Lady in Heat, page 9
part #12 of Lady From L.U.S.T. Series
The house was silent. There was nobody in it but me, and so scream all I would, only my own ears heard me. I fainted after a time.
When I woke, the silence was heavy all around me. The pain was gone, thank God! I lay there and relaxed in complete ease. No more pain, no more suffering. It was great.
My hand reached out, caught a table leg.
I should have gone after the Devil and tried to find some way of getting that pax away from him. That was what I should have done. I said to myself, the hell with that. Next time the Devil might forget to take the pin out. No, Lucifer could go to his Russian friend and sell him that pax for any amount of money the Russian would pay.
David Anderjanian would take a dim view of my decision. The hell with him, too. I had a better idea.
First of all, I needed clothes. I telephoned Dennis Keller at the Britannique and briefed him on what tortures I had been undergoing. I informed him I needed wearing apparel. If he would come to the stone house—I fumbled through a desk drawer in the downstairs living room where the telephone was located and found an old tax bill—at the rue Camou, I would happily unbar the door for him.
After that he could drive me to the Massenet Hotel.
Dennis took half an hour to reach the house. Ten minutes later we were barreling along the Avenue de la Biur donnais.
Dennis was very sympathetic. He suggested that he go to the Russian and steal the pax back from him. I could stay in the car so that the Devil would not see me.
"No," I grated between my teeth. "I owe the other side a little something. It will help build my morale."
"You've shown enough courage for—”
I screamed, doubling up. That sword-blade was back in my private parts, jabbing unmercifully. "Damn, ob damn! He's sticking pins again."
Slowly, the pain went away. I sat there sweating and weeping. Dennis wanted to get me to a doctor, but I shook my golden locks. No doctor—except a witch doctor who knew how to remove spells—could help me in my present plight.
Dennis drove me to the Britannique where I changed my clothes, donning a spiffy street number by Schiaparelli. Is was brown taffeta and mini-skirted. I snatched up a handbag large enough to hold my Belgian Bulldog revolver.
Dennis drove me to the Massenet.
As the Renault pulled in to the curb and stopped, I got out and stretched my joints to make certain everything was still in working order. I winked at Dennis.
"Keep the motor warm, honey. Mamma won't be long."
I marched into the hotel as if I owned the place. My revolver made a pleasant weight in my handbag, but I didn't want to be suspected of being a secret agent.
So when I came to the desk I leaned on it and winked at the man behind it. I told him Pietr Kalinoff was expecting me, that he had hired me for the day, to take him sight seeing.
The clerk looked bored. Pietr Kalinoff was not here to greet me. "He checked out earlier," he muttered, gesturing toward the compartment that held the key to 253.
I thanked him and walked away out of sight then took the elevator to the second floor. In front of 253 I came to a dead stop. The door was wide open. A charlady in a blue bonnet and greasy uniform threw a smile at me.
"Oui, madame?" she asked.
"M'sieu Kalinoff—is he here?"
"Je m'excuse, il n'y a personne ici."
I stepped past her to make sure the place was empty, then pressed a hundred franc note into her hand,
"M'sieu Kalinoff—ou est il?"
She beamed. “L'airport.”
The airport. So my quarry was on his way to Russia, or maybe to Prague. If his destination was Prague, I still had a chance to catch up with him. I turned and ran.
Dennis Keller was sympathetic. He understood from his own experience as a secret agent that there were days when it hardly paid to get out of bed. He braved the Parisian traffic in a headlong dash to get me to the Britannique. While I packed, he made telephone calls.
I slithered out of the Schiaparelli number, hunted naked for the sharkskin suit in which I intended to travel to Prague. He turned to me, let his eyes get big, and gave a slow whistle. I was in the clothes closet, at least my front was, but he had a great view of the Drum bod from the rear.
"They're going to work on this thing at once," he re marked, gulping down his lust. “Their man at Orly will report back on what flight Kalinoff took. They'll call ahead to Prague to have a man ready to meet you—a taxi-driver, I believe he is—and take you wherever you want to go. The Prague underground-for-freedom will be at your service."
I nodded, bringing out the gray sharkskin. I lifted a shapely stockinged leg and thrust it into the skirt. I fitted in the other leg, then hoisted the skirt up around my waist.
When he moaned, I smiled. "Later, pet.”
He held the jacket for me so I could button if. Nobody but nobody would suspect that under this rather demure number I was stark naked. I reached for the matching toque and fitted it on over my blonde tresses.
The phone rang. Dennis leaped for it. When he hung up, he nodded with great satisfaction.
"Pietr Kalinoff took the noon flight to Prague on the Aeroflot line. There is another flight to Prague at three, via Air France. If we hurry, we can get you on it. Our man at Orly already has your ticket." We hurried. It's great to be part of L.U.S.T., which has agents scattered all over the world. It makes my job ever so much easier. I vowed I wouldn't let L.U.S.T. down. I hurried after Dennis who was lugging my Wings bags.
The big jet liner was warming its engines when I accepted my tickets from the suave, handsome Frenchman who served L.U.S.T. as a ticket agent at Orly Field. My baggage had gone on ahead of me. I ran for Gate 4.
A mustachioed co-pilot checked my tickets, bowed me past him. I moved across the tarmac, hanging onto my 'handbag with one hand, my toque with the other. The wind didn't disturb my sharkskin skirt much, though maybe I did show a bit of thigh going up the boarding ladder.
Then I was in the blue leather seat and fastening the belt.
It seemed I'd barely settled myself for a long nap when the stewardess woke me, told me to fasten my seat-belt. We were over Prague Airport and circling for a landing. I did what the girl said.
I moved through the crowds into a brick and glass enclosure, where a number of taxi-drivers were waiting for customers. One of them, possibly briefed as to my appearance, hurried toward me.
"May I help the madame? It is my job."
"As long as you're not lusting for my body," I replied.
His eyes twinkled. "I will serve you in any way, Madame."
So much for identification. He was my man.
He told me that Pietr Kalinoff was registered at the Maly Hotel in Old Town in the Mala Strana section which, with the Stare Mesto, is the oldest part of Prague. The streets were cobble-stoned, and the cobblestones were small, he informed me, so that I would have to wear flat shoes if I intended to do any amount of walking. The houses had no electricity to light them, they all used gas.
In his dilapidated taxi, he continued my education. He had secured rooms for me in the Maly, not far from where Kalinoff would be located. Getting the pax would be up to me, but he and his rattly old car would be ready at any hour of the day or night to whisk me off to the airport and a waiting jet to take me home, whenever I gave the word.
We sped across Charles Bridge. From what I could see of Prague through the taxicab windows, it was a town straight out of the Middle Ages. Its architecture was reminiscent of feudal times, most especially in Old Town, which dates back to the eleventh century and in Lesser Town, which was built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
I half expected to see knights in armor clattering over the cobbled streets. Sure, there are modern places in Prague, but who needs them? This was more fun, by far. I had heard my grandfather speak of such things as gas mantles for illumination. Now I could see them for myself.
The Maly Hotel was decayed elegance. Its drapes were dusty, yet evocative of the era when Johann Stauss had written his famed waltzes.
I marched through the lobby like visiting nobility, the taxi-diver trailing after me, carrying my make-up box and my valises. As I signed the register, I worried about how i was going to separate Kalinoff from his golden pax.
I noted from the registry book that he was assigned to Room 378. My own room was 375, which would be diagonally across the hall.
A bellhop put me in a suite containing two bedrooms, a living room and a bath as large as a small house. They did things big in the olden days.
I opened the door, peered out.
A waiter was approaching. Kalinoff's room. I closed the door, left it open half an inch. There was a sandwich, a pot of coffee, a cup plus saucer, and a bottle of vodka, together with a bowl of ice, on the tray.
Pietr Kalinoff opened his door, yawning.
"Thank you," he said in Russian, one of my languages. "Go find a Do Not Disturb sign and hang it on my door knob.” He chuckled thickly and maybe he winked, because he said in a lower voice, "I am going to have some fun before I go back to Moscow. Here in the old town nobody looks for diplomats and state couriers, you know? I shall have myself a little fun before I bury myself in Russia again."
It sounded like one good Party member was lusting for the fleshpots. I eased my door closed as the waiter bowed his thanks for the tip Kalinoff pressed into his hand, and walked off down the hall. I had an hour or two to waste.
Since I had slept on the plane, I was in no mood to take any rest. So I wandered out of the hotel and along the cobbled streets. We secret agents don't often get the chance to relax on a job, and I am human enough to enjoy loafing.
I strolled through the Mala Strana with the feeling that I was walking through the pages of a storybook. The houses all had little stone images on them a lion, a dog, a monkey, a bear, which had been used, in the years before streets had place names, to individualize each house.
There were old palaces, too, scattered here and there about the squares, with spires and long windows and leaded roofs, and Gothic-style churches which pushed their bell-towers toward the skies. The streets were cobble stoned, the sidewalks were flag-stoned, here and there. I sauntered down the 'golden lane,' the Zlata Ulicka, pausing to stare through the windows of the little stores lining this corner of the city.
I went into a bake shop and bought myself a strawberry tart. I munched it as I walked. I gawked at St. Vitus Cathedral which had been erected close to six hundred years before, on the foundations of what had been already, a very old church. In Europe you run into old buildings, I mean really old buildings, that were ancient when red Indians were running around Manhattan Island.
Hradcany Castle was a for-instance, lifting its stone bulk above the rest of Prague, half misted in this late afternoon by an approaching raw, cold night. The castle, occupied now by the President of Czechoslovakia, had been built even before the cathedral. It had gardens where the men and women of Prague could go and walk and marvel at the view of their city.
I was of half a mind to walk there myself when the bonging of a big clock atop the town hall reminded me that my fun time was at an end. It was time to get back to the job. I was hurrying toward the Maly when a girl bumped into me.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, grabbing her to keep us both from falling, and staring into a somewhat over-painted, though pretty face. “I'm sorry."
She dimpled a little smile. "Is nothing. Just shake up the goods, is all." Her black eyes went down to her full-some breasts juggling loosely in her low-cut dress. “Late for work. Got to hurry."
An idea hit me. "Where do you work?"
"In Blue Slipper café. Plenty girls, lots drink."
"I may see you later," I promised.
I stood there and watched her walk off, switching her plump behind. If Pietr Kalinoff was going to tour the city's night life (such as there was) the Blue Slipper had plenty girls, lots drinks, and sounded like just the place.
I dressed the Drum chassis in a velvet-topped evening gown with a sequin-striped, nude-net skirt by Menendez, which was low enough to bare the inner slopes of my unbrassiered breasts. Oh, yeah. The skirt had a pink nylon lining to protect the eyes of the onlookers from the full sight of my nakedness below.
My hair I did in an upsweep, with a couple of tiny pearl-set combs set into it.
Honest, I looked good enough to eat.
I opened my hotel door and waited. Pietr Kalinoff came out, turned to close his door, making sure it was locked. I stepped out myself and we met face to face.
He was a beefy blond man, heavy in the chest and shoulders. He looked as if he might have been a weight lifter in his younger days. His blue eyes grew wider at sight of me, and he made a little bow.
"Is it my good luck that you are alone?” he asked.
"I don't know about your good luck, but I am alone and I'm lonesome," I gushed, giving him my sexiest smile. "I'm a schoolteacher looking for some summer fun."
His eyes got a little glassy. He had struck gold with the first swing of his pick. He held his arm at me, crooked at the elbow. "Permit me to escort you, then. I am a lone some man myself, being far from home. My name is Pietr Kalinoff.”
My hand went into the slot of his bent arm. "I'm Eve Drum. I'm so glad to make your acquaintance. I want to pay my own way, you know. Dutch treat. I don't want to be under any obligation."
His laughter boomed as he leaned closer to my ear His eyes went to my low bodice, and glazed even more as they took in my outstanding attractions, absolutely nude under the brown velvet.
"I want you to be under an obligation. I know a marvelous eating place, the Bohemia. After we eat, who knows? Perhaps we will go dancing and drinking."
I laughed and hugged his arm. "You're a naughty man, but I'm in the mood for naughtiness tonight."
As we walked toward the elevator, I told him that a friend of mine, a naughty man in my own country, had suggested I go to the Blue Slipper where there were lots of drinks and loads of pretty girls. Pete was almost dancing in eagerness.
"I have not been much around Prague, I do not know the city too well. I have been recommended the Bohemia, but nobody told me about the Blue Slipper. We shall go there."
He was a good companion, he told humorous stories, he chatted about world affairs. I complimented him again and again on his savoir faire, his air of sophistication. I explained that I thought of Russian men as blue noses, as vodka drinkers and as shoe pounders on tables. He looked pained, the more I talked. Then I gave him the punch line.
"I hope you can convince me they aren't all like that!"
He damn near died in his eagerness to assure me he was not the typical Russian male. The impression that Nikita Krushchev had given me, he would do his best to erase.
The Bohemia was an old world eaterie with oil paintings hung on red velour walls, with gold leaf on baroque decorations covering ceilings and doorways. Big glass globes hid the gaslights and the thick maroon carpet added a certain decadent touch to its plush Victorian styling.
The cuisine was heavily Austrian. I made do with chicken en gelée, specialty of the house, and then added to my caloric count with an Annatorte, a chocolate cake with chocolate heaped all over it. They served the coffee with a dab of Schlagobers—whipped cream-floating on it.
We did not hurry. We feted. Pietr Kalinoff loved his goodies. He was well known here, it seemed, because he was bowing and head-bobbing all through the meal. We were the center of all eyes, perhaps because of his position in the Soviet Party, maybe even because I looked better than the Annatorte to certain hungry eyes. Three different times men came up to the table to shake his hand and be introduced to me.
When I complimented him on his importance, he waved a hand, though he did beam with delight. "It is the fact that you are a beautiful woman, Eve. While I am rather important, it is you who draws the raves."
It was sweet of him, I thought. I wondered where he'd hidden the pax and if I could exhaust him sexually enough to take it away from him without killing him. I kind of liked bluff Pietr Kalinoff.
We took a taxi to the Blue Slipper. A blue neon sign in the shape of an evening shoe hung above a wide doorway set flush into an old brick wall. A uniformed doorman on a narrow little sidewalk bowed us out of the car and through the door. A blare of dance music met our ears, together with the smell of beer and whiskey and a few billows of tobacco smoke.
There was a large dance floor and a curtained stage, with more than a hundred tables with checkered table cloths on them, plus lit candles where people were seated. Kalinoff stared around him and nodded his head.
"Da, da! I will like this."
A girl in a micro-skirt and very handsome legs in nylon stockings came forward to escort us to a table near the stage. Her back was bare, but her front was covered by a kind of black velvet costume that hid about half her breasts. Pietr beamed at sight of her, front and rear.
We drank whiskey that could have been smoother, by American standards, but I added a little water and plenty of ice so it went down easier. We were halfway through our drinks and an impassioned oration by Pietr Kalinoff assuring me that the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia was in its own best interests-despite my own impassioned denial—when the stage curtain swished back.
Girls in very teentsy costumes came out and did a kind of can-can. I was a little surprised by the costumes and said, “I thought the Iron Curtain countries were puritanical."
Pietr beamed. "We Russians are the puritanical ones, unfortunately. You must have read of Vienna and Prague in the days when Franz Josef was emperor? The lovely ladies in the décolletés and the men fawning upon them? The Austrians and the Hungarians know how to live. It is my own people who are the blue noses. We have eased certain restrictions here because of the fuss over our occupation of the country.
"All my people are not old maids, by any means. I enjoy a good time as much as any American playboy. You will see, my dear."
He winked heavily, then turned his attention to the girls prancing about on the stage. I looked at the girls too, and found myself staring at the girl with the black hair and over-painted face into whom I'd bumped some hours earlier. She saw me, smiled and let her mascaraed eyes flash toward my companion. I pointed at him and at me, then at the table. She gave a little nod.
