kiss where she’d left off.
This time it was Penny who broke it. “About the ten thousand—”
“Twenty thousand.” Brandy took his hand in hers and slipped it inside the terrycloth robe. Immediately Penny’s fingers sank into and were lost in the marshmallow flesh of her breasts. “Twenty thousand,” Brandy sighed.
“But you said before it was ten.” Penny found the roseate and the nipple. The roseate was impossibly large, the nipple impossibly long.
“No. I said that was what I told you the day I called.”
Brandy pulled aside the terrycloth, cupped one oversized breast and held it up to Penny’s lips. “Remember how you used to like this?” she crooned.
“No. I don’t remember.”
“Then refresh your memory.” She forced it between Penny’s teeth as her hand trailed up Penny’s inner thigh.
“But ib id wadz odly ted thed, why is id twedy dow?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. That’s why I called you to come over tonight. Ten wasn’t enough. With those shylock interest rates it’s up to twenty now.” She wriggled seductively across Penny’s lap. The terrycloth was up around her waist. She was a natural redhead. “You’ve simply got to bail me out, darling. And fast. Before it goes any higher. That is, if you still care.” She pushed the back of Penny’s neck, urging Penny’s lips to her belly, and then to the area below her belly. “Remember how you used to love doing this?” she whispered. “Remember how it used to drive me right out of my skull?”