And the cake was ready, too. I quickly pulled off my pants and embraced her again. But she was calling the shots, and she called this one in a way I hadn’t expected. “Wait,” she murmured. “Let’s do it this way.” She pulled herself up on her knees and knelt with her derriere toward me. She reached behind her and pulled the negligee out of the way. Then she wiggled provocatively by way of urging me to take her in this way.
It was a truly splendid derriere, and she knew it. That was probably a big part of the reason why she preferred this position. I took a good look at it jiggling in the lamp- light and was inspired to accept the invitation. I flung myself over her, grabbed hold of the inflated pendulums of her breasts, and thrust home.
It was a wild ride. Nevertheless, I managed not to lose sight of my reason for being there. I had it in my mind to he sure to notice if Françoise combed her pubic hair when we finished, as Gina had said she always did. If she went through this ritual, then I might really have stumbled on the right girl. This habit might give her identity away.
But halfway through our love-making, I knew I would be doomed to disappointment. Françoise wasn’t going to comb that area when we finished. I knew that for sure now. Françoise wasn’t going to comb anything below her belly. And the simple reason I knew it was that she was shaved bare as a billiard ball from her navel to where her legs were joined.
Alas, I was riding the wrong horse. This fille wasn’t even in the race. Oh, well! I did what any other man would have done under the circumstances. I made the most of my dis- appointment!
CHAPIER SIX
LUCKY PIERRE was leaning against the side of the building as I emerged. The fat cigar sticking out of his craw would have been worthy of a Tammany alderman. Yet his little boy’s face was as cherubic as a Dr. Spock4 infant gumming a mouthful of baby food.
“Great stuff, eh, M‘sieur?” he greeted me. “Did I tell you true? Does Françoise know her business, or doesn’t she?”
“More than satisfactory,” I told him.
“And yet, M’sieur”-—his small urchin’s face peered up at me shrewdly—“you do not seem happy. It would be an affront to my reputation for you to leave rue de la Boite with less than a feeling of complete fulfillment. If Françoise was not perfection, then perhaps another fille—”
“No, thanks,” I told him. “ Françoise was fine. Really. It's just that she isn’t the Françoise I’m looking for. And I’m afraid that you’re not the right Lucky Pierre, either.”
“Not the right Lucky Pierre?” He drew himself up to his full four feet ten inches indignantly. “I am the Lucky Pierre! There may be others, it is true, but they are mere imitations. Ask anyone. On the rue de la Boite, I am Lucky Pierre!”
“No offense,” I assured him.
“Well, all right, then.” He was mollified. His bright, innocent blue eyes studied me a moment. “You are not a typical American tourist, M’sieur,” he concluded. “Just who are you? Why did you come here? What are you after? What’s your game?”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “Actually, I’m a researcher from O.R.G.Y.”
“What is that?”
I explained to him what O.R.G.Y. is.
“I see.” His face lit up. “Well, you have certainly come to the right place, M’sieur. And the right man. I am just the fellow to help you in your investigations. There is nobody who knows the working of sex in the rue de la Boite so well as I.”
I realized that he had something there. Even if he had steered me onto—-or is it into?—the wrong Françoise, this pint-sized prosty-pusher with his intimate knowledge of the street might be just the one to help me in my search. “Look,” I said, “would you like to work for me—for O.R.G.Y., that is—for a week or so?”
“If the price is right, M’sieur.”
We haggled a bit and arrived at a figure. It was too much. The twinkle in his eyes told me he thought I was a patsy for not arguing him further down. But I didn't really care. Dombey of Dover would be picking up the tab for such expenses, anyway. And I might find it necessary to extract more in the way of commitment from Lucky Pierre than he guessed.
The first thing I had him do was find me a room in one of the houses along the rue de la Boite. This was where my investigations would center, and it was silly to commute from the hotel halfway across Paris every night. I moved my baggage over the next morning. That evening I had dinner with Lucky Pierre and clued him in on my search for Françoise Laval and her Pierre. I didn’t tell him anything about the legacy. I only told him what I thought he’d have to know to be helpful to me. I intimated that it was all part of a special O.R.G.Y. project, and he accepted this.
“It won’t be easy,” he told me. “There are many Pierres around the Rue de la Boite.”
“But the one I’m looking for is a pimp.”
“It is the main industry. I do not know a Pierre who is not concerned with the peddling of flesh—in one way or another.”
“Sort of goes along with the name, hey? Well, what about Françoise Laval? We’ve got both names to go on there.”
“Always providing she didn’t change her name for one reason or another, M’sieur. Ladies of the night do so frequently, you know. It is a precaution to keep the police from putting together too accurate a dossier on a girl. But even if she didn’t, it won’t be easy. Laval is as common a name in Paris as I am told that Smith is in your country. And Françoise, well, it rates second only to Marie in popularity where girls’ names are concerned. Still, I will do some poking around and see what I can find out.”
Pierre was as good as his word. Toward midnight of that very evening, he was back with a lead that looked very promising.
“A few weeks back,” he told me, “the police arrested a pimp named Pierre Aramis for trying to cut up a strip-teaser at the Naughty Nude—that’s a clip-and-strip joint down the street. Well, I did a little asking around and I found out that Frieda Fieler, the stripper, who pretends to be German, is really a native Paris fille who used to peddle it up and down the street. That was only a few years back, and in those days this Pierre was her handler. He broke her into the racket. She was away from Paris for a while, and when she came back, instead of going back to Pierre and hustling, she got this job stripping at the Naughty Nude. I’m not sure whether Pierre is jealous of her, or he just wants what he considers his just cut of her earnings, but he’s al-ways hanging around, or tailing her, or giving her a rough time.”
“It could fit in,” I granted. “But what makes you think she’s Françoise Laval?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. Before she took the name Frieda Fieler-—so it would look inviting on the ad posters, I suppose—her name was Françoise Laval. That’s the name she was born with. I checked it out.”
“Good work, Pierre. When can I have a look at her?”
“Why not right now? Her act goes on in twenty minutes. If we get there now we can get a ringside table. The headwaiter’s a friend of mine. Give him a few francs and he’ll take care of us.”
“And kick back half to you, no doubt.” I grinned at him.
“M’sieur, you do me an injustice! What would a young boy like myself know of such practices?”
“You mean what wouldn’t you know. But don’t worry about it. It’s okay. It’ll be worth it if this is the Françoise Laval I’m after.”
He shrugged and dropped the discussion. A few moments later he was leading the way into the Naughty Nude. A word to the headwaiter, and Lucky Pierre and I were shown to a ringside table. I felt a little self-conscious bringing a kid like Lucky Pierre into such a place, but nobody seemed to take any notice.