"FOUR!"
It was my hat. I had forgotten my hat! I flung it frantically away from me.
In no time after that she had me wrist- and ankle-cuffed, spread-eagled face up on that Gods (bleeped) bed!
When she finished the last cuff, she threw the gun aside. "So you like red pepper, do you? Well, always give the male the right to his chauvinistic domination." She turned and called into the other room, her voice lilting, "Oh, Candy dear, we're going to have Mexican red-hot tamales tonight!"
She began to hum a little wordless tune. She took off her shirt. She took off her shoes. She stepped out of her pants. She shucked off her underwear and stood naked, still humming.
Candy tiptoed shyly in. She saw what was coming off and began to strip, halting halfway and saying, "Oh, dear Pinchy, make him look the other way."
Pinch did, with a backhand slap. Then she went on humming. Slap or not, I watched in growing anxiety.
Miss Pinch opened a drawer and got out a small white apron about three inches wide that covered nothing. She put it on. Then she got a cook's hat, tall and stiffly starched. She put it on at a rakish angle.
Then she got a little gingham napkin and hung it around Candy's neck and tied it. It didn't even cover her now naked, bulging breasts. She sat Candy down on the sofa where she waited, knees apart, watching with eyes that were gradually getting hot.
They evidently used the torture-implement fireplace for barbecuing. It had all the long forks and tongs and needful tools. But Miss Pinch was putting those to one side. She was looking through a pile of kitchen utensils. I knew it would not do the slightest good to protest. I knew I should try not to scream. But my body was already so bruised and beaten, I knew that it was impossible to do much more damage to it, so I took heart. I shouldn't have.
Miss Pinch found what she wanted. A cheese grater!
She tested the ragged sharpness of its jagged teeth. She cut herself slightly and stopped humming long enough to curse me for it.
Then, humming again, she approached the bed. Very lightly and with artistry, she began to draw the cheese grater down my chest!
It was sharp. I bit my lips. I would not scream. But she was paying little attention to that. All her concentration was that of a chef's. And Candy looked like a hungry diner!
She shifted her target to my legs. She drew the cheese grater down along the insides, making a wavy pattern of scrapes very carefully.
I could see small bubbles of blood rising in the raw scrapes.
She put the grater aside. She went to a torture rack and opened a cabinet under it and got something out!
A can of red pepper!
Holding her face away, she put some in her hand and began to massage it quietly into the wounds!
Sheer pain!
I let out my first scream.
I choked it back.
More red pepper and more massage.
I screamed!
Candy yipped!
Miss Pinch seemed to think that was enough red pepper. Half a can. She went and got a three-foot wooden spoon. She carefully turned it to the bulging side.
WHAP!
She began to beat the pepper in!
With all her might!
Agony!
Scorching, sizzling agony!
I lost control. I began to scream!
Candy began to scream.
I could see her naked, bucking about on the sofa.
"Take me, Pinchy, oh God, take me!"
Miss Pinch scooped her up, carried her into the bedroom and slammed the door shut with her heel.
The pain didn't stop.
I kept screaming!
To make it worse, I could only half see!
After how long I do not know, Miss Pinch came back. She had lipstick on her apron.
Candy came out, breasts rising and falling.
They had a beer.
Candy had a joint.
Miss Pinch apologized to Candy for having forgotten the dinner music. She put some mood music on the stereo and Candy said it was nice. But she was still hungry.
"Oh, that was only the first course," said Miss Pinch. "We mustn't be too greedy. This is a gourmet dinner."
I had just begun to be able to support the awful torment of that pepper without screaming or writhing.
Miss Pinch retied her apron. She adjusted her cook's hat. She went over to the cabinet and took out something.
"This is what we need now," she said, showing Candy. "It will titillate the jaded palate. I can't stand bland food, can you, Candy dear?"
She came over.
TABASCO SAUCE!
She sprinkled it from the squirting bottle all up and down the wounds! Artistically, humming, making sure that it was just right.
At the first touch of it, I thought it was liquid fire! And she was emptying the whole bottle!
I began to scream.
She went and got the cheese grater again.
She went to work.
I really screamed!
Candy began to yip. She was bouncing all over the couch.
Miss Pinch had hold of a three-foot barbecue fork. She was raising it to bring it down.
"Take me, Pinchy, take me!"
Miss Pinch brought it down anyway! Time and time again!
I passed out.
When I came to, it was like trying to live in a bed of live coals!
They were not in the room.
I could hear low, snarling curses from the other side of the closed door.
They finally came back. Candy was wild-eyed. She kept rubbing and cupping her breasts.
"It's too bland, dear Pinchy. I don't mean to be critical. But I'm starving!"
Miss Pinch looked distressed. Then she took a tug at her apron. She found her cook's hat in the other room and came back with it.
She gazed at me. "Mustard!" she said in sudden decision. "That's what it needs! Mustard! To give it some tang!"
She went and found an enormous jar of French mustard with a squirt spigot. From on high she trailed artistic designs on my body.
She threw it aside. With two vigorous hands, she began to rub it in.
I screamed. I begged and pleaded. I told her I would do anything, anything, but please, for Gods' sakes, get this stuff out of these wounds!
Candy smiled. "It sounds delicious," she said. "Rub him harder!"
Miss Pinch went and got a rolling pin. She used it to rub the mixture in.
Then she cheese-grated some more.
Then she began to use the rolling pin to beat it into me!
I was clever. I managed to get my head in the way and get knocked out!
I came to a long time later. Candy was flopped on the floor, exhausted, designs drawn all over her naked body with lipstick, her mouth open and wet, out cold.
Marijuana smoke was thick in the place.
Beer cans rolled about dribbling.
Miss Pinch was just completing an intravenous shot of Big H. She drew the needle out. She looked at me. The drug wasn't making her any more cheerful. She went through a hot surge.
She composed her face into a deadly mask of hate.
I was on fire down to the middle of my soul. I burned so, I could only think one raving thought. I was smart enough not to voice it. Get out of New York!
"You male (bleepard)," said Miss Pinch. "You were very bad tonight. You aren't even fit for pigs to eat, truth be told. You aren't living up to what the Psychiatric Birth Control classes said even a lousy male should! Dr. Frybrain would call you a retarded pervert!"
I shut my eyes. They burned and I couldn't see well anyway.
She kicked at me. "Are you a homo yet?"
"No!" I screamed. The one thing I would never be was a homosexual. Sick as I was, I was revolted even more!
"Then, see? We aren't having the least success with you. You're trying to make us fail our homework! Get on your God (bleeped) clothes, you (bleepard)."
"For Gods' sake, let me wash these wounds out!"
; "Hah," she said. "Don't try to change the subject! All you men can think about is women. That's forbidden!" She grabbed the naked Candy and stroked her breasts. "You're that psychiatric horror, a normal male! All you can think about is pawing some poor, defenseless girl. Look at her. Completely unconscious just from being unable to stand the thought of you touching her! And I would kill you if you did." She kissed the unconscious Candy passionately on the mouth. "You came here tonight to steal her away from me, you loathsome beast. I am glad you have learned your lesson. Now get dressed."
"I'm still chained!" I said.
She dropped Candy who flopped into a naked heap. She picked the gun up off the floor. She cocked it.
Savagely she cast off the shackles one by one.
Moving, when I tried it, was agony again!
"Let me take a shower," I begged.
"And dirty up the bathroom where this dear innocent girl stands every day? Never! Get on your clothes!"
I think that vicious, calculating (bleepch) knew what would happen. As soon as I got into my clothes, the red pepper and Tabasco sauce and mustard reactivated in the wounds!
I screamed.
Candy stirred. "Pinchy, kiss me."
Miss Pinch did and if I had had the strength, I could have killed her, killed them both, lying naked and entwined there on the floor.
But I saw I could get out and that was all I could think of. Besides, the gun was still pointed at me. I fumbled for the door.
Miss Pinch called after me, "If you don't get here on time tomorrow night, remember, it's three years in the Federal pen!"
I couldn't even close the door behind me.
On fire, trying not to scream, I made it to an avenue. I got a cab.
Half an hour later, the resident doctor had me in a shower, working at the wounds in a most painful way to get the red pepper, Tabasco and mustard out. It didn't hurt so much, only because he had first given me a shot of morphine.
As he worked, he said, "Tch, tch, tch. With all these injuries, we certainly must be running with a rough crowd."
Well, no more. If all went well, in forty-eight hours Heller would be finished and I would be out of New York! The town was too much for me. Never in my life had I thought a city could turn you into a salad. If I didn't watch it I could even become a fruitcake!
Chapter 5
When I awoke the next day, it was already noon. I checked myself over carefully as I lay there in the bed. Yes, I was still alive, incredible but true.
I had one ace up my raw sleeve.
I was not going to visit Miss Pinch that evening!
The question was, would I get away with it? Would I get out of New York alive?
It was going to be an awfully near thing. I clenched my teeth. Duty was a burden but I had to make sure Heller was wrecked before I could go. Otherwise, I would be assassinated by the unknown spy on my return to Turkey. It would do no good to leave New York alive if I would then wind up in Turkey dead. Then, with a new surge of horror, I remembered the assassin had threatened to kill Utanc first!
Somehow I had to suffer through the next twenty-four or so hours. Tomorrow would be the crucial time, for then, observing that I had not shown up on schedule, Miss Pinch would call the Internal Revenue Service.
Bury would surely have noticed by this time, no matter how deep he was in the Central American jungle, that once more Boggle, Gouge and Hound had been coupled with Swindle and Crouch.
I managed the phone with two hands and ordered some breakfast. It was an unwise action. The room-service waiter, noting all the papers outside the door, added the mound to my burdens.
It was the push that sort of sent me over the edge.
Just as Madison had predicted, the Whiz Kid was all over the front page.
In an action "unprecedented in history" he had presented "anything he had won in settlements" to the farmers of Kansas.
I knew now that, factually, it was a nothing amount that he was retaining a nothing of. But this thing about farmers of Kansas was quite beyond me. What did they have to do with it?
Maybe I was sort of feverish already but this puzzle turned it into a kind of strange delirium.
All the rest of that day I lay there with my eyes fearfully on the door. I expected two deadly IRS men to slither through the crack at the bottom or a snake to call me via the U.S. Army Signal Corps before I could check out. An uncomfortable frame of mind. It got worse when dark came. I knew what the reaction of Miss Pinch would be when there was no ring at her front door. The tension would mount to an explosion syndrome! She would be more than slightly peeved! Her reactions would become more and more unprintable.
As the night wore on, every time a curtain stirred, I knew it would be Lombar's unknown assailant, magically transported by magic carpet from Turkey with a communication from the Widow Tayl informing me that she, too, had called IRS. It didn't even do any good to sleep.
That brought nightmares and prominent in them was Candy pleading with Lombar and the assassin pilots to make me scream harder!
And through it all, echoing in the room, were the first words Heller had ever spoken to me: "From your accent, you're an Academy officer, aren't you? What sad route brought you to the 'drunks'?"
It was very confusing. How had he known about Bury?
The hours and the fog dispersed.
Voices. Real voices!
It was the resident doctor. Winter sunlight was coming in the hotel penthouse terrace doors. Morning had come once more. It was D-day! "He seems to have had a fever. It's broken now. If he drops off to sleep and begins the screaming again, just give him one of these aspirin." He closed up his bag and left.
Utanc! She was standing over by the mirror. She was dressed in a silk lounging robe and primping at her hair. She must have felt my eyes on her. "You kept screaming and I couldn't hear my radio well so when the doctor came, I let him in."
Dear Utanc! She was all I had. How thoughtful of her! How tender.
I said, "They're after me!"
"I shouldn't wonder," she said, putting a strand of her hair in place under a diamond clip.
"No, no! They really are after me! The Feds are liable to send the U.S. Army here with snakes any minute!"
She whirled. Ah, I had her attention. She did care for me after all! "The wallet!" she said. "The wallet with blood on it! The man you had killed!"
I was too weak to argue. "Yes. Yes, that's it. If I get good news this morning we have to flee! Although we've got to delay, we can't. We must get out of New York!"
Her face went white! She said, "There's a plane at four. I will pack at once!" Practical, efficient girl. She was gone like a shot!
I was too wobbly and hoarse to call her back. If I didn't get the good news, I would only be going home to my death.
With two bandaged hands I managed to get room service on the phone. This was going to be a near thing. The U.S. Army Signal Corps was liable to bring the snakes covered with IRS red pepper any minute.
I told room service, "Send me two scrambled newspapers, overdone."
I waited in mental and physical stress. The waiter came and finding stacks of newspapers at the door, brought those in, too, and dumped them on the bed: the movement sent waves of agony through me but newspapers always do.
I opened one with shaking hands.
Was this victory or death?
Chapter 6
Ye Gods! Headlines!
WHIZ KID BRIBED TO THROW RACE!
And the story with its titles:
WHIZ KID FUEL DIDN'T FAIL
The famous investigative reporter, Bob Hoodward, the Nixon Nailer, has ferreted out the facts. The famous Spreeport Race was thrown by the Whiz Kid for payola!
FUEL VALID
Earlier belief that the race was lost due to defective fuel has now been exposed as false.
MOB FIGURE
The Whiz Kid had the honor to be bribed by the most famous Mafia mob mogul on the planet, no less than Faustino "The Noose" Narcotici, capo
di tutti capi.
CONFESSION
In an exclusive interview with Hoodward, Wister confessed. "I thought I would not have money enough to develop my fuel, so I did it the American Way: for cash, I threw the race."
I gaped! I had never realized the extent imagination played in PR!
But how convincing!
And here was the photo, front page, three columns wide! A smiling Faustino was handing a grinning Whiz Kid the most huge wad of filthy lucre anybody would ever care to have. And the Whiz Kid was obviously lifting his helmet in salute to his benefactor. No matter that a tenth of a second later, Faustino had been running like an electric rabbit on a greyhound track! Those photographers had gotten it in the nick of time! What experts!
The caption under the photo said:
Secret candid shot proving the bribe: In the chair once used by Boss Tweed, the Bribe Baron of New York in the '90s, the Whiz Kid, Gerry Wister, receives his payoff from capo di tutti capi Faustino "The Noose" Narcotici, Crime Czar of the world.
I was stunned! What virtuosity PR had! I had never realized the headlines of this world were the product of overheated imaginations, staged events and tons of nothing! It took my breath away.
And how cunningly they had linked it up with NAMES! Nixon, Narcotici, Boss Tweed. The Whiz Kid was now positioned with criminals! How convincing! Who could doubt it?
The other papers were the same. This story would be bouncing coast to coast and even around the world. TV would be carrying that photo as a still. Radio would be spot-newsing it every hour. What coverage! An avalanche!
And, my Gods, it was also all over the sports pages! They were running still shot reviews of the race! That meant TV sports programs would be running the moving color footage!
All was revealed! So this was how news was made! Madison was right. I had not really been a professional PR.
But wait a minute, how was Heller taking this?
Chapter 7
I got the viewer on.
Heller was driving the old cab down the Jersey side of the river. He had a stack of the newspapers on the floor under the meter and was glancing at them from time to time.