Bolan was still feeling somewhat mechanical in his actions. His fingers were already at his shirtfront, working the buttons. She moved back to him and went to work on the tie. A moment later she carefully hung shirt and tie on a peg, pushed him onto the bench, and took off his shoes and socks.
"I don't give this service to just everybody," she told him, smiling darkly. Her hands seized his belt "You're different."
He pushed her hands away and got to his feet. "Everybody's different," he grunted, his thinking faculties returning. He was fumbling with the waistband of his trousers. "I'll be out in a minute," he added, giving her a meaningful gaze.
"You don't really mean that," the girl replied. A quick motion of her hands caused the bikini bra to fall away. Glistening cones sprang forward, jiggling tauntingly in the sudden release, the pale pink at the tips highlighting the projection. She cupped them in her hands, gently agitating the nipples with her thumbs, which were already protruding slightly; they grew noticeably under the attention, riveting Bolan's eyes in fascinating inspection. "That net makes them itch," she explained. "Wouldn't you like to scratch them for me?"
Without a word, Bolan reached forward and tugged down the bikini panties. She stepped out of them with a throaty giggle and reached for his trousers, expertly lowering shorts and all in one brief motion and falling against him, moving sensually for calculated effect. Bolan groaned and clasped her to him, luxuriating in the fusion of male and female flesh. Her arms went tightly about him, hands rubbing feverishly at his back, pile-driving hips once again in action. Bolan twisted out of the embrace, his breathing harsh and ragged.
"It has been a while," he admitted.
"Don't worry about that," she said, obviously enjoying the explosiveness of the encounter. There was no room to stretch out in the tiny dressing room; it was also obvious that she had dealt with similar situations before. She pulled the little bench around and pushed Bolan down onto it, seated on the end, then she climbed aboard, straddling man and bench, seizing and stuffing him in with an obviously practiced maneuver and settling onto him with a harsh bounce. Bolan experienced an immediate tremor, his arms going about her and squeezing her fiercely to him as his back sought the surface of the bench. She went down with him, murmuring, "Good, good."
It had happened so quickly as to seem totally unreal to Bolan. "I don't suppose that did much for you, eh," he muttered apologetically.
She lay there, the magnificent breasts spreading across his chest, lips nibbling at his neck, entirely relaxed.
It can wait," she told him. "You guys always come back full of TNT or something." She struggled to her feet, smiling ruefully at his midsection, pulled a towel from a shelf and dropped it onto him.
"Are you a prostitute?" he asked her, point-blank.
She blinked at him, then smiled. "Sure," she said, still smiling.
"Then it really doesn't matter to you, does it. I mean..."
"I know what you mean." She retrieved the male trunks from the floor and tossed them at him, then began pulling on her own trunks. Then she stared at him silently for a long moment, picked up the bra, seemed to be debating something in her mind, then hung the bra on a wall peg. "But you're wrong," she said suddenly. "It does matter. And I'll show you. It will be better next time. Now that you're de-charged. Well- come on. Let's take a swim. And after that... Well, we'll find a better place than this damn shack. Okay?"
He grinned at her. "Okay," he said. He got into the trunks, and they both went out and took a topless dive into the pool. Bolan was looking forward to the next time, and the next place. Obviously, Mara was also. It was the most exhilarating swim Mack Bolan had ever taken.
5 - A Master's Stroke
Walter Seymour was disturbed. It had not been easy to build a place for himself in the organization. Not with a name like Walter Seymour, for Christ's sake. Now if his name had been Giovanni Scalavini-or some such- the road would have been a lot smoother. Even Nat Plasky had an edge on him, purely because the name sounded better to the old guard-even though any idiot would know that Plasky was no wop. Seymour had outrun Laurenti quite simply because, right blood or not, Laurenti had never been and would never be anything more than a nickel-and-dime hood. He'd had a hood's intellect and a hood's heart-a perfect combination and an ideal mentality for the nickel-and-dime business of payday-loan collection. Seymour had never liked the Triangle operation. He was honest enough with himself to admit that what he'd disliked about it the most was Laurenti. The Triangle front provided a good repository for illegal dollars, and Seymour would have been content to see it run as a strictly legitimate loan company-it had been the mentality of Laurenti that made Triangle a brass-knucks operation. Laurenti simply had a loan-shark mentality-and, of course, Triangle was Laurenti's baby. He was a wop, and the old wops liked him, and his ties with the organization had extended back through several generations and even into the old country.
So- in a way-Seymour had been almost happy to see Laurenti dead. Not just from a personal viewpoint, he kept telling himself, but from the business angle as well. Laurenti, and Laurenti types, were bad for the organization. Seymour was glad he was dead. At the same time, Seymour was disturbed about those deaths. Who the hell had decided to gun down Laurenti and his people? Who the hell and why the hell?
Seymour was a realist. He knew that the "man upstairs" at Pittsfield had never fully accepted him. He'd been on probation for ten damn years, and nobody knew it better than Walt Seymour himself. Now if this damn GI, this Bolan guy, could come up with ideas of an organization rub-out, and if the press could think that way, and if the cops could think the same way-then for damn sure the man upstairs and all the men upstairs around the country might be thinking that way, too. It was no closely guarded secret that there had been bad blood between Seymour and Laurent!
Yes, Walter Seymour was disturbed. He was disturbed about several things. The damn GI disturbed him. Even though he'd been thoroughly checked out and stamped genuine, there was something about the guy that just didn't ring. Walt Seymour was not "buying" Mack Bolan -not lock, stock, and barrel. Not for the moment, at least. Too many people, too damn many nosey people, were interested in the organization. Congressional committees, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the FBI-everybody had a big nose and an itching finger for the organization. And Walt Seymour was wondering about Mack Bolan's nose and fingers. Every manner of infiltration had been tried on them. The local cops had tried, the feds had tried, even other organizations had tried-but nobody had ever succeeded, not in any way that mattered. Walt Seymour was disturbed about Mack Bolan.
Something-something-just did not ring for Sergeant Mack Bolan. The best way to spot a phoney, in Seymour's mind, was to make a close inspection. The best way to inspect Mack Bolan was to get him on the payroll. Give him a loose leash, keep eyes, ears, and instincts open, and let the phoney reveal himself. Anybody could have sent him. Even the man upstairs could have sent him. Of course, if he was not a phoney-well, a guy like Bolan could be an asset to the organization. He could be an asset even to Seymour. Leo Turrin was beginning to give Seymour trouble. Turrin was smart, likeable, ambitious-and he had the right sound to his name. Yes, Walt Seymour was disturbed about Leo Turrin. He'd put Bolan with Turrin. It would be a masterful stroke, he decided. If Bolan was a phoney, then the man most likely to get hurt by him would be the man next to him. Yes. Yes. He'd put Bolan with Turrin. It would be a masterful stroke.